Monthly Archives for October 2012

What’s In My Car?!?!

Since I’m heading back to work tomorrow after a year-long hiatus, I decided to clean out my car today in the hopes that someone might mistake me for an organized grown-up.  Here’s what I unearthed during my excavation:

SB (Small Boy’s) stuff:

About 30 pounds of yogurt puffs/pretzels/cheddar bunnies, all ground into a fine powder and festively strewn around the backseat of the car.

11 toy cars

6 half empty bottles of water

5 diapers that might have fit him six months ago

4 pairs of underwear (SB’s, not mine)

7 socks that haven’t fit SB in over a year

3 half eaten bags of Goldfish

One thrashed first aid kit

4 bowls

1 sippy cup lid

3 blankets

4 shirts, of which three are too small for SB

2 pairs of pants – see above

3 packets of dried out wipes

The Dog’s Stuff:

A blanket

Beefy treats

One leash

One squeaky lobster

A portable water bowl

My Stuff:

One flip flop

A box of mints

Apparently we were prepared to live in the car for a while if we had to.   SB would have been fine, the dog would have survived, and I would have been hopping  around on one foot.  At least my breath would have been minty fresh…

Back to the Grown Up World…

Next week I’m going back to work full time and joining the land of the grown-ups once again.  Gone will be the days of gluing googly eyes to everything (one would assume…), and I’m feeling so many different emotions about it.  Of course I feel beyond lucky that I was able be home with SB (Small Boy) for a year; but I also feel grief stricken that it’s going to end in five days.  I keep telling myself that he needs to start pre-school and it would just be creepy if he stayed home with me until he was 18, but I’m going to miss him terribly.  Most of the time.

By the way I’m carrying on you’d think he was going off to boarding school for the next 12 months.  Today at his “Fish School” class at the local aquarium I was thinking, “this is the last time we’ll see the baby sharks and rays”, like we’d never go anywhere again. It feels like we’re breaking up and I should write some bad melodramatic poetry about crying black tears or something.

It’s been a year of wildly funny moments, shockingly embarrassing ones, times when I really, really understood why wine is referred to as “mommy juice”, and the always prevalent fantasy of running away to a tropical island where no one would yell, “mama, I have to go pee-pee, please hold my weenie!”

Before I had SB I used to wonder why people insisted that motherhood is the hardest full time job of all.  My former job was non-stop stress – always on call, insane deadlines, maniacal holiday seasons, and I’d think, “What the hell could be so hard? You’re home all day, doing fun things, and then they nap”. My God, I can be an idiot…

The thing is, you’re ALWAYS on.  You don’t get a lunch break, and when they’re napping you’re too wiped out to do anything you want to get done.  I had a list of things to do while I “wasn’t working” that sounded something like this:  lose 20 pounds by working out while SB was napping, refinish the wood on the stairs, plant a vegetable garden and repaint the living room.  What got done?  One wall was painted and I gained ten pounds.

So back to work – I’ll finally get to relax now.  Maybe someone will let me cut their lunch up and glue googly eyes to something to ease the pain of our break-up?

Strange Things I’ve Said…Continued

SB (small boy) will be three next month, and I thought that by now maybe I’d stop saying really weird things, especially in public.  Nope.

A sampling of the last few days:

“Stop licking that pole!!!”  (Repeated three times at increasingly high volumes before SB got the point).

“Take your pirate hat off the dog.  No, she doesn’t need boots either…”

“Let go of your Woody and please get in the car” (Sheriff Woody, to clarify…)

“Take your toy pliers away from your weenie” (cringe worthy, even for us weenie-less folks)

“No, we can’t go trick or treating right now (8:30 a.m. in early October)

“Sorry, but you can’t wear you Mickey Mouse ears to bed/school/in the tub.”

“Don’t worry, the spooky alien guy can’t get in the house” (our neighbors go all out for Halloween and SB’s very concerned about this one)

One weird conversation that I brought upon myself that won’t end – I stupidly made up a little story when SB was younger and told him our dog was able to flap her ears really hard and make herself fly when she was a puppy.  No, I don’t know why the hell I did that.  I’m blaming it on exhaustion, my go-to excuse for any dumb decisions I’ve made since SB was born.  He was mildly interested when he was younger, but now he’s obsessed.   I’ve been digging myself out of this one for weeks –   “No, not all dogs fly.  Our dog did when she was little but just for a teeny tiny bit.  No, you can’t fly.  Stop pulling your ears.  No, mama can’t fly either, OUCH LET GO OF MY EARS!”

So there you have it.  I’ve hidden the pliers, Halloween will be over soon so the Pirate hat will get “lost”, and we’ll just avoid poles for the rest of our lives.  Easy.

Now it’s your turn to pipe in.  What’s the weirdest thing(s) you’ve said to your kids?  Don’t be shy.  We have a flying dog.

 

Mr. Bossy Pants

I’m finding myself having a hard time taking orders from someone who stands 40” tall and wears baggy Spiderman underwear.  It’s especially hard to take orders from Mr. Spiderman pants when he pulls them up by himself (because HE CAN DO IT STOP HELPING ME MAMA), and he looks like he’s wearing a superhero thong.

I’m also trying to figure out who stole my sweet, chubby cheeked baby and replaced him with this tyrannical boy who barks out orders like some crazed Dictator.  I picture him in one of those weird jackets with epaulets, and a strange hat, standing behind a podium and slamming his fist down over and over:  “I WANT CHEDDAR BUNNIES NOW!!”, the crazed Dictator would say.  “NOW MAMA NOW!!”  And if I didn’t move fast enough, the serious men with moustaches would haul me away to a terrible chamber without snacks (or without a bar, if the Dictator was feeling especially evil that day). Then Mr. Superhero Thong would smile cruelly to himself, and strut off in search of another hapless person to yell at until he got his snack.

BB (Big Boy, my husband) and I spend astonishing amounts of time telling SB (small boy) to say, “please, thank you, excuse me”, etc., and about 75% of the time SB will remember, and the rest of the time we simply try to keep the Dictator happy.  Here’s how it sounds:

SB:  “I want juice”

Me: “what do we say?”

SB:  I WANT JUICE!!!!!! MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA JUICE NOW!!!”

BB:  How do you ask?

SB: please…(in a little tiny voice to ensure we know he doesn’t want to say it)

And he doesn’t stop with us – he’s now trying to boss the dog around.  “STOP BARKING!!!”  “COME LICK MY FACE”  “EAT THE REST OF MY CHICKEN” (this one she’s happy to help with).  On the bright side, SB’s sister won’t put up with it – she’s a seasoned 10 year old and doesn’t scare easily, thong underwear or not.

From what I hear, it’s just a phase and you have to pick your battles, blah blah blah.  I guess it has to be or he’d be a very lonely grown man – or maybe there’s a small country out there looking for a boss?  They’d better have lots of snacks and fast service.

A Visit to the Happiest Place on Earth

A few days ago we took SB and BG (Big Girl, SB’s sister) to Disneyland for the first time.  To fund this extravaganza, we robbed a few banks, took out a second mortgage on the house and blew it all on two days at the parks an overnight stay at the Disneyland Hotel.

But…it was SO worth it.  I don’t know how they do it, but it really is the Happiest Place on Earth.  Everyone who works there was friendly and enthusiastic, the place is spotless and seeing it again through SB’s eyes brought back all the fantastic memories I had there as a kid.  His mouth and eyes were wide open, and he was actually stunned into silence for a few rare minutes. And we did it all.  Junky candy?  Check.  Billions of dollars of toys that break in a day?  Done.  Hauling 40 pounds of exhausted toddler around for two days?  Ouch.

At one point, he was so amped up that Lightning McQueen almost hit him when they were rolling him down the street (I now have a different opinion of those kid leash things – I still couldn’t do it, but I get it).  Later that day Heidi Klum and her entourage cut in front of us in line for the weird burping Caterpillar ride, and then she patted SB on the head, so we certainly had the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Well, not the ugly, because Heidi Klum even managed to look gorgeous at Disneyland, while the rest of us moms looked pretty dorky in our comfortable (and therefore ugly) walking shoes, schlepping around kids, strollers that kids refused to sit in, and giant bags of Toys That Break Almost Immediately.

Of course all this excitement and stimulation lead to one Code Red Nuclear Meltdown after dinner.  We were dumb enough to take SB to the giant Disney Store and then had to tell him every five seconds that no, he couldn’t have that toy.  Or that toy.  Or not even that toy.  BB (my husband – Big Boy) and BG went back to the park to shut the place down, and I wound up dragging a hysterical, totally irrational SB back to our room.  Although he did stop to dance to a Salsa band for a few minutes, but then went straight back to terrorist mode when I explained that we couldn’t dance all night.

On the bright side, I wasn’t alone.  All around me were toddlers and moms doing the Code Red Nuclear Meltdown dance.  And this is where my brilliant idea was born – they need a Mom Bar at Downtown Disney.  Forget the sports bars and Rainforest stuff, just a giant room with a bar and a ton of Disney toys.  It would be PACKED.

Back in our room, SB literally ran in circles for about 15 minutes, and then he passed out.  Probably dreaming of Supermodels and cars.  It really is the Happiest Place on Earth.

Quality (Sick) Time Together

SB (Small Boy) and I have both been sick for the past few days, and Cabin Fever has officially set in.  It’s up for debate as to who’s whining more, although right now I think I’m winning.  I’m being more whiny than a two year old.  I’m very proud of myself.

To add to the fun of being housebound, it’s been about 1,000 degrees in Southern California for the past week or so.  I keep thinking he feels warm so I’ve taken SB’s temperature about a million times.  Nice work, Einstein – it’s 95 degrees outside.  Of course he feels warm. 

He’s also not eating, which for SB is pretty much unheard of.  So I went online to see what could be wrong.  I’ve narrowed it down to mouth ulcers, the flu, a sore throat, Dengue Fever or Ebola.  I’m not allowed on the internet anymore.

We’re also going for the world TV watching record and I think we’re strongly in the lead for the Gold Medal.  Yesterday, in a moment of desperation, I bought him a Smurfs video.  Then I wanted to stab myself in the eyes to make it stop.  I finally paused it when SB wasn’t looking and told him it was broken, and we went back to good old Curious George.  I still can’t understand why the Man in the Yellow Hat would trust a monkey to fix his plumbing, but then again I’m not feeling well either.  Whine, whine.

Today we’re going to venture out to the arts and crafts store so that we can make a colossal mess in the backyard with chalk and water.  And then I’ll count down the hours until BB (Big Boy – my husband) gets home.  Only 10 hours to go.  That’s a lot of chalk.  And TV.  But at least we’ll bring home the Gold Medal.