My son's second birthday is just shy of a month away. No, this is not cause for celebration. I feel it would be equally acceptable to greet this occasion with a With Sympathy card as Happy Birthday; at this age it's basically one in the same. No he doesn't want toys for his birthday. He wants coffee beans and chocolate and a deep tissue massage for his mom. He's too sweet. I am a definitely a mom of an almost 2 year old. It's evidenced by the way a morning like my morning becomes normal. A morning like my morning is only normal if you are host to a tiny terrorizing dictator, also known as a toddler.
We wake up, and immediately he is pointing out "'alome's bum bum" and forcefully trying to remove her diaper. He is a huge help. By huge help, I mean he is pulling her off the bed by one leg and the neck hole of her onesie. Also a huge help with changing diaper. And by huge help I mean grabbing the wipes, running for his life, and pulling out as many wipes as possible in the time it takes me to safely leave half-naked infant and run after him.
After baby girl's diaper is changed and she's ready for the day, I decide to make something of these stupid organic CSA zucchinis that I had to have before they become $12 garbage. What did I think I was going to do with 5 pounds of zucchini? So I start grating them, all the while watching 2-year old tyrant poke a stick into daddy's expensive meat smoker on the patio. I try to heard him away from said smoker and then he's off playing with a cat litter scoop and "fixing" the patio with his "hammer". I cut my losses and pretend like I didn't see it, so I can finish grating my zucchini before baby 2 needs me again. Toddler child gets tired of "fixing" and is then driving his Mickey Mouse bus backwards down the ramp that leads to a very-much-cement landing. He falls onto said cement. He comes inside. I have now gotten half the zucchini grated. He decides to play under my feet while I am cooking (always a safe choice). Did I wash the feline fecal matter from his hands? Nope. So he's playing in the drawers next to me as I'm measuring the flour and the sugar and the cinnamon. He pulls the Seran Wrap from the drawer and starts unwrapping. He makes a nice ball of Seran mess before I am able to call him off. He leaves it in the middle of the kitchen floor. Perfecto. He takes a bite of the zucchini. He spits it out. He gets into the potato/onion drawer. Takes a bite out of the potato. Puts it back. Takes a bite out of the onion. Throws it across the floor. I ask him retrieve the onion and put it back, to which he (to my surprise) obeys. He is then climbing up the cabinets, using the pulls as a ladder OBVIOUSLY. his fingers are just a healthy distance between my 350 degree oven and my topsy turvy bag of flour. We make it through the cabinet rock climbing escapades with neither a burn victim nor floured floor.
Just about the time I get the bread pans safely in the oven, he finally decides he's "hungy" and I am about 45 minutes overdue on coking breakfast, because he has NEVER been so starved in his life. In my attempt to rush breakfast (pancakes with fresh blueberries that we picked ourselves because I rock at life) I toss in the blueberries and see stems. I once again cut my losses and stir it anyway. A little bit of greens with our breakfast. Probably healthy. I also notice about half-way through cooking that I forgot to add an egg, and our pancakes are now glue on the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Quick thinking lead me to believe toddlers have zero preference on the shape of pancakes, so I invented "scrambled pancakes". This is when you get to the oops of glue pancakes and realize theres no going back, so you just violently shake your spatula in the charred glue, toss in an egg and call it a day. I served up pancakes-a-la-scramble just as baby girl started wailing. She's a female and is often emotional without cause. She rejected nursing and had a dry diaper. So I packed her around as I desperately made a cup of coffee. This cup in the form of crappy beans in my Keurig finished with some cheap creamer. Don't judge me coffee connoisseur friends; I would much prefer a fancy pour-over or DIY cappuccino, but ain't nobody got time for that. I finally sit to drink my coffee when tiny tyrant starts drowning and abandoning pancake and plum chunks in his milk. He fills his cup to the brim with breakfast. He spills his milk on his tray and declares "ALL DONE MOMMA." I disagree and turn on cartoons. I silently thank God for cartoons. He chokes down some milk-saturated scrambled pancakes while vegging out on Thomas and Friends. I choke down my now lukewarm coffee and try again to feed baby girl. No dice. I take a minute to peruse Facebook and reply to some texts as he eats. Toddler boy again declares he's finished, and this time with a very convincing magical food-vanishing act. This means he is throwing his pancake-milk chunks on to the floor and his grand finale comes in the form of throwing his milk cup. He then tells me "broken, momma." This is true. Cup is now down one handle. Luckily it can still function on one handle; I like that cup. I put down still-wailing infant to tend to soggy chunks and milk puddle now covering the floor before releasing toddler boy from his high chair jail. Mess cleaned. Terrorizer released. Infant soothed.
I sit down to write on the computer and am reminded of his uncanny ability to locate my junk drawer, supply of Sharpie pens, etcetera. He redecorates the living room with golf balls, 2 wrenches, 6 DVDs, a handful of bunny crackers and some crinkled paper towels. Looks awesome. He makes a pillow fort out of all 6 decorative couch pillows. He then climbs up into my computer chair and intentionally gets his head stuck in the arm of the chair. I remove his head carefully. He immediately puts it back in the arm and cries because he is "STUCK!" I take his head out again. I put him on the floor. He slides the cajon drum over to the computer desk and climbs, and proceeds to put thumb tacks into my now cold coffee remnants, all the time saying, "Daaaanger momma. OUCH!" Yes. But somehow you've missed the point of the two words.
By this time he is finally ready for nap time, I can tell because he is excessively bratty when he is ready for nap time. Where a simple "no thank you momma" would suffice, it is instead escalated to a shrill scream paired with throwing limbs about and a resounding NO. He asks for milk. I pour it in the one-handled cup. He wants a different cup. We stick with the one handled cup and try again. No dice. I set the cup down. He asks for milk. This time the one-handled cup is ok I guess, because he takes a drink of milk and lays his head down on my shoulder. He kisses me and says "'nuggle, momma." And my little terrorizing almost-two year old tyrant is sound asleep; and it's that kiss and snuggle that help me get through while the battle rages on.
We wake up, and immediately he is pointing out "'alome's bum bum" and forcefully trying to remove her diaper. He is a huge help. By huge help, I mean he is pulling her off the bed by one leg and the neck hole of her onesie. Also a huge help with changing diaper. And by huge help I mean grabbing the wipes, running for his life, and pulling out as many wipes as possible in the time it takes me to safely leave half-naked infant and run after him.
After baby girl's diaper is changed and she's ready for the day, I decide to make something of these stupid organic CSA zucchinis that I had to have before they become $12 garbage. What did I think I was going to do with 5 pounds of zucchini? So I start grating them, all the while watching 2-year old tyrant poke a stick into daddy's expensive meat smoker on the patio. I try to heard him away from said smoker and then he's off playing with a cat litter scoop and "fixing" the patio with his "hammer". I cut my losses and pretend like I didn't see it, so I can finish grating my zucchini before baby 2 needs me again. Toddler child gets tired of "fixing" and is then driving his Mickey Mouse bus backwards down the ramp that leads to a very-much-cement landing. He falls onto said cement. He comes inside. I have now gotten half the zucchini grated. He decides to play under my feet while I am cooking (always a safe choice). Did I wash the feline fecal matter from his hands? Nope. So he's playing in the drawers next to me as I'm measuring the flour and the sugar and the cinnamon. He pulls the Seran Wrap from the drawer and starts unwrapping. He makes a nice ball of Seran mess before I am able to call him off. He leaves it in the middle of the kitchen floor. Perfecto. He takes a bite of the zucchini. He spits it out. He gets into the potato/onion drawer. Takes a bite out of the potato. Puts it back. Takes a bite out of the onion. Throws it across the floor. I ask him retrieve the onion and put it back, to which he (to my surprise) obeys. He is then climbing up the cabinets, using the pulls as a ladder OBVIOUSLY. his fingers are just a healthy distance between my 350 degree oven and my topsy turvy bag of flour. We make it through the cabinet rock climbing escapades with neither a burn victim nor floured floor.
Just about the time I get the bread pans safely in the oven, he finally decides he's "hungy" and I am about 45 minutes overdue on coking breakfast, because he has NEVER been so starved in his life. In my attempt to rush breakfast (pancakes with fresh blueberries that we picked ourselves because I rock at life) I toss in the blueberries and see stems. I once again cut my losses and stir it anyway. A little bit of greens with our breakfast. Probably healthy. I also notice about half-way through cooking that I forgot to add an egg, and our pancakes are now glue on the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Quick thinking lead me to believe toddlers have zero preference on the shape of pancakes, so I invented "scrambled pancakes". This is when you get to the oops of glue pancakes and realize theres no going back, so you just violently shake your spatula in the charred glue, toss in an egg and call it a day. I served up pancakes-a-la-scramble just as baby girl started wailing. She's a female and is often emotional without cause. She rejected nursing and had a dry diaper. So I packed her around as I desperately made a cup of coffee. This cup in the form of crappy beans in my Keurig finished with some cheap creamer. Don't judge me coffee connoisseur friends; I would much prefer a fancy pour-over or DIY cappuccino, but ain't nobody got time for that. I finally sit to drink my coffee when tiny tyrant starts drowning and abandoning pancake and plum chunks in his milk. He fills his cup to the brim with breakfast. He spills his milk on his tray and declares "ALL DONE MOMMA." I disagree and turn on cartoons. I silently thank God for cartoons. He chokes down some milk-saturated scrambled pancakes while vegging out on Thomas and Friends. I choke down my now lukewarm coffee and try again to feed baby girl. No dice. I take a minute to peruse Facebook and reply to some texts as he eats. Toddler boy again declares he's finished, and this time with a very convincing magical food-vanishing act. This means he is throwing his pancake-milk chunks on to the floor and his grand finale comes in the form of throwing his milk cup. He then tells me "broken, momma." This is true. Cup is now down one handle. Luckily it can still function on one handle; I like that cup. I put down still-wailing infant to tend to soggy chunks and milk puddle now covering the floor before releasing toddler boy from his high chair jail. Mess cleaned. Terrorizer released. Infant soothed.
I sit down to write on the computer and am reminded of his uncanny ability to locate my junk drawer, supply of Sharpie pens, etcetera. He redecorates the living room with golf balls, 2 wrenches, 6 DVDs, a handful of bunny crackers and some crinkled paper towels. Looks awesome. He makes a pillow fort out of all 6 decorative couch pillows. He then climbs up into my computer chair and intentionally gets his head stuck in the arm of the chair. I remove his head carefully. He immediately puts it back in the arm and cries because he is "STUCK!" I take his head out again. I put him on the floor. He slides the cajon drum over to the computer desk and climbs, and proceeds to put thumb tacks into my now cold coffee remnants, all the time saying, "Daaaanger momma. OUCH!" Yes. But somehow you've missed the point of the two words.
By this time he is finally ready for nap time, I can tell because he is excessively bratty when he is ready for nap time. Where a simple "no thank you momma" would suffice, it is instead escalated to a shrill scream paired with throwing limbs about and a resounding NO. He asks for milk. I pour it in the one-handled cup. He wants a different cup. We stick with the one handled cup and try again. No dice. I set the cup down. He asks for milk. This time the one-handled cup is ok I guess, because he takes a drink of milk and lays his head down on my shoulder. He kisses me and says "'nuggle, momma." And my little terrorizing almost-two year old tyrant is sound asleep; and it's that kiss and snuggle that help me get through while the battle rages on.
No comments:
Post a Comment