Anthony Bourdain in the Making

At the dinner table last night...

Alex:  This is really yummy!  Buuuuut, I think the chicken is a little overcooked.  My first bite was crunchy.  No, I don't like it anymore.

Tricky Tricky Words

Alex and I were naming opposites:

Me:  What's the opposite of close?
Alex:  NAKED!

Took me a minute to realize he thought I said "clothes."  Homonyms are fun!

Flyin' Solo

Travis is in Colorado for a few days, so I am on my own with the boys.  Within an hour and half of Travis leaving yesterday evening, I made Alex cry, he lost Xbox priveledges for a month, and Sam barfed all over his bed and was laying in it.  Killin' it.

I changed Sam's sheets, wiped his head off fairly well, made a mental note to decrustify him in a morning bath, and sent him back off to dream land.  Alex and I got back on speaking terms, had some dinner, and after the longest story a 5 year old can make up about school work, I got him off to dream land.  I headed downstairs, filled my wine glass to the top, and settled on the couch for some TV.

I stopped binge watching Rizzoli&Isles at 11.  Seeing as though I had to re-nuk Sam twice between 8:30 and 11, I figured I was in for a long night, so I went to bed.  Sam proved me right and began a night of waking up hourly for no freaking reason whatsoever.  The dog pulled her usual bullshit and absolutely had to go out at 12:30.  Around 1, Alex woke me up and asked to sleep in my bed.  Alex then went on to wake up four different times, sit up each time and look at the alarm clock and tell me what time it was.  So I had a narration of how often I wasn't getting sleep.  Who wouldn't want that amirite?

Then Sam woke up for the morning at 5.  I got him bathed and fed and put down for a nap by 6:15, so I took a shower.  I finally woke Alex up around 7 only to have him tell me he had an accident which is when I realized he took off his UnderJam and put on regular underwear before climbing into my bed.  I got Alex out of bed finally, and pulled the sheets and mattress pad off the bed.  I put them in a pile on the floor while I turned the water on so Alex could have a super fast bath since he was just laying in a puddle of his own urine.  By the time I got back to the pile of pee sheets, the fold in the mattress pad had created a little crease/funnel situation for the pee to drip off, and I now had a soaking wet pee spot on the carpet because why not.

How do single parents survive?

Tool Time!

A neighbor boy came over to play with Alex the other day.  They wanted to "fix" his bikes and dune racer.  Other than our front yard looking like a Toys R Us chop shop, I saw nothing wrong with the planned activities.  Plus, Travis was out in the garage so he was able to keep half an eye on them.

After a while, Travis was done with his project in the garage and was back inside.  I poked my head out to check on the mechanic boys only to find them with Travis's tool bag at their feet, using his POWER DRILL to drill into a tree.  Awesome.

I immediately started toward the boys, loudly saying, "No No No No No" which was met with, "but Dad said we could!"  Obviously, I didn't beleive him and told him as much.  That's when he clarified that they didn't ask to use the bag, but that supposedly Travis had said they could use the drill.  I let them know I didn't believe that for a second, and I took the tools back into the garage.

I went inside and double checked with Travis, juuuuuust in case they were telling the truth:

"Hey...I'm assuming you didn't tell the boys they could use your power drill?"
"Oh, no, yeah I did."
"...wait....wha...You said they could use a power drill....by themselves.  Seriously?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Yeeeeeaaaahhhh if you could not give the 5 and 7 year old children unsupervised use of POWER TOOLS, that'd be great."

I just...I mean...HUH?  How did he possibly think that was an appropriate course of action.  And before you try to justify, I will tell you, yes, there was a bit in it.  It was a screwdriver bit and not a 4" hole saw, but a bit nonetheless.

So not only did I have to scold my husband for making that decision, but then I had to sheepishly apologize to Alex and the neighbor kid for flat out calling them liars.  Fun stuff.

Dinner Time!

This kid.  He's just too much.  Make sure you watch to end so you can see his little food shimmy.

Nothing to see here...

...Just a possessed penguin.  No big deal.

I have no idea why the eyes are red or what is going on with the yellow feathers/hair on the head.  I also cannot figure out what the first "sentence" is supposed to say.  Neither can Alex.  Good stuff.

Adventures in Barf

He got me.  Sam was sitting on my lap and grabbed a small paper bag while I was trying to accomplish a small task.  What could a small paper bag hurt, right?  He flailed it around a bit and then was just turning it over in his hands, so I focused on my task.  Until I noticed he was chewing on the bag.

I took it from him, but he clearly had a small piece of paper in his mouth that he was pushing around with his tongue.  I got it out and carried on.  I mistakenly thought he only had one piece in there.  I was quickly proven wrong when the child that cannot have a puff in his mouth without gagging, gagged on a different minuscule piece of paper.  And then he gagged again.  And then he puked in my shirt.  No, that was not a typo.  He didn't puke on my shirt.  He puked in my shirt.  His whole dinner was now plastered to my chest and flowing like a gross warm hidden river under my top.  Plus side?  There wasn't any puke on the floor to clean up.  Oh thank goodness.

I was trying my best to not overreact, and just kept repeating "It's ok, it's ok, it's ok" in an attempt to simultaneously calm the now crying Sam and my lurching stomach.  But then I saw Alex and Travis's faces.  Alex's was one of shock and concern.  Shock over how much just came out of his brother and concern if I was ok.  Travis's was one of sheer amazement and then sympathy.

He immediately proclaimed, "Hoooooooooooo!  That's just....wow....ummmm...I'm not sure how to help you here.  Wow, that is terrible.  Uhhhh, do you want to take a shower?"  Hmmmm, YA THINK?

After I stripped the nasty baby of his clothes that were saturated with puke because why wouldn't he lay himself on me immediately following puking all over me, I headed to the bathroom to clean myself up.  So. Much. Puke.  I heard Alex asking what made him throw up at the exact moment I found the vomit covered teeny shred of paper bag that was the culprit, and I just yelled out, "FOUND IT."  100% sure I heard Travis and Alex gag at the same time.

Can I Have Your Autograph?

Eeeeevery once in a while this kid looks like Macaulay Cuklin in a photograph.  This is one of those times, and it is not weirding me out any less than last time I noticed it.

Awkward smile in full effect.

Learn from her he will

My darling niece taught Alex to call people "brah."  Luckily for him, he seems to have a good grasp of when it is going to be well received and when it is inappropriate.  Basically, I'm 96% confident he won't call his teacher "brah."

However, it seems I have fallen squarely in the Totally Appropriate to Call This Person "brah" category.  He doesn't do it all the time, but when he does, he makes it count.

I was sitting on the couch and he joined me solely to fart in my general direction.  And then he walked backward across the couch toward me, with his butt waggling at me saying, "That's what you get brah!  That's what you get brah!"

Not shockingly, darling niece thought it was hilarious.  To be fair, I couldn't reprimand him because it struck me so funny.  I am so screwed with this one.

Perfection.

Alex's class celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday all week last week with different theme days and activities.  After reading If I Ran the Zoo, the kids were given a worksheet that included instructions to create an animal and write different things about it.  This is Alex's "animal."

 There are so many things I love about this.  The drawing itself and the test doodle outside the area designated for the animal drawing.  The fact his animal is named "Julius" is creativity at its best.

But the thing I love the most is what this particular animal eats.  "Pskete."  The classroom helper was nice enough to include a translation, but I really don't think it's necessary once you say "Pskete" out loud.  Clearly this long, wiggly, twisted animal loves him some pasta and sauce while he's rollin' through the "jungl."

And serendipity struck when the very same day that worksheet was sent home, I received a link to this picture:

Boss Man

When I dropped Sam off at daycare yesterday, the director giggled and said he looked like a mob boss in his little track suit and all he needed to complete the look was slicked back hair and a chain.  I replied that she now knew what her job for the day was.  By 2pm, I received the following picture:

Da boss will see you now.

Sleep study

Sam has slept mostly through the night the last two nights.  He's only woken up once each night, and as soon as I popped his nuk back in his mouth, he fell right back asleep.  It's been magnificent.  The past month plus a week or so has been ridiculous.  Without exaggeration, before Monday night, I had not slept more than 2 hours at a time in over a month.  He is nine months old.  This shit is expected and tolerated from infants.  Not from nine month old cute fat babies.  I already trudged through the sleepless nights with this one.  We're supposed to be done now.  Someone needs to send him another copy of the memo.  Maybe in bold this time.

Travis decided to stop using the humidifier the other night since Sam's congestion was much less significant during the day.  I was skeptical.  I agreed that his congestion was less during the day, but I still believed in the magical powers of humidified air, and figured the only reason his little snot locker wasn't filling up during the day was because he wasn't laying down as much.  He slept for a while and then started stirring, so I went in to re-nuk him.  And I noticed he was distinctly not congested.  So, I decided to go full scale with the experiment, and I turned the humidifier on.  Lo and behold, by morning that kid's nose was stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey.  But not as delicious.

So the next night, we went sans humidifier.  But I was worried about the lack of white noise in his room.  So I purchased an inexpensive little sound machine from Walgreens; set it to ocean waves, and off to sleep he went.  But asleep he did not stay.  He woke up a ton of times.  He wasn't congested, but still waking up.  No good.

So the next night, no humidifier, no sound machine.  Slept all night.

Just to be clear, the things I was doing specifically to help this child sleep were apparently keeping him awake.  Sounds about right.

Who needs milestones?

I think I'm ready to admit it...here goes:  I am subconsciously stunting Sam's development.  I am not excited for him to grow.  Like at all.  I don't really want him to crawl.  Or walk.  Or talk.  I pretty much just want him to stay a cute little fat baby.

The other day, I walked into the living room to find Travis sitting on the floor next to Sam.  Sam was on his hands and knees and was crying.  I immediately snapped at Travis to pick him up.  He looked ae me and confusedly responded, "Ummmm....do you ever want him to crawl?"  No.  No I do not.  I thought that was clear.  Now pick up the baby.

I remember feeling this way when Alex was a baby too, but the excitement of watching him reach developmental milestones outweighed my irrational desire to keep him a baby forever.  Not so much this time around.  Sam needs to stay a baby.  He's just so cute and (usually) happy.  And he's stationary.  And he's not sassy.  And?  He still wears footie pajamas.  How could I possibly want feet like these to no longer be part of my life?

Finally!

I swear Alex would live in the bath if I would let him.  He asks to take a bath at least once a day; but then clairfies whether it's a "scrubbing bath" or a "play bath."  More often than not, the request is for the latter.  Either way, he also consistently asks if Sam can take a bath with him.  Finally, Sam is big enough to hold his own for a bit in the tub with his big brother.

Man, we gotta get passed Alex's awkward picture face stage.  Also?  He is like, adult sized now.  I mean not really.  But LOOK AT HIM.  He is so tall all of a sudden.  He loves to lay flat on the bottom of the tub while it's filling and two weeks ago he pointed out the he fit perfectly in the bottom of the tub.  Then two weeks later, he looked at me all confused because he didn't fit anymore.  Don't look at me kid!  I'm the one that keeps telling you to stop growing!

Clean!

How can something so cute make me So. Damn. Tired.  And why, if he isn't sleeping, am I the only one that's tired?  I need to get myself on his nap schedule.