Hands are NOT for Hitting!

So, the hitting thing.  Yeah, not so much done with this little fun time circus.  He still gets very sad when the Brown Elephant Blanket is taken away and very happy upon its return, but that deal is turning out to be not quite motivation enough for this child to keep his hands to himself.

Wednesday was horrendous.

When I picked him for his doctor appointment, his teacher told me he was kind of emotional throughout the morning.  Everything was great on the way to the doctor's office, while we were there, and on the way back.  He laid down right away for nap when we got back and I thought we were on our way to a good afternoon. I am so easily fooled.  Or gullible.

I was a bit late picking him up so I had to go to a different room because his teacher was gone for the day and they had combined two of the rooms.  The teacher in that room is new and I had yet to meet her.  So I walked in and introduced myself as Alex was happily screaming MOOOOOOMMMM and running over to me.  All good signs.  After introducing herself, the new teacher got a funny look on her face.  And as she started telling me about Alex's afternoon, I began to understand the face.  She was the lucky one that got to tell me that Alex's afternoon was all out terrible.  He would not stop hitting his friends and then topped that off when his teacher had to physically put him in a time out and while that was happening, he hit her.  Let's review.  Blah, blah, blah, HE HIT HIS TEACHER.  And not only did he hit his teacher, but I got to hear about from a different teacher that I have never met before.  Awesomesauce for everyone.

When I asked him why he hit his teacher, he responded:  "Uh, she put me in a time out Mom."  I'm not really sure how to adequately type the "duh I thought this was obvious" tone with which that statement was delivered.  He may as well have just worded it, "Ummm, seriously...do I have to answer this?  Ok, yeah, she put me in a time out.  What else was I supposed to do?"

So I did what any stellar mom would do.  I sternly told him that is not a reason to hit someone and he is not allowed to hit people, especially his teacher.  Then, I calmly told the new teacher to never have a three year old and cheerily said it was so nice to meet her.  And we left.

Check Up!

Did you know they document BMI on three year olds?  Me neither!

I finally got Alex in for his 3 year check up.  He is 3'3" tall and 39lbs.  This puts him in the 76th percentile for height and 94th for weight.  This also puts him at an 18 for BMI.  Which is totally fine.  That BMI is fine...but the giant jump in BMI from last year to this year apparently is a something to "keep an eye on."  He has grown out faster than up this past year.  Although he does not appear heavy, so I think a better description would be that he has grown more physically dense.  He is one solid kid.

He also is a solid kid with 20/30 vision and an ok understanding of what the hell the nurse needed him to do during a hearing test.  After his doctor said it's hard to do an adequate hearing test on 3 year olds, he asked me if I have any concerns about his hearing.  I burst out laughing.  His hearing?  Oh no...he can hear me just fine.  His listening?  Now, that is something of concern.

Truck babies

So I know I was/am supposed to make sure I didn't only have traditional gender specific toys so says some article or something.  Yeah, I didn't do that.  I didn't intentionally not do that...I just didn't make it a priority.  Alex definitely has some gender neutral toys, but he definitely doesn't have anything "girly."  This little fact was brought to light when a friend was looking at a different child's "baby" and asked Alex if he had any babies at home.  His response:  Ummm...I have trucks?

Fast forward a couple weeks to last night.  The stroller is upstairs for the first time in forever.  We lent it to some friends and I just haven't managed to get it back downstairs.  And now I am not sure Alex is going to be too cool with me putting it away.  He brought it in the kitchen, asked me unfold it, and squealed as he pushed it into his play room.  He came back with this thing stuffed with toys.  A wooden train, Mack, and about 7 monster trucks.  And he proudly instructed me to look at, and give kisses to, his babies.

Might be time for a doll of some sort.

And Forever Begins

While pondering the fact that my child is 3 years old the other day, I came to a frightening realization...Alex is old enough now that he will most likely remember the things that happen on a day to day basis.  Like he will remember them forever.  We are forming life memories here people.

This is insane.  I have been operating the past 3 years with the fantastic safety net of no long term memory.  You can't screw a kid up too bad when he can't remember what the hell happened, right?  I mean, so far, he hasn't been able to tell me what he had for lunch much less remember something from the more distant past.  But now?  Now he will most likely have at least a faint recollection of the things that happen each and every day, when he is like 27.

Suddenly, this extreme pressure to ensure the shit we do every day will make good memories has moved in and it was definitely not invited.  I have a hard enough time coming up with things to do that will mildly entertain him IN THE MOMENT.  But now I have to figure out how to make sure he has good memories of his childhood?  You know, memories other than his mother being in a constant state of crazed pissed off and yelling NO!

I am not expecting his childhood memory piggy bank to be filled with rainbows and kitten farts.  I realize it is ok and the right thing to discipline him.  But is there a way to only have him remember the times when I am Fun Mom?

Safety Third.

This weekend marked the first time my child wore a helmet while riding a motorized three wheeled motorcycle thingy at my parents' house.  This weekend also marked the first time my child drove said motorcycle thingy into the trampoline.  Good thing he was wearing a helmet, right?  Wrong.  The crossbar on the trampoline is exactly eye height and he was wearing a bike helmet so there was no face protector part.  Based on what his little eye socket looked like shortly after the incident, I thought he was gonna have a nice shiner.  But, it really doesn't look that bad.

And before you question why I only had a bike helmet on him while he was on a motorcycle, I will tell you this thing goes about 4 miles an hour.  Definitely slow enough to steer around a GIANT FREAKING TRAMPOLINE.  But to steer around an obstacle, you would have to be looking in the direction in which you were going.  And that is not his forte.

Winning.

You know what's super fun?  Cramming 2 beds worth of sheets into the wash machine while finding little nooks and crannies for your son's nasty socks and then reading the directions on the OxiClean you are using for the first time.  You know, the directions that tell you, in bold font, to put the OxiClean in your washer before you put the laundry in.

Shot to the Heart

I don't like you, Mom.

That's the phrase that came out of my 3 year old's mouth yesterday when he was mad at me for telling him he needed to ride his bike on the sidewalk instead of in people's yards.

Add that to the stench of this kid's feet and his ability to drop an absolutely rancid fart, and I am pretty sure we have a teenager on our hands.