Exactly

I am a joy to work with...

Me:  Maaaaaaaan, the little thingers on this pen hurt my fingers.

Coworker(with a "really?" expression): .....

Me:  I AM A DELICATE FLOWER OK?!

Still askin'

Alex asks why more often than...I don't know, I can't come up with something apropos that happens as often as this kid asks why.  I try so hard to answer him.  But there are only so many why's I can answer.  More often than not, after about 7 why's, I land on "I don't know."  The other day we were in the car and he was on a roll.  Every single time I answered a question, he would ask why, and I would answer.  But that answer would only produce another why.  After I was certain a death of drowning in a never ending black hole of why's was imminent, I said, "Duuuuuuuude.  You are killin' me with the why's."

And he just looked at me in the rear view mirror, and with a I've Got a Good One smile on his face and a tiny naughty giggle he said, "Why?"

It terrifies me that he understands that is funny already.

Team Gear

I forgot this in my Nashville photo post.  These were the shirts we had for the race.  Kari was green, I was orange, Mariah was blue.  Apparently my shirt was so dark with sweat at the end of the race, it looked like a totally different color and Kari almost walked right past me while I was sitting/dying on a curb.  I will now only answer to Super Sexy Runner Lady from here on out.

No More Sass!

This kid is reaching an absurd level of sassy.  Then you mix in tantrums over anything and everything and you get one frustrated Mama and one frustrated kid.

Mornings have proven to be particularly difficult.  He doesn't want to get dressed.  He wants to be the one to turn off the tv, but he doesn't want to turn the tv off, MOM.  He doesn't want me to put the remote control away, but I don't dare hand it to him!  He wanted to do it!  My favorite so far was when he turned to me and yelled, "But you're being mad at me!"  Yes, yes I am.  

It's all very typical 2-3 year old shit, but holy man...it's gonna be a long slow uphill gravely road.

But then he goes and does something that smooths out the pavement juuuuust a little bit.  Last night I was putting him to bed and he reached up and asked me to bring my head close to his face.  He pet my head and said, "You my best friend Mama."  And instantaneously I forgot about all the sass.  

Don't worry though, my memory was jolted back into reality ten minutes later.  I heard him playing with a hula hoop in his room and I told him he better get in bed.  His response?  I am in bed Mama.  I could hear the eye roll through the door.

Holding Pattern

So I thought he was ready for potty training.  Based on this past weekend's performance, I thought wrong.  He might be showing signs of potty readiness outside of our house, but after 4 pairs of soaked pants and shit on the living room floor, I gave up.  It also seemed like he was getting frustrated with it and the mere mention of going to the bathroom was causing mini-fits.  So we deemed it diaper time.

We'll get there...just not this weekend.

He's loose

The toddler bed thing...was going great...until yesterday morning.  I accidentally turned the volume all but off on the monitor at some point on Saturday.  Not usually an issue since our house is not large and we can hear him if he calls for us even without the monitor.  Him calling for us is kinda the big factor in hearing him though.

Yesterday morning, he didn't call for us when he woke up, and since the volume was down, we didn't hear him rustling around in his room.  We didn't hear anything in fact, until we heard little feet creaking their way up the stairs.  And then a giant smile peeking around the banister.

He came running over, stopped dead in his tracks a couple feet shy of the bed, and said, "You guys.  There's big mess on the floor.  Cream eeeevvverrrrryyyywwwhhhheeerrree."  And good morning to you!

I thought for sure he was talking about diaper cream, and was terrified of the mess we were going to find since I bought a brand new tube of A&D about two weeks ago.  Alas it was not.  That kid got out of bed, went into the kitchen, took a container of heavy cream out of the fridge, took it back to his room, and poured it all over the floor.  Because, why wouldn't ya?

That's new

When I got to daycare to pick Alex up yesterday, one of the teachers that has known Alex since he was 8 weeks ago came up to me with a very concerned expression.  She paused to tell a kid that was trying to get attention to hang on because she had to "talk to Alex's mom for a minute."  Awwwwesome.

She had to talk to me to inform me that Alex administered a choke hold on a kid earlier in the day.  I'm sorry...what?  Yep.  A full-on choke hold.  He apparently let go right away when they told him to stop and said he understood that that was not an ok thing to do.

So I asked him why he did that.  "He tickled my feet Mama."  Yeeeeaaahhhh...a choke hold may have been a wee bit over the top in response to foot tickling there buddy.