Feb 12, 2010 Posted on Feb 12, 2010 in Everyday | 3 comments

Oh, hello terrible twos! I knew you were lurking about.

Jack’s new favorite thing is to push all the dining room chairs over to various points in the kitchen and get into EVERYTHING on that particular countertop. Drawers full of knives, the stove, the toaster, the coffee pot, the sink, etc. Despite locking things and unplugging things and moving them out of his reach, the kitchen has suddenly become unsafe again, so I have to watch him like a hawk every second we’re in there. And like most toddlers, he has a one-track mind, is very stubborn, and doesn’t like to be told no, so endless temper tantrums are the result each and every time I’m brave enough (or dumb enough) to venture into the kitchen. SIGH.

God help me if I have to go to the bathroom and leave him alone for a second. The kid managed to climb up and stick his hand on the still-hot coffee pot before I even sat down on the loo! He’s QUICK. (No serious burn, though he DID cry!) I feel like he’s an infant again and I have to watch him every.single.second, which is annoying because I’ve been enjoying his (and my) freedom for that for several months.

I have put up with this for about four days now, with the understanding that as soon as Brian gets home from Macworld in San Francisco, we are going out to buy something—anything—that will keep him from being able to move the damn chairs across the wood floor. I know of nothing other than some sort of heavy rubber feet. I’m going to have to look around and see what I can find. (I briefly thought about an area rug, but that wouldn’t stop him. The child is freakishly strong, just like his mother.)

But after the latest tantrum, I marched each and every one of those goddamn chairs into the bedroom and locked the door behind them. Now my dining room table is chairless, and I’m unable to eat there, but thank CHRIST for the silence!

Oh, if only that were all I had to deal with. There’s pet drama, too. So when he’s acting up AND the dog and the two cats? I don’t stand a chance.

The dog? Oh dear jesus, the goddamn dog. He chews EVERYTHING, despite having DOZENS of chew toys and bones scattered throughout the house. He destroys EVERYTHING. In sixty seconds, he can have a hole chewed in one of Jack’s favorite pair of pajamas, or a shoe, or one of Jack’s toys. He steals food out of Jack’s hands. He plays too rough with the cats (not that I really care about the stupid cats, but still…) He gets too rowdy and almost knocks Jack off the stairs at least once a day. He gets up in my face all day every day and annoys me.

There are periods of time when I think he’s calmed down and is doing a lot better, fitting in and finding his place in this family. Then he has a really bad week where I just want to throw him outside and lock the door before I kill him. This has been one of those weeks, unfortunately. (Don’t worry, I wouldn’t ever harm any animal. The most I ever do is yell.)

And the cats. Ohhhhh. I hate the cats. Nothing ever changes there. But Rowdy has decided he’s going to start jumping up on the counters. Previously, the cats would only do this when there was a bouquet of flowers on the table. Or maybe a plant. (I DO NOT LIKE THIS. I know most cats do this, but I am NOT okay with it. I don’t want cat hair or their nasty little litterbox feet all over my counters. DISGUSTING. I thought I’d broken them both of it years ago.) But now Rowdy is suddenly jumping up on the counters to eat morsels on dishes. Or to look for dog bones. Or whatever he hell he’s doing. I keep catching him at it, tell him “no, bad kitty!”, pick him up and lock him in his room. It’s not working. I may have to break all four of his legs to prevent him from jumping at all.

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Jan 18, 2010 Posted on Jan 18, 2010 in Everyday | 4 comments

My baby isn’t a baby anymore…

There is so much going on with Jack! My baby isn’t a baby anymore. He hasn’t been for quite a while. He’s a toddler , and he’s growing up sooooo fast. I’m afraid to blink or I might miss something.

Friday marked ONE FULL WEEK of him sleeping in his own room in his OWN toddler bed! Can you believe that?!

Brian had been sleeping in Jack’s room since we started the transition, but not last night because Jack didn’t wake up.  (Yes, I’m aware that I’m overusing italics. Bite it. This is super exciting for me. Heh.) So Brian slept in bed with me. Both of us in the bedroom. By ourselves. For the first time in almost 21 months. Oh, yeah, baby…. yeah! [ Insert cheesy porn music here. ]

Numerous milestones there. *happy dance*

Of course, I barely slept a wink, because Jack was in there all by his lonesome and… well, I was wigging out a little. Okay, a lot.

I kept thinking that someone could break into our house and kidnap him and we’d never know because our room is soundproof with the door closed. So I made Brian get up and open the door so we could see (and hear) across the hallway. Then I made him get up again a few minutes later and put a baby gate up, because I didn’t want Oliver wandering around the house all night.

I tossed. And turned. At times I even whimpered like a frightened little girl. There may have been begging involved—I desperately wanted him to wake up so I could quiet my crazy ass mind, but no such luck. He was zonked. So I started imagining other reasons why he may not have woken up yet (the sane voice saying he was sleeping soundly and everything was perfectly fine didn’t win that particular argument, OBVIOUSLY). I thought the blanket might be covering his head and he had suffocated. I fretted that he tried to get out of hid bed, fell and cracked his head open on the foot board. And then I agonized that his pacifier broke apart and was lodged in his throat, and he was choking to death*.  On that last note, I actually woke Brian up at 4:00 a.m. and had him sneak into Jack’s room to check on him. THEN I think I was finally—blissfully—able to go to sleep.

There’s no way to quell this phobia of mine other than to seek professional help. I already have a monitor in there so I can hear what’s going on. And I have a video monitor I could use, but it’s so dark I don’t think I’d be able to see anything. And even if I could, it wouldn’t be close enough to make sure he was still breathing. The motion sensor that I used when he was a tiny baby that DID detect breathing will not work on a toddler bed. So I’m just going to have to get the hell over it. I’m sure I will at some point. (Not. I did that with Cheeto his entire life. And no, in case you’re wondering, I haven’t had a decent’s night sleep in years. I don’t really sleep like most people sleep. My subconscious sleeps with one eye open, periodically making the rounds and checking on everyone around me. It’s exhausting being me, it really is.)

Jack, on the other hand, is sleeping well. Much better than when he was sleeping in bed with us. He falls asleep in 20 minutes instead of 60 minutes now. He doesn’t wake up crying every hour or two. I don’t think he’s fidgeting as much. He seems a lot more refreshed when he wakes up. I told Brian when we started the conversion that if it didn’t work, I was okay with waiting until he was at least two to try again. I do not try to rush this child—he does things on his schedule and not a moment sooner. He’s definitely a stubborn Taurus.

It takes 28 days to make a habit, so we’re well on our way. And it really seems as if this one’s going to stick. (No thanks to ME. I’ve tried to sabotage this plan on no less than three occasions because I miss snuggling with him, but common sense always wins out in the end, thank goodness. At some point I really do need to SLEEP.)

Next up is getting rid of the pacifier. He doesn’t really use it at all during the day anymore… only in long car rides or in restaurants, because it keeps him mellow. Other than that, he’s down to just using it at night to go to sleep. Then it falls out of his mouth in a few minutes and is gone. Shouldn’t be too hard! No rush, but I’d really like for him to be completely done with it before his birthday in April.

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Jan 15, 2010 Posted on Jan 15, 2010 in Everyday | 0 comments

Rub a dub dub

Jack loves baths. I mean, he REALLY loves them.

So much so that he can be downstairs playing with his favorite toy (his laptop) or watching his favorite show (Yo Gabba Gabba), and if Brian turns the faucet on in the bathtub, he hauls ASS as fast as he can up the stairs*.

Just tonight, Jack was playing with his little shopping cart, pushing it around the room. As soon as he heard water running. he FLUNG the damn shopping cart out of his way and BOLTED into the bathroom.

He started pulling on his shirt, too, like “Get this damn thing off me!”

He’s a funny little guy. I hope he’s always like that and I don’t have to fight him to take a bath every night when he gets older**.

 

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Jan 9, 2010 Posted on Jan 9, 2010 in Everyday | 1 comment

Fun Day Out

We had the most awesome day out! We enjoyed lunch at a neat little restaurant exclusive to KC that delivers your food via overhead trains (video below).

How cool is that?! Jack was completely enthralled watching the trains run back and forth overhead. (Of course, we didn’t bother with the cute little conductor hat they gave us because we know he gets a little violent if you try to put something on his head. Probably from all those weeks in the NICU when the nurses tried to put hats on him that were too small. Every time we’d leave the room and come back, he had somehow managed to get his hat off. *snicker* He was probably sitting there thinking that losing most of the heat through your head is a myth*, so quit with the hat already! )

 

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Dec 29, 2009 Posted on Dec 29, 2009 in Everyday | 3 comments

Post-Christmas

Christmas was so much fun this year. The best yet, I have to say!

Once you have a child, it brings a whole new meaning to Christmas.  I’ve always loved spending time with family (giving gifts, too, but mostly about the family!), but it becomes so much more when you have your own little ones. And FUN, too! In 2008, Jack was about 8 months old—far too young to enjoy Christmas, open any presents, play with many toys or even eat any of our food. It was wonderful in its own way—baby’s 1st Christmas and all that—but this year was so much more fun. It’s so great having a little toddler whose eyes light up when he sees a toy he really likes!

As usual, I bought way too many gifts. I should have just bought 2-3, but I… errrm… I filled the tree. Was there ever any doubt that I would do that? I mean, I used to do that everyone else, so no WAY I’m slowing down for Jack! However, I really should have. Because once he opened a toy, he wanted to play with it for HOURS. I mean, he REALLY loved them. Which was fantastic! But it made me feel like an ass for buying him too many things. What we ended up doing was opening up one toy every couple hours for a couple days so he wouldn’t get overwhelmed.

 

For the second year in a row, it was just the three of us*, and I loved that, too. Last year was great, too, but because of all the unexpected family drama with my mom, it was kind of bittersweet. This year, the only note of sadness was that Cheeto wasn’t here to enjoy it with us. I must admit that I hung his stocking anyway, and the sight of it hanging there every day brought me to tears on more than one occasion.

I also bought the most perfect little hand-painted ornament from Etsy. I buy a new one to commemorate the biggest thing that happened that year. (2001 we were married, 2005 we bought the house, 2008 we had Jack, etc.)

I forgot to get a picture before I packed it away, but the 2009 ornament looks like this. Isn’t it adorable with the mommy and daddy and baby birds on there with the first letter of our names on their chests? She also put two cat prints and yes, two dog prints on there. I emailed her and asked her if she could paint a halo over the Cheeto paw print. She did. And when I got that in the mail, I thought my heart was going to implode, too. But that is just one of the many ways I continue to include and honor him. But I’m not going to dwell on that, because overall, it was a happy holiday.

Moving on..

In looking at this picture, it’s clear that I need to learn how to make my own stockings. The two heart ones on the left were made by either my grandma or my mom (not sure which, but probably my grandma). They’re great and all, and used to hold sentimental value, but now they just make me sad. So they need to go.

Plus, I need to make one for Jack. I don’t want to keep buying a new set in a certain “theme” every year when we have a new addition, like Oliver. I’m sure it’s easy enough… just need to find a pattern and some fabric I like. Oh, yeah. And buy a sewing machine. Heh heh. That should be interesting. (Sidenote: I think I received a B in Home-Ec class in 7th grade. Wasn’t all that into the sewing. Still not for clothes and the like. But certain things need to be done, and I need to know how to do them, dammit! If I can learn how to cook—and be so great at it!—I can learn how to sew!)

I made our on-its-way-to-becoming-a-traditional-Christmas-dinner: beef tenderloin. That is one helluva cut of meat, I have to tell you. It costs about $70 for a 3-lbs., but oh.my.god, it is SOOOOOOO GOOD. I smear it with dijon mustard and some rosemary and thyme and it’s just to die for.  I also made mashed potatoes and gravy, Hawaiian sweet potato casserole, brown and serve rolls, and a couple other things as well. Christmas is probably the best meal at our house all year, and I love it that it’s so much less work than Thanksgiving! What’s your favorite dish or side dish for Christmas?

It was a wonderful, relaxing, happy day. We were lucky enough for it to be a white Christmas, too!

Jack’s favorite toy was the lawn mower. Here’s some video of him pushing it around on Christmas morning.

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