May 26, 2009

Summer Crazies....


This is how I refer to it. Even though school is still in, when the weather warms, my home becomes the child magnet. It seems much more difficult with a 3-1/2-year-old however I have to say. He wants so badly to play with all the bigger kids and to keep up.

Back when my first two, now 9 and 11, were this young, my home was completely child proofed. Not so any longer. It is to a certain degree--to keep him out of harm's way--but I guess catching his antics and behind-the-scenes sneakiness is much more difficult with everyone running in different directions.

Lately, he's been giving me a real run for my money, so much so, I haven't blogged in a while. It's been compounded by the end-of-the-school-year madness such as helper breakfasts, VIP lunches, field trips, softball season, etc.

Last week, my youngster walked around the corner with a freshly cut strawberry in his hand proudly holding it up with one hand while holding out the empty hand and wiggling the fingers announcing, "See mom, I didn't cut my fingers off!"

I have to admit he did a really great job at it, but once discovering his hands were in fact still intact to find the large serated bread knife left next to that stawberry top, I set off trying to locate a new container in which to put the sharp knives atop the fridge like the old days. One of the drawbacks of having much older siblings to watch and to learn from and to having a 3-year-old the size of a 6-year-old. He can reach everything.

This week he has become more determined than ever to go potty all by himself. He comes out and announces that he has done so. I want to encourage him to continue, but.....he won't cave on calling for backup to wipe after a poopie. @@

He has cleaned all of his dresser drawers out 3 times in the last 10 days or so in order to locate a hoodie sweatshirt and jeans or sweats to wear. He has suddenly developed a true love of these clothing items, regardless of how hot it is now outside. I have now hidden the sweatshirts and he has now moved onto long sleeve shirts. Don't know what I'm gonna do with him, other than continue to force him to help me clean it all up.

One day last week, he announced that he pee-peed on the potty and poo-poo'd too just as proud as can be. I asked him who wiped his bum to which he replied, "Nobody." I took him into the bathroom explaining that bums always need to be wiped after a poo-poo because some gets stuck in the crack. I said, "Here lemme show ya. Bend over and touch your toes." He does this and I wipe. I then show him the remnants left behind on the paper to which he dramatically and disgustedly yells, "Aaaaackkkkkk! Don't show me that again, K?!"

Now, this week, after a dresser-emptying episode, that my husband discovers and overreacts about, we hear "Eeeeew! There's poo-poo on the floor!" to which my husband also overreacts about (he shoulda won an Oscar - really). Turns out that in his attempt to put on some new clothes with an unwiped poopie bum, he left a pretty good skidmark on the area rug in his room. Instead of yet again being able to explain it to him as to how he should have called for backup in wiping, he can't hear me as those eyes are watching my near-hysterical husband ranting and raving like a lunatic....."I can't do it Chris. I just cannot clean up any more poop. You're gonna have to do this!" (We've both been driven to the brink by our dog's bodily fluids from either end, but that story another time. We're wondering if she isn't the next Marley).

The other day, as I'm working on the couch with my laptop, he comes around the corner and announces "Don't see me mom and cover your ears." (This is how he announces that he is about to do something he knows he doesn't want us to see.) So I oblige him, purely for the memory of it. He walks away out of sight but pops his head back into the room and asks, "Can you hear me?" I don't answer him and keep looking at the computer with my ears covered. Next I hear a sliding chair across the tile floor and a loud noise with it. He comes running back around the corner and asks again if I can hear him, to which I again do not respond. He does this yet once more. Finally, I don't hear anything, so I stand up and walk into the kitchen to find him standing on the very heavy dining room chair that is now at the other end of the kitchen reaching into the cookie jar for a granola bar. "Wouldn't it have been easier to ask for one?" I asked him. He answered he wanted to do it by himself.

Being a work-at-home mother means that work tasks you are trying to accomplish with a toddler nearby take quadruple the time it should!

My parenting tips within - find a decorative container/vase in which to keep your sharp knives atop the fridge out of reach of toddlers. Tying a rope around your kitchen table chairs works well for preventing toddlers from climbing but does absolutely nothing when that toddler learns how to untie that rope. I'll never figure out why the phrase terrible two's was ever coined, as the age of 2 never posed any problems for us. It was the age of 3 that kept us on our toes that requires constant reinforcement and lessons to be taught.

1 comment:

  1. Your story brought back a wave of memories! I too, was a work at home mom so I get ya. Great story! I never thought I would get threw it either. And now I have 2 teenagers and the terrible twos and threes still haunt me. Teenagers are a walk in the park compared to what you are going threw.

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