Toddler Tribulations

It's been awhile since I've posted, but it's been a busy few months. While a blog is a lot easier to update than a website, it still doesn't update itself. With work, the holidays, and dealing with a toddler, it's hard to find time for much else. So what have you missed? LOTS! David Jr. sometimes seems like a completely different person than he was two months ago. He's much more independent and opinionated. That's fine except for when his opinion differs from mine or Daddy's. Then there are horrible screaming tantrums. As a result, I have discovered that my car radio does not go loud enough to drown out a screaming toddler. That's a bummer.

Today was the Halloween parade and party at David's school. As you can see, he is a dragon this year. He hasn't wanted to get into the costume at all. In fact, the first time he saw it, he ran away from it. It's been laying around the house for the last week. He's been giving it the stink eye, but at least he hasn't been running from it. I tried putting it on him Wednesday night, but he freaked out before I even got his legs into it. Today at school it was the same but I managed to wrestle him into it. He was very clingy after I got it on him, and he didn't like the other kids touching his tail. He hollered out, "NOOOOOO!" every time one of them got close. Also, he refused to wear the hat. That is, until the teacher said, "Let's go outside." It was like someone flipped a switch. As you can see from the pictures the hat was fine. The costume was fine. He was happy as a clam.

We were a little late getting to the checkup, but here's the info. The Boy weighs 30 pounds, 4 ounces (90th percentile), is 34.5 inches tall (90th percentile), and his head is 20 inches around (95th percentile). He can say tons of words - mama, dada, moo, no, outside, baby, kitty, bye-bye, juice, go-go-go, one more, eat. He gives the best hugs, he blows kisses and waves bye-bye. This week he started kissing us on the lips. He puckers up and says mmmmwah when he kisses. He loves playing with his blocks - now he stacks them instead of just knocking them down. He's pretty good at throwing a ball (or whatever else is handy) and he's spending more time in the bounce house. He is as rough and tumble as ever. In the swing he wants to go higher, in the buggy he wants to go faster, it's always, "Mo', mo', mo'!"

You know what's a bad gift for an 18 month old? A stick horse. Oh sure it's cute and fuzzy and makes little clippity-clop and other horsey sounds. David is adorable when he's riding it. (In case you're wondering, yes, I showed him how to ride it. There was lots of ye-hawing and imaginary hat waving. Cousin Marnie would be proud.) And after 30 seconds or so of riding it, the horse becomes a killer sword-club-poker-ninja weapon of death and destruction. I don't so much mind the wild swinging in the middle of the living room. But that leads to whacking toys with stick end. Yep, he's figured out that the stuffed horse head end doesn't do much damage so he flips it upside down - it has better balance that way you know - and whales on anything that stands still long enough. Yes, it's hard on the toys, but it's harder when he turns his attention to me. He thought that was a great game. Mommy makes funny noises when she gets hit with the stick.

Also giving your child a giant stick to play with is like extending his arm by 3 feet or so. He can reach all of the stuff we've put up or blocked off - the end table where we set our drinks, the shelves with breakables on the wall, and the bazillion dollar TV. The stick makes a really cool noise when you just run it along a textured wall too, or along the baby gate, or smack it repeatedly on the wood floor.

Oh yeah, it's an awesome toy! In retrospect, it was a very poor purchasing decision on our part. That's why most of the time poor stick horse is in time-out in the spare room, along with the coffee table that he likes to climb on that used to be in the living room and the rocking chair that he likes to stand up in that used to be in his room. David doesn't quite get the concept of time-outs for himself yet, but he sure does understand getting a toy taken away.

Aunt Wendy came by a couple of weeks ago to visit with us. She brought David some surprises. He got some new clothes, a coloring book, a giant Tigger, and this cool car pool float. Once I got it blown up and he realized that the horn honked, he was all over it! He has carried it all over the house and loves crawling in and out of it. At this rate, it may never see the pool.

Yeah, yeah, it's a month late and I'm a bad mom. I had to reschedule it a couple of times due to floods and such. So anyway...we went to the doctor this morning and he was an angel in the waiting room. But as soon as the nurse called his name, he started crying. I can't really say I blame him. Nothing good ever happens to him when we take him there. He doesn't always get shots, but it never exactly rains cookies and raisins there either. (It's our new favorite snack. Go with it.) He cried all the way through the weighing an measuring too, even though this time he got to stand on the scale by himself like a big boy. His is 32.5 inches tall (85th percentile). His head is 19.5 inches around (95th percentile), and we are holding steady at 28 pounds (90th percentile).

After the nurse left he was all sunshine and roses. We played with all the toys and read some books. When the doctor came in, David got to hold the ear and eye scope thingys and play with them. The doctor handed them over willingly, but it made me nervous. I can't imagine those things are cheap and I kept imagining it hitting the floor. David showed the doctor how he can throw things away. He tore the paper off the exam table bit by bit and took over and dropped it in the trashcan. And he stomped his feet and danced around for the doctor.

Then the doctor left and the nurse came back in and he went hysterical again. Of course he wasn't happy about getting the shots. We didn't have a bottle this time because we only do bottles in the morning and at night, but I gave him a snack and some juice and that fixed him right up. He was fine as frog hair by the time we got to school. He ran around playing with his friends for a little bit. When I left, he had flirted his way into being picked up by his favorite teacher. But I did manage to get a good-bye wave.

For the past couple of weeks, The Boy has been going to sleep at a decent time (before 10:30) sleeping completely through the night for at least a couple of nights a week. So I was thinking The Boy was all aboard the sleep train and we could ride it for awhile. Yeah, well, we've had a major derailment. Catastrophic even. And did he ever pick a doozy of a time.

So we're sitting at home around 7:30 on Saturday night when I get a phone call from a coworker saying our building is flooding so I need to go up there. David, being Captain Helpful, says he'll come too because he may be able to turn the water off. (I have since suggested to him that his motives might not have been entirely unselfish as he had been with The Boy since 7 am. I got a shrug and a half grin in response.) So we have no sitter, the three of us loaded into the car and headed off. Yep, there was a flood alright. There was water pouring out of the doors and under the windows.

Most spots in the building had at least an inch of water and it was spouting through the floor in the warehouse like a fountain. What that meant for me was a lot of work to come. What that meant for The Boy was a parking lot full of water and a handful of cars. He was in hog heaven for about two hours. He had tons of fun running though what was essentially one giant puddle. Then the sprinklers came on and that was awesome too. He was soaked by the time he and Daddy had to leave because it was bedtime.




So I finally left the office around midnight, wet and sweaty and soooo tired. I showered and crawled into bed, only to be awakened two hours later by The Boy. Apparently he decided it was time to get up. No amount of rocking or patting or milk or duct tape was getting him back to sleep. So the two of us were up. For two hours. And was up and raring to go at 8! He only took a 30 minute nap between 8 & 4 and he was crabby and whiny all day. Then he slept til 6 and was up until 11:30. I'm telling you this kid fights sleep like nothing you've ever seen.

So Monday rolls around and it was a wretched day of hurry up and wait at work. The building had STANK all over it. It was humid. The carpet was soggy. There were fans and dehumidifiers running so you couldn't hear anything. And one of the A/C units went out. Oh, and I worked until 10:30 - that would be PM. I left thinking how nice it would be to get home, take a shower, and stretch out in the bed. The house was all dark when I got home, which was a good sign. I tip-toed in and took my shoes off, but noticed that David wasn't in bed. Hmmm...I turned to go into the living room, and there was a little face looking up at me over the kiddie gate. And it kept looking at me til midnight!

So, the last two days, he's been so tired in the mornings, I've been able to get up and get everything ready for us to go. And The Boy is getting to eat his breakfast in the car. Thank goodness for Gerber Cereal Bars! If this doesn't change soon, I'm going to be mainlining caffeine and NoDoze. I'm not exactly sure what we did that got his sleeping schedule so out of whack but I never want to do it again.