Bubble Bath
TimeAugust 2006
08/31/06
Poor Tommy woke up with a nightmare this morning. I heard him crying at about 7 and went in to see what was wrong. He hysterically ran to the toilet. He said "My balls gone down toilet!" It took me a while to figure out he was saying balls and not Buzz or bus or even ball (singular). He's been watching a lot of The Magic School Bus lately, so I kept thinking he was worried that it had gone on a sewer pipe adventure and couldn't get back up. He eventually stopped sobbing enough for me to figure out he was saying balls. Then he gave me some more details, desperate for me to figure it out. "My balls! Three of them. Red, blue and green. Help me find my balls." We don't have any balls like that, so it was totally a dream. It took him about 20 minutes to calm down, since I couldn't immediately make things right. Poor little guy. He's perfectly happy now, but was extremely clingy for about an hour. As soon as he calmed down he turned into "Baby Tommy" as he usually does when he wants extra snuggles. I do explain that he can have as many hugs and kisses and snuggles as he wants as regular Tommy, but he still likes to pretend to be Baby Tommy when he's upset.
08/29/06
Bubble Bath
Time
New socks!
08/28/06
We went to the zoo on Friday (nothing special for us). This time, instead of choosing another toy animal, Tommy discovered the rocks. You know those big wagon or wishing well shaped displays at tourist shops that have loads of agates in them and little cloth bags you can fill for one price? Yeah, those. He really enjoyed picking some out. He started by choosing all pink ones, then I pointed out a blue-green one and he started choosing those. I probably should have just let him do it himself, but I re-directed him so that he ended up with a nice mix of colors. He's been examining them all weekend. He'll set them all out and ask me, "You touch my rocks? Just touch one. They my rocks, but you can touch them." He calls them "My Beautiful Rocks."
Speaking of "beautiful" things. Tommy's also discovered my jewelry box. I don't have much in it, and very rarely wear any of it, but I do have one. He'll plaintively ask, "I look at your beautiful things please?" He very carefully takes all of the drawers out and looks at the earring and necklaces. His favorites are a couple of old bracelets ("They look like trains. All aboard!) and a marble that I've randomly kept over the years. As soon as he saw the marble he knelt down, stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth, squinted one eye and flipped the marble out of his hand with his thumb. I don't know where he picked that up, but he did it exactly right. A bag of marbles would be a good mini-present for him if anyone's looking for ideas.
08/24/06
Mommy: Time for you pajamas.
Tommy: I want Mickey Mouse pajamas.
Mommy: They're dirty. Here are your Pooh pajamas.
Tommy: I don't like them. They dirty. I want my Mickey Mouse pajamas. They my favorite pajamas.
Mommy: Well, you can't wear them. They're dirty and stinky and have syrup on them.
Tommy: I like syrup.
Mommy: No. You can wear your Pooh pajamas or just a diaper.
Tommy: I wear just my skin. Please! It clean. <sniff> ahhh!
08/23/06
David had volleyball last night, so he wasn't going to be home for dinner or Tommy's bed time. I randomly decided I wanted KFC for dinner. Sometimes it's hard to get Tommy out of the house around dinner time, so I showed him the KFC menu options online. He got all excited about corn on the cob, and off we went. Unfortunately, our KFC didn't have corn on the cob. They just had regular corn. Did I do the sensible thing and order anyway and then deal with his disappointment after we got the food home? No. Of course not. That would have been to easy. I told him they didn't have corn on the cob. He cried. I cancelled our drive-thru order and told him we'd go someplace else to get corn on the cob. I drove over to Boston Market, singing old McDonald and telling knock-knock jokes to keep the boy awake (a dinner-time car nap would mean a difficult bedtime). Boston Market didn't have corn on the cob either. Luckily, I foresaw this complication and coached Tommy on the possibility before we got out of the car. I told him they might not have corn on the cob but that we could go in and look. If they didn't have it, we'd say "Oh, Man!" and then order something else. It would be funny if they didn't have corn on the cob, but not sad, right Tommy? His response when he looked in the case was, "Oh, Man!" Then his eyes leaked a few tears, but he furiously rubbed them away, grinned and said, "I happy now. Look! Macaroni and cheese!" I was saying "Oh, Man!" all evening when the super-salty Boston Market gave me heartburn and did nothing to relieve my KFC cravings. I should have just made plain chicken and broccoli as I'd originally planned.
08/22/06
Tommy left the back door open for a while this afternoon while he was playing. A fly got into the house. We don't usually have to worry about flies, but it's been so much more humid than usual this year that we've seen a few. This one added quite a bit of drama to Tommy's life. He noticed it before I did. I was sitting at the computer when he started running around the living room, waving his arms and yelling "Shoo fly! Don't bother me! I belong to somebody!" I let him do that for a while, but every time he'd calm down the fly would start buzzing around his head again. Then Tommy started chasing it and buzzing. I asked him what he was doing and he replied "I telling fly to go away. Flies say buzzzzz. They don't understand shoo fly." Finally I rolled up a piece of paper and went after the fly with my fly swatter. Tommy thought this was great fun until I actually felled the fly. "Poor little fly. Don't throw him away!" I put the fly out into the roses ... cough, cough ... so he could fly away later.
08/21/06
We had a pretty nice weekend, but didn't really do anything all that exciting. David and I spent most of our time reading on the couch and taking turns playing with Tommy. It's been raining like crazy here for about a month, so we either stay in because it's cloudy and wet or don't feel like doing anything because the unusual humidity makes our evaporative cooler pretty useless. Normally, the cooler keeps the house about 20 degrees cooler than outside, so in the hottest part of summer it will be 75 in the house and 95 outside. Yesterday it was 85 outside and 80 inside. Yuck.
Tommy still likes pretending to be something or someone else on a regular basis. Every night before I sing him his special lullaby I have to ask him if he's "just Tommy." Usually he'll tell me he's Baby Tommy or Curious George instead. Once I know who he is for that evening, I can adjust the words of the lullaby accordingly. If I forget to ask him, then he'll correct me in the middle of the song and we have to start over.
He also has figured out his first joke. He'll walk up to me and say "Hi Tommy (or BooBoo or Giraffe or Daddy)!" I'll say "I'm not Tommy, I'm Mommy!" We'll repeat this exchange a few times until he says "That's a silly joke." Then he laughs. He likes it if we play the joke on him too. The other day David was playing along and kept saying "Hi Daddy!" to Tommy. I took it a step further and started saying something about how he must be Daddy because he's so tall and has scratchy hair on his chin. I guess Tommy wasn't really in the mood for it that day. He got a worried look on his face, started examining his hands and said to himself "I look like a little boy. I Tommy!" We gave in then.
08/18/06
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to put up pictures of Tommy's re-decorated big-boy room. I still have a few things left to do, but you get the idea. The green wall sconce will be re-painted blue. The inside of the bookcase will be re-painted either cream or blue (that yellow sure does clash). The closet is a bit overwhelming, but there's no way we're re-painting it until absolutely necessary. I don't think the current blue looks too bad. We painted that monstrosity two times when I was pregnant with Tommy and I can certify that painting all those built-in shelves was very time consuming. We originally planned to put a dinosaur wallpaper border on the wall right above his bed, but we've just about decided not to do that at all. He has enough dinosaur pictures and posters, and it's very possible he'll cycle through new and interesting obsessions more quickly now that he's older and more opinionated. We can change the room to pirates or construction trucks or trains at any time with the way the room is now. It looks a lot bigger with the neutral walls, don't you think? By the way, he can correctly name the majority of the sharks and dinosaurs on his posters. Scary.
08/17/06
All the Krispy Kreme franchises in New Mexico closed this week. Bummer. I suppose it's probably for the best. Tommy's take on it -- "I miss creamy donuts." So far this morning he's cried because he "misses" creamy donuts, Grandma, Daddy, Daddy's friends at work, the hotel, ice cream and Bob the Builder. It's going to be a long morning. Maybe we'll go to the zoo.
08/15/06
So even though we think Tommy's song of defiance (I'm big and strong! I say no, no, no!) is cute, it's definitely an indication of what this newest stage of development is going to be like. His newest exclamation is "I have to!" We tell him he "has to" do certain things that are non-negotiable, so it makes sense that he would commandeer the language for his own use. There's just not much of a reasonable counter-argument other than repeating "no" or wandering into "because I'm the Mommy" territory. I can't believe we've reached this stage already.
08/14/06
Gah! I'm having a hard time keeping up with this site lately. It's not that the boy isn't doing cute and interesting things. I'm just tired I guess. I won't promise to do better because thoughts like that tend to make me anxious. I'll post when I feel like it. There are only 4-6 more weeks summer weather so maybe I'll feel more like sitting at the computer when it cools off. In the meantime, here's the piddly little post I was able to come up with for today.
Things That Tommy Believes With All His Heart (aka) Truths That Must Be Universally Acknowledged Or The Boy Will Argue
08/11/06 - later!
Cue Choir of Angels Singing...
"Bad Guy took my stroller to Target! He wrap it up. He sneak and sneak at night-time and hide it in Target. Mommy found it! And I helped her."
If I'd known they still carried this model and pattern at Target, I would have picked one up the same day as the theft. All that anguish was for nothing. Oh well. By this time he's thoroughly internalized the idea that taking things from people makes them feel bad. His first empathetic moral lesson!
08/11/06
Just FYI. If your 2.5 year old is playing in his tent and you suspect he has a poopy diaper, you really ought to get off the couch and check. If you ask him "Do you need a new diaper?" don't believe him when he answers "No." He's probably lying, and the eventual outcome is not pretty. Let's just leave it at that.
Sorry to be so stingy with the posts this week. I'll get back up to speed next week...hopefully.
08/09/06
Tommy's been in kind of a strange mood all week, and I'm sure the stroller incident is partially the cause. He's tired during the day, but absolutely won't nap. He's taking a long time to fall asleep at night and waking up early. He's easily upset. He's singing his song of defiance a lot (I'm big and strong! I say no, no, no!) He woke up really upset early Monday morning, crying about the bad guy and his stroller.
At the grocery store on Tuesday he saw a Muslim woman wearing traditional dress, all in black with a head covering. He quite loudly asked me if she was the bad guy who took his stroller. I guess black clothes equals bad guy in his mind. It was one of those embarrassing moments that happens when you have a 2.5 year old.
He'll kind of not think about his stroller for a while, but then regain his focus. He's absolutely sure that there's more that can be done. On his own, he's thought of the following solutions. He wants to "find police. Policeman help us catch bad guy." Next time we see our police officer neighbor outside in his uniform, I'll take Tommy over to talk to him. He says, "I learn Xiaolin Showdown then I catch bad guy. I grow bigger and stronger then I can help you Mommy." Yeah, we've already established that he watches too much TV. He asked me to "make sign for my stroller. Put picture of my favorite small stroller on it. It say 'somebody help us please.' Take poster to mall and somebody help us!" I made the sign for him, but I know it won't do any good. I'm very impressed with his creativity and persistence, but I know that there really isn't anything we can do to get that particular stroller back. I hate that he's having to learn that Mommy and Daddy can't fix everything at this young age. He refuses to even look at new strollers - even Sponge Bob or Dora ones. I think we're going to have to wait until he accepts the idea that his stroller isn't coming back before we replace it. He might not ever accept a new one. It's a good thing he's good at walking.
08/07/06
"I super Tommy.
You like my goggles? I chase bad guy. Make him give back my
stroller. Bad guy take it. Give it back! Dora and Boots help
me. Bad guy like Swiper the Fox. Swiper, no swiping! I sad.
I miss my small stroller. I don't want new stroller! We go mall look
for bad guy?"
08/05/06
Friday's important lessons...
Saturday's important lessons...
I'm kind of frightened by the fact that I might learn more lessons on Sunday.
08/04/06
Ben did this.
Yay Uncle Benny!
08/03/06
We had one of those random mornings when everything seemed to be happy and calm and just NICE. I wasn't feeling too anything this morning - not too queasy, not too hot, not too tired, not too hormonal - just nice. Tommy woke up in a good mood after a long night of sleep and wanted to play and read books more than watch TV. I got to have chocolate cake for breakfast. Tommy asked to go to the dinosaur museum and since we were both feeling good we decided to go. We both had a nice time wandering around and both felt like leaving at the same time. It was a nice morning.
08/02/06
Tommy was helping me roll coins in our electric "money machine" the other day. I told him he could have the $5 roll of dimes. He was so very excited about his money. He wanted to go and buy a pirate sword right away. I was pretty sure you couldn't get a pirate sword for just $5. I told him he'd have to wait until payday since we've bought so many toys lately. (He got the potty reward pirate ship, a couple of movies to entertain him on days when I feel really nauseated, and his 1/2 birthday tricycle last week!) So every day since then he's been carrying around his money and begging to go to the toy store. Two year olds just don't have a well-developed sense of delayed gratification.
I was feeling yucky enough yesterday that I just didn't have the energy to remind him that he had to wait over and over again. We went to Wal-Mart and now he has a pirate sword. He was very good about giving the clerk his roll of dimes to pay for it. Sadly, at the end of his very busy no-nap day yesterday I made the mistake of helping him tell David out how HE paid for his new sword with his very own money. I had some vague idea that this could all be a good learning experience about the exchange of money for goods. It was a big mistake. It just reminded him of his precious money. "Oh no! My money still at Wal-Mart. We go get it right now? Lady took my money! Where my money? I lost it. I miss my money!" He cried inconsolably for about ten minutes. He was just too tired to absorb the idea that he exchanged that money for his new sword. Poor little guy. We eventually helped him start a new roll of money in the money machine, and I think he'll be content to wait until it fills up with loose change.
08/01/06
Tommy's song of defiance...
"I'm big and strong. I say "No, no, no." I like to hit things. Bash, crash, smash. I'm big and strong. I'm Tommy!"
He sings it in a jolly sort of way, with a cheerful little melody. I don't think it reveals too much of a squashed aggressive Id. He just wants to remind us that he's bigger and stronger and more capable of damage than we give him credit for. He won't let me sing along with him. He says, "It's a song just for Tommy."
*****
A conversation with pancakes...
"No! Don't eat me! Please? I love pancakes. Oh, OK. Put a little syrup on me. Dip, dip, dip. Now I eat you! (exaggerated munching noises) Yum! You good pancake. How 'bout another?"
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