Category Archives: Child Wrangling

Denouement

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It’s not surprising. It’s not heartbreaking or arresting or even a bit of a shame. It’s certainly not ironic. But I will admit that there is a rue-twinged sense to the day in which I return from my first vacation since making the tough decision to stay home full time with my child, my first weekend by myself in three years, my first flawless days since his birth, my first experience in which I not only controlled my own time, activities, and thoughts, but also had the added gift of seeing the world, this lovely world of solitude and adulthood, through the eyes granted to me by staying home full-time, eyes I would not now have had I not decided to seek to learn every day to see things from a small human’s perspective and to privilege that perspective, respect the learning and explorative needs of those eyes that take precedence for now over mine own; this day after the first time alone as the new whoever I am is exactly as terrible as could have been (and was) predicted. Not because I glimpsed my freedom and was dragged back kicking and screaming (though that is true); not because the tiny tyrant is any worse than any other day of being three years old in a family of people trying to follow an attachment parenting philosophy but hobbled by two of the participants who are prisons of the selfish lack of patience of overeducated, driven, self-absorbed thrity-somethings (for it is a day pretty average as three-year-old battles and nonsense and wonderment and bullshit go); not because I am angry that I took so long to take a break or that it will be so long before it happens again (there is no anger, there is no regret, there is only general lack of sanity and sense of futility and hopelessness  and frustration and borderline acceptance of this choice we’ve made).

No. Today is relatively awful because it’s hot and nobody slept much last night and we got locked out of the house and Peanut is glad I’m back but punishing me a bit, and is enboldened by my absence, wherein the other parental unit played by his rules rather than mine, and so the young one is trying to navigate which of his  tricks will work today, trying the crap that works on Spouse out on me, hoping I’ve changed my ways and will do something different than my new anti-yell stragegy (asking three times, warning that this is the last time I ask, then going to bed with a book…his idea of hell is my idea of the best time-out ever. ) So today sucks not in contrast with my 74 hours of self-directed living free from the hostage taker who is a brilliant, healthy, funny, loving, thoughtful terror of stubbornness and obscene and devious cleverness, but rather because it’s just one of those days.

And I think, given that it is one of those days, and that one of those days is following all three of *those* days, that I’m doin’ pretty well, thank you very much.

The defenestration of Berkeley

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Wanna know how off-the-charts bad today is? Mid-morning I taught my three-year-old the word “defenstrate.” And used it in a sentence with him as the object.

He wanted to know if you just throw somebody if that’s defenestrating. Nope. If you throw somebody *at* a window, is it defenestration? Nope.

“Please don’t throw me out of the window, Mommy.”

“I won’t babe. I would never do anything to hurt you, and defenestration might hurt. I would never do anything to scare you, and defenstration might scare you. I just really need you to know the word defenestration right now because I really, really, really thought about it a minute ago.”

“Oh. [beat.] Which window you thinkin’ bout, Mommy?”

Any of ’em, sweetie. All of ’em.

Want to hear a few more? Of course you do. All just from today…

Unsolicited, screeching, as I tried to distract by offering to read several new library stories, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! I’m driving you nuts, Mommy!”

Throwing a fistful of toys in the air and yelling, “Rooooooar! I’m really not nice today!”

Clawing at my face, “Mommy I show you how that tree scratch me and then I go out and hit that tree!”

Oh my word, he’s making me earn every minute of child-free rest I’ve been promised this weekend. Virgin America, take me away. [I can’t put this post in the “shoot me now” category, which I reserve for godawful days, because then I wouldn’t get this, my first weekend away. So don’t shoot me now. Please.]

Underestimating kids…

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Peanut is a trooper. Though he is a Tasmanian Devil of energy and freakishness and age-appropriate irrationality, I am often surprised at his moments of calm, reflective, general good naturedness. I shouldn’t be. Add it to the list of reasons I’m a crappy parent, or reasons to send me a free TV. (Seriously. Send me a TV.)

Today we went hiking. We were supposed to be at the dentist, but the dentists here, as in L.A., are charlatan assmunchers who want to build swimming pools in their backyards so they can show you pictures on their iPhones of how ducks have landed in their pool. Jerks. Plus,  their staff called to cancel, saying the dentist had surgery, even though the exam was done and this was just a cleaning, so i crossed them off, aand they called later to say, oops, we’re dumb, game on and I said no way bitches, I’m going hiking. Or, maybe, I said, so sorry but let’s reschedule. One of the two.

So Peanut and I went hiking. Slightly overcast, a little chilly. Quite nice as spring hikes go because we could wear long on long and didn’t need much sunscreen. One minute in it’s drizzling. Ten minutes in it’s pouring. We have sixty more minutes to go because he wants to go to the Little Farm and there ain’t no way I’m going the easy way when I’m 3000 pounds over racing weight and feeling like making up lost (crutches) time. So. Off we go. Thank heavens he picked the stroller over the backpack. ‘Cuz I’d rather slide down a mountain in running shoes caked with five inches of slippery mud than slide down a mountain in study hiking boots with a 30 pound kid strapped to my back.

So he’s talking about the rain and the dogs and keeping a tally of how many people we see versus wildlife. Fine. He’s mentioning that he’d rather be at home. Not gonna happen, but you’re entitled to your opinion. I know the whining will begin, so I offer snacks. He passes on the super awesome tube of carrot appleasauce because he says he wants to save it for when he’s at the farm where there are new piglets. You want your squishy sauce later because it’s more fun to eat when you’re watching piglets?

Yes.

So when the whining begins, 45 minutes into the freezing, sleeting, drenching hike, I ask if he wants his sauce. He frowns at me, like I’m stupid. “No, I’m waiting for the pigs!” Oh. Well, did you know it’s pudding day and I have pudding, too? so you could have sauce now and pudding with the pigs…

Big smile. Huge smile. “No way. I want pudding now and save sauce for farm. Pudding day?!”

Yeah. It’s Tuesday. Everybody knows Tuesday is pudding day. (Or, realistically, everybody who counts their days not as workdays and weekends but as interminable days of sameness and neverendingness and milestonelessness knows Tuesday is pudding day. And Wednesday is movie day. And Thursday is library day. And Friday is chocoolate day. Because if we can get through Friday alive, Mommy can pretend that’s a milestone.)

So I slid/skiied down the trail in running shoes, dragged by the 900 pound jogging stroller, and screaming “Sh*t” every dozen feet as I think we’re gonna plunge off…okay, not off anything, but overturn into a big puddle of mud because I’m not such a terrible parent that I take his stroller, the one time he asks for it, on a  narrow cliff path. But I scream sh*t just because I want to and don’t really want to be soaked and muddy when I meet the new piglets. I also kind of avoid overturning jogging strollers because bruised and broken kids don’t let you go jogging next week.

He polished off the pudding and told me that this was his best pudding ever, EVER, and if it’s ever raining again, he wants to go hiking.

Damn, kid, you’re one in a million. (That means, if you were Chinese, there’d be thousands of you, but as it is, there are only 300 or so like you in this tiny country.)

I totally underestimated you.

Spring in my step

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So last week’s experience at a potential preschool has me doing ill-advised cartwheels (seriously, our house is small, there’s crap everywhere, and I’m old and not so bendy anymore in the adductor region) about my family’s freaking growth and development as decent human beings.

What the hell is in their Kool-Aid, you ask? Well, we don’t like that kind of talk around here. (Kool-aid is not on our preferred beverage list. “What the hell is in their unflavored rice milk, dammit” is more like it. Thank you.)

I can’t quite put my finger on it. Other preschool tours made me feel I wasn’t being something enough…one made me feel not stern enough, one made me feel not musical enough, one made me feel not detached enough. This preschool we just visited, though, made me feel that the approach I’ve always wanted is possible, and that with a few new techniques Spouse and I can be even more of the parents we envisioned when we had a good, old-fashioned panic attack about a little pink line.

Tell you this much…since the preschool visit I have been patient and hopeful and calm. Without feeling put out or thwarted or martyr-y. I’m doing stuff now because I want to, not just because several generations of Drs. Sears say so. I’m offering two yesses for each no because it makes sense and it’s fair. I’m more relaxed about telling Peanut what I need because I know I’m meeting his needs. I’m setting up sensory stations in the dining room and smiling as a paint-covered Peanut streaks the wall with purple then offers to clean it.

And the conflict resolution the potential preschool uses is TOTALLY working! How? Well I’ll tell ya. Peanut hits Spouse. A lot. To be fair, just between you and me and the ninety other people who read this blog, Spouse totally deserves it, but I can’t say that to Peanut, who is confused by the idea that grabbing stuff and blocking people from things, and generally not letting a person use their own body in ways they stinking want to is not nice, unless you’re big and lacking in patience.  So I  started taking each by the hand and asking the one more recently violated what he wants to say to the other. Then when he finishes, I ask the most recent offender what he wants to say. And back and forth until they stop. Then ask is there anything else you want to say? Each takes a turn. Then “does anybody need a hug?” It’s really freaking awesome because Peanut got the technique immediately, without a seven hour explanation from me, and always has one more thing to say.  Spouse never has anything else to say except, “No. Nothing to say, I just love you.” And when asked, Spouse always says he needs a hug.

Get this. Peanut always gives him one. Who are these people? Where do I sign up for this school? Oh. Behind the forty other families waiting to get in for September? I see. Is there anything for those of us who would like to have our lives back sooner, rather than later? No? Okay.  I’ll take your life-affirming techniques and apply them at home. Thanks. See you when he’s almost four.

So this potential preschool has Spouse and Peanut talking and hugging, has me running around joyfully placing tubs of dry beans and brownie tins full of raw flour and different sized scoops all over the house. What’s in the unflavored rice milk? Don’t know. But I’m getting a subscription on Amazon so it’s delivered every three months at a 15% discount.

Pleasant toddler movies: update

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So I’ve taken your suggestions from an earlier post. And I’ve watched a billion movies for small people in an effort to find sweet, non-violent, non-scary, non-gender-stereotyped movies for small people. Here’s what I’ve found (spoiler: most are shorter shows, not movies):

We still love Signing Time. The pace is great, the tons of kids that come in thirty-one flavors makes us feel good, and the language skills built by children who learn sign language are all reason enough to watch these half hour segments. The best, though, is watching real parents and kids talk, with sign language, about feelings and activities. Captivating. It’s a very simple series, where you learn one word at a time, and build to a song that uses five or six of the key words you’ve learned. Catchy, catchy tunes. Check your local PBS station…they may play it weekly. If not, the videos are available though the Signing Time Foundation and the regular DVD sources.

Kipper is the sweetest, more unassuming, thoughtful animated show I’ve seen. He engages in all manner of roles, defying conventional gender and species stereotypes. He’s caring, has lovable friends who each have their own quirks. The gently drawn cartoons are 10-15 minutes each, which is perfect for limiting tv time. I love Kipper. He was clearly a sling puppy.

Maisie is pretty sweet, too. Another loving character who has endearing friends. Longer episodes than Kipper.

Planet Earth: watched with a finger on fast forward for the carnivore scenes, this is a gorgeous, sweepingly breathtaking tour around the planet. My favorite, though not Peanut’s. And since we only watch once a week or every other week, he never chooses it. But I’ll pop it in on movie day when I want to row, so he knows I get to choose some things, and he doesn’t have to watch Office Space, which I think is a little much for the preschool crowd.

Charlie and Lola. A bit tough for some American kids to get used to the accent, but once they do it’s a funny and loving pair of siblings. Probably best for ages 4 and up or the humor is lost on them. For ages 2 and up it’s good to see how gently Charlie treats his little sister, and to see how to creatively handle age appropriate behavior. As with all our other favorites, nothing sinister lurking in the shadows, no gender stereotypes, and no violence. The Christmas one leans pretty heavy on the fantastic and on Santa Claus as real dude, but maybe that’s your family’s thing, too.

Bob the Builder: surprisingly good…characters who are generally nice (some mocking, and really requires parental supervision to explain some of the poor choices the characters make). Interesting stories, anthropomorphized trucks. Exactly what most kids want. (I try to limit Bob movies because the episodes each involve me way more than I want out of a video, but especially because he’s one of those characters who appears on everything from toothpaste to shoes, and just don’t want to fight the character-marketed crap battles. But the videos themselves are quite nice.)

Backyardigans: some nice music and lovely focus on imagination, but very gender stereotyped, and often not ideal behavior (refusing to share, sarcasm, mocking others, vanity, etc). Peanut loves them. I spend way too much time discussing why there are better ways to treat people.

The Snowman: Of all the 1970s book adaptations, this is the most gorgeous, sweepingly epic and wonderful. Many of the old Westwood Woods book adaptations are fun, but some have of namecalling, violence, and menaces.

Boobah: Why do I love this show so much? Seriously? It’s goofy and nonsensical and musical and dancy, but I still tolerate it. It’s as though Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Twyla Tharp had a lovechild and raised it, frustratingly, on Teletubbies. Once grown and on her own, she responds with Boobah–the way lumpy, brilliantly colored characters ought to be.

Little Hard Hats: great for when you don’t want animation, or when you miss the garbage trucks on garbage day and are jonesing for some heavy lifting. Real people and live action of trucks. Descriptive but not over the head of a two year old, eco-focused without being preachy.

Didn’t cut it:

Winnie the Pooh: the films and the show have scary elements, and the older pieces have guns. But no name-calling. Thanks goodness for small favors.

My Neighbor Totoro: I adored this film, but Peanut was terrified when the little girl went missing and the authorities dredged the pond. Gross fear of death not his favorite in filmic entertainment.

Disney films: dead mothers, animal cruelty, princesses who can’t do anything without a price, menacing evil around every corner. After I previewed a few, I gave up on Disney. update: Even Frozen, which finally embraces the power of girls to find their own way in the world without male rescuing, has the snow monster and witch hunt. Too scary.

The Muppet Show: I didn’t remember it being so sarcastic and violent. But the love I have for those puppets stems from watching in my tween and teen years, when all that is less sinister. Not for littles.

Veggie Tales: seriously? really? the first episode we saw (at a friend’s house) was about being selfish. We’re trying to parent without labeling and name calling. We talk about behavior in positive terms and this series is just too heavy handed with the “proper way to act” stuff. Reminiscent of some of the least appealing Richard Scarry “pest” narratives that moralize in annoying 1950s ways.

Curious George (the series not the film). Like the science projects and the monkey. Don’t love marketing crap or the absentee parenting of old Mr. Worst Parent Ever.

So. Signing Time and Kipper and Little Hard Hats and The Snowman and Maisie. Then Charlie and Lola and Boobah and Planet Earth. Then Bob the Builder and Curious George. Not a big fan of the other stuff.

What about at your house?

Well, nobody is bleeding, so I guess it was a good day

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Spouse gave me a glorious day of writing as penance for the two trips he’s taken this month. I ate, I wrote I breathed with my eyes closed a few times. I got in and out of the car with ease, and managed not to have a meltdown over situations large or small. It was a good day. I hit 80,000 words, and not just schlock. Stuff I could put my name near, if not on.

I came home at 7:30, at which point in a regular day dinner is done, the house is tidied (by a three-year-old, so it ain’t spic-n-span, but still, toys are in their place), bath is done, jammies are donned, teeth are brushed, and stories are underway. Tonight, though, at 7:30, I walked in, and a mud and blueberry smeared boy greeted me, beaming, at the door. He was finishing his cereal, covered in marker tatoos and stamps. The house looked like a bomb filled with puzzle pieces, toy cars, bristle blocks, a miniature tea set, and cat vomit went off. The sheets, which I change every Sunday, were full of sand from a post-playground nap.

To be fair, the bath was already drawn, the kid had a burrito and banana before the cereal, and the cat vomit was all over my stuff, so it’s understandable that it got overlooked.

So I put my happy, smeared, tatooed boy to bed and thanked his father for the day of writing. ‘Cuz if we ever get a room of our own, we’re willing to tolerate an awful lot in the sandy, blueberried, markered, late for bed department.

At least I didn’t come home at 10, like I prefer to on my increasingly frequent days off. They might have been doing shots and playing poker.

And having a damned fine time.

Conundrum

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We found the perfect preschool for us. Actually, I found it online six months ago as we moved the first time, but I’ve been busy going in and out of escrow four times and to a conference and on holiday vacations and through a prolongued lawsuit, so aside from listing the top ten preschools I wanted and making a table of when tours and open houses and applications and fees are due, I haven’t made much progress. Applications for all the local preschools were due several months ago. It’s like grad school all over again…you apply a year early and then sit in limbo for months. I thought the Pope eliminated limbo, in yet another, “sure the Pope is infallible, but now I’m Pope and my infallibility trumps the dead guy’s infallibility. No really, I’m sure this time; don’t question me. No, I’m not going to change the Bible, too, because it’s been changed millions of times by people a lot less infallible than me, but it’s really done this time. It’s the final draft, because the word of God can be changed until people start noticing, then it’s final. The Book of Mary? Never heard of it.”

Small problem, y’all. I need preschool, like, now.

So we’ve toured several preschools. Peanut and I have the same opinion of all of them, and loved, loved, loved the school we saw this week—the school whose online program description made me cry because I finally felt safe letting a preschool community help care for my kid. (Yes, I am overly involved in my child’s development and life. It’s a little thing called mothering. Look into it.)

(Sorry. That was snarky. I just don’t like the collectively raised eyebrows I just heard as I admitted that a preschool philosophy made me cry…I feel like jumping on my desk [who am I Tom Cruise?] and hollering “you don’t know me. You don’t know my life. Don’t judge me!”)

You can see how easily I’ll fit in with the laid-back earthy co-op preschool we’ve chosen, btw.

Being at the school made us happy. Leaving the school we were happy. I had more patience than I’ve had in months, a new perspective that, unlike other schools, made me confident in my parenting style and confident that a community of likeminded parents will help me be better every day. I even set up stations in our living room, dining room, and kitchen last night, inspired by the way Peanut played so intently and earnestly at the school This morning has been a dream of cooperation and constructive interaction and structured but uncoercive play.

Anyway, we have two problems. The first is that the waiting list is at least 40 families, for the fall semester. I was hoping for the “how does next week sound” semester. But it’s my fault we’re way behind. We knew last year we were moving, and to which approximate area. I could have done all the work and had him in now. But seriously, it’s preschool. I have books to finish and an academic career to reinvent and a corporate career to beat off with a stick and a family to foster, here, and I…ah, what the hell. Admit it. I’m lazy. I’d rather blog than call for preschool tours. Sue me. I need a local dentist, too, and that’s even further down the list. Right next to “edit all the video we’ve shot of Peanut in the past three years”.

Second issue, other than the serious uptick in my caffeine consumption today, is that there is a much, much, much shorter waiting list for the afternoon program. So if I want school asap, I have to begin a bootcamp of earlier naptimes, or let Captain  Caveman skip nap three times a week (and inflict the resulting frustrated, emotional, out-of-control lump that is a napless three-year-old on the other kids after lunchtime) to get into the afternoon program. He’s already said he needs naps and doesn’t want school in the afternoon. He said this today after refusing nap for more than an hour as he rammed cars and trucks into each other on the floor for quiet time.

So wait or cram my kid into a schedule that will fit my need for free time? I should get a sitter a few times a week until we get into the school. But that would involve research, and unless you can find it in a Melvyl search of Berkeley’s Doe library, I just can’t be bothered. (That’s right, even Moffett is too much to ask. Bancroft I’d consider.)

It’s official…

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The single reason my son is a terror and I am a writhing mess:  lack of sleep.

I suspected it, but thought there might be greys and nuances and spectra. Nope. He slept through the night last night, and I got a full eight hours uninterrupted by cat or child or snores (you know who you are) or trains. And I was a peach today. So was my kid. We had a grand old time. He told me this was his best day ever. He’s three. He should know.

Don’t know how to decree an official mandate on sleep, but I right now hold aloft my sword and declare this family will commence giving me nights like that every night for-freaking-ever more.

Else rue the day.

As they have been for years.

I’m not sure if you heard me….

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Leave it to ck…she gets to all the good posts first.  But our version, over here at the Insanity Warehouse where even the insanity is on sale and going fast, went a little something like this:

setting: public bathroom at a Berekely playground
time: an iota before naptime

Me: Peanut, sweetie, please don’t touch the walls while we’re in the bathroom
P: Why?
M: Because bathroom walls are dirty.
P: Why?
M: Well, there’s no ceiling and nobody who cleans these walls so the rain and the mud and the germs all just stay here.
P: Why?
M: Same reason I just told you. My answer hasn’t changed.
P: [grabs chain that blocks off bathroom, ineffectively, during after-hours]
M: honey, please don’t touch that.
P: Why?
M: Because it’s dirty. It’s part of the bathroom, it doesn’t get washed, and it’s dirty.
[everyone voids, everyone sanitizes. And Peanut grabs the chain again.]
M: Hey! Peanut. Please don’t touch that.
P: Why?
M: Do you remember me telling you before?
P: Yes.
M: Then why shouldn’t you touch that?
P: Be. Cuz. It. Dirty.
M: That’s. Right. [he has thing thing about breaking out syllables when I bore him. I have this thing about repeating his cadence. Because it diffuses my anger and because it’s fun.]
I went back into the bathroom for a moment to toss a tissue from my pocket and I hear the chain.
M: PEANUT! I just told you not to touch that. [dash back out to stop him and am greeted by:]
P: [blank stare]
M: Do you remember me telling you not to touch that?
P: Yes.
M: Do you know why we don’t touch that?
P: Yes.
M: Why did you touch that?
P: Because I want to touch it and I no want listen to you.
M: Would you like it if I didn’t listen to you?
P: No.
M: How do you think it makes me feel when you don’t listen.
P: Sad. An-ry.
M: Yes. So please listen when I say no touch.
P: No.
M: I’m sorry? What?
P: I. Say. No. I. No. Want. Listen.

Okeedokee.

I. No. Want. This. Job.

One step back, now two steps forward

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I have to say, while Peanut is in his room noisily refusing to sleep whilst concocting an elaborate triage center for his stuffed friends and the various wheeled vehicles that will rush them, surprisingly free of gore (for he is three and lives a sheltered life by design), to the doctor’s kit wherein they will be asked to give a urine sample and listen to Peanut’s heart; that he’s turning into an interesting creature.

It’s not true that things that don’t kill you make you stronger. For parents, that which does not kill you makes your kids stronger and more compelling humans. We’re still whittled down to nubs, but they blossom in the compost of our selfhood.

[pause while I go to the now open door and remind him that during quiet time he has to stay in his room. “Why?”  “Because the whole rest of the day is about what you want, and right now is about mommy wanting your body and brain to rest and grow.” “Why?” Because I’ll die right here if you don’t give me an hour of peace. “Because that’s the rule in this house.”]

Ahem. Where was I? Oh, yes, offering organic flesh ripped from my sanity as fodder for Peanut’s growth. Reread the Giving Tree when you have a chance. It’s about sacrifice and shriveling up into relative uselessness. Together.

That Shel Silverstein is another San Franciscan who knew his left from his right, eh?

The smiling fun of past two days are more than just my joy at being healthy, off crutches, in the bright light of spring, surrounded by flowering plum and cherry trees, and finally home again. Nope. This is about the trough in the parenting roller coaster that follows a week or two or three of every-cell-fraying individuation. This is the afterglow of personality development. This is the necessary calm in the storm that is growing up, the respite that allows moms to breathe, just for a moment, and to smile at the beautiful creatures they are lucky enough to have met.

Oh, I love you, little character.

“The Unfinished”

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It has taken several days for me to finish D.T. Max’s New Yorker article, biography of sorts, of David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel The Pale King. The article is moving, and includes correspondence from Wallace to Franzen and DeLillo, and quite a bit from his wife, Karen Green, whose pain I cannot even fathom and would love more than anything to salve with…what I don’t know. Because it’s none of my business, but if I cry reading a biography what must she do living in it?

Aside from being a touching portrait of an intensely intelligent writer who wanted simply to make readers feel “less alone inside,” and who in that quest felt increasingly more alone (except in the sunshine that was his marriage…thank heaven for Karen Green, who from the article I gather made him feel more at home and comfortable in his own skin than, it seems, anything else could outside really great writing).

What compelled me yesterday, reading the final pages of Max’s article (I still haven’t read the new piece of fiction that follows—I can’t yet) was Wallace’s root idea for The Pale King, as he articulated it in a typed note amongst his papers: “Bliss—a second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious—likes on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious things you can find…and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.”

I think that technicolor bliss can probably come after any intense “almost kills you” period of intense focus on undesirable emotions (fear might work as well as boredom).  As melodramatic as I oft am, I know that the weeks of intense three-year-old battling, of taking each breath as though it might be the only thing that could keep me going, is part of what made yesterday, a gorgeous, sun-filled day of hiking and strawberries and camaraderie with Peanut, the second-by-second bliss it was.

It was not a perfect day. It was a perfect-as-human-existence-can-get-if-you-have-a-dollop-of-realism-adorning-the-top-of-your-daily-trifle day.  And I’ll take it.

Pissing me off

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We thought we were lucky that Peanut potty learned pretty early. Started using the toilet regularly around 15 months and took himself out of diapers at 21 months. Did it all himself, the little control freak, which was great. Except since it was all self directed and all about control, when he’s mad at one of us he pees in inappropriate places.

I’ve been trying for a month to break the peeing in the cat box thing. Tried reasoning with him, tried empathy (would you like it if they peed on your toys or in your bed?) Tried making a hard and fast rule. “In this house, we pee in the toilet.” He told me, as you know, that this is not his house, and at his house he and his dog pee in the cat box all the time. Why he and his dog even have a cat box, considering the disdain they have for cats, is beyond me.

Anyway.

Today he pees in his pants. I ask him if he can tell me why. He says, “Yes. Okay. One reason I just feel like it. One reason it just easier.” We talk about that one. If it’s just easier to pee in your pants, that’s called a diaper. If you just feel like it, I feel like ignoring you and working on my book, but it doesn’t work that way. So I reiterate where we pee and why.

Later, I walk in the bathroom and find a dustpan on the floor, full of a supsicious yellow liquid. It’s near the cat box, so either they got pissed at his piss and chose a new target, or he just tried a little something new.

M: Peanut?
P: [running in] What?
M: Can you tell me a little about what this is in the dustpan?
P: And on the floor.
M: [biting tongue] And on floor…
P: Yes. I pee, pee, pee in dustpan. And on floor.
M: Hmmm. You know peeing on the floor makes me frustrated bcause it’s slippery and dangerous and stinky and germy. And you know we only pee in potty. Mommy pees in potty. Daddy pees in potty. Can you tell me why you did this?
P: Yes. One reason I pee on floor in sweeper I just want to. One reason [and he looks me dead in the eye for this one] I just no like your rules.

We talk about why there are rules. Tile floors with urine on them are slippery. People fall and get hurt. Also pee is germy and we don’t want to get sick.

Also, and this is just for you who can read—I’m really f—ing tired of this. My cousin says floating targets will make the toilet more appealing. My aunt says move the cat box (and now, apparently, the dust pan). Our pediatrician says blue food dye in the water so he can make it green.

I say there are a few rules you don’t get to not like. Seat belts. Teeth brushing. No hitting, biting, kicking, scratching, pinching, or hurting anything that breathes. And seriously? Seriously. Seriously. There’s only one place to pee.

At Daddy’s office. Is it Take Your Daughter to Work Day? I’ve been asking that for three years and it has never been take your daughter to work day. He has long, curly hair and wears pink shoes. Please take him to work.

Maybe it was the boogeyman

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Spouse is out of town, and I get very nervous when I’m here alone. It’s better with Peanut here, but I still hear noises, triple lock the door, get weirded out by windows. That kind of nervous.

When the wee one and I got home from the grocery store this evening, I couldn’t find the compost. I could swear Spouse took it out last night and left it clean and empty, just waiting for eggshells this morning. I swear. Where is it? Nowhere.

So I start to get a little paranoid. What if some freaky creepball has figured out how to get in. Doesn’t rob us, doesn’t harm us. Yet. Just plants the seed in my brain by taking the compost. A little teaser. A I Know What You Put inthe Compost Last Summer kind of thing. I start to get freaked out. I look in the garage, I look in the rooms, I check closts. Because serial killers who get their jollies knowing how scared their victims are often hide in closets. Or garages.

Then I look at Peanut. He’s holding, metaphorically, Occam’s Razor in his hand, and trying to stuff it into his new fire engine. To wit: one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. Or, in laypeople’s terms, don’t make up serial killers when you have a garbage-fascinated three-year old right next to you.

Me: Did you move the compost?
Pea: No.
M: I can’t find it. Have you seen the compost?
P: No. I no touch compost. Trash dirty. No way touch it.
M: I know, sweetie. I’m sure you wouldn’t touch it. But did you move it?
P: No. Maybe cats do it.
(Oh, crap.)

I search until I find it behind the couch, crawling with about three trilion ants. I explain again why we don’t put food in the living room. I explain again why telling Mommy what really happened is important, even if we want the answer to be different.I explain surprisingly calmly, considering it took me three weeks to get these same ants, or the little bastards who look just like ’em, to leave the house last month.

P: [thinking] Maybe the cats move it.
M: Well, Peanut, the cats don’t have hands, and the compost weighs more than they do. So I don’t think that’s what happened. Why did you move it to the living room?
P: Uuuuuuummm, I take it for walk, walk, walk, walk, put it in living room, there no room my train, I put it next couch.
M: I see. Well, thanks for moving it out of the way, so nobody trips on it, but compost stays in the kitchen. I know it’s fun to go walking with a big bag. Next time you can ask Mommy and we’ll find a good bag, one that’s empty and that you can fill up, okay?

That is, unless the serial killer hiding in the closet moves the bags before we can get to those, too.