I have created a monster

... and he's pint-sized, with longish blond hair, adorable baby blues and he won't give up his sweats.

When he was even more pint-sized, all Daniel's pants came in those "break-aways" with the convenient snaps for undressing and diaper-changing. As he got bigger, and more mobile I discovered sweatpants. I mean, hey - they come in a rainbow of colors, so they go with just about everything! And they pop on and off in about two seconds when you have to tackle the kid and pin him to the floor to change any clothes.

Now if I try and put him in any "regular" clothes - jeans, cords - we are firmly in Tantrum City. Help!

On the other hand. It's possible I'm just a teensy bit jealous.

Hubbub-bub

The days of Christmas around here have been sort of a merry melee. Daniel and I were blessed with a cold each (a re-blessing for me, harumph). H worked Christmas eve - day, and then that evening we traveled out to his mother's house to spend some time with her, an auntie, a cousin and another uncle. A crank on his home turf, the change of scenery did Daniel some good. He bopped around the house looking for the trucks that his uncle keeps stashed away for just such an occasion.

We tried to gift H with the opportunity to sleep in on Christmas morn, as the sleeping in thing doesn't happen much these days. Daniel still hasn't quite copped to this whole presents / celebration thing... his reactions were pretty funny at times. What? More presents? For me? Cool!!! I hope H enjoyed the sleeping-in thing because I thoroughly anticipate that Daniel will be into the pre-Christmas buildup next year and that probably won't be happening again!

Another trip to the mother-in-law's house on Christmas Day resulted in a nice meal, twice as many people in her little house, and yep, more presents! (We have doubled our car collection, including a ride-on dump truck, among many other nice things.)

I got a big giggle out of Daniel sitting side-by-side with his three year old cousin Nicholas in their Gram's rocker watching Shrek the Third. Nicholas spilled some water, and his auntie popped off his shirt to haul it off to the dryer. Daniel thought that looked pretty cool, so despite being pretty dry he insisted that his shirt had to come off as well. Two blond shirtless monkeys giggling and watching movies was a cute picture indeed.

We're in cold recovery, and trying to keep H well. And trying to get back on a schedule again.

Reporting in, and wishing you all a Merry Christmas.

Random winter thought of the day...

What in the world is on someone's roof - or coating it - to leave almost the entire building with rusty icicles hanging from the gutters? I suppose to a certain extent it's logical that this could happen, but why don't I recall seeing more of this?

Rolling that stone

I feel like I have started about 18 different posts lately - with none of them landing on the "publish post" side of the coin. Life has just been kicking our respective behinds around here, and it's really starting to bug me. I usually have a much more relaxed season than this has been.

Tooth pain for weeks, a root canal, and car repairs for H. All while working his patootie off out in the cold.

For me: the cough without end, especially while having an MRI done on my liver where the tech is imploring me to hold my breath. The liver problem turned out benign, but the doc herself called me rather than one of the girls in the office to ask: Was I still having gallbladder symptoms? Because the MRI showed my bile duct as bigger than normal, and even absent the gallbladder there could be some debris in there which might require a procedure to remove.

Can we please stop finding things wrong with me any time now?

And I spent most of the day yesterday with my heart in my throat after Daniel took a skate in his socks across some linoleum at the favorite playspace and whacked the back of his head a good one. He was so stunned, he didn't even cry. And it is very unusual for him to clutch at me that way when I scoop him up... I think my heart rate has finally returned to normal as of Saturday morning.

Looking forward to a calm, stress-free Christmas.

Winter Denial

For someone who has lived in Michigan, frequented the wilds of Wisconsin and now resides in New England I had a healthy dose of winter denial going up until recently. The SAHM gig pretty much allowed me to miss the extended commute/gridlock many folks in this area suffered a few days ago.

Staying indoors with a 2+ year old has led to me contemplating removing every stick of furniture from his room and replacing them with one of these, however. He could sleep on one of these, couldn't he?

Do they make kiddie treadmills? (Holy cow! They do!)

Add to this - Mama dragging her heels about buying the little guy boots for the season. Last time he grew out of the darn things before we had any sort of weather! The shelves were bare at Target yesterday, and we got hit with at least 6 inches of the white stuff today. On the to-do list: 1) Find a new spot to buy boots. 2) Figure out how to velcro the mittens so that they actual stay ON his hands for more than 0.2 seconds, so that 3) we can spend some time outdoors to burn off the daily ENERGIZER TODDLER energy buildup that happens around here.

Soundtrack

E and I are longtime friends. We've known each other since high school, and through tons of moving around and "life events." She encouraged me to move to New England when I was unhappy on the West Coast, and conversely now that I am pretty firmly rooted here she is now on that other coast herself.

One of the many things E introduced me to while we were roomies is the live music/folk music scene in this area. There are fantastic small venues where one can go to hear - really hear - some wonderful performers. You can check out my sidebar for a collection of favorites. I also wanted to take this opportunity to share a video from Anne Heaton and Rose Polenzani. Beautiful voices - and how can you beat a pink ukulele?

*Cough*

Ugh. It's back. Getting a cough is like welcoming in an entity with a life of it's own, wrapping tentacles around me and refusing to let go.

I was a preemie, and my Mom has always said that my lungs must be my weak point. I have some pretty strong memories of her staying up with me while I coughed and hacked through the night. There were homemade cough concoctions/remedies often involving honey, and sometimes brandy. There was at least one episode of pneumonia when I was younger.

I have vivid and occasionally embarrassing memories of having to leave college classrooms because of the disruption my cough was making, and also of having to wave away at least one well-meaning onlooker who wondered if I needed the Heimlich maneuver or something.

Not to mention that after days/weeks of doing this, it just starts to hurt.

Have I mentioned that cough medicine doesn't do diddly-squat for me?

I had a bout of this during my second trimester and that was rough. You're pretty much allowed to take Robitussin, which might as well be sugar-water for me.

The funny thing is. When I get a cough now, Daniel can sleep right through it. It must have been all that coughing he heard in utero...

DefCon 1

Otherwise known as: Towering Temper Tantrums Batman! What happened to my sweet kid and how do I get him back/where's the reset button???

Actually I feel a little guilty typing this as he has been pretty calm today, and it has been a snow day to boot. In the past when there were squabbles about something-or-other it was always sort of: Ha, ha - how cute. How about this instead? And he would be distracted by whatever new thing you just handed him and move on.

In the past week this has turned into objections to many of the things he usually eats, emphatic objections to the new shoes Mama bought even though they are simply a larger version of a previous make/model, and a tantrum over the toy swap at our favorite playspace. The toy swap tantrum resulted in my dragging him back outside to scream rather than disrupting the playspace before he was allowed back in.

Oh, and one evening was spent coloring while screaming quite loudly: MY Cray-ons! Which I might have understood if I had been trying to do some dastardly deed like take them away. But I wasn't...

It was a little gratifying to hear from my friend Pamela that her youngest, roughly six months older than Daniel, has been doing the same thing... and that the oldest had a similar stage. I was starting to wonder if it was me!

Daniel's laser-focus on what he wants is a quality that I am going to think is pretty wonderful - when he's 18 and off to college.