reading, writing and rithmatic

This is really written to Toby to read a later point where he will care about my sappy ravings about him. But feel free to enjoy as well.

Toby, you amaze me. Every day with you is a huge adventure and your sense of playfulness makes most of my bad days better and my good days become incredible. When I was pregnant with you I never really took the time to dream about the man you would become, or even to consider the boy that would get you there. And I'm glad because you have blown any expectations I would ever have come up with clear out of the water.

Today you are 3 years, 4 months and 2 days old. To make you happy, we'll round it up to 3 and a half. And on the way home from school today I had the joy of watching you learn about syllables and how to count out how many were in words. Then I was in awe as you remembered all of the words we counted through to repeat later.

When I take you to the store you are so desperate to know how to add that you make the numbers on the shelves into math equations. $5.99 turns into 5+9=9. Every once in a blue moon you get one right but I love how you keep trying, every single time.

And letters! I almost laughed myself into a fit when your teacher Mr. Tyheem was telling me how we needed to work on your grip so you could learn to write a little better... apparently they didn't realize you were doing all of that with your non-dominant hand! Stinker! Every day I watch you learn to spell a new word and bathtime used to just be for bathing but now it is a learning adventure with spelling all the words you know and then putting letters together to try to spell ones you aren't sure about. Very soon you will be reading on your own and spelling out words we don't want you to know won't be so effective.

I love that God blessed me with such a special child. I love that you don't have a clue that you are leaps and bounds ahead of the kids in your class but that you just love them for being who they are. In the years to come you are going to challenge me more than I have ever been challenged and force me to know more than I ever thought I would need to know. But for today when you are 3 years, 4 months and 2 days old; I can just rejoice in the fact that you are a little boy who loves his mommy and how your little face lights up when I come to the door of your class. I love you buddy!

the garbage police

Toby woke up on the majorly wrong side of the bed this morning. He has gotten old enough to understand that there are days that I have off work and that I take him to school anyways. Most days he doesn't mind. This was NOT one of them.

I spent the morning dealing with his emphatic refusal that he was going to school. While I was in the bathroom, he was walking around the house muttering like an old man that he didn't think it was fair that he had to go, that he wanted to go to Grammy's house all by himself and that he'd just stay in the house alone while I went to the store. I was in the bathroom laughing quietly to myself because he sounded so darn funny.

On one of his laps he had to go into the kitchen to throw something away. I heard the lid to the garbage can open and then I heard "WHAT is this? Is this popcorn? Did someone have popcorn?" I walked around the corner to see the little squirt holding the bag from my "midnight snack" (a tasty empty bag of Orville Redenblahblahbockers popcorn). He had it up out of the can and was looking at me with this look of shock and horror. How DARE I eat popcorn once he was in bed?

I didn't ever realize that a little child can make you feel so guilty. I didn't feel bad about taking him to school on my day off. But man, oh man, did I feel like I was the kid and my parent had just busted me for smoking a joint or sneaking a beer.

Next time I need to remember to put a dirty pullup or a cat turd in the garbage last!

I'm scary

I learned something about myself today.

Took my kid to an end of summer bash at his school. Kick ass good time with water slides and painting and soap mountains. My kid was having a blast once he realized the water slide wasn't out to hurt him.

Now, in every group of parents there are the ones like me - vultures who watch their child and his every move. Then there are the OTHER parents. The ones who go inside to eat dinner while their kid hurdles down a water slide with no adult supervision. The ones who watch their kid push a little 2 or 3 year old out of their way, shove them down the slide, slide down on top of them and just smile with that little "what can you do" look.

Well, what I learned about myself today is that while I am a good mommy, if your kid lays their hand on MY kid again and pushes him, hurts him or scares him one more time and you aren't willing to do anything about it... your kid might end up on a little detour behind that water slide and he might just trip over my monster sized foot and land in the mud. Just maybe

Bounce houses

Today my child overcame his fear of bounce houses. We went to MOSI and I made him get in one cause really, it's about time that he suck it up and get over it. These things are just like a giant balloon.

Until he got in it. At first, he was kind of wandering around with a bounce bounce here and a bounce bounce there. Here a bounce, there a bounce... Oh look, a slide!!! Up the rubber steps we go. Sit down and slide. Sit down and slide. Lay down and slide head first. Throw yourself in the air at the top of the slide so as to get maximum bounce when you hit two feet down the slide.

And now that Mommy has gotten her panic and her child's creativity in the giant evil balloon, well let's just say... mommy is gonna think before she encourages any more "getting over it"

I am sooo screwed

My son is 3 years old. That is his number in age. Mentally, he the age of a 34 year old sarcastic female. Well, maybe a 35 year old since he seems to have outdone me and leaves me shaking in my head. His vocabulary is beyond most grown ups. He corrected my mother's grammar the other day. But my absolute favorite part is his sarcasm.

I assume he is being sarcastic. But he usually says things and seems totally innocent. Like the ban on potty words except in the bathroom. And my kid who is sitting in the bath talking about his butt and farts and poop. And when I corrected him, telling me he is IN THE BATHROOM.

Or today when he was laying in his bed "taking a nap" and he kept talking. My mom asked him why he wasn't sleeping. And he said he was. Then she asked how he was sleeping if he was talking. And he replied he was "talking in his sleep, about you.".... lyrics from a song called "Bushel and a Peck"

And on and on it goes. At least once a day this kid does something that makes me wonder what padded room I will be in when he is 15. I love his wit and his weirdness. I love that he says these crazy things and while you are laughing so hard you almost choke, he asks why you are happy. But man, I am soooo screwed!

Time flies

It's hard keeping up with a blog. Having never done one before I guess I didn't realize that your thoughts don't just type themselves up. In the time since I have last been on here, my baby has turned THREE and learned to ride a bike (with super cool training wheels), taken up soccer and has developed such the imagination. Yesterday we went to the beach for the first time to collect shells and see the water... the story below happened on the way home from the beach.

Mommy: okay kiddo, time to go home
Toby: Okay mommy, I'm tired....

then it goes south

Toby: we're going back to the beach, we're going back to the beach (for approximately 30 minutes after leaving the beach he is singing this song)

Mommy: hey kiddo, you want some fruit snacks
Toby: yeeeeaaaahhh! (handed a bag of Toy Stoy fruit snacks)

quiet from the backseat for approx 5 min
then I hear

Toby: (to T-Rex fruit snack) you do realize that if you go in there, you are never coming back?
Mommy: What?!?!?
Toby (now channelling Buzz and Woody): T-Rex, that is a mouth. If you go in there, you will get chomped up into little pieces and you will never come back. Don't do it Rexie, don't do it!

Mommy: silent laughter with tears rolling down her face

Where do they come up with this stuff???

His father's child after all

Tonight you made me so very sad. In a fit of anger because I wouldn't let you do something or another, you tore the growth chart off your door and ripped it up. In that one moment when I opened your door and I saw what you had done, every broken precious thing to me that your father threw and broke, smashed into the wall and broke... it all came flooding back. That little chart means nothing to you. As a child, it's just another piece of paper hanging on a wall. But to your mother it was two years of memories. Two years of tracking your growing and watching you turn from a little pudge ball of a baby into a skinny young little boy. You are on your way to being a man and all I can pray is that mean hearted spirit that inhabited your father does not live strongly in you. And tonight my heart is sad. Because I am afraid that no matter how I raise you, at the heart of you will always lie some of those "sins of the father"... and your father was such an ugly person on the inside. And in the way you showed no remorse for destroying something that meant something to me, oh... so sad