A doctor?

A lawyer?

A priest?! (PLEASE GOD…very little chance of physical injury there!)

My days of wondering are over.  He made his choice plain this morning.  Despite threats, time outs, and my howling at the moon, he continues to climb onto the back of the couch and horse around….because nothing bad could happen back there, right?  I mean really, it’s against the wall and a padded surface.

Toddler face…meet wall… howling of his own ensues.

He came down crying and with an indignation only someone who was totally in the wrong could muster.  His torment lasted all of twenty seconds.

He smiled.

He laughed.

And the blood from his busted bottom lip poured down his little chest.  And pooled on my t-shirt.

Thank you son.

My son?  He will be a hockey player.

*parenting disclaimer:  I only picked up the camera when I went into the kitchen to get a clean towel with which to wipe away the torrent of blood.  This is what was left after the initial wiping. His state of total uncaring is what prompted me to take a picture.

*what you don’t see:  the nice and thankfully small, blood spatter on the wall behind the couch.  Mr. Clean:  you have your work cut out for you.

The fact that she cooks those beautiful meals with kids in the house is astounding to me.

I can pull together a decent meal but with the addition of my niece this week….ah well let’s just say, it’s tough.  Tonight I made some awesome Beef and Bean enchiladas with homemade red sauce but the recipe is a bit complicated.  See if you can follow this.

1.  Read a recipe for enchilada sauce.  Decide it doesn’t have enough garlic in it and triple it. Likewise with the onion.

2.  Saute onion and garlic in olive oil.

3.  Add a small can of tomato sauce and 1 1/2 cups of water.  Bring to a boil.

4.  Consult the recipe.  Consult the spice cabinet.  Consult the recipe.  Say, “oh hell” and throw black pepper, salt, chili powder, onion powder, oregano, basil, and cumin into the pan in varying amounts as you have available.

5.  Walk away.  Forget the pan is on the stove.

6.  Relax because it is nap time and when you can smell this odd smell in your home, then you know that the sauce has been simmering long enough that there is no longer 1 1/2 cups of water in the mix….more like a tablespoon.  Say oh hell again.

7.  Add more tomato sauce, mix well, set aside…not on a burner.  Get kids up from nap.  Do assorted duties and get back to the kitchen.

6.  Distribute snack, juice, and answer the barrage of questions from your niece:  What you doing?  Why you cooking dinner?  What is that?  What you doing?  Why you cooking dinner?  Etc,  until you are ready to faint.

7.  Pre heat oven to 350 degrees.

8. In a pan, cook hamburger, drain it, add some more onion, a can of refried beans, and some enchilada sauce.  Cook til hot.

9. Find a rectangular baking pan.  Spray with cooking oil, layer tortillas, meat and cheese, throw some sauce in there, pat down, cover with foil, place in hot oven, walk away.

10.  Referee fight between cousins.  Wonder what that burning smell.  Continue to teach your son the fine art of TIME OUT.

11.  Investigate burning smell.  Find a stray, plastic, Kitchen Aid spatula in the back of the oven.  Melting.  Yes, Oh hell again.

12.  Turn off oven.  Find metal tongs. Remove all melted plastic and the metal handle that fell completely off the spatula.  Throw in sink.  Resist urge to take picture of your misfortune.  RIP spatula.

13.  Walk away.  Turn on Jack’s Big Music Show.  Pray for and receive 15 minutes of peace.

14. Tired yet?  I am.  Answer the phone. Talk to your new principal.  Put her on hold to put your son in bed after he kicks your niece and then climbs onto the dining room table.  Chat with your principal in a more relaxed atmosphere.

15.  Check your food.  Realize you turned the oven off a long time ago and umm… did NOT turn it back on.  Declare this to be a wholly ineffective way of cooking and promise to change your ways tomorrow.  Turn oven back on.

16.  Retrieve and feed son.  Say goodbye to niece.  Realize you have not been out of the house for going on three days.

17.  Collect son for a field trip to Wal Mart.  Leave enchiladas on stove top.

18.  Come home and wonder why they look so dried out and the pan is warm.   Realize that while you turned the stove OFF you left the burner on warm.

19.  Cover your dried out efforts in foil.  Place in the refrigerator.  Know that your husband couldn’t have produced such a high quality product even under the best conditions.

20.  Get a picture from the Internetz what they should look like and call it a night.

The stores are full of back to school supplies.  I’m planning back to school meetings.  I’m working on back to school things and trying to fit some summer things into my rapidly shrinking vacation.

Last weekend, Ismael’s mother paid for us to travel to Washington, DC.  In three days’ time we spent 24 hours in the rental car which was approximately the size of a sardine can.  Adam kicked me almost all the way there, but thankfully slept a lot on the way home.  He refused most food while we were there, existing on red Gatorade and crackers.  I nearly jumped for joy when he ate a banana.  He fought with his cousins, disobeyed every rule I set, was pulled from the stairs no less than 25 times, and became even more obstinate about taking his medicine completely missing one dose.

Yesterday, after he spent the morning beating my niece here at home….

I know you had this chair first...but I sit with you....

Because if I sit here, I can push you out of the chair...

...and play the bongos on your head...

... and put you in an attempted headlock.

… having three time outs, two placements in bed, and finally one very early banishment to nap (for serious hitting, not like the pics above), I lowered his medication dose last night by 50 mg from 200 mg to 150 mg twice a day.  I double checked the side effects, and even though they are low probabilities, he has been experiencing cough (which disturbs his sleep and keeps him up for hours at night), anorexia (in a toddler?), and aggression (in some as the neurologist put it).

Today, after the first full night’s sleep in weeks, a three hour nap, and a full lunch and breakfast…

...aww c'mon... please show me your belly again so we can do another belly-bump-high-five.

What an enormous difference a day makes, eh?

I have really struggled these past few weeks knowing on one hand that almost two year olds can act like perfect little jerks and can be picky about foods and on the other that this child is simply not the child I’ve been watching grow.

When we sat down to dinner and he didn’t throw food, didn’t purse his lips shut tight, ate extremely well, and even happily tried strawberries for the first time, I allowed myself to have a glimmer of hope that tomorrow will not be as frustrating as the past few weeks.

What’s up with that?  Am I the only good mom in this town? I mean really, isn’t this what good moms do?  Publicly tackle and clean their children before taking advantage of local culture?

Yes, I thought so.

Last time mom and I took him to the train table, thinking he would play while we sipped coffee and chatted, it was a disaster.  He bolted about seventeen times and I knocked my chai latte over on the previously clean floor.  Do you know how hard it is to locate paper towels in Barnes and Noble?  Just look around next time you go.

Today though, he played joyfully for what seemed like forever, lining up the cars, pushing them through the tunnels and happily exclaiming “wheeee” as the train went down the hills.  For my part, I tried to relax and just enjoy the peace and to ignore the very pricey Thomas trains on the wall behind my son.

And then the stench.  I had briefly entertained the thought of calling Ismael at work to ask him if he changed a dirty diaper today, so I would know what I was in for this evening.  But who does that? Call her husband, at work, about poop.   Yuck.

I wish I had.  We might have avoided the train table all together or made better choices than to have used ALL of my available diaper wipes on his face prior to entering the store.

We made our way to the front where I hoped to make a quick purchase but failed miserably when I encountered the BN employee who wanted not only to tell me about their member program but also enter my email address (even though they already have it) into her computer.  Gah.

I felt like letting her in on the fact that I had a fully loaded toddler trying to escape from the jail I had made for him with my knees, effectively pinning him against the wall, while I tried to wrap this transaction up as fast as possible, to avoid picking him up and plopping him on her counter. (That is a master of run-on sentences.  You are welcome.)

“I have a loaded toddler here.  Don’t make me use him.  And give me all the cash in your register.”

That possibly may have been a poorer choice than publicly running myself out of wipes.

I often do this.  Come look at you while you sleep with a mixture of fear, relief, and joy.

When I lay you down at night, I imagine how comfortable and secure you must be.  Freshly bathed.  Clean jammies.  Your bed where you have slept most of your life; where you feel safe.  I make sure you have your loveys and pacie and kiss you good night.

And when I come back, I gaze at you and place my hand ever so lightly on your back.  I wait, almost breathless myself, just long enough to feel the movement of your breathing, reassuring myself that you are indeed sleeping peacefully.

I wonder if I will ever walk into your room at night again and not fear that I will find you having a seizure. I wonder if I will ever forget the image of your face the times I have found you in bed having convulsions.  I wonder if I will ever feel at peace again.

When I saw the chat window on Facebook pop up with the pool invitation from one of my colleagues, I barely had time to respond yes before I had scooped up Adam and we were out the door.  Her pool is significantly warmer and much more sparsely populated than our community pool.  In the 93 degree heat, a mud puddle looks good but when we can, we certainly try to upgrade.

“Drudgery can wait” is apparently  my personal motto.   “Go, Go, Goooo,” is Adam’s and he begins chanting it the moment he wakes up from his nap.

*Child in this photo may be more excited than he appears.  Shortly after this snapshot, we were singing Enrique Iglesias’s Bailamos and having our own little dance party.  We do summer up right.

Of course in my haste to get there, I took off without towels.  Adam got fussy fast and when it was time to go, it was really time to GO.  When we got in the car to leave I was missing a sock.  Being reasonably sure that I, myself, arrived wearing two socks and was sitting in the car sockless holding only one, I decided to back track and find it because ewwwww… who walks off and leaves socks at the pool??

Surprisingly, when I got home all the drudgery was still right here waiting for me, but somehow I was in a much better mood about facing it.

]]> http://halalamama.com/2010/07/04/and-so-it-begins/feed/ 1 http://halalamama.com/2010/07/04/and-so-it-begins/