A Conversation

I know I haven't blogged in a long time, and I have lots to catch up on, but that will have to wait. I just have to record the conversation I just had with Little Man.

LM: One day Daddy will die and there will be a new Dad!!
Me: What?!!
LM: Uhh... Just kidding. There will be two Daddies!!
Me: What?!! .... Wait, who will be the new Daddy?
LM: ME!!
Me: Umm... sweetie.... when you're a daddy, who do you think your wife will be?
LM: YOU!!
Me: I'm already Daddy's wife. I can only be the wife of one boy. A different girl will be your wife someday.
LM (with tears in his voice): But how will I find her?
Me: You'll have a long, long time to look. You'll find her one day, I promise.
LM: But I don't know where the temple is!!
Me: Oh, sweetie. Finding a temple will be the easy part.

The things this child worries about. He's such a little sweetie. It is starting to make sense why he wants to be a Daddy when he grows up. I think he thinks he'll get to stay with me forever if he's a Daddy. I am going to enjoy this time, when he still likes me and thinks he'll get to marry me one day. I know it won't last forever.

How did this happen?

Wow. My baby is three years old today. I can no longer even pretend there is anything "baby" about him, though. He's a full-fledged pre-schooler at this point. He is fiercely independent, cares about other peoples' opinions, and is curious about everything. He is finally starting to do some "boy" things... his most recent obsession is Spiderman and he runs around shooting webs and fighting bad guys. He jumps off of things and climbs things. He is also very, very sweet. Earlier this week, after he expounded on the Solar System, I asked him if he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. He said, "No, I'm going to have a special job." I asked him what kind of special job he wanted to have and he replied, "I just want to go on missions and be a dad." I love him more than I even knew was possible. He is a wonderful, smart, sassy, loving little man.

UPDATE: I just remembered something that I meant to blog about the big birthday bash. After LM blew out the candles, he exclaimed, "I made a wish about a dinosaur, Mom!" Super cute by itself, but I was also impressed because I hadn't coached him about what to do with his flaming cake at all. He just knew that he was supposed to blow out the candles then make a wish. What a kid!

Song and Dance

Here are a few videos of Little Man singing and dancing. I think he's got a future!

Special Boy

This is the conversation I had with Little Man this morning as I was putting him in his car seat:

LM: Mom, I really like your hair.
Me: Oh, thank you. That is really nice of you.
LM: Do you have some earrings on? Which ones do you have? (I then showed him my earrings.) I really like those earrings, Mom! I really like all of the earrings that you make!

I am feeling very grateful for my little guy today. He can be sassy and a general stinker (like any kid his age), but he is really a sweet, loving little person. He notices when I have a new pair of earrings or a new shirt and always compliments me on them. He notices when I give an exasperated sigh, and always asks why I'm feeling frustrated. He is so sensitive and so quick to notice things about people. I hope that he never loses that gift.

And have I mentioned lately how smart he is? He knows all of his letters by sight now and most of their sounds, too. He loves looking for letters ("Hey, Mom! That sign says S-T-O-P!") and figuring out what letter different words start with ("Vacuum...vvv...vvv... vacuum starts with V!"). He knows how to spell his name and can even write the first three letters of it. He's also got a great ear for music. One of the little games we play involves me humming the tune to a song he knows and him telling me what song it is. He's also really good at listening to a song and telling me what instruments he can hear. He's a big fan of jazz right now, can pick out a John Mayer song after hearing just the first few notes, and walks around singing Black Eyed Peas a lot of the time ("I've got a feeling... ").

Now if I could just get him to stay in his bed at night...

Spanish Lessons

Little Man has been doing so well on the potty. Except for today (well, yesterday wasn't great either, actually). Today was the most terrible day we've had in quite awhile. The day started off with him crapping his pants. But at least I didn't get smeared with poo like I did yesterday. Later, we were at the craft store when I looked down and noticed that he was standing in a puddle. Have you ever had to walk up to a store employee and say, "Excuse me. My son just had an accident and now there is a puddle in the bead aisle." It is mortifying. Then, as I was dragging him out to the car, I noticed that his tiny little fist was full of beads. We had to turn around and march back in to the store and return the stolen beads. Again, mortifying.

On the way home, I was very calmly asking him why he hadn't told me he needed to go potty.
LM: "But I did, Mommy."
Me:"You did? I didn't hear you say anything about the potty."
LM:"Well, I was speaking in Spanish!"

Boo-boos

Little Man is turning into quite a little artist. I just love his picture of his family and other things from around the house. He's really into Blue's Clues right now, and spends a large portion of his day walking around with his handy, dandy notebook and sketching things. On Saturday, he drew a picture that will go down in history.


LM: Look, Mom, it's you!
Me: Really? You drew a picture of me? Umm... what are those circles on my body?
LM: They are your boo-boos!

That one's going in the "To be shared with his prom date" file.

Knife to the Chest

Ugh, it's Monday again. I hate Mondays. We had a basically terrible weekend, with James playing with his band both Friday and Saturday night. We'd had a such a busy week that I really made a huge effort to just stay home and relax with Little Man. The only time we left the house was to get groceries on Saturday and to visit Grandma and Grandpa for an hour on Sunday. We rested and played and made cookies and watched cartoons. I thought I had done a good job making the weekend fun for Little Man, even if nobody else had enjoyed it. Then, this morning, as I was doing one last check in mirror before ushering everyone out the door, LM came and stood in the doorway of the bathroom and asked, "Mom? Can we just stay home and be a family today?" Ouch. I forget how perceptive he is sometimes. And how he always knows just what to say to make me melt into a puddle.

Sleeping in the Middle

There aren't alot of parenting issues that I feel strongly about, but letting kids sleep in Mom and Dad's bed is one of them. I firmly believe it should be avoided if at all possible. (I know not everyone agrees with me on this one.) Only in the last couple of months has it really become an issue in our house. Little Man has finally realized that he can choose to get out of his bed if he wants to. It gotten especially bad over the last couple of weeks. Several nights a week, we hear the pitter-patter of his little feet and then he asks, "Mom, can I sleep in your bed?" Most nights, I'm just too tired to fight about and so I pull him up and in. I was complaining to James about this last night, and he said he didn't think it was so bad, and then he started to sing this song:

• Let Them Be Little by Billy Dean

More Billy Dean music on iLike

In case you don't want to watch the whole video, the chorus is

So let them be little,
'Cause they're only that way for a while.
Give 'em hope, give them praise,
Give them love every day.
Let 'em cry, let 'em giggle,
Let 'em sleep in the middle,
Oh, but let them be little.

I rolled my eyes and moved on to other topics. Then, this morning, just as my alarm was going off, I heard that pitter-patter. I pulled him up into bed, and as he pressed his warm little body against mine, he whispered, "Thanks for saving some room for me, Mom." If I didn't know better, I'd think these boys were out to get me.

And a Happy New Year!

Ah, the holidays. There is so much frantic preparations, eager anticipation, and then *poof* it's all over in about 20 minutes. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating, but the actual day never quite lives up to the all the planning that goes into it. But, don't get me wrong. We had a wonderful Christmas, full of family parties and presents. Christmas with an almost-3-year-old is an experience that everyone should have. The great part is, Little Man gets excited about everything! As we were sorting the presents Christmas morning, he looked at his pile and exclaimed, "Holy cow, Mom! That's a lot of presents!" It was a dinosaur-themed pile of presents, but his favorite gift was his set of Tinker Toys. We've played with them nearly everyday since Christmas and Mom and Dad are definitely glad to have some new toys in the rotation.

Also in recent weeks, Little Man has found an new friend... an imaginary friend. I've been waiting for this day, actually. He's got such an imagination and is always acting out scenes from his favorite stories. And he has no one to play with her besides boring old Mom and Dad, so I've been thinking it was inevitable. His friend is a baby T-Rex named Baby Cass and LM is his momma. Whenever Baby Cass is about to make an appearance, LM sits himself down (on his nest, you know), says "Cwack, cwack. My eggs are hatching!" and Baby Cass spends the next hour or so with us. Baby Cass likes to sit in your hand and be petted, play on the Tinker Toy playground, and eat hot dogs. Today in the car, I corrected LM and told him that he would not be a Mommy when he grows up. He proceeded to have a complete break-down. James later explained to me that I had essentially told LM that he couldn't be Baby Cass's mommy and that was the reason for breakdown. I think I'll still chalk it up to the terrible threes.

Our silly little Christmas tree.
Mommy and LM getting ready to go to sledding.
Making Christmas cookies in our jammies.
Christmas morning... and the pile of presents.