A Day in the Life

Hi, guys. This is my horse. I'm the one on the horse. That's me, Mal. Pretty cute, right?

I'm twenty months old today, and I thought you might like to know what my days are like. I'll tell you one thing: When I'm in charge, it'll be a lot different. Right now, I'm captive to the whims of my mom, who doesn't like to have as much fun as I do. Apparently, at some point, she tires of picking me up to look at air conditioners. Someday I'll be tall enough to see myself, but you want to know a secret? I'll still ask her to pick me up. See that face up there? She can't resist it. Until her back starts hurting.

So here goes... I usually start waking up as soon as the light starts to peek over the horizon. I require a lot of milk during that hour or two. I'm ready to get out of bed before my parents are, so I crawl all over them for a while, trying to wake them up. Mom sometimes has to go to the restroom before I'm ready to let her go; how rude. Then she heads into the kitchen to start coffee (yuck!) for Dad, so I usually ask for Bee.

Fortunately, my mom knows that "Bee" means what they call the "computer," for some reason. My favorite thing to watch is videos from Little Baby Bum, but I also like Starfall. We can only do Starfall if Mom doesn't have too much to do because she has to press the buttons for me. I try, but when I bang on the keys, it just messes up the screen. Stupid Bee.

After a while, we usually go into my room and I play with my stuff. I have a lot of cool things, and sometimes I just like to take inventory of several drawers or my closet by pulling everything out. Also, there are cool fake food things in my play kitchen, and I quiz my mom by asking her to name them all. Every day. She does it, too! I like to tell her the colors, though. I am not sure whether the corn is yellow or green. Can it be both?

I have a ball pit, a table and chairs -- ooh! If I climb up on the table ("Use the chair, not the cushions!" my mom always says. She can't even handle the slightest goose-egg on my forehead! She should get used to it.), I can see the air conditioners under my window. Whenever I hear the a/c come on in my room, I scramble up and look. That fan goes around and around! Sometimes I see squirrels and bunnies. Sometimes people are walking their dogs.

Also, sometimes in the morning, if it's nice outside, we sit on the patio. I can pull the top off of my sand box now, but I keep forgetting to put it back on and Carol pees in my sand! Oh, and we have these really thick bubbles that don't pop as fast as the ones we had before. I like to chase those down.

Usually, if we don't go anywhere, I also want to walk up to the office before lunch. They have a neat work-out room and a big bowl with hard candies Mom calls "Jolly Ranchers." I get one every time we go, so it's pretty important to go every day. There's also a red felt table with very heavy balls that make a loud noise if you drop them on the ground. They have fun long sticks you can use as vacuums. In back, there's a big pool of water in the ground. I take off my shoes and sit on the edge so I can soak my feet on days we don't swim. There are a lot of air conditioners by the office, so we have to go there, too. They're tall, and Mom has to pick me up or I can't see the fans going around and around.

Words are hard for my mouth. I say "hot" for "hot," "on," "off," and "light." Usually, Mom and Dad get what I mean. I say "hot" a lot when we're walking back from the office, because I want to see all of the air conditioners. I know where they are. Every one of them in this whole complex. There are twelve buildings, and some of the units are hidden behind hedges, but I have seen them. I climb through thickets if I have to. Those things are fascinating. My parents seem to have a weird thing about climbing into bushes outside of neighbors' windows, but come on... they can't even see me, so I don't care.

For lunch, I usually just eat whatever mom is eating, which is usually pizza, plus some fruit. I love fruit. I love all of it. I will eat it all right now. Just kidding I saved you some. But not much. My favorite foods are blackberries, grapes, bananas, fruit snacks (as in "we'd better not run out or there will be scream/crying"), soda (some people think this make my Mom a bad mommy; I think it makes her a GREAT mom. Plus, I think she's just too tired to fight me on that one). I like string cheese, but only if Mom cuts it into chunks. If it's whole, I will play with it but not eat it.

We usually play some more in the apartment before my nap. You never know when I might go to sleep. It could be noon; it might be three. It could be never! Ha ha haa!

We read books I pick out. I usually know within a few pages if we need to abandon it or if we'll be reading it five times in a row. And my tastes change from one day to another. Loved the book yesterday, will fuss if you insist on reading it today. I'm fun like that.

Used to, when I was a little kid, I didn't like it for my mom even to go into the other room to throw away my diaper, but now it's kind of fun to play by myself. I can pretend I'm cooking something, or that I'm playing a concert with my ukulele and amp. In fact, sometimes I'll leave the room she's in just so I can have some privacy to play. And poop. Not on the toilet, though. I don't like that at all. Well, I like to sit on it because it's fun to throw the toilet paper into the potty. But I don't actually use it in there.

When I go to sleep. I usually stay asleep for just under an hour before I need help getting back to sleep for another hour... Or I might just be awake after that. OR I might nurse for a full hour, fooling my mom into thinking there is more nap to follow. Heh heh.

In the afternoon, I like to watch videos when I'm relaxing, or sometimes, like today, I ask to go to the gym. I can't say that yet, so I just pantomime jumping on the trampoline and dancing to music, and Mom knows what I mean. We communicate great like that. When we go to the gym at 3, no one is there because they're picking up their brothers and sisters from school. I can do whatever I want! Whenever I see other kids on the things I want to use, I don't hesitate to tell them to get off. That makes Mom frustrated, and she keeps saying something about how everyone gets a turn, but I don't believe that's how it works.

When my sister is awake, sometimes she hangs out with us in the living room and I show her all of my neat tricks. She acts unimpressed, but I know she's secretly loving it. She's going to be so proud of me!

I can tell it's about time for Daddy to get home when mom starts putting dinner together. I usually eat some fruit or sample what she's making for dinner because by the time Dad gets home, it's pretty late and I'm running off the rest of my energy for the day.

A lot of times, we go downstairs and walk around to look for my Daddy, like this. <<<That's a video.

My Daddy hurt his feet and sometimes we walk around after he gets home, but sometimes we drive around and I get to steer. I show him the air conditioners, too, since he's not here during the day when I show Mommy. Sometimes we see doggies, which I like, but mostly from farther away.

When we get home, it's time for dinner. I don't enjoy sitting down much, so while my family eats, a lot of times, I'll climb on my slide or play dinner music. After dinner, Daddy and I jam together.

At some point, my mom arbitrarily decides I need to go to bed, and I am not a fan. It takes me a long time to wind down. I usually get out of bed at least once or twice after she lies down with me. The other night, I brought her a purple block from the living room. She didn't want it and tried to give it back, but I wouldn't take it. Instead, I ran back into the living room and got another block. I brought it in and put it on the bed. Then I ran back into the living room and got a third block and put it on the bed. Eventually, I had lined two edges of the bed with more than thirty blocks, running back and forth for each one, before the block box was light enough just to bring the whole thing into the bedroom. Mom helped me clean up the blocks, and I'd used up the remainder of my energy so was able to fall asleep.

I don't remember much about when I'm sleeping, but Mom complains all the time about how I wake up something that she calls "half a dozen to a dozen" times a night. I am not sure she's telling the truth about this. If it were real, why wouldn't I remember it?

Oh, goodness. I didn't even talk about our cats, or how I help Mommy do chores, or any of that. We'll have to save it for another time. That's my average day in a nutshell!