Story One:
We were at Burger King yesterday, after a morning tea at the birthing center, toward the end of which he started deciding he wanted to explore in ways I was too tired to manage (I think he ate an entire candle wick, but that's not the worse thing he's ever eaten; those of you paying attention know what I mean). I expected him to fall asleep in the car, and when he didn't I elected to take him to an indoor playground (it's August in Austin; I'm not a good enough mom to take him to an outdoor park at noon). For the first time, he climbed all the way up the smallest slide, and was having fun running away from me, as though he wasn't supposed to be. So I chased him, and in between playing, he ate a bit.
A family came in: Mom, a 3- or 4-year-old girl, a 4-month-old baby, and grandma and grandpa. They were getting all set up when Mal went to play with the 3-year-old. It was cute! He went up the stairs and into the cube at the top of the slide, also for the first time. Then after a few, he started getting fussy. I think she was kind of crowding him, and he felt trapped. So I helped him out.
He noticed the baby in one of the rolling high chairs and started to go push it. Now, the baby is only 4 months old, and she was kind of slumped over. I didn't want him jarring her, so I ran over, grabbed him away in time, and walked him across the room saying, "Look! Here's another high chair just for you!"
He pushed that high chair until it caught on a table, then he ran, giggling maniacally, over toward the baby in the chair. I caught him in time and took him back to our table to eat some more. He took one bite of a French fry and wriggled out of my arms.
He ran... right back over to the baby, laughing the whole way. I "redirected" him again, this time to the play area where he'd been having so much fun before anyone got there. He climbed up and looked at me like, "Am I supposed to be doing this?" Then... You guessed it! He ran back toward the baby.
I picked him up and said, "Sorry. Since you can't leave her alone, we're leaving." He started to buck and be angry, but thank goodness he didn't keep that up, because I really wanted a refill before we left!
Story Two:
I'm in the bathroom, and I mindlessly put the toilet paper roll back where it belongs. We'd moved it because Mal likes to unspool the toilet paper and play with it. He'll put some into the litter box, and he'll eat some, and he'll just leave some in the floor. Oh, and today I realized that apparently he also drops some into the bathtub (which I realized during a shower when it was too late to handle it without mess).
As I was getting ready to leave, Mal wandered in and his face lit up at the toilet paper roll, back in place. I said, "I see what you're thinking! Let's go play in your room." And I picked him up, walked him down our hall, though our bedroom, though the dining/play area, living room, other hall, and into his room. I asked, "What are we going to play with?" as I sat down. He then RAN back into my room, disappeared around the corner for a few moments, and came back toward me, grinning like the cat who ate the canary, if the cat were a boy and the canary were toilet paper, ALL of which he'd quickly stuffed into his face. He'd used up the last of the roll.
So...
Also yesterday (or the day before?) I had to sit in front of an outlet so Daphne and I could listen to an audiobook without him unplugging the speakers. I finally moved them onto our dining space, but had to move them back when it was dinner time. We have a lamp in our living room that we can't use because he unplugs it every single time he sees it's plugged in. Every time. At the birthing center yesterday, he unplugged the noise machine from the birthing room, and the fan from the waiting area.
"Just redirect him." Oh my gosh, people. All I do is redirect. I spend so much time playing and trying to distract him. I let him play with everything and get everything out that I can. He pulls everything out of the kitchen cabinets and drawers, and I let him; I just clean it when he's napping or in bed or doing something else. He pulls out the broom, mop, and dust mop. He takes all of the clean dishes out and drops them helpfully on the floor (maybe don't eat with us for a few years). He screams when I don't let him do this with the dirty dishes; I have to load the dishwasher when he's asleep or playing with his dad. He pulls all of the toys out in his room. He even pulls books and office supplies out, and gets to play with all of it. (Ask my mom; some stuff makes her nervous.) But, of course, there's some stuff he just can't use or can't play with. We put as much away, out of his reach, as we can. But we can't top-load bookshelves because that's freaking dangerous. There has to be something equally heavy on those bottom two shelves he can reach. And he finally seems to be getting better about biting and tearing pages of books, but it's been a long couple of months!
Anyway, I decided I'm going to write a book called, "I'm Laughing With You" and it's just going to contain excerpts from parenting books written by people who apparently have much easier kids.
Let's start with this, by Mayim Bialik, whom I ADORE. It's from the book "Beyond the Sling," which I LOVE. But this part. Oh my gosh, her reality is so different than mine:
"We never baby-proofed our home except for power-outlet covers, and 'Not for Miles' saved us so much time and energy as he crawled toward wires and lamps but never hurt himself or broke one item in our home. When something was dangerous, a stern tone (which we saved for only such occasions) and strong body language did the trick in averting his exploration of dangerous things."
HA HA HA HAA ha ha haa! Good for Mayim and her boys, seriously. Good for them.
Have I mentioned that he's started biting?
Oh, yes. He bites when he's mad. He bit my thumb the other day for trying to clip his nails. He bites my shoulder when he wants to nurse and I'm trying to put him off for a few more minutes. He bites our legs often when he's frustrated. He tries to bite my hand or arm when I'm holding the faucet closed for the bathtub, and he tries to bite whatever he can reach when I'm strapping him into his carseat. If I can, I will always give him something inanimate to bite (not books, though!). We say, "Don't bite!" very seriously, and he grins and tries again.
All of that to say, I'm tired.
Don't worry, though; he's not just a devil child. He has some very endearing qualities upon which I will elaborate in the next post. Whenever that happens.
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