Toddler Tyranny

Things that Johnny says to me on a daily basis:

"No Mommy dance!"
"No Mommy sing!"
"No Mommy turn fan on!"
"No Mommy hum!"
"No Mommy put jelly on it!"
"No Mommy put me in car!"
"No Mommy put toys away!"
"No Mommy turn off TV!"
"No Mommy sit!"
"No Mommy sleep!"
"No Mommy stand!"
"No Mommy go in Johnny's room!"
"No Mommy play with my numbers!"

And those are the things I hear daily. This list doesn't even include what I hear if we are out and about in public or at bath time, or bed time for that matter. It doesn't include the stuff he commands me to do (as opposed to what I should NOT do).

I knew when he was born that my life would revolve around him, but certainly never expected him to be so... tyrannical.

Don't let the bored expression fool you; he's just WAITING for me to burst into song so he can take me down.

That JUST happened

In case you need a reminder, Hank is 9.5 months. Oh geez.

Remember that month...

... when I only did five posts in 30 days? Then eventually I revealed that I had used too much room on my computer and needed to clean it out in order to post more pictures and videos? Well, that was true, but the bigger issue was that I was dealing with the disgustingness that is the first trimester and every time Johnny went down for a nap, so did Mommy. Plus, I didn't have morning sickness so much as I had nighttime sickness. By the time Johnny went to bed I just wanted to curl up in the fetal position in my bed and sip water from a glass. Unfortunately this means that my blogging was dismal without any rhyme or reason and for that I apologize.

However, now that I'm 14 weeks pregnant, I feel confident that I can announce to the Interwebz that I am pregnant and am due June 13th, 2011. Yay. I am hoping that I can still report Johnny's happenings from day to day (ish) and keep the amount of complaining down, but we'll see if that happens.

FML

And again...

Holy mother of child-proofing.

I recently [read: two months ago] took all of Johnny's toys upstairs to our "bonus room" with the idea that it would become the play room. Unfortunately this room has been our catch-all room for quite some time and need a little work to be converted to a child friendly place.

First issue: 

TVs and DVD players require cords and the nearest outlet to where the TV is located is behind the bookshelves. Well, if you notice, there is a gap between the TV and the bookcase where the cords lie exposed. I cleverly wedged a basket into this gap, but Johnny is quickly learning to climb over such insignificant obstacles... drat.

Second issue:

The bookshelves themselves. They are stocked with non-child friendly things like my BTSA binder, Shakespeare and old science textbooks. Plus, they are large and definitely able to tip over should Johnny learn to climb... which I think is in the near future.

Third issue:

Random crap. The papa-san chair definitely has to go. I'm not sure where, but it is not a particularly safe place for children to perch. And the bed is taking up all kinds of valuable room that I could use for... more toys. Or something.

So there you have it. Johnny's totally un-child-proofed play room. I'd like to say that posting this makes me feel ashamed enough of the situation to do something about it, but that would require an awful lot of effort... maybe next week.

This one hasn't been posted yet.

Hello all! We have returned from our vacation in Grand Junction and are all happy and a few pounds heavier. I will blog about it later this week, after I have unpacked our suitcases and downloaded some photos... promise. For now, I found a video that I don't think I have posted yet.

After Johnny had been crawling for awhile, I noticed that he showed no interest in climbing the stairs. Of course, I mention to John about how lucky we are that Johnny isn't interested in the stairs. So what happens next? I'm cleaning in the bathroom at the bottom of the stairs and Johnny is playing on the floor next to me... or so I thought. I look around and he's climbed up six or seven stairs! I pull him down, grab the video camera and wait for him to do it again... but he had to be bribed with my phone in order to do it again.

Let's talk about poop.

*WARNING: This post is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. Bodily functions are described herein and are NOT pretty.*

Now that you've been properly warned, it's time for a poop story. I feel that I've done a pretty good job keeping this blog cute and fuzzy with lots of adorable pictures of Johnny and you know what? It's time to shake that up. And what better way to shake things up than with too much information?

Before bedtime, Johnny's routine pretty much goes like this: bath, crawl around nursery naked, diaper and pajamas, say night-night to various objects outside, nurse, hum two lullabies while being held in the dark, into the crib with his blankie. Can you guess which part of that routine went awry? Yes, the crawling around naked part. Surprise, surprise. Usually, he will just explore his room babbling like crazy while trying to pull down the blinds or the curtains, pull things out of drawers, close his hands in said drawers, etc, etc. Well, this time, he was standing up using the small table I have next to the glider when he got that look. Yes, THAT look. I looked around for anything to catch the end result of THAT look and found his towel from bath time. I shoved the towel underneath him just in time to receive a shockingly large, adult-looking poop. Had I not seen it come out of my little 10-month-old with my own eyes (and believe me, I was RIGHT THERE) I would not have believed he produced it.

After Johnny had finished his bowel movement, I was patting myself on the back for being so quick-witted in picking up the towel and preventing any stains from marring our carpet. I picked Johnny up to move him to the changing table and before I knew it, he had a hold on the soiled towel and was flinging it forward and backward. And yes, we ended up with a nice scattering of poop on the previously-un-poop-stained carpet.

So what did I do next? I called John upstairs and he busted out some latex gloves and a scooper to clean up the mess for me. You can also thank him for telling me not to take a picture of said mess, because I was so ready to run downstairs and grab the camera.

Ah, parenthood. Who knew that such an episode would bring John and me ever closer in our relationship? If you had told me four years ago that poop would someday be part of the glue that held me and my spouse together, I would have said "bullshit"... Oh yes, pun intended.

Still moving

Remember when Johnny started moving? He's finally graduated to real, live crawling... except when he wants something that he knows he shouldn't have (like the cable modem) then he scrambles because it's still faster.

Snooping

Now that Johnny is mobile he has started getting into things... like cabinets and drawers. In our bathrooms he opens up each cabinet and pulls out extra toothpaste, toilet paper, etc, and boy is that fun!

 He could sit there for hours pulling out the contents of each cabinet. Which means I had to remove all of the potentially toxic things in the lower cabinets and put them all on our bathroom counter, which makes the whole counter rather cluttered. I'm thinking that having all of that stuff in the way will motivate me to install the cabinet clips I bought a week ago...

Standing

Remember how I told you about how Johnny could pull himself to standing? Well, up until recently he could only do it in his crib. That was easy because of all the potential hand holds. After a while, he started trying to pull himself up on our coffee table:

Eventually he figured out how to do that and the rest was cake. He can pull himself to standing using the toilet, my leg, a barstool, a heavy cardboard box... the possibilities are endless.

Click here to view on YouTube.

Look what I can do!

Yup, he's figured out how to pull himself to standing, but only in his crib. I came in once after naptime and there he was, standing there looking at me. So Daddy lowered the mattress as far as it would go. The last thing we need is for him to plummet over the side...

On the move...

The other day I was preparing brownies to take over to a friend's house for dinner. Usually when I have a quick kitchen task to complete and Johnny refuses to sit in his high chair, I will just sit him in the middle of the living room surrounded by toys for a few minutes. On this particular day, I did just that. I sat him in the middle of his blanket with some toys and went to the kitchen to chop chocolate. Five minutes later, I returned to the living room to find that Johnny was no longer in the middle of blanket, he was ten feet away from where I had left him! Ack! He's moving! Here is video footage of how he manages to get around when I'm not looking.

Click here to watch on YouTube.