Funny for the Day

I ran across this and had to share. The original article can be found here. Kind of long, but worth reading.

Nuts on the Side: The Truth About Toddlers
When They Tell You "It Get's Better," They're Lying.

tod•dle (t d l) v.
To walk with short, unsteady steps.
To walk leisurely; stroll.
To terrorize one’s parent or guardian by zipping from one area of the house to another with lightning speed, leaving a trail of destruction and ankle-sprain-inducing small toys in one’s wake.

I like to have a take-home message for every article that appears in this column. Today’s take-home message for parents of toddlers is “Quit while you’re ahead.” Start the day off by taking all of your Tupperware lids and scattering them about your kitchen floor. Then leave a trail of tampons and cotton balls from the bathroom to everywhere else in the house. Also, pull the cat’s hair, dump out the toy box, take the phone off the hook and then hide it from yourself, and reconfigure all of your Tivo settings, never to figure them out again. You are now one step ahead of your toddler.

I’m sitting here at my computer listening to my 16-month-old cry in the next room. I put him to bed, you see, but he took it to mean we were playing that game again, the one in which he throws every toy or stuffed animal out of his crib one by one, and I pick them all up and return them to him, and then he lies down, ready for bed. Tonight he did not want to stop the game, so I simply returned the items to the crib, kissed him goodnight, and left the room. It’s been about five minutes since I last went into his room to try and quiet him down one last time. And I mean it, it’s the last time, because I. Am. Pooped.

My son is a toddler, and I am his exhausted Mommy.

Kyle’s walking skills have developed to the point that he’s not exactly running, but he certainly never walks leisurely. He has two speeds: Sleep, and Tear Off at Full Blast. When he gets going, I can hear his little steps pum-pum pum-pumming from one end of the house to the other.
Because I went back to work a few months ago, I fear that I missed Kyle’s transition from baby to toddler. It seems to have happened when I was looking the other way. His new level of mobility and defiance hit me for the first time last weekend when I spent a day alone with him because Daddy took a day trip out of town. By his bedtime I was ready to hit the sack myself. I don’t remember Kyle tiring me out this much before I went back to work and left him in the care of a trained professional for the better part of each workday.

This is how last Saturday went: Kyle wakes at 6:30, immediately demands milk, in not so many words -- okay, no words at all, as a matter of fact, because he rarely uses words. He prefers guttural sounds and speaking in full Chinese sentences. When I pick him up out of his crib, he steers me like a boat towards the refrigerator, and points at the cabinet where the sippy cups are stored. All the while uttering an emphatic “Unh! Unh! Zabber grib grab!” to drive the point home. So I give him the sippy full of milk. He takes one sip and chucks it at my feet. A full sippy cup hurled at your bare feet by an energetic tot is painful.

It’s 6:35 a.m. I start a pot of coffee. Kyle trots over to the TV, now demanding his Baby Einstein DVD. I decide it’s too early for television, and besides, I can handle this, right? It’s a day with Mommy -- nurturing, attentive, and TV-free. I will be Earth Mother, here to dote on my child.

6:50 a.m. I turn on Baby Einstein. I need something to distract him while I choke down my coffee and some toast before he tries to turn on the stove again. (This child is under 2 and cannot speak, but he can operate dangerous home appliances?)

7:00 a.m. Child is secured in high chair, eating lovingly prepared French toast. Okay, maybe he’s not actually eating it. More like throwing it on the floor for the dog to eat.

7:15 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. I try to eat breakfast, clean up the kitchen, and repeatedly untangle child’s limbs from various items throughout the house.

9:15 a.m. I finally put him down for a morning nap, reminiscing that this feels like his early infant days. Do I shower? Check my email? Read the paper? I decide to waste time surfing the internet and cutting my toenails. Never mind the piles of laundry -- I rationalize that I can get that done while he’s awake. Ah, the good old days.

11:30 a.m. One good thing about this age is that naps have gotten longer. I am able to cram a shower into my “break,” although I need a nap myself. Kyle is awake, demanding milk again. I silently rejoice that I am no longer breastfeeding. I make him a lovingly prepared lunch of organic vegetables and tofu, no, grilled cheese and cut-up grapes, which he nibbles on and then throws to the dog. He wails, indicating that he wants to get down, and proceeds to do the following:

Run under my legs when I have the refrigerator door open, grab a carton of eggs, and smash it onto the floor. Every last egg explodes.
Reach his little hands into the cat’s litter box and extract two giant handfuls of cat poop and litter.
Escape my clutches with a black pen clasped in his tiny fist of steel. Write on white comforter cover. It’s okay because it’s 10 years old and from Target, but still.
As I tell him, “No, Kyle, that’s the dog’s water. No, Kyle, don’t do that. Kyle, Mommy doesn’t want you to do that…” he looks me straight in the eye, smiles, and dumps the dog’s water onto the rug.
Reach up onto my desk, grab the computer’s mouse, and somehow change everything to a font so small I can’t even read it.
Call my mother’s office across the country and leave a 2-minute-long cryptic voice mail that consists of me, in the background, yelling “Kyle? Where is Mommy’s phone? Buddy? Kyle where’s the phone?”
Unfold all of the clean laundry I have just folded.
Topple over onto his head at least 43 times, then run over to me and clutch my leg, crying
Etc.
But then he does the Best Thing Ever: he hugs me. He can’t say it in words, but he’s saying he loves me. It’s worth all of the above.

4:00 p.m. Thus refreshed, we head out to a 2-year-old’s birthday party. I am looking forward to it because I think “2-year-old! Birthday party! A child-safe zone where he can romp around and I can relax with a cool drink and some food.” I am determined to be Relaxed Mommy, the one that hangs back with a watchful eye over her child but gives him the freedom to run around and be a kid. Apparently I am forgetting that I’m me, after all, and every time Kyle trips and his little head is perfectly aimed at a concrete step, or when the big kids take over the bouncy castle and threaten to trample him, I can’t help picturing a dramatic trip to the emergency room. So I wind up about 2 feet behind him for the next 3 hours. Even still, he manages to dunk his left arm elbow-deep in someone’s cup of beer, unwrap some of the guest of honor’s presents, and almost kill about a dozen goldfish. At one point, jealous of the big kids in the bouncy castle, or possibly giving in to a toddler-sized shoe fetish, he snatches up a pair of kid-sized pink Crocs and tears off through the backyard, around the house, and down the driveway to the front yard. Doesn’t even look back.

8:30 p.m. I arrive back home with sugared-up kid, a bag of wet swimsuits, a goody bag from the party, and about 16 new lines on my face. I hand the child off to my husband, who has mercifully returned from his day trip, and collapse onto the couch. Unable to move, I stare at a showing of “Practical Magic” on TBS. I think the only people who watch TBS on a Saturday night are people just like me. We need moving pictures before us to lull us into a brainless state of mind -- spare us the thoughtful plot development, thank you very much.

I survived that weekend, but I was taken very much by surprise. When did Kyle develop such nimbleness and stamina? How can a 2-1/2 -foot-tall person wear me out so quickly? One night my husband, in a fit of thoughtfulness, remarked that he will be happy to be out of the early-infant stage of childrearing. You know, after we have our 2nd baby someday. “Won’t you?” he asked. “No,” I sighed. “I’ll take a kid who can’t move over one who can, ANY DAY.”
Today Daddy left town for a five-day trip. I am thankful that some of those are workdays, so I can rest at the office. And I’ve learned my lesson. For this weekend, I will cover every item in my house in bubble wrap. Even the dog. Come to think of it, even the toddler. Then I will feed him some chocolate cake and apple juice, and let the games begin