O Solo Mio

I’m a solo parent, on day four of an eleven day jig without the husband.  OMG I’m frackin’ tired.

I’m potty training Jack, and he’s doing pretty well.  In the opposite of most kids I know,  he is great at #2 but having a harder time making it for #1.  But anyway, approximately a zillion times a day, I take him to the bathroom stand him on the step stool, and he says “Pull down my pants, mama, Pull down my pants.”  I pull down his pants, he sits on the potty and sings the ABCs, and sometimes he actually goes in it though usually he does not.  Then he says “Mama, I’m a good job!”, stands up, asks if he can “fwush,” we apply hand sanitizer, and he asks for sparkle, which is what he calls M&Ms for some reason.  Liam, during all this potty time time, is typically wreaking havoc in the bathroom.  The other day I turned to lift Jack off the pot and onto the floor, and when I turned back all I saw were the bottoms of Liam’s feet sticking out from under the shower curtain.  He’d taken a nose dive after some toys.  I left him in there a little while.

Unfortunately, Jack has taken to using potty requests to stall his naptime and bedtime.  He screams he has to go potty, holding his bum and saying “I go in my pants, Mama, I go in my pants!” and then as soon as I fall for it and go fetch him, he walks chirpily into the bathroom saying “Good morning, Mama!  Good morning!” as if, by simply saying good morning, he is going to trick me into believing that he slept, his nap is over, and now it’s time to get up.  (He never actually has to go.)  So I’m onto him now, and don’t go get him, and he screams and screams and wakes up his brother and then I get no more Simultaneous-Nap-Slash-Mama-Alone-Time-Goodness.  Lord help me.  Though at least after all the screaming settles down, Jack still sleeps a long time, which gives me a break from the constant stream of chatter.  The preschool-age, I’m learning, is all about questions.  Repeated, often nonsensical questions.  Like, for example, asking over and over again if he can watch the Backyardigans while he is watching the Backyardigans. I’m like – “They’re ON, buddy.  You are WATCHING the Backyardigans, right now.”  And then I go drink some more coffee and chew on a straw, since I’m also on a diet and cannot reward myself for all of this tribulation with sparkles, like I normally would.

Deepest apologies for that boring reiteration of my potty training experience, but I am solo parenting, and I have not spoken face to face to an adult in four days now.  I need people to share in my trials.   Share in my trials, people.  Help me carry this burden.

Liam, meanwhile, has turned into a whole different kid since he started walking.  He was kind of a trial before this, pretty whiny and usually unhappy.  Not a big crier, just a whiner, constantly whining whining whining.  I was making his birthday video, and I could hear him whine even as a brand new baby, and I was startled at the stress response that it triggered in me.  My stomach drops to hear it now, and I instantly feel weary and worn and think “God, kid, please just NOT NOW, NOT AGAIN.”  But now I see his constant whining was probably just because he wanted to do more than he was capable of, and now that he can walk – well, the world is his oyster and he is just delighted to live in it.  And being consistently delighted with the world makes Liam consistently delightful. Seriously.  I have bonded more closely with this child in the last week than I was beginning to believe was possible.  It also really, REALLY helps that he now sleeps through the night reliably.

He is really cute at the moment.  He points to his mouth when you ask him where his nose is (uh, we’ll work on that!), says Mama and Dada and will repeat things like car and bottle and even “Jack.”  He will also burp on command, with a pleased smile on his face, a trick that my mother-in-law taught him to do post-bottle.  He waves hello and bye, he loves to play with Mardi Gras beads, and when you tell him No-No, Liam, he will look at you and shake his head no, vigorously (and then continue to do the thing you told him not to do).  He’s kind of a nut.  Like, occasionally he will stand next to the couch or the bed and bang his head against the cushion, over and over and over, faster and faster, like a crazed thing, making nonsense noises.  Then he will scream in delight, clap his hands, and take off, usually with Jack in tow.  He is a wild man.  At his well-baby exam today, he took his shots like a man – cried for a nanosecond on the third one, and that was it.  He’s 95th percentile all ’round – 26 pounds and change, a bruiser who can hold his own when wrestling with his big 95th percentile brother.

He’s in his Pack and Play in the other room right now, while Jack sleeps.  Occasionally, I feel the need to corral him, since he seems bent on destroying himself and everything else around him unless he’s confined in some way.  And since he’s happy in there, I’m taking five in another room, taking a break from constantly chasing his diapered butt all over the house.

But my five minutes are up, so I’d better go at least sit in the same room as him again.  Once more unto the breach, dear friends.