When I was still taking art classes, I had a session on how to construct a portfolio. One of the tips was, of course, make sure EVERY PIECE is good. And if you’re doing sequential art, show that you actually can DO sequential art, can tell a story through art, not just have a bunch of splash pages and pin ups. But specifically, we were told to have your strongest piece as the very first one, and your second strongest one as the last one. That way, you set the tone with the first piece and then you end on a high note, so people viewing your portfolio are impressed right away and also leave with a good impression.

Then Nesko and I watched a pop sci show about how the brain works, and they just said lead with positive stuff and people gloss over the negative. First impressions super matter, apparently.

But I’m going to stick with what I was originally taught, and I’m going to sandwich some grossness between cute stories.

THE FIRST CUTE STORY

Niko no longer says “yes.”

When I say that, I don’t mean that he’s become suddenly and overwhelmingly negative. I mean that while he agrees to things, the word “yes” no longer passes his lips. Nor does yeah, or as he says it, “yay-uh.” No, it’s suddenly all “Sure” and “Of course.” As in, “Niko, would you like some milk?” “Oh, of course I would!” “Niko, would you please pick up your blocks?” “Oh, sure!” “Niko, would you like a hug?” “Oh, of course I do!”

WHAT EVEN IS THIS.

It’s like he has a secret handbook on being cute.

The other day, I asked him if he would like some applesauce and he said “Of course.” And then he said “Actually, I would really appreciate it if I would have some pudding instead, please.”

Actually.

I would really appreciate.

OH MY GOD.

Can I have another kid who’s just, like, a copy of him? Because he’s basically perfect. Except not as the next story will reveal.

THE GROSS STORY

At the age of four years and 5 months, Niko has decided that it is HIGH TIME he learns to wipe his own butt. He’s been using up flushable wipes at an alarming rate and we’ve been dealing with random poo fingers here and there. But then yesterday he apparently decided it was TIME TO STOP FUCKING AROUND. He approached wiping his own butt with a grim seriousness. LET’S DO THIS THING, he resolved.

And he started going in the bathroom every half hour to squeeze out some pathetic tiny turd nugget.

He’s kind of obsessed.

And suddenly, we’re back to having pants accidents.

“Mama,” he says sternly. “I had a little bit of a poop accident.”

He is not proud of these.

So I’ve been picking up flecks of feces from the bathroom floor, doing a lot of hand washing, reminding him that he can’t use an entire package of flushable wipes in one go, etc.

And then, just after Nesko got home, I was in the dining room when I saw what looked to my weak eyes to be a a brand new knot hole in the wooden floor. Wait. There was no knothole there before… was there? I prodded it with my toe. It went squish.

Look.

I don’t have a lot of expectations out of life.

But one that I cling to is the expectation that I can walk through my house without stepping in shit.

Nesko launched into a long story about how HE was working at a house with DOGS and they had to RUN A LINE and the yard was FULL OF POOP and I’m like, ok. That’s horrible and gross. But that, at least, is outside. In nature. Nature, you know, that thing that is a toilet for wild animals. THE GREAT OUT DOORS IS ONE HUGE TOILET. My house? Not so much. My dining room floor? NOPE.

I just… no.

So then I patrolled the rest of the house, squinting at every smudge and speck, armed with a bottle of disinfectant and paper towels.

And then Nesko gathered Niko into his lap for cuddles and finger nail trimmings, and we discovered a motherlode of poo on Niko’s heel.

THE SECOND CUTE STORY

Niko has a baby.

His baby is named Baby.

Baby is a girl (a DWIR-OLE) except for when she’s a boy.

Baby currently lives in the bouncy seat that he used when he was an infant, that we’re holding on to until Nesko’s sister who just had a baby returns from Europe. At this point, we will have to evict Baby from her perch, her soft and cradling throne.

Niko sometimes carries Baby around, and feeds her cookies (wooden blocks, string, etc) or shares things he’s eating with her. “One little nut for me, and one for Baby. And one little nut for me, and one for Baby.” He invariably eats Baby’s portion, of course. He also brings her small toys, books, and shoes (?) for her to snuggle with so she doesn’t get lonely. And from time to time he decides that baby is taking a nap so he walks around and shushes us all because Baby is sleeping. Then he decides that Baby is fully asleep so we can be loud again. “Baby sure is sleeping hard! She’s a hard sleeper.”

Sometimes Baby needs a diaper change, or Niko decides it’s time to potty train her. He’s very encouraging. He cleans her up and cuddles her and says kind things.

It is the most adorable thing.

It almost makes me forget that I stepped in poop in the dining room.

Technorati Tags: 4 year old, parenting, poop, potty training

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

My dad called me the other day and proposed that he and my mom would take us to Brookfield Zoo to see the Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit. They know Niko’s true and abiding love of dinosaurs, and thought he’d get a kick out of seeing some animatronic dinosaurs up close and personal. They were totally right!

Unlike Lincoln Park Zoo, which is free and closer to us, Brookfield Zoo has an admission fee and many exhibits have additional fees/admission costs as well. As such, we’ve taken Niko to Lincoln Park Zoo a few times, but neither Nesko nor I have been to Brookfield Zoo in at least twenty years. It was a little weird returning there, at least for me, since so much is the same as when I was a kid.

We parked in the North Lot, which cost $10, and met my parents. We went in together after my mom bought a family membership, which was cheaper than buying admission for 4 adults and a child and will let us come back many other times. As soon as we got in, my dad went to rent a wheelchair for my mom, who is having some hip pain, and I went to rent a wagon to haul our stuff. We’d brought a cooler of canned drinks and sandwiches, and a big bag that held swimming stuff, a towel, clean clothing, some chips, etc. There’s a splash pad we thought Niko might have fun at, but we wound up not hitting that side of the park. Brookfield Zoo has Electric Convenience Vehicles (scooters) for rent, but were out of them, so if you need one you probably need to get there super early OR call ahead to reserve one. The Wheelchair was $10.00 to rent it, but you need a credit card as a deposit; the wagon was $8.00 with an addition deposit of $10.00 which you get when you return the wagon and a barcode-printed piece of paper they give you. Niko wound up riding in the wagon for most of the visit, taking up half the space with the cooler in the other half.

Our first stop was the carousel.

Niko riding a camel on Brookfield Zoo’s carousel.

Niko’s never ridden a carousel before, and this huge and beautiful one was a great introduction. He wanted to ride the camel, which was stationary, so was a good choice for a first time rider. He held on super tightly at first, as instructed, but soon was comfortable enough to wave hello and good bye as we spun past Grandma, Tata, and Pop pop. We also found one of the limited edition dinosaur Mold-A-Rama machines near the carousel, the Trachodon.

We headed for the Dinosaurs Alive! area after that, and stumbled across two more Mold-A-Rama machines for T-Rex and Apatosaurus. Dinosaurs Alive! requires an additional ticket, and has presentations on various dinosaurs at different times. There’s big animatronics of various dinosaurs, some old favorites and some lesser known ones. Niko was excited to see T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Amargasaurus, Carnasaurus, Spinosaurus, and others he loves and was really interested in the new-to-him (some recently discovered) dinosaurs as well.

Some of the animatronics had control panels/buttons one can push to make the animatronics move or make noise. The buttons were pretty high up, though, so a little kid or someone in a wheelchair would have a hard time reaching them without assistance.

Niko makes an animatronic Triceratops roar.

There was a “Feathers and Fossils” exhibit under a tent (which was pretty warm) with some hands on stuff kids could do, including “digging” for “fossils” (molded bones embedded in a matrix and covered in shredded rubber, which they can brush aside with brushes), reproductions of fossilized bones and eggs people can touch, articulated skeleton replicas, and animatronic dinosaurs that move and roar. There was information about recent dinosaur discoveries, like juvenile T-Rex being covered in feathers, and brief presentations about competing theories like whether dinos were cold blooded or warm blooded.

A juvenile T-Rex animatronic, covered in feathers, at Brookfield Zoo.

I was disappointed that the only exit from Dinosaurs Alive! involved walking through the gift shop. Predictably, Niko melted down because he wasn’t getting toys (other than the Mold-A-Ramas he was clutching in his hands at the time).

We broke for a picnic lunch after the Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit, settling in on some benches under some shade. I brought sandwiches and stuff from home, which my mom didn’t think would be allowed. I double checked the zoo’s website and didn’t see any rules about outside food and drinks, or even if glass containers were banned. My gut says skip the glass containers though as many venues in Chicago ban them because of the dangers of broken glass. (Lincoln Park Zoo has a ban on disposable straws which doesn’t seem to be in effect at Brookfield Zoo, interestingly.) If you don’t want to schlepp your own big cooler around, though, there are a LOT of places to buy hot dogs, pulled pork sandwiches, fresh popcorn, massive soft pretzels, ice cream, beer, frozen cokes, and more. As you might expect, they’re really expensive. Like, $10 for a glass of beer expensive.

We sauntered over to the Dolphin Show after lunch, but we’d missed the show by like a minute (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) and the next one wasn’t for 90 minutes. So we scoped out the dolphins under water, and found the (pink) Stegosaurus Mold-A-Rama next to the (blue) leaping dolphin Mold-A-Rama.

Niko watches dolphins at Brookfield Zoo.

Niko was starting to get tired, even though he’d been hauled in his wagon chariot for 90% of the trip, and turned up his nose at seeing the seals underwater. He lobbied hard to go play at the park near the 7 Seas Exhibit and of course we gave in. My parents left for home around that time. The playground had a train theme, almost as if they’d designed it to Niko’s specifications, and he had a fun time running around and playing tag with other kids.

Niko sticks his head through a conductor cut out at Brookfield Zoo’s playground.

We lured him back into the wagon with promises of ice cream, and saw some more animals (a sleeping tapir, some sleeping kangroos…. or wallabies maybe?… some bored looking emu), and found the last two Mold-A-Rama dinosaurs (Stegosaurus and Corythosaurus) near the Rhinos/Elephants.

We returned the wagon, to Niko’s dismay. He really did not want to WALK on his FEET using his LEGS and there were several melt downs on the way back to the car that included him wailing “I don’t WANT to WALK. I’m too SLEEPY to WALK. But I really want ICE CREAM. I’m NOT too sleepy to eat ICE CREAM so I am WALKING but I DO NOT WANT TO WALK.” A woman ahead of us, pushing a stroller, kept laughing at him because he was being so dramatic and ridiculous.

We loaded into the car and drove off, stopping at a Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins where Niko once again elected for a sprinkle donut over ice cream. Dude loves his carbs I guess. He sacked out on the way home and had a really long nap, his Mold-A-Rama dinosaurs keeping watch over him.

Brookfield Zoo was really accessible using a big bulky wagon. My dad pushed my mom in the wheelchair (if she were a longer term wheelchair user I expect she’d push herself… I don’t know that she’s used a wheelchair before) and neither the chair nor the wagon had problems getting anywhere we wanted to go. There’s a lot of ramps, some of them sliiiiightly steep, but not enough to give us problems. I saw a lot of people with strollers, wagons, manual wheel chairs, electric wheelchairs, and scooters and nobody seemed to have any problems getting around or into attractions. Contrast this with Lincoln Park Zoo where I had serious problems getting baby Niko into newly constructed buildings when he was in a stroller… lots of exhibits had heavy narrow doors without automatic open buttons, and lots of stairs with no ramp or elevator alternative. So Brookfield Zoo definitely wins on physical accessibility, although it’s more expensive and can be harder to get to.

We didn’t look at many animals today. Our main focus was the Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit. I’m hoping that we can visit once a month or so with my parents’ membership and get to see more of the animals, including the Dolphin show.

If you’re thinking of heading to Brookfield Zoo, I’d recommend you check out the different pricing options, bring your own lunch, and consider renting a wagon or bringing your own. The wagon made a huge difference with a four year old in tow. Check out the zoo’s map and Exhibit and Animal Guide as well as the Exhibit Updates to plan your visit. Don’t forget your sunscreen, and your water, and have a great time!

Technorati Tags: 4 year old, accessibility, chicago, parenting, tourism, zoo

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Yonks ago, I worked for a small bakery that, surprising nobody, has closed down. PROTIP: if your paychecks to your employees keep bouncing and they have to handle calls from irate suppliers about getting paid, you are doing something wrong. Other than pay issues, I loved working there. Sometimes a dude would come by and sell my boss giant flats of strawberries for really cheap, and then my job would be to wash, sort, and slice them and we’d make a bunch of strawberry cakes. As an aside, I will never buy a cake/baked good containing strawberries because my boss was a little lax on what constituted mold and spoilage.

While we were driving to the store yesterday, “strawberries” on our shopping list, I caught sight of a produce truck by the side of the road. Now, I live in Chicago which is a big city, very urban, yet it’s common to find little truck stands scattered alongside busy roads. The last time I stopped at a truck stand I bought 5 pounds of cherries for $5 and Nesko ate them all in one sitting which turned out to be a bad move on his part. Despite our rocky history with poor impulse control and truck stand fruit, I made Nesko pull over and he got out of the car and bought a flat (8 pints) of strawberries and a huge bag of green grapes for $5. Apparently $5 is the magic price or something? He shoved this massive flat of fruit into the trunk of the car and we went to the store. When it was time to load our groceries (all cloth bagged, tyvm) into the car, the whole trunk was fragrant with strawberries.

I find the smell kind of nauseating, actually.

Once home, I sorted through 5 pints of strawberries and now our freezer is stocked with diced, sliced, and chunked strawberries for later strawberry based shenanigans. I tossed about 20% of the strawberries as moldy or far too over ripe (like, turning to mush, couldn’t pick them up) which seems about on par with what we get from the grocery store AND what I’d end up with when processing berries for the bakery. Niko has consumed almost an entire pint in one day. I plan to make strawberry short cake tonight, and strawberry pancakes tomorrow or the day after. Would strawberry oatmeal be tasty? What other strawberry recipes would you recommend?

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Mirrored from Words, words, words, art..

The first time I had Nutella was in 1993. My mom’s best friend had moved to Australia a few years earlier and super expensive trans-atlantic phone calls once a year and letters written in cramped writing on both sides of onion skin paper and sent airmail just weren’t enough. So she used my graduating from 8th grade as an excuse to fly the both of us out to visit them. Happy graduation, let’s go to Oz! I’m not complaining, mind. It was an incredible trip. I fell in love hard with Melbourne, and it’s the one place in my life I’ve ever felt homesick for, which is weird considering I was only there for about 3 weeks. But man, I loved it so much. We stayed with our family friends and I tried Nutella for the first time. We’d been sending them care packages for years of stuff like graham crackers and Oreos and Captain Crunch and some other stuff they couldn’t get over there (coffee that wasn’t instant? lasagne noodles that you had to boil first? I forget what else.) and they’d send us Vegemite. After our return they sent Nutella as well, something you couldn’t get (or couldn’t get easily?) in the States.

OF COURSE I shared this with my friends.

They thought I was crazy.

Putting CHOCOLATE on BREAD? How ridiculous is that! No wonder you’re such a fat fatty! These FOOLS who enjoyed chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip muffins, chocolate croissants, white and yellow cake with chocolate frosting, pound cake with chocolate ganache, chocolate bread pudding, etc could not FATHOM putting CHOCOLATE (and hazelnut) on BREAD. Ewwww, gross! I made them eat it, because that’s the kind of friend I am, and they all saw how amazing it was and liked it. And for years, Nutella was a staple in my cupboard.

Now it’s super popular and you can pick it up in almost every grocery store and there’s weird ads for it on television and in magazines where it sounds like it’s health food (it’s chocolate, people. chocolate. tasty, not healthy.) and there’s a million recipes and memes about Nutella online. You can find it pretty much everywhere… except my kitchen.

Why?

Because of Nesko.

I married a man who’s allergic to hazelnut. He’s also allergic to chestnuts and brazil nuts.

How allergic is he? I’ll tell you. Years ago, I worked at Fannie May and part of the job requirement was to be familiar with the product. I was sampling the new deluxe truffles (which were INCREDIBLE) and one of them was a hazelnut mousse filling (AMAZING). HOURS after I tried one single truffle with hazelnut Nesko came in to buy some Advent calendars for his cousin’s kids and I gave him a little kiss and his lips started tingling and got a little swollen.

Despite his allergic reactions (swelling, vomiting when he eats chestnuts) he continues to eat stuff with hazelnuts in it unless I remind him not to. His reasoning is that the allergic reaction isn’t THAT bad and hazelnuts taste good. My reasoning is that each exposure ups the chance his allergy will get worse, so stop making bad decisions you fool. So we don’t keep Nutella in the house.

Recently, some peanut butter companies have tried to jump on the Nutella bandwagon and put out their own chocolate spreads. Every time I see them I scrutinize them for hazelnut. Peanuts, after all, are tasty and they are peanut butter companies. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to use peanuts instead of hazelnuts in their java chocolate caramel whatever spreads? But no, they all cram hazelnuts in there.

Then I found these little single-serve packs by Jif. They’re one of the

Niko, like me, grows hair and nails super fast. So we trim his nails frequently or else he claws us up, and we cut his hair and then like two days later he looks like wolves have been raising him. He was fretting over being “chupo chupovee” (a hairy man) recently and kept asking for a haircut. At one point I went into the bathroom and someone had removed the bathmat (draping it over the garbage can in the kitchen) and put Niko’s little pink chair in the middle of the floor. WHO COULD HAVE DONE THAT. Why, Niko, of course! Preparing for his haircut. So Nesko finally took him in there and trimmed his hair. I tried to slip in there to use the toilet and the floor was entirely covered in hair and Niko was shirtless and I pretty much had a glimpse of what he will look like when he is 40: a dude with a hair sweater. It’s your destiny, dude. Sorry. Or maybe you’ll like being super hairy and bask in the glory of never being fully naked even when unclothed, I don’t know.

Nesko’s gotten pretty good at cutting Niko’s hair, but the problem remains that Niko has my hairline. Namely, his hairline almost reaches his eyebrows near the temples. It’s the opposite of Nesko’s hairline, which is very high up, giving him a smooth high intelligent looking forehead, as opposed to my brutish almost Neanderthal look. It’s like I married a dolphin, y’all. And Niko very obviously takes after me. I expect his unibrow will start coming in when he’s 12 or so.

Anyway, he’s all groomed now and looks like a tiny human and not a feral beast child, so that’s a great change. Unfortunately, he’s still acting like a feral beast child roughly half the time. It’s less than ideal.

Technorati Tags: 3 year old, parenting

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One of the things I like about our little family is the traditions we’re developing like going to Day Out With Thomas (2 years in a row) or to Wagner Farm every year for the Rotary Club fund raising (3 years in a row) or… uh. I guess that’s it, so far.

Anyway, we made the trek up to The Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois for the 2012 Day Out With Thomas. It was great. It was fun last year, but it was rainy, and Niko was younger and cranky and nap disruptions made everything terrible (everything!). And even though he’s been a jerk about sleeping and napping lately, he’s old enough that he was able to hold his shit together allowing us to explore and do more things.

Nikola turns around long enough for a photo.

As they do, they had platforms set up for photo ops with Thomas. There were three platforms and of course the one in the middle was the most popular. There were professional photographers and you had the option to view and purchase a pro photo (perhaps in a fancy commemorative frame?) but we did not go that route because we are cheap assholes with our own (shitty) camera. How shitty? Let me just say that if you have an iPhone 4 your phone has a batter camera than my straight up camera. I discarded literally over half the photos I took because they were crap not because of anything I did but because it’s just a crap camera. Enough complaining! Niko was far more interested in checking out Thomas than turning around for his photo op, but he was very kind and patient with us and eventually turned around and consented to have his photo taken. Bless. We only backed the line up a LITTLE bit.

Nikola checks out a hand car.

There are many, many sheds with trains on display– engines, coaches, freight cars, CTA cars, cabooses, and more. Most of them have signs and are genteely roped off but apparently it’s ok to climb on this one. At least I hope it’s ok. Other people were doing so and there were no ropes or signs saying not to. Here’s Niko on a yellow hand car.

Nikola is stunned by the sheer immensity of a black steam engine.

And here he is checking out a huge black steam engine which, he was quick to tell us, looked just like Gordon. Well of course.

Nikola and Nesko stand in front of a big steam engine.

I took, no exaggeration, about 50 photos of the awesome trains inside the sheds including the Nebraska Zephyr and some simply IMMENSE engines. None of them turned out. My camera, a point and shoot, has issues with its flash I guess. The photos in strong natural light, like this one, turned out much better. Steam engines are incredibly huge! And loud! And huge! I kind of have a thing for taking photos of people in front of GIANT TIRES and have done so both here and at Wagner Farm in front of a tractor’s giant tires.

Niko also got to check out a caboose.

He also got to clamber around a caboose/brake van. It’s a cheerful red, as cabooses should be.

We went on a short street car ride but skipped the longer 19 mile ride because Niko was fading fast and while Nesko thought it’d be a chance for us all to relax including Niko, I was afraid Niko would get cranky and disrupt things. We checked out the Zephyr, which Niko’s been talking about for months, and also checked out the CTA train they’ve been restoring. We were also able to check out the museum’s gift shop and we bought a beautiful print for $5 of a pencil drawing of street car passing the Chicago theater.

This was a super great time and if we lived closer than an hour away we’d seriously consider buying a membership. A family membership costs $65, which is pretty cheap, and they have lots of events and it’d be super fun to just be able to look at the trains and ride them whenever we had a weekend to do so. We miiiiight look into hotels in the area and do a 3 day vacation out there, exploring the railway museum and also the Wild West Town and KOA campground and one room school house in the are. I AM A SUCKER FOR HISTORICAL REENACTMENTS, you have no idea.

Maybe you’re curious as to how accessible the museum is. There are designated handicap parking spaces on asphalt, but most of the parking is on grass, which may not be as much of an issue on NON Day Out With Thomas days. There are wide paved walkways throughout the grounds of the museum, but many of the sheds have a step to get in and some of them are not super well lit. They have paved walkways in the sheds. Some of the doorways are not very wide. I don’t think any of the trains are accessible. They are historic trains with narrow, steep, widely spaced steps. We all had problems boarding and disembarking. The museum has golf cart “courtesy shuttles” for Day Out With Thomas, but I don’t know if they have them at other times. The museum gift shop has a ramp leading up to it, but it’s narrow inside. I saw people at Day Out With Thomas using wheel chairs, motorized chairs, walkers, crutches, braces, and assistance dogs. So obviously some persons with disabilities are able to navigate the museum. There were also a lot of people using strollers and wagons along the pathways and over the grassy areas, although those weren’t allowed on the trains or in the gift store or in the museum’s diner. There were many portapotties, some of which were accessible, but I don’t know if those are a constant fixture or brought in specially for Day Out With Thomas. The diner has a big bathroom and the lady’s room had a handicapped stall but I don’t remember if the doorways were wide enough for a wheel chair user. It’s a newer building, though.

To sum up, “Day Out With Thomas” was a great time. I don’t think it’s possible for a more perfect day to have happened. We had a really good time and just as Niko talked about last year’s event all year I’m sure he’ll be talking about this year’s event for a long time as well. If you have the chance to attend “Day Out With Thomas,” or the Illinois Railway Museum, and you or someone you love is All About Trains, check it out. It’s well worth the money and the drive.

Technorati Tags: 3 years old, chicago, day out with thomas, illinois, parenting, toddler, trains

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Niko’s bedroom has a closet that’s double deep, something not uncommon in older buildings. I believe that once upon a time, the back space was used to store out of season clothing/coats, or possibly there’d be a dresser in there or shelves or something. But there’s literally enough depth to run 2 parallel bars and hang clothing from both bars. We took off the bar in the back, and had the back half of his closet stuffed with boxes of his old baby clothing and bed linens. I had Nesko haul all that out the other day with the goal of trimming his baby paraphernalia in half.  Nesko got all verklempt at the idea, Niko kept reminding me that he wore those clothes “when he was a little itty bitty baby” and that they were “special to [him].” I didn’t make my goal of half, but I sent 1/3 of the outgrown clothing on their way out the door, to a neighborhood clothing bank/fund raiser.

We haven’t put the remaining boxes of clothing back yet, and Niko has been having a really great time running into his closet and hiding behind the clothing/hanging closet organizer. “Mama mama mama! This is the best closet! I am hiding in this closet!” he says.

The other day he grabbed me and pulled me into the closet so we could “hide from tata!” Since Nesko was due to arrive home any minute, I agreed. We both ducked into the closet and Niko told me all about how we were hiding from tata and we were going to jump out and say SURPRISE! and tata would be SO SURPRISED etc. I heard Nesko’s key in the door and shushed Niko, who quieted down for a few seconds. But as soon as he heard Nesko entering, he started jumping in a circle and screaming while banging on the wall.

Oh, sweet child, that is not how you hide!

That is the worst hiding!

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler

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I don’t want to jinx anything, but last night was the second night in a row that I got Niko settled into our bed, read him two stories, collected my pyjamas, turned out the light, and left the room with him still awake. I could hear him humming to himself last night, and I poked around online a bit so I could hear him if he fussed/cried/called out. But he did not, and I took a shower and made my husband’s lunch for today, and did some tidying up.

This is basically the best thing ever, and I hope it continues.

Later today, I’m going to try and settle him for a nap the same way.

If we can do this all this week and all next week, bed time and naps, then the week AFTER I’m going to try and transition him to his own bed. His “new bed.” The one with “THOMAS sheets.” The one he CLAIMS to want to sleep in, then protests wildly about.

I am really looking forward to a child-free bed.

Part of this is because I’m tired of getting punched and kicked all night. He has literally kicked me out of bed before, and once he kicked me so hard he knocked the wind out of me and I woke up alarmed and gasping with a foot buried in my midsection. But more than that, I miss my husband. And it’s not even a sex thing, it’s just a general physical contact thing. Pre-baby, we’d sleep spooned up, me with one arm flung around him, my front against his back. I felt so safe with my giant husband teddybear to hold on to. Or he’d sleep on his back and I’d rest my head on his shoulder, one arm and one leg tossed over him. I miss the physical contact, the touch, the skin against skin, the smell of him.

I’m looking forward to regaining that, reconnecting.

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Waldo, Niko’s non-family caregiver, suggested that maybe part of his irritability lay in the fact that Niko was working on new teeth… 2 year molars, to be precise. And that was a good suggestion, because teething’s pretty horrible, and while he went through molar teething almost half a year ago, it only resulted in one molar. While I don’t think it caused the fever and puking, I do think it caused the irritable behavior and clinginess. It probably didn’t cause the rash, but maybe it did, because teething is a dark mystery that H. P. Lovecraft might have written about, had he had more exposure to children.

Yesterday, Niko basically ate the world, and when Nesko checked in his mouth today, he had more teeth than he did a week ago.

I was doing laundry when my in-laws brought Niko home last night. When I got outside, he was already running around the yard and hollering happily, apparently trying to get in through the front door. I heard him yell MAAAMAAAAAA and I yelled NAANOOOOOO and he came pelting around the apartment screaming I FOUND YOOOOUUUUUU, and then he ran around the gangway that leads to the back, into the back door, up the stairs, and into the apartment with no prompting. So I’m guessing he’s feeling better, if he’s pelting around hollering happily and eating, you know, food.

Usually he’s at the in-laws Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Waldo minds him on Tuesday and Thursday, but she has a job interview today (ONE MILLION GOOD LUCKS TO YOU) so my sister-in-law is toddler wrangling. On the drive over, Niko happily chatted away about riding the brown train, and how Waldo was going to take him on the brown train, and then the red train, and he loves the brown train. Nesko responded that SIL was going to watch Niko today, but maybe SHE would take Niko on the brown train and Niko said “No! Waldo take it the brown train!” and then he got Very Serious and said “Tata take it the baby brown train. Tata brown train! Today!”

I hate refusing the kid. This isn’t the first time he’s requested we play hooky and ride the trains with him (not that he knows what all his request entails). We have tentative plans to do Something Fun this weekend, maybe ride downtown. Frankly, we could just hop on the brown line, which loops around the downtown and comes back, and not get off anywhere or do anything but ride the train, and he’d be happy. He is a cheap date! We still have our membership to MSI, so maybe we’ll do that.

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler

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Oh yeah, I was going to do this every Monday, right? Ha ha!

What I’ve made this weekend includes:

• A foot and a half of crocheted scarf
• A pot of chicken stock
• Barbecued pulled chicken
• 2 half-sized lasagnas, in the freezer
• 3 dishes of breaded chicken tenders, in the freezer
• A huge mess in the kitchen
• A lot of clean dishes
• A clean bathroom

I still need to strain the stock, then let it sit in the fridge and have the fat solidify, and then tomorrow or the next day I’ll turn it into soup. Or start turning it into soup. I’m not sure which yet.

I have a recipe for sugar cookies I’m sitting on (just didn’t have the time today) and I need to actually post stuff to my recipe blog. It’s pretty time consuming to do that, though. And I have cold feet for some freakish reason. I DON’T EVEN KNOW.

We went to a fish release/easter egg coloring party on Saturday but left before the egg coloring because we had to get up waaaaay too early to get to the fish release (it was about an hour away) and Niko was crashing from lack of nap. He’s at that awkward stage where he no longer just sacks out wherever, whenever but he still needs a nap or we all suffer. On the plus side, he interacted with a BUNCH of babies and toddlers and walked the full length of a trail circuiting a soccer field. Well, he RAN RAN RAN until he ran out of steam and then he jogged, and then he walked. He’s so hilarious: he yells “RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN” while running.

Speaking of crochet and running, Niko is getting used to the ball of yarn. He calls it “mama ball” and pats it gingerly, and also fiddles with the length of yarn leading to my active crochet work, and tugs on what I’m working on. HELPFUL LIKE A CAT. He also calls it “not tootoot” and reminds me of when it USED to be a train (when it was in skein form) and tells me The Very Sad Story Of The Ball Of Yarn That Used To Be A Train. It goes like this:

Oh yeah! Tootoot! Mwah! Tootoot! TOOOOOTOOOOOT! Oh no! Not tootoot! BALL! Mama ball! AHHHH AHHH AHHH AHHH AHHH!

Yes, he includes screaming in the story. And signs tears coming out of his eyes/down his face. Because the transformation into ball of yarn SCARED HIM and made him cry.

This morning, Nesko wouldn’t let him have a second dose of (chewable, gummy) vitamins. Niko had a full on tantrum. This is, in general, rare for him. He’s stubborn, but he bounces back from being denied stuff. No, this was just TERRIBLE. The worst thing EVER. No vitamins? HOW CRUEL. Nesko told Niko that if he ate more vitamins, his tummy would hurt. Bleah! Bah! Bad!

I cuddled Niko in the living room until he calmed down and drank some milk and ate something. And then he told me what had just happened. “No myomyom. No! Nenene! Tata myomyom NO. NOOOOOOOO. Bah. Bleeeeeeyeh. No myom myom!” And then he made the sign for crying again. Because he cried.

Have I shared my latest terrible parenting? Nesko and I watch “The Venture Bros” with Niko in the room. He doesn’t pay attention to most non-train-having TV, but he likes this show and asks for more at the end. He dances to the theme music and beats out percussion on his little pink plastic chair.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.