A list of things.
1. I am so thoroughly exhausted lately. Not in a bad way, it’s just that Nicolaus is requiring so MUCH of me right now. I love it, I hate it, and I love it. It’s so hard to focus on anything else because at the end of the day, I feel totally spent. That said, here are the kiddo updates for today:
- Tonight he announced that his name is Uht and my name is Gaink. He kept it up for quite some time. Uht only eats apples, and was very indignant when Gaink bought milk. Uht ONLY wanted to buy apples. But Gaink was pretty sure that in the morning, Uht would be gone and Nicolaus would be seriously pissed if all she had for him was apples.
- A few days ago he found his first imaginary friend, a tiny little baby that fits in the palm of his hand. Sometimes the baby cries and he has to tend to it. He sleeps with the baby and asks me to kiss it goodnight. Last night I kissed the wrong hand goodnight. DUH mama, the baby is in THIS hand.
- The terrible twos, or something like it, seems to have arrived this week. Not in the sense of explosive tantrums over nothing — though we do have those, tantrums can be caused by not feeling well, being overtired, etc. But this is more of a clear assertion of his will. He’s downright ornery a lot of the time… if I say up he says down, if I say black he says white, if I suggest that he eat some food so he doesn’t DIE well, he just dies to prove a point. For the most part I’m rolling with it. He may be smarter than me, but I know more. And unlike a lot of adults I don’t have anything better to do so generally I am able to remain stoic and pretend I don’t care.
One funny note, where most kids explode in a rage and throw themselves on the floor and kick and scream, his version is much more self-conscious and careful. Something will frustrate him and he’ll protest. Then he very deliberately sits down and from there lays down on his stomach. He doesn’t kick or scream, he just lays there face down for a few seconds. Then it’s almost like he feels stupid, like, “Wait, what the hell is THIS going to do for me?”
Sometimes I’ll ask, very casually, “Um, what are you doing?”
And he will always answer, “I fell down.”
And then he gets up and we both politely pretend it didn’t happen.
The same goes for throwing things. Earlier he accidentally wet his pants, and even though I told him it was fine and I would change him into dry underwear in a second, HE didn’t think it was fine. I had my back turned and I heard something hit the floor. “What was that?” I asked him.
“I throwed that.” he said, “On the ground.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“I freaked out.”
“You… you freaked out? Why?”
“I had accident. I freaked out.”
“Oh. You freaked out because you had an accident?”
He nodded, “I throwed that on the ground,” he said, picking it up and putting back on the table where it belonged.
So it’s almost like he is as puzzled by the terrible twos as we are. It’s like the angel-devil thing in cartoons… on one shoulder he has a 2-year-old telling him to throw fits and argue and whine and throw shit on the floor. But on the other shoulder he has some kind of poised diplomat dude saying what are you doing that for?
Anyway nevermind the list. I’m too tired. I’ve spent all day having to trick someone into thinking it was HIS idea to eat and HIS idea to pee in the toilet and HIS idea to not rub hand lotion all over the dog, and HIS idea to change out of the Bob the Builder nightshirt he’d insisted wearing for nearly 48 solid hours. I swear it’s just like working in marketing again, trying to make sure the management thinks of great ideas all the time.