electric boogaloo

Nicolaus slept in until the late hour of 7 AM and woke up asking for pizza. I know I keep saying this, but the days lately seem so long. He hasn’t been sleeping much at all; he’s waking up early and his naps are unpredictable, lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours. The frustrating part is never getting to spend any time alone with Kevin – Nicolaus is staying up later than he does and sometimes, somehow waking up earlier. There are days when he wakes up at 4:15 (That’s 4:15 with a four), ready to party.

So this morning he slept until 7, and it was wonderful. He woke up crying because he wet the bed but didn’t want to tell me that he wet the bed. I try to be nonchalant whenever he’s sobbing like that so when he refused to get out of bed, I casually pressed for more information. Are you hurt? No! Are you sad? No. Are you scared? No. Are you mad? Yes. I mad! I’m just crying… (breaks down sobbing) Well, what are you mad about?

Finally he told me that he was just mad about pizza, he wanted some pizza and he wanted me to leave him alone. So I left him alone, and a few minutes later he was in the bathroom and needed my help to pull his sopping wet underwear off. I didn’t say a word about the accident, the poor kid is hard enough on himself. Either that or he is a really frustrated pizza man trapped in a toddler’s body, in which case he really needs to get ahold of his bladder control issues or his pizza career is never going to go anywhere. I bet most places have a company policy that they fire you the second or third time you pee your pants.

Once he was all changed into dry clothes, we headed for the kitchen where he promptly changed his mind about the pizza. He wanted a waffle instead. No problem, I helped him climb up on a chair and drop a frozen waffle into the toaster. He pushed the thing down and we watched. He always tries to be ready for it, but the POP! always startles the crap out of him. It’s hilarious. You know I don’t have TV right? This is prime time stuff right here, watching a little kid almost fall off his chair because it startles him every single time.

Anyway, I waffled him up. Two bites later, he was done with the waffle and our day began in earnest.

We messed around all morning, we played and read little tiny books about alligators until some series events lead to an obvious bathtime. Baths are great ways of parenting when you are exhausted because you just put him in soapy water and the child does all the work. He’s confined to one small space so you don’t have to run or walk or holler “What are you doing in there??” – you just sit and talk to him and figure he’s getting pretty clean. He played with a set of foam letters, which he used as any number of things other than letters… the letter U is a boat, the letter T is a hammer, the letter I is a cell phone, the letter Y is a wrench, the letter V is a pair of scissors. D and E are two different kinds of saws. He refuses to discuss any other names or uses for letters, which is completely fine by me. The sooner he learns how to read, the sooner I have to go back and edit all the curse words out of my journal.

Then we made cookies. Because why the hell not? It’s too cold to go outside, we have nothing better to do (other than dishes and laundry and grocery shopping I mean), so why not? So we made cookies. And, I’m not proud to say, ate a considerable amount of cookie dough. For whatever reason, as I was cutting out circles I started singing “Will the circle be unbroken?” which reminded him of the Shapes song from Barney. Only he doesn’t know the real words right so he sings “Shapes! Shapes! Dinosaur! Dinosaurrrr! Tinkle tinkle little star! I saw some poop come out of my hiney…”

I just realized recently that he thinks Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is a song about peeing. Speaking of which, the day was punctuated by many succesful trips to the bathroom because NICOLAUS IS POTTY TRAINED.

Can I say that again?

Potty motherfwording trained. I mean, we have accidents now and again but for the very most part we’re done. DONE. Every icky feeling in me over not finishing my masters is now gone. I may SUCK for so many things in my life that I have left unfinished or messed up or failed at but dang it, I taught another human how to use a toilet.

I’ve only told you about half of our day and already I’m too exhausted to finish.

A few quick notes before bed.

1. Speaking of the song “Twinkle twinkle”, the other day he saw a picture of a kite and exclaimed, “Like a diamond in the sky!” – like ohhhh so THAT’s what that song is talking about. It’s so funny to me how very carefully he listens to song lyrics. We are NOT allowed to sing “You are my sunshine” because the part about please don’t take my sunshine away makes him too sad and he’ll cry and shake his head until you stop. I am so not like that – I can hear a song 50 times before I realize what it’s about. In fact I’ve been singing that you are my sunshine song my whole life and only noticed the sad parts like a year ago.

2. Tomorrow we are going to go meet Santa Claus. He is very excited about this but has informed me that he will not be sitting on Santa’s lap. He’s just going to talk to him. They are going to discuss boats at length, and then he is going to ask Santa if he may ride a reindeer like a horse. He keeps saying “Santa Claus might let me ride his reindeer.” Where did this come from? I have no idea. When we ask him what he’s going to tell Santa he wants for Christmas, he says he wants a tractor. A real big, giant tractor because he needs to scoop some dirt.

3. Have I mentioned that he now has MANY imaginary friends and things? They are all little tiny, which I guess is why they’re so hard to see. He has tiny dalmations and beagles, tiny babies, a tiny boy, a girl named Shelby, and today he even had a tiny handsaw. He reminds me of that guy in high school with the acid obsession.

There were more but I’m going to die if I don’t go to sleep soon. Goodnight everyone!