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I am simply over the moon that you’re eating real food these days.  I really am.  But if you could pass a message on (so to speak) to your bowels for me that eating a whole wheat wrap, spicy black bean dip, carrots, and zucchini in massive quantity (and all in one meal) causes frequent unpleasantness for your Mama and she would really appreciate it if they could work on slowing things down a bit, that would be great.

Much love,

Mama

Knock it off already.  If you think that putting the 4,000th flyer on my mailbox is going to drum up business, you’re wrong.  It’s wasteful and pointless and annoying.  Also, if you think that putting a flyer on my mailbox while I’m watching you through the front window as you drop your first attempt on the ground, leave it there because you’re too lazy to open the car door and pick it up, and then tape another one to my mailbox as you notice that I am, in fact, watching you is going to have any positive effects: you’re mistaken.

Animosity and irritation,

Shannon

Liam has eaten maybe 4 or 5 waffles in his life.  He loves them.  The only problem is that if he sees me getting one out of the freezer he doesn’t understand why it’s not on his plate by the time he runs to the table.  This has resulted in him eating far fewer waffles than he would like (from what I can tell he’d eat one every day if I’d let him).  So it was a surprise to me this morning when I sneakily pulled one out of the freezer and threw it in the toaster oven while he wasn’t looking and he promptly marched over to the counter where the toaster oven lives, looked me straight in the eye while pointing emphatically to the toaster oven and said “wafa?”

Man, I love this age.

Since Liam was about 7 months old, as a general rule, we’ve kept the door to the hall bathroom closed.  That was around the time he began to unroll and then eat toilet paper.  We had high hopes when we got toilet paper locks (genius!), but that’s when he discovered that the vanity was unlocked and full of treasures (toothbrushes, dental floss, a hairdryer, soft scrub with bleach…).  We got a tie-style lock for that and then he discovered the toilet lid.  We got a lock for the toilet and he found the trashcan.  We got a trashcan with a lid and (you guessed it) it took him approximately 2 seconds to open it and begin rifling through.  Since then we’ve pretty much kept the door closed during the day — being careful to keep all locks and impediments in place since without them a person can’t so much as draw a bath without “help.”  At this point he could destroy the whole 4’x4′ space in 2.2 seconds without all the roadblocks (although the average adult cannot use our bathroom without a lesson in how to open the toilet and unroll the toilet paper).  The issue has been compounded lately because anything that he knows is generally off limits is very exciting to him (which explains his overly extreme excitement at the mention of the word “basement”) so if you open the door to get something quickly he activates some sort of toddler radar and is magically teleported into the room from the other end of the house before you can bat an eye.  The final piece of the puzzle is his bath toys (a set of rubber squeeze toys shaped like a boat, car, motor scooter, truck, helicopter, and plane) which he loves with every fiber of his being and wants to squirrel away in other parts of the house, especially when the water wasn’t fully emptied the night before.

Several days ago I decided to try taking the excitement and wonder out of the bathroom by leaving the door open.  This was stupid.  It worked well for several days (he still tried the toilet lid, but the lock is the one thing he hasn’t figured out how to take off and he responded by stopping when I asked him not to play in the trashcan and tear off the tiny little pieces of toilet paper he could manage with the lock still on).  I had high hopes that we were over the hump after a couple of days with no reprimands or overt interest.  This morning Matt and I were in our bedroom when we heard a bunch of tiny thumps coming from the hall bath (which we knew to be his bath toys being lobbed into the tub), but these were soon followed by a very loud thud and some minor whining.  Matt ran in there to find Liam in the tub.

So much for leaving the bathroom door open, huh?

Recently, Liam spends much of his day trying out different sounds.  He can say a lot of words (although the average person would find it virtually impossible to decipher what they are) and he knows thousands more.  The problem lately is that the sounds he’s trying out aren’t exactly FCC approved.  Ignoring it when your child is repeatedly dropping (what sounds like) the F-bomb in the car is one thing, but it’s quite another in, say, the grocery store.

Ahhh, parenting…

He may not have a wooden leg, so to speak, and he won’t eat antibiotic- & hormone-free chicken breast baked with organic veggies, antibiotic- & hormone-free deli-sliced turkey, or fish in any form that we’ve found — but apparently he’ll eat an entire (gigantic) chicken tender and french fries from the local wing place (dipped in organic ketchup, of course)…

Sigh.