Parenting isn't all puppies and rainbows

In fact, yesterday in the Williamses household was full of doodoo and unicorn vomit. Nice imagery, eh? What? You didn't think we had bad days in this house ... actually you wouldn't, since I have posted before of fighting with Oli, having a tough day and vowing to do better about not getting frustrated, not yelling ... I think I forgot all my mantras yesterday.

The day started off great with an ornament making play date at another mom's house. In fact, that went so well that Oli refused to leave and announced that he wanted to have lunch with that house. Got him out of the poor woman's house (Sorry!!!) and got home. That was when the planets misaligned, somebody spit on a photo of me or burned an effigy of me, or something. Because what we had after lunch folks, could only be described as a 180 turnaround in a complete we-need-an-Exorcist-right-now way.

What ensued was a battle of wills for 2 hours. I attempted to get him to lie down in bed, using everything possible - lies, threats, promises, cajoling - except for duct tape. Next time, I'll just use it. It'll be less painful and time consuming. I mean, the child took his favorite toys and threw them in the garbage can when presented with that awesome alternative to taking a nap. So, he refused to sleep and I refused to let him enjoy being up. Jeff was locked in our room asleep. I locked Oli's bedroom so he wouldn't have access to any of his toys or books. I lay on the couch and told him I needed a nap. For TWO hours, this stubborn child of mine just walked around the different rooms. Every few minutes, he came over and poked me. Climbed over me. Stood staring at me. TWO HOURS! Then, he comes to me at 3:20 pm and says he's ready to take a nap. VICTORY WAS MINE!

Except he lay down when he should have been waking up. Which meant, he woke up when he usually eats dinner. That's ok though. He had the promise of watching half of a Star Wars movie, since he woke up later than usual, to get him to eat. I made a gourmet plate of peanut butter and jelly on 7 grain toast, and served it with a chilled glass of milk liberally flavored with Strawberry Nesquick. And, we all sat down to watch how little Anakin became Darth Vadar. Oh, how I laugh now at my innocent hope. My childlike belief that like Santa, peace had come slithering down the chimney. I forgot that we have no chimney.

He kicked the plate to the ground. Refused to eat or drink. Or even sit. He wanted to stand on the couch and bounce around, falling over a few times. After he kicked the plate the dozenth time, the movie got turned off. Oh, how the floodgates opened. Oh, the horrors. He was on the ground, wailing in such plaintiff tones that I am surprised our neighbors haven't come over with condolences. Or called 911 on us.

By this time, it was clear no food or milk was going to pass through his lips and no words out of our mouth were making it past his ears. So, bedtime it was. Ever tried to dress an octopus high on PCP? No? Well, borrow my kid when he's on a tantrum and you'll be ready to deal with any multi-limbed entity high on narcotics. I finally managed to put pajamas on what seemed to suddenly be a double jointed and boneless toddler. I expected another fight over going to sleep. But, he proved to me how exhausted he was when he fell asleep after only 13 minutes of cries to the heavens which I can only imagine asked for bolts of lightning to hit his captors. Or his real parents to come find him.

Do parents keep a suitcase packed for nights like that where they ask the babysitter to come over and they just disappear? No? Come on, you have to have imagined it at least! Liars.

I didn't run away but I did mentally fortify me for what today would bring.

And, today brought us this:

I mean, I swear, it's like the kid had it penciled into his calendar for yesterday, "be on your absolute worst behavior, no matter what those parental units do or say."

We love you, Oliver, but let's have no days like yesterday and all days like today. Pretty please? With a strawberry on top.

Best wife ever

from the bottom up :(

A month ago or so, Jeff was sitting at home on a Saturday evening, when he started complaining about a pain in the middle of his chest. Being a long suffering member of GERD Anonymous, I thought that must be it. Also, Oli was asleep and if you have r know a toddler, you DO NOT DISTURB THEM SLEEPING! So, I told him to drive himself to the ER. Which was obviously a REALLY bad idea, considering the chest pain and arm numbness could have been somthing worse.

Fast forward to yesterday. Well, back up to the night before that, Wednesday night. Victoria Gastro Pub, in Columbia, had a wonderful beer tasting dinner that I sent Jeff off to while I watched wonderful, deep, meaningful ... who am I kidding? I watched some real life story based movie filled with too much violence and sex. Now, fast forward to yesterday morning. Around noon, he texted me tos ay he didn't feel good and could I drive him home. I, in my infinite wisdom, thought he was just suffering from acid reflux because of the great food and beer the night before. So, I told him to drive himself to Urgent Care, about 15 minutes from him.

Another half hour later, he texts me. The urgent care pysician told him it was most likely a swollen appendix and to get himself to an ER immediately. I got him to drive himself to me immediately and I took him to the Howard County ER. where, 6 hours later, his appendix was removed. I was wrong. He wasn't just making a mountain out of a molehill. Lesson learned.

MEN, STOP MAKING EVERY MOUNTAIN INTO A MOLEHILL. When you complain about every 100 degree fever like your limb has been cut off, how are we, the simple wives, supposed to know when it's for real? So, from now on, dear male spouses, please keep your worst whining for things are really bad.

So, we know when to send you to the ER and when to ignore you.

And, to leave you with a photographic piece of evidence of this, I present Jeff modeling his 2014 deisgn of the dmeical robe by Givenchy:

3

 3 isn't a big number, in the grand scheme of things, it's quite tiny. If you ignore negative numbers, it's really only the fourth from the bottom. But, you ask Oliver and he's SO BIGGER NOW! And he seems bigger ... taller, more loquacious, more knowledgeable (I mean he just announced the anatomical difference between boys and girls last night), more stubborn ...

Here are 3 things that come to mind immediately when I think of my bubs, in form of a photo montage.:

LOVING:

 GOOFY:

 

ALWAYS IN MOTION (these are all during 1 meal time):

We love you Oliver and even though we'd love to slow time down and keep you little, we love watching you grow in front of our eyes. By the minute, it seems some days. You are such a happy little boy, we feel very lucky to have you in our lives. You teach us to be patient, to look at everything with a new wonder and to be kind to everyone. You also teach us to just take a few minutes and enjoy life everyday, to run around with smokey, or race your cars on the kitchen floor, or pretend to hide from the alligators under our comforter ... your imagination is amazing and I hope you never lose that. This note to you doesn't seem very cohesive because it's not. I've been avoiding thinking about you growing up :( I feel you tugging your hand away from mine as I try to keep you close to me and safe. But, you want to spread your wings like Dusty Crophopper and take off. Pretty soon, you won't want mommy to play with you at all and I feel like I am mourning that day already. But, I need to not let the thoughts of your future independence from us take over our todays with you. We also need to prepare you for that future independence. I know that in my head. But, I don't have to do it without crying, darnit ;-) We love you so much. More than we ever thought possible to love somebody.

Happy 3rd birthday to our beautiful, big, strong, handsome boy.