That Much Closer to Being a MILF

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And to all a good night...

Merry Christmas!!

Today was one of those days that was full of moments I wished we could freeze and put into a time capsule to be re-lived whenver we're feeling down or just want to have a magical moment. When we got up this morning J of course had no idea that it was Christmas. However he knew something was up because TH and I were in great spirits (after J "slept in" until 7:15am, which is a record. How sad, that's what we consider sleeping in now). J was appropriately awe-struck by all of the toys and gifts under the tree...he has no clue what Santa is but he knows a new toy when he sees one. By 10am he was totally overwhelmed by the whole scene of opening gifts and watching us open gifts, and he was exhausted. It was funny - one minute he was running around like a madman, the next minute he was laying on his back on the kitchen floor with a paper towel over his face going, "night-night." (I cannot describe how much easier it is to do the whole nap thing when they can actually tell you when they're tired. Those of you who know that up until he was a year old J was the King of No-Nap Land understand what I'm talking about. But I digress.)

I made a huge breakfast for me and TH with pancakes from scratch and big ham steaks, and then we just cuddled up on the couch watching Christmas movies. The only thing that could have made it better would have been snow falling outside. Dang we miss Colorado at this time of year. Yes, I just said "dang."

The rest of the day consisted of lots of lounging around playing with toys, drinking hot chocolate, eating lots of junk, and basically hibernating together. (The eating of junk was a family affair--we discovered today that J loves Reese's peanut butter cups, hot chocolate, chips 'n salsa, and corn dogs with maple syrup. Who knew?) And I'm happy to say there was not one single tantrum. By bedtime J was more than happy to get into bed without a struggle and he fell asleep within 3 minutes. All in all, it was a good day.

Ok, ok, I know what you really check the blog for is the pictures so here we go (I was going to post a video but couldn't get it to work):

Staged Pre-Game Christmas Morning pic that Yoda ruined. As evidenced by his impeccable cat timing you can see that he does this on purpose.

Staged Pre-Game Christmas Morning Pic Take 2.

Could you have a better reaction to a teddy bear? Seriously one second later he was actually kissing it. (Thank you, Granny!)

Completely engrossed in his new Magna Doodle-like thingy. He LOVES this toy. (Thank you, Auntie B!)

The best Christmas gift Mommy and Daddy could ever want.

"Cleaning up" with his new toy vacuum. Another big hit. Who knew cleaning could be so much fun? (Thanks, Auntie D!) (Also notice the new Elmo slippers - yes he wore them all day and yes he went to bed with them on. Score on the last-minute, impulse, Mommy at Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve gift!)

Happy Holidays!!

So unpredictable...

I guess J must have read my blog the other day and felt bad, because for the past 3 days we have been (almost) tantrum-free. We had one minor scuffle last night before bed but I always chalk those up to over-tiredness so he gets a pass on that one. This age is so unpredictable. Just when I hunker down and get ready for weeks (or months, or years) of daily tantrums, he reverts back to his old sweet self. Of course as soon as he has me lulled into a false sense of security where I forget how bad the tantrums really were, he'll come out of nowhere with a major blowup in the middle of a quiet restaurant or something.

J's personality is really starting to come out now that he can talk a little bit. I never knew how much a toddler who can't string a sentence together could make me laugh. Last night he had me and TH in stitches. We turned off all the lights and gave him a flashlight to play with and he kept holding it up to his face and going "yeah" in this really deep voice like Barry White. It may not sound funny but it was HILARIOUS. Then he was hugging both of us and saying "love you!" all night long, and when we put him to bed and were leaving his room he called out "ni-night, Mommy" which was a first and it was so sweet...

Maybe I'll try to catch the flashlight thing on video later. Either that, or I'll tape a really bad tantrum and just put it aside, to be pulled out at some inopportune moment 15 years from now when his cool friends come over.

Ultimate Fighting Champion

I had a client a few weeks ago who brought in a cat for a nail trim. That's it. Just the nail trim. When I asked her why she brought this seemingly sweet little cat across town just for us to cut his nails, she replied, "Just wait til you see what happens when you get him back there. He's an Ultimate Fighting Champion." I thought this was hilarious (and it turned out to be true - that cat sent two of my techs to Urgent Care before the day was through).

However, as of this morning, J is the new UFC of Las Vegas. Here's the play-by-play from this morning:

Round 1: J wakes up cranky wanting a cup of milk, stat. (For non-medical people, that means ASAP!!). He starts crying when TH turns the TV from Jojo's Circus to ESPN (oh, the horror). TH manages to wrestle a new diaper and clothes onto him without getting any of the copious snot the tantrum is producing on J's clothes.
Winner: TH by one point.

Round 2: J starts clinging to my legs while I'm putting on makeup wanting "up," and I manage to get ready one-handed with him on my hip the whole time. It looks like I'm winning, but wait! J comes out of the corner with the flailing legs, kicks me in the stomach (I think on accident), falls to the ground and pulls everything on the counter down with him! He finishes with a stunning come-from-behind move that results in me dropping my loaded toothbrush on the floor in a pile of cat hair.
Winner: J

Round 3: Now it's getting good, people. Everything seems calm - J is in his booster seat happily eating oatmeal and singing "yummy, YUMMY, yummy, YUMMY." So far I'm on time to get out of the house and to daycare/work. How will it end? I go to clean J up and put his shirt back on (no shirt for oatmeal), and that's when all hell breaks loose. J comes at me with some kind of toddler evasive maneuver that looks suspiciously like a left hook and succeeds in not getting his arms in the shirt. I let him out of the booster seat and he slides to the floor screaming "noooo!!" with the shirt around his neck, then he lets loose a barrage of kickboxing moves - a left, a right, then a combo followed by a roundhouse!! This is amazing folks!! The kid is wearing Mommy down, she's staggering...AND SHE'S DOWN!!! J WINS THE MATCH!! MOMMY IS NOW 10 MINUTES LATE WITH NO HOPE OF MAKING IT TO WORK ON TIME!! AND SHE HASN'T HAD TIME FOR BREAKFAST OR COFFEE!! THIS...KID...IS...AMAZING!! And the crowd of 1-year-olds goes wild.

Sigh...I'll take a fractious crazy Satanic cat over a toddler in full-on meltdown any day.

It's so much better with a kid.

I'm loving Christmas this year. J is so much more aware of what's going on and really getting into it. He doesn't understand Santa but knows what he looks like, so whenever we see anyone in a Santa suit (even animals) he points and says "Santa!" We put up our tree last weekend and he oohed and aahed just like I hoped, pointing out all of the colors of the ornaments...and then taking them off the tree and throwing them on the ground. At that point I turned into my own mother, threatening: "If you touch those ornaments one more time, I'm going to take the tree down. Is that what you want? No Christmas tree?" For once the threats worked, now he stands in front of the tree wagging his finger "no no no no!" I'm not sure if I should be proud of that or not...

Here are a couple of pics of the tree and a funny video from this morning of J helping to "decorate" the tree. Notice the lack of presents under the tree...we're getting into the spirit but apparently not enough for me to get in gear and finish shopping.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The highs and lows of having a toddler...

Right now J is at a very "difficult" age. I know, I know, he's not really in the terrible 2's just yet but the frustration level some days is pretty high in our house. He can talk...sort of. He can let us know what he does and doesn't want....sort of. He responds to beginning discipline methods like time-outs...sort of. We're averaging at least 1 or 2 major blowups a day now, over the smallest things. It's like trying to interact with someone from another culture. You're both people so you have the same basic wants and needs, but there are subtle differences that are hard to articulate when you don't speak the same language. Add to that all of the various rules and regulations of proper social behavior in this new culture and well...even another adult might have a meltdown here and there.

On the flip side, TH and I are in constant awe of how quick they develop at this age. J's vocabulary literally seems to grow overnight. His retention for things he's learned is also exponentially growing every day. For instance, on his walls I painted a border of jungle animals and last week when he got up from his nap we were learning the animals: lion ("lye-nin"), zebra ("beeba"), giraffe ("rath"), and elephant ("meh-fint" or something garbled like that). We haven't talked about the animals again since then. Cut to today -- we put up our Christmas tree and I have some jungle animal ornaments my mom sent me way back in vet school. J was looking at the tree and suddenly said "lye-nin!" Then a few minutes later, "beeba!!". It seems small but I was floored, because these are not exactly every day words in our house.

He's also counting. Really counting. His favorite book for months now is one by Brainy Baby about numbers. This book goes EVERYWHERE. Church, daycare, the car, bed, you name it. He used to be able to just repeat the numbers when we said them. Now he actually can go from 1 to 10 in order, by himself. Without prompting. I don't know if other 19 month olds can do this but either way it impresses me every single time he does it.

These are the things that you don't know about before you have kids. The meltdowns, screaming fits, and crying jags are not as hard to deal with as I thought they would be, because they're overshadowed by all of the learning, developing, and advancing that's going on at the same time (hmm, am I talking about me or J here?). J can have tantrums all day long and it's totally forgotten when he out of the blue says, "love you!" like he did yesterday. I guess this kid is growing on me after all:)

As promised here are some pics from Saturday.

Okay, first a disclaimer -- I did not take any of the race pictures. TH was responsible for that. For whatever he reason he "forgot" to take pictures of the crowd of 7,500 Santas or me running along the race route. He did get one action shot of me coming around the last corner but it didn't save to the camera for some reason. So these are the best we got, folks. Sorry.

Mommy and J right after the race....Notice the water bottle. That water bottle should win some kind of toddler award, along the lines of "Singlehandledy Responsible for One of the Biggest Public Tantrums Ever When Mommy Tried to Pry It Out of J's Hands to Drink Out of It."

What up, Santa?
Smiling, or About To Throw A Fit? You make the call.

J sleeping in the car after the race. He had such a good time.

Mommy and J dressed up for holiday photos. Sadly these were better than the ones we paid for at JCPenneys. (J's wardrobe courtesy of Granny, who actually overnighted the HANDMADE outfit from Alaska to Las Vegas so it would be here by Friday.)

The first mile is the hardest...

Soooo.....where were you on Saturday? Me, I was dressed up like Santa Claus, and along with about 10,000 of my Santa friends running through downtown Vegas. That's right -- I finished the race!!! And it was awesome. I had 3 goals:
1) Finish the whole thing without stopping to walk.
2) Look good in the Santa suit.
3) Not come in last.
Okay, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. I'm sorry but a cheap crushed velvet Santa suit worn over jogging pants is not going to be cute on anyone. Honestly I kind of had the stuffed sausage thing going on, but oh well. I did manage to run the whole thing, and there were at least a few hundred people behind me:). I have to say I was pretty proud of myself when I came across the finish line. Nothing beats coming around the last corner and seeing J and TH jumping up and down waving, saying "Yay Mommy!! You did it!!" Man, that was great. J had a great time at the race, strolling around Fremont Street saying, "Santa! Santa! Santa! Doggie!" (yes there were Santa dogs, too.). There were a few tense moments of Random Tantrum On The Street Over Refusing to Hold Mommy's Hand, but even that couldn't but a damper on the event. It was pretty much a perfect morning (they even had free Starbucks --free! Starbucks! -- at the finish line. I'm definitely running this one again next year.)

Which brings us to the B side of what was an otherwise lovely day. After the race I had the day off so we went to JCPenney's for Christmas photos. What. A. Fiasco. We had such a great experience there last year when J was only
7 months old. He smiled and laughed at the right times, and we got so many great shots. This year, different story. He wasn't bad, exactly, just....extremely uncooperative. He kept running at the camera, trying to run out of the room, and throwing the plastic ornaments they gave him to hold. Then they wanted him to sit in a little chair which he did, until they said "smile" and then he would pop up saying "I see you!!"...which was cute, but impossible to get a good picture. So we ended up with only one shot of us and one shot of him that were decent. Sheesh. Toddlers.

I'll be posting a bunch of pics from the race later...