the pieces of my life

It’s official. The Deuce is now the Deucette. I’m sure she’s going to be payback for my own teenage years. Better start investigating reform schools now….

I tried having a serious conversation with Doodles (link from Claire), but it didn’t quite work:

Doodles, some guys go out for a good time over the weekend, and end up with thousands of dollars taken out of their paychecks for the next 18 years. Do you know how that could happen?

He just sucked his finger, smiled, and said, “Cereal!” I’m not sure he got the point.

I got the following e-mail from my darling husband on Monday. You know, last Monday? The day he gleefully roughhoused with Doodles exclaiming, “You know what day it is! You know what day it is!” (Don’t worry: I didn’t know what day it was either.) Anyway, the e-mail read:

“I set up Replay to tape the pre-game ceremony at 2pm on NESN [New England Sports Network] but I forgot to tape the pre-pre-game-show at 1pm.”

Um, hello? We now have five full hours Replayed of Red Sox opening day. Oh thank God baseball season is back. Anyone out there want to do something for the next, oh six months? I’ll be free. Let the games begin.

Every week after our music class, Doodles and I go to our local hangout with a group of moms/toddlers. I almost always get myself something to drink and, now that my appetite has shot through the roof, an egg-and-cheese croissant sandwich. I got my order, plopped myself down on the couch while Doodles roamed and played with his friends. After a bit, he asked, “Up, please,” so I sat him next to me on the couch. Doodles loves drinking from straws. I had my drink resting on my leg, and that icy goodness had a pretty straw in it, so Doodles pulled my drink toward him. I’m a fairly nice mom, willing to share my cookies or my juice or water, so I helped him out, moving the straw toward his mouth, continuing my conversation with the mom sitting next to me. Doodles happily sipped away and it wasn’t until I saw the look of horror on another mom’s face that I realized what I was doing. I was letting Doodles have my drink. Of iced coffee. Whoops! I pulled it away, much to his distress, and appeased him with a cup of milk with a straw (which he doesn’t normally get at that hour), but still I was greatly disturbed at how much my nineteen-month-old son seemed to delight in the taste of coffee. Tomorrow I’m thinking about letting him take a drag off a cigarette.

While I love that Doodles vocabulary is expanding at a rapid pace, I’m a little sad that he no longer says “ishes” but now says “fish.” This was proven this past weekend when I took him to the Mystic Aquarium. Once a year, my former college roommate, Jax, and I meet up at Foxwoods for a day. But if you know Jax, then you know that once a year is not enough of a fix. Jax is a hoot, and I wish she lived closer so we could pal around more often (although she’s a terrible influence on me, so Adam should be just as happy she’s four hours away). So we decided to meet halfway in between us at the aquarium with our kids. Jax has two adorable girls, four and six, whom I had never met. That’s the thing with meeting at casinos. It’s generally frowned upon to bring your children. Frankly, I can’t think of a better way to teach a kid to add than to set him at the blackjack table, but then, that’s just the kind of mom I am.

The aquarium certainly lived up to its reputation, and I would recommend it to anyone who lives in the New England area. Trying to have a no-holds-barred conversation with a buddy with three kids in tow, however, I would not recommend. We’d whisper little things to each other over the tops of the kids heads as Jax answered thirty million questions from her kids (“Hmm, I don’t know why the sting ray has such a long tail”; “That’s a great question. I wonder how that 800-pound sea lion moves around so quickly”) and I chased Doodles as he ran from tank to tank, excitedly pointing and shouting, “Fish! Fish!” He’d get to one fish and suddenly realize there were even more fish right next to him, and each fish was a wonderful, exciting new discovery.

Seeing Jax with kids was definitely odd. I mean, I knew she had them. I’d seen pictures, heard stories. But to actually see my out-of-control college roommate acting as a responsible, loving mother was kind of mind blowing. It made me feel, well, old. I mean, if Jax grew up, then there’s no hope for the rest of us. Maturity is inevitable. Luckily, we’ll always have our trips to Foxwoods to insure that there’s still some of the kid left in us. Nothing a martini and a stack of chips won’t cure.

Some folks e-mailed me that they were curious what Doodles’s nutritionist had to say. [A recap for those who don’t remember: Doodles eats only crunchy carbs with the occasional smooth yogurt or smooth baby food fruit. No real fruit, no veggies, no meat, no non-milk dairy, no soy, no nutin’!] Let me share the great wisdom she gave us. Let me save you the $100 (because our insurance doesn’t cover nutritionists) and give you all her little secrets. Let me save you an hour of your life being grilled about your child’s eating habits and skip right to what she had to say. Are you ready? This is a biggie:

“Sounds like your son is pretty hard core.” Yes, folks, that’s what she said as she shooed me out the door. Basically, she gave me two options. The first was to wait for a weekend (so Adam would be home too) and starve my little eating machine until he was willing to eat what we wanted him to eat. Way to not make eating a power struggle! The second option is to get him some “feeding therapy.” Yup. It’s a real thing. Food therapy. Oy. Anyway, after finding out that our insurance doesn’t cover feeding therapy, either, we got in touch with our local Early Intervention, and we have an evaluation scheduled for Doodles in about a month.

What comes next? If we can’t potty train him does he get Toilet Therapy? And what about me? Is there any I Need Five Quiet Minutes to Myself Therapy? How about for Adam? Is there I’m Addicted to my Computer Therapy? I see a lot of business opportunities out there for any of you budding entrepreneurs!

Doodles wasn’t just cranky on the plane ride to Miami. He was sick. Which makes me feel like a bad mother for complaining about him. We got to Miami and it turns out he had a double ear infection. The exact words of the local doctor (after removing copious amounts of wax in order to peer in) were, “Oooh, those ears are ugly!”

So we got the good-old reliable antibiotic prescription. Only, we were in Miami. What difference does that make? Well, in the Yankee northeast, when a child is prescribed antibiotics, it comes in a pretty pink-tinted, bubble-gummed flavor elixer. Doodles loves the stuff. He will suck it out of the syringe. But in Miami, antibiotics come in a pale white, tropical fruit flavor nastiness. And Doodles hates tropical fruit flavors. Getting the medicine down him is a two-person task, with one person holding down his arms while the other forces the medicine into his mouth.

The medicine did the trick, of course. But I think Doodles learned a valuable lesson: don’t get sick in the south.

Doodles has become the cling-child. He must be with Momma at all times and only Momma will do. Right now he’s terrorizing his poor mother’s helper by standing at the kitchen gate shouting, “Mommamommamommamommamommma,” over and over and over again. The plus side to this is I’m getting extreme amounts of cuddle time but the down side, of course, is that I can’t be more than three feet away from him. It’s not enough that I walk with him these days–he wants me to carry him everywhere. And, again, only me. Adam won’t do. Not enough that I have this unborn parasite to contend with; now I have a living, breathing parasite who wants to suck the life out of me as well.

Well, would you look at that? Sunday, spring officially started, and sure enough, today was sunny and warm with a high of 84. I love it! Oh, wait, that’s right. I’m on vacation in Miami Beach. Boston is under a winter storm warning because they’re expecting between six and eleven of inches of snow in the next twenty-four hours.

Doodles and I caught an early morning flight down. The last time I flew solo with him, it was a challenge but I was able to appease him with “D,” aka the portable DVD player we got just for the trip. Ah, but the child has widened his horizons. There’s so much more to life than just D. The airport was a blast for him. He stood at the window and said/signed over and over, “aihplane! aihplane!” I had a hard time pulling him away from the window to get him on the plane. As soon as I got the car seat into his seat, he wanted to play with the straps. Now mind you, he didn’t want to get into the car seat, just play with it. A few forceful tugs on my part and in he was.

In the beginning, I was able to distract him with food. But then, somehow, my bottomless pit child filled up and wanted new things to do. But I had planned ahead. Doodles will sit at home for 45 minutes just lacing and unlacing his sneakers. There isn’t enough room for him to do that in the car seat (he has a whole little routine down) so I bought him some lacing cards. It was a brilliant purchase. Only he played with it for fewer than two minutes. I pulled out books–new and old. I pulled out the magnadoodle. I sang him songs. No dice. So finally, we get in the air and I pull out the secret weapon. The DVD player. Which worked for about 20 minutes. And then he said, “All done. All done,” violently making the sign. I tried singing again, but he cut me off with a “No!” (So much for my American Idol dream.) Milk (which I practically had to beg off the flight attendants because they don’t actually serve milk on flights anymore) and a granola bar worked for about twenty minutes.

Of course, the flight was incredibly turbulent because of bad weather so we were flying low, which added almost a full half hour to our flight time. And it was too bumpy to let him walk around. Which is why I’d like to apologize to all the folks on Flight 937 sitting in rows, oh, say, 1 through 40, for the toddler who screamed for 30 minutes straight. At first I tried to appease. He turned down graham crackers. Said no to all my songs. Didn’t want to be stroked or kissed. Didn’t want to be read to. So, I did what any sane parent would do. I gave up. Yes, I am that mom, the mom with a toddler screaming in public who is simply ignoring him. The mom with the crying baby on a business flight who is doing nothing to quiet him. The mom casually reading American Way while tears stream down her child’s face. Honestly there was nothing else that could be done. Eventually, he fell asleep about forty minutes before landing.

The only thing I can do is I promise that I shall not fly solo with that child (or future child) again for many, many years to come. I think I might be able to accompany him when he flies off to college. But it still may be a little too soon.

My 18-month-old son has decided he no longer needs his nap. My 36-year-old weary tired self has decided that he actually needs to be taking longer naps. Who do you think is winning this battle? I type guiltily as he screams from his crib. But this is nap time, and dammit, that child is going to nap or at least stay in his crib until I’ve had time to take a few deep breaths.

Doodles has been more or less charming lately, but today he’s been in a “no no no no NO!” kind of mood. This has been the first nice day out (and who would believe that I would consider 40 degrees to be nice, but, hey, after what we’ve had, 40 degrees is downright balmy) and I decided we’d walk down to Walgreens to pick up a prescription for me (Tylenol 3. Oh, how I love Tylenol 3! For pregnancy headaches, Motrin is a no-no, but apparently codeine is just fine. Sometimes pregnancy can be a beautiful thing). Doodles did fine on the walk, although at one point, he started to nod off. Oh, I don’t think so! So I gave him food. Food always works. When we got home, I felt bad for having him cooped up in the stroller so I offered to let him play outside. He happily got down and started saying “Bubbles,” which is what he thinks snow is. After a few minutes of “Bubbles” and giggling, he pointed at absolutely nothing, looked at me firmly, and said, “Nmengish.”

“What would you like, honey?” I asked.

“Nmengish,” he demands.

I have no idea what this is and I tell him so. He’s becoming visibly upset and walks to the steps to go up to the house. Now he just pouts and starts to scream. “Do you want to go inside?” Scream. “Do you want to walk up the steps?” Scream. “Do you want to play?” Scream. “Do you want to go for a walk?” Scream. I give up and sit down on the steps, only to be pushed off by my child who is screaming, “No no no no no NO NO NO!”

Finally, I carried him inside where he did eventually stop screaming. The solution? more food, of course. I gave him lunch, I played with him, read him some books. He then walked to the bottom of the stairs and said, “Sleep.” So I brought him upstairs, read him a few more books. He put his head on my shoulder in his tired way. I put him in his crib, where he’s been screaming for, oh, about an hour now.

That’s the kind of day we’re having. I’ve even written a little song about it (with apologies to the Bangles):

It’s just another nap-free Wednesday
I wish it were Saturday
Because that’s my pass-him-off to Daddy day
It’s just another nap-free Wednesday.

Hey, did you hear that sound? It was sound of my will snapping in half. I’m going to get the child. Round 286: The Doodlebug.