Shave and a Haircut

Today was a day when I finally had some time to devote to the issue of the giant clown-head of hair that my son has spent the last 3 years developing.

When he turned two, his curly longish hair was just delish. How could I cut it?! I just couldn’t. It wasn’t out of control or anything, so we just let it go wild. Which it did. Which we didn’t pay much attention to, to be honest. But, every afternoon when I picked him up from daycare, it was SO clear that he was the only child that had not had a haircut…

Edward and I used to talk about going to the Magic Kingdom. They have that barbershop just inside the entrance.  One of the doctors I work with took his son there and had an amazing experience. And got a commemorative hat. Cute and silly.

That plan was a bust.

Second plan, Uncle John.

World-class barber, family member, man with skillz.

As far as I was concerned, this was a very good option. We stopped by the shoppe a few times. V was NOT impressed the first time.

Between the first and second visit, we saw John a few times. The second visit was a bit better. We chilled in the shoppe, watched some people get a haircut and then went and visited Auntie Celine at Publix and got a cookie.

And so that brings us up to today. Thought we’d try something new, so we went to Sharkey’s Cuts For Kids in Avalon Park. One of my ladies lives there, told me it looks super appealing to kiddos and so we thought we’d check it out today.

Well.

As we walked towards the shop, he was excited. There was a shark on the door. Major excitement. Inside? A Lightening McQueen car. Holy freak out! And as we moved towards the Lightening McQueen chair, he balked. Froze. Mentally retreated. Screamed. Flailed. Resisted.

And then we left. We left with V saying “Only Uncle John cuts da hair. I wear a ducky cape. Getta hair cut.”

Oh.

Oh really?

And off we went.

We waited politely at Uncle John’s salon. And he pleasantly accommodated us.

And was pleasantly rejected by V. John stepped in with the best statement ever “Give him to me”.

I sure will. He is all yours.

In reality, we struggled with a child that didn’t want a haircut until his little bum was place into the barber chair. Once cutting commenced, crying decreased but still remained rather steady throughout, despite Uncle John rather chipperly shouting out “Vince!! Just cutting a bit!! It’s fine!! Look! I’m done!!” or something like that. I forget.

I was mentally crying. All those little snips eradicated any blonde that resided on that sweet little head… My little tow-headed blonde is now a brunette. And is an actual boy.

Apparently when you get a haircut you become a real boy. Haircuts are magical. Instantaneously, he seemed to become an adult. And then he proceeded to make a bunch of adult decisions. “Mummy, I need to go peepee on the potty”. And so? Off we went. “Mummy? I need to do a poo”. Really? At a public place? Hells ya. And so off we went. There were no pants accidents that day. Lots of polite conversation about using the potty. Very humane.

Post-haircut, I really felt like a needed to do a shot. I thought I was fine. I honestly did. But as we drove away and V called for his current favorite song to be played, I snuffled back some tears. Those little baby-fine locks of hair drifted to the floor like butterflies. And then his tears pooled on top.

Butterflies and tears. A Mariah Carey explosion.

I am sure she is already planning a cover for her next album after reading this. As you may know, my blog is on the top of her favorites list for parenting advice.

Anyways, Little Man on post hair-cut is rather proud. He politely bragged to Daddy and Grandparents about how his hair was cut  by ‘Unka Donn’. Who is really Uncle John. Who really cuts hair. Really well. And has a Barber Shoppe. In Orlando. And totally will cut your Little Dudes hair as well.

This morning when Edward woke up, he said (in an aside) to me “He looks SO different.” And in a way he does. But then he ran and gave me ‘super kisses’ and ‘Super hugs’ and said ‘I love Uncle John’.

I love Uncle John too.

xoxo a.m.

Passive aggressive arguing via Pirate…

I have, from time to time, a few bones to pick with the husband. Excusing that he does work 2 jobs, rarely has a whole day off and get approx one morning a week to sleep in, he is a pain in my ass.

Like, I imagine, all of your husbands are. And if they are not, there seriously must be something wrong with your relationship. Even though I am sure they all do awesome stuff, just like mine, I seriously swear they also all have no clue at all.

Mine will literally leave pieces of actual garbage around the house and not notice them. He will walk over them. I have actually seen him walk through a pile of dirt I have just swept up, kicking it as he walks through it. Not noticing at all.

First time (yes, he’s don’t it more than once), I shouted “Oh COME ON!!” You’ve got to be kidding me!!” I mean, its not as if all paths lead right to the dirt. There were other routes he could have taken. He, honestly, just doesn’t notice.

But, I have solved the problem. And I am pretty sure you will be extremely impressed with how I handled it.

Yesterday, Vince and I got home from HomeDepot and Edward had left just a few minutes prior. The house was a disaster. One, I am sure, he hadn’t even noticed. And I had had enough.

After cleaning THE WHOLE ENTIRE HOUSE, while entertaining a 3 YEAR OLD CHILD and FEEDING HIM DINNER.

I very gracefully wrote a note in a sort of pseudo-pirate type language and propped in up in the fridge, next to ‘dinner’.

Late last night, E woke me up on his crawl into bed. He muttered something. I don’t remember what it was, but it wasn’t about pirates. This morning on my way to work, Edward called, asked after how the rest of my morning had gone, arrived at work and did not mention pirates.

Don’t worry, I brought it up.

“Hun, did a pirate leave you a message in the fridge last night?”

“Ummhmm, seemed to be making a good point too.”

“Are you planning on listening to him? He seemed rather forceful..”

“Clearly I do. It is obviously in my best interests.”

It obviously is. Jackpot!! All suggestions will now be delivered via pirate. I highly recommend.

xoxo a.m.

Revenge pee

Things to Google:

Revenge Pee

And, of course, it is my son that leads me to Google things like this. The majority of knowledge I have gained from my son in the last 3 years is urine and feces related. Google is my best friend. It has helped me learn  lots of things, most of which are regarding how to remove odors and stains from various fabric-type materials.

For the last 3 weeks or so, a particular pattern has been developing. One which has, honestly, been rather hard to figure out. Periodically V will just pee. A sort of no-warning situation. Often times it’s as a result of a stressful situation, or a situation he just doesn’t approve of. Or, mostly, something he disapproves of.

Or we’d fight, he’d cry and then pee on the floor. Through his shorts. Or, I’d say no, he’d cry and then pee on the floor. Sometimes he’d just run off to a corner of the livingroom, pretend to play with his toys and then announce “Mummy. I peed. Right der.”

*sigh*

But finally I made the connection. Revenge pee. Dude.

Telling one of my friends about my theory, she thought “Did you see if there is anything online? Probably there is a Mum that has dealt with it already…”

Well, I did learn a whole bunch of interesting stuff about people who take revenge on other people by peeing on their stuff. Animals too. Not peeing on animals, I mean. Just animals that revenge pee. That’s what you get when you Google ‘revenge pee’.

When, however, you Google ‘Children pee’ you get all sorts of shizzle. Info that, frankly, I have no interest in really reading as I am living the dream and am pretty sure that all Mum’s are doing the same things that I am. There honestly is not that many actual options.

Comfort (if it was indeed an accident) or reassure.

Obviously clean up is a MAJOR part of the operation.

As of yet, there is no punishment. It is so a total ‘f-you Mummy, let me have my own way!!’ that I pretty much cannot have any real reaction. Maybe an eyebrow raise. Oh, and a Mummy-face. One that I am still perfecting as it has a 50-50 response rate.

Today was a good day though. No revenge peeing. Plus V actively asking to use the potty. AND he pooped. TWICE. ON the potty.

Despite my total exhaustion and low levels of everything (Family health issues that I will not be discussing, except to say that there are some. They make me sad. And I am trying very hard to be adult about them), V filled that potty the m-f-ing up.

Which, I admit, in hind-sight type-wise sounds a little gross, but for real. We were super high-fiving each other and I did not have to clean up any poo from any non-toilet surface today.

Now I have totally lost my train of thought. Pretty sure it’s about pee. Probably poo too. It is my life, after all.

Anyways, any tips on surviving revenge peeing?

xoxo a.m.

Lies you tell your children (and other things I regret)

Lying to your kids.  For  ladies and gentlemen of my generation? Well, it’s a new thing.

For our parents? They are seriously thinking “Oh darn, they’ve finally figured it out.” And they mean us. If you just started lying to your own kids, this means you just figured out that your own parents lied to you.

Case in point: a few months ago, Vince and Edward were playing with the light switch in V’s bedroom. Flicking in on. And off. And on. And off. Andonandoffandonandoffandonandoffandonandoffandoff.

“Guys!! Don’t do that! You’ll start a fire!” I shouted dramatically. Which is, apparently, the only way I know how to shout. Unless it’s at work. Then I shout calmly. With dramatic license. Maybe that’s the same thing…

Edward looked at me. With humour. “It’ll start a what? What will it start Jame?”

“A fire. It’ll start a… hmmm… fire. Ya.”

“And who told you that?”

“My Mummy. My Mummy told me it would start a fire,” I said, petulantly, like a 3 year old. A three year old who knew they were wrong.

“Jame. Your Mum totally LIED to you,” Edward stated fake solemnly. Bastard. Seriously for years. YEARS. I thought that was the truth. It’s the little things, right? It was just a small lie, one that you’d forget about, one that would just become ingrained… (But regardless, I’ll still blame my husband)

And so, apparently, we all carry it on.

This past Christmas when we decided to take the tree down, we did it overnight. So when V woke up in the morning, it was gone. Coming downstairs, he was rather surprised.

“Mummy!! Where’d da tree go?!”

“Santa took it, back to the North Pole baby. Next year, he’ll bring it back.”

“Mummy? Where da weeth go?? And da lights?”

“Santa took the wreath and lights, baby. To the North Pole. But he’ll bring them back in December!”

“Oh, ok Mummy!”

And that has worked for several months….

This last week or so?

Whole buildings have disappeared. Random items from the house. Dirty underwear. Garbage. Chewies toys. Etc etc…

“Mummy!! Santa took it!! He took the building! And da fire truck! And da Christmas Dog movie!”

“No baby, no he didn’t” (Although, ‘Santa Paws’ can stay with Santa. I don’t want it back. Stupid movies about dogs with magical Christmas powers…)

Etc etc.

Santa apparently has taken everything or is about to take everything. Vince doesn’t say too much about him bringing those things back. I wasn’t trying to make him out to be a bad guy, just trying to find an explanation for why these things disappeared over night.

So it has now turned into a constant re-imagining of life. Because Santa can and, apparently, will, crop up and take things. He will TAKE IT ALL.

And NOT BRING IT BACK.

I can just see years worth of either therapy or lying ahead of me. Probably lying. Lots and lots of lying. Hopefully not therapy. Could be expensive…

xoxo a.m. (the big fat liar)

Buddha

Every morning as V and I are driving to daycare, we pass a rather lovely Buddhist temple. And there is a huge sign at the entrance, one that always seems to be enticing me to just pull right in.

But, usually, it’s 7 am. And it’s closed.

And also, usually, my son is extremely sticky, which just doesn’t seem temple appropriate.

For the last few weeks, the sign has been advertising an upcoming festival and I felt that this was a sign (which it was) and also a ‘sign’. I should go! I should bring my three-year-old! Monks don’t mind kids, right? What could possibly go wrong!

Well, my memory for one. V and I showed up at the temple yesterday. And even though I saw the sign that said ‘Ceremony 5-15-2011’ and yesterday was clearly the 14th, I pulled my big girl pants up a little and drove in anyways.

I mean, so what, right? It’s open to the public. I can just go and check it out. Right? Jaw clenched, I drove into the parking lot and then for no reason at all, followed the car in front of me around the temple. All around the back, passed the pond, the basketball hoop and that random guy on his cell phone near what looked like monk quarters to me and parked. Right next to the car I was following.

He peered in my window as he walked past us. I pretended I was busy doing something and tried to avoid eye contact. I extracted V from the car, brushed him off in the parking lot and, holding hands, we bravely headed in.

I should note that I used to be extremely uncomfortable doing things like this. Edward used to joke that when we lived in Japan, he was surprised I went anywhere. But I am a big girl now, I can go where I want to. Really.

We were inside for about a minute. It smelled soothing. A lot of people were very, very busy doing things that looked rather important. On the other side of the main entrance, a hall extended filled with chairs ending with an enormous Buddha and a monk lovingly tending to the area surrounding him.

I know that sounds rather vague, but upon seeing Buddha, Vince promptly stated “I wanna go dere.” and attempted to drag me ‘dere’. So we left. Planning on coming back today

Which we did. All three of us. How lovely! It was a lovely morning full of chanting and praying. We wandered aimlessly amongst the shaved ice, mochi and assorted religious paraphernalia. We did not buy raffle tickets. We listened to the monks and with every step, V tried to drag us into the temple.

We finally were dragged up to the front of the temple by V, where some interesting things were going on. Several people were very busy putting the finishing touches on the most gorgeous fresh flowers surrounding numerous little buddha statues, which were standing in a beautiful fountain. Ceremonial ladles were next to each one, for the ‘washing the buddha’ ceremony.

V and washed Buddha. First we washed him the wrong way. “Not on the head, just on the shoulders…” Glad that we watched some other people who didn’t know what they were doing wash Buddha the wrong way too. Yikes!

Anyways, we washed him together, thought thoughtful things about cleansing, peace and love. Slipped a donation in a red envelope and gave it to a lovely woman who told Vince he was the cutest Gator fan ever. Even though he was wearing a Giants jersey.

It was, honestly, a lovely way to start the day… pictures to follow once I find my card-reader.

xoxo to all my sweet, peaceful and thoughtful readers.

a.m.

How to lose your child in a department store (A Guide)

This is what not running looks like...

First of all, and this part is really important, try to make sure that you get infected with pinkeye 2 or 3 days prior to attempting to lose your child. This, I feel, really heightens the event by increasing not only your uncomfortableness but skewing your vision as well.

And ideally this will all take place on a Sunday. And if all of the stars are aligned properly, it will also be Mother’s Day.

We very politely crossed the parking lot, holding hands, and entered the building. We went and collected a shopping cart, V scooted in and off we went. Just browsing, I picked up a cute work shirt, grabbed some Mickey Mouse pj’s for Little Man and was perusing some trinkets WHEN. WHEN

He picked up 2 watches from a display table and did a runner.

And while running away from me? He kicked off his sandals, gained momentum and disappeared between the brassieres…

Oh my god. There were way to many brassieres. It was like finding a needle in a jungle. And V is like a huge chubby needle, with no shoes, but I still couldn’t find him.

Not in the men’s long sleeve shirt section. Not amongst the kitchen goods.

Where was he? I had no idea. Edward called me while I was looking… Transcript to follow:

E: “Happy Mother’s Day sweetie!!”

J: “I lost our child.”

E: “What. What!”

J: “Ya. I’ll call you back.”

*Click*

5 or possibly 10 minutes later, a giggly, blonde, curly mess with no shoes tore around the corner of a display, watches in hand. And perhaps the cheekiest grin you have ever seen in your whole entire life. Unless you are me. Then, you see a new one ever single day.

So to recap trying to capture this delicious moment…

Plan on pinkeye. Aim for little to no sleep for at least 2 days prior to the event. Also, having your husband sleeping downstairs on a futon because he doesn’t want to catch your disease. Very important. If you also have a fever and  sinus congestion while this is all going on, even better. I feel it really heightens the emotional reward.

xoxo a.m.

(My Mother’s Day sucked. Except for that part when my child was sleeping)

Some more about poop

Look Mum! No Poop!!

As if I don’t write enough about it. Geez. I am annoyed with myself. But, you know, you draw what you can from your own experiences and this is apparently what my life is consisting of lately.

Today was a particularly special day.

It started off with poo and ended with it as well. How blessed am I! I guess I am blessed with an almost 3 year old that can pee in the potty, but hasn’t quite mastered the poo. But has mastered the ‘holding it’ part of the movement and is rather good at it.

Blah. Anyways, thats how it started today. A nonchalant statement ‘Mummy? I poo in my underwears.” It was just a flat out statement. No emotion at all. It has become de rigeur. Routine. Normal.

And then this afternoon? We got home, walked the dog and then headed out into the courtyard to pull some weeds. We have had a serious weed eruption in the last 5 days. It’s insane. V and I pulled about 3 pounds of weeds this afternoon and in the middle of all of this vigrous pulling, V announced:

“Mummy! Dere’s poo! Right der!”

“Oh?” Uninterestedly… “There is?”

“Mummy!! Right der. Da poo. It’s icky. It’s on my sock”.

Ok, now that got my attention. What? And then? There it was. In the middle of the courtyard.

A turd. Just one. But don’t worry, there was a shower of them to follow.

I had to pick them all up individually. With my bare hands.

Ha! I kid. I keed. I used a papertowel.

And just when I thought I’d got them all, we started heading upstairs and then one more appeared. Renegade poop.

Vince shouted: “It’s a stinky icky poo!! Ewwwwwwww!” Which made me laugh as it rolled out of his pant-leg and on to the floor. He created and disowned in a microsecond.

Having nothing near by to pick it up with, I used V’s dirty sock to pick up the turd, carry it upstairs and deposit it in the toilet.

And that, probably, is the perfect example of the regular life of a normal Mummy. Sock poo pick-up. Vomit slasher-film type experience. Random wet pants.

Edward got home 15 minutes later to a clean Vince, pj-clad and pleasant. Neither of us mentioned anything about poo. To Daddy or each other. Not that, I think, its something we’d have a conversation about. But it was just not mentioned.

And then, I watched Beauty and the Beast and went to bed. Clearly a win of a day…

xoxo a.m.

Inappropriate English

Just yesterday, Edward and I had one of ‘those’ conversations. One that, I think, he was pretty sure was a HUGE lecture. Probably one that lots and lots of wives have had with their husbands. Or not. I mean, I am married to Edward and he is a huge pain in my ass.

But they all are, aren’t they?

Anyways, I came back from the March for Babies in downtown Orlando to a happy home. Vince was full of appetite and life. Edward was cheerful and non-sleep-deprived. The dog was walked. Everyone was terribly happy.

“Vincent, would you like another cup of booger poo-poo milk?” asked Edward, oh so politely.

“NOOOO! I no like booger poo-poo milk”, Vince responded in a manner that indicated that he had been asked this question before.

And why would I even be a little surprised by this. Edward teaches him all sorts of ridiculous things, things which usually result in ‘looks’ from me. ‘Looks’ that I am pretty sure that Edward has learned to ignore.

Because he still teaches him ridiculous things.

So back to yesterday….

“Please, please. Can you teach him English?? Please?”, I asked, while most likely making a face, which means I was trying to not make a face. Which is another face entirely.

Response?

“I will teach him anything I want to!”, he proclaimed proud and firmly, “It’s my fatherly right.”

I rolled my eyes. Men. Whatever. This was just a pointless argument waiting to start. This was something I was going to leave alone for the time being.

Or, at least I thought I was going to…

Later that day, Vince and I hit up the grocery store. We were running low on Vincent snacks among other things. Needed some fruit, stuff for dinner, some milk.

We hit up the dairy section and I reached into the case to grab a couple of litres of milk.

“Mummy! Mummy Mummy Mummy! I no like booger poo-poo milk!”, Vince sing-songed while I was reaching.

“Booger Poo-poo! BOOGER! Poo! POO!!” he proclaimed, “BOOGER POO POO BOOGER BOOGER POO! POO! BOOGER! POO POO POO POO!”

And as we rolled through the aisles, he continued to shout this out at varying levels of loudness.

Finally I called Edward. “Thanks honey. Thanks”.

“What?!?!” he replied bewilderingly. But he knew. Oh, he knew. And then I made him listen. Listen as his son sang the most ridiculous song about boogers and poopoo at the top of his lungs while I pushed him around the grocery store.

That Bastard.

That Bastard who then apologized to me profusely. And then promised to be more conscientious of what he talked about with Vince. You honestly would think an English teacher would have better sense. Right?

Clearly I have married a crazy person.

xoxo a.m.