Naptime for Mummy

Sometimes Mummies need naps.

Now Mummies, I know its hard to remember, especially when you are facing mountains of laundry and sticky surfaces everywhere. Handprints on your TV screen and all around the edges of your coffee table. Milk stains and banana smears on your (stupidly) non-leather furniture. Many many many very small toys scattered everywhere. Dirty toilets. Your husband’s (or domestic partner’s) socks littering the house.

But.

(and this but is very important)

But, you have to, for the love of God, sit down and put those feet up. Or you will literally wear those feet of yours right down to the quick.

Home with V the other day, my parents (who are visiting from Canada) went golfing and V went upstairs for nap-time right after they’d left.

After I put him down, I walked past my bedroom and happened to notice my bed eying me suggestively from the doorway.

“Sleep with me… sleeeeeeeep with me. I want you to,” it seemed to say. I just couldn’t resist those bedroom eyes, stripped down to my underwear, threw my clothes on the floor and crawled in.

20 seconds after snuggling my head into every pillow on the bed, I was out. And I remained out for 2 1/2 hours. Mummy-hood. Tiring.

I was so surprised when I woke up hours later. And damn did I feel good! Thanks, King-sized bed, for that little afternoon delight. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d taken a nap.

It made me think that I really need to make the time for these little things and the laundry can go and ‘eff’ itself. And the fingerprints can as well and M can pick up his own damn socks and clean that f-ing toilet too.

Chatting with my mum in the kitchen later that night, she mentioned something to me.

“Men always seem to think that women can just go go go and never stop. And they never notice when a little assistance would make things so much smoother”. (Or something like that)

And it is true.

So Men, those wives of yours, those mothers of your children, help them find the opportunity to put those feet up. Take a nap. Take a bath. It helps us not only retain our sanity, but also have the energy to do nice things for you in return… Like bj’s… (Ha!! just kidding, no-one who’s married has sex anymore…you know that!). More like back rubs and sweet kisses. I know you want those sweet kisses….

xoxo a.m.

(for some sweet He-Man related artwork, click the above picture)

Mist

Today I took the Little Man to a paint store. Sherwin Williams, to be exact. It’s a few blocks from our house and I am currently in the process of trying to eradicate all traces of the previous owners. The owners who apparently really liked the colours peach (and all shades there-within). The interior of my rooms look like someone vomited flesh all over them. So. Awful.

Manhattan Mist. Much nicer…

I love paint colours. Mostly just the names of the colours. So awesome. Wasabi breeze. Pine nut. Mint haze. Etc…

Anyways, Mist is what I picked for our bedroom. I sampled last weekend. Just a few spots. Alright….. I tested every single wall. Which made it tricky to not paint it in a timely manner…

Anyways. V and I went to the paint store. Unluckily there were a few people inline a head of us.

This was just bad news.

For the first 5 minutes this was not a bad thing. V ran around the store, found some buttons to push and he appeared to be having a good time.

Yay!

Let’s hope that this line won’t take too long.

Guess what. It did! Because the people in front of me had some trouble deciding on what type of paint they wanted. Even though they had been there way longer than I had. And had ample time to make decisions. Clearly no-one is as prepared as me. Colour sample swatches, paint decisions… I am ready.

V was too. He ran.

He found things on the floor to put in his mouth. He ran behind the counter to where they mix the paint. He ran back and forth in front of the door alarm, setting it off endlessly. He put more things in his mouth. Things he shouldn’t put in his mouth. Like screwdrivers. Rollers. Scrapers…. and other ‘paint’ utensils. Whatever he could get his hands on.

I literally could not keep my hands on him. Suddenly I felt like one of those ladies that I have seen around, with those kids that they can’t control. I might not be able to control my child.

Luckily the only people there thought he was adorable. And then they left before he had his tantrum.

Which was an awesome one, by the way. In case you wanted to know.

We left approx 45 minutes later. With paint. One major tantrum. A few extra pieces of garbage in my pocket (pulled from V’s mouth). Those rollers that he had put in his mouth.

We exited the store to the words “Wow, those little dudes sure have a lot of energy”.

This was coming from a girl of approx. 17 years old. Made me laugh.

So how do you do it? Police a child in a store full of pointy, chemically things? V is fully asserting his independence and will not sit in a stroller for extended periods of time. He also wants to dash into people, traffic, other peoples parked cars (that he likes to pat) and generally away from me. If I make a move towards him, he runs away. With a cheeky look on his face.

Argh!

Child of mine is a rather trying at times. But cute. So I don’t mind. I have this feeling that he might be taking after his mother right now. A cute pain in the ass.

Well, shit.

Just a few things that I have noticed that V brings home from daycare.

Bruises

This is a major one. Now probably this is because he has been walking for about 1 month (1 MONTH!) and falls down all of the time. Tonight during bath-time I noticed that his calves were literally littered with little bruises. It looks like someone whacked those little legs with a stick. And there were even a couple on the side of his little tush. My eyebrows raised a little when I saw those little bruises. What on earth is going on at DayCare that results in bum bruises?

Unexplained marks

Yesterday I picked him up from school and he was crying. He wasn’t crying when I was peeking at him from outside, but between me peeking and entering the building, something had happened. Something, and nobody seemed to clear on what had made him cry.

Well, regardless, off we went. We stopped for some french-fries on the way home. Just a little treat for my wee man. About 2 hours later I happened to notice a mark on his arm. With a closer look, I realized that it looked a lot like someone’s small mouth. As in someone bit him. Nice. And so there you go. Someone bit my child. And I learned about it by accident.

I mentioned it this morning when I dropped him off and apparently the class has a biter. During bath-time tonight, while I was noticing his cane-marks on those calves, I saw a faded mark on his other arm. The more I looked at it, the more I became convinced that it was another bite-mark. It was suspiciously rounded and mouth-like.

Shit.

Well, shit.

Shit.

Art Projects

Now these are delightful.

Yesterday I received 3 little things that he had done, little things he had painted and glued things on to. I just love this.

Tonight when I came home, V had ‘homework’. Oh, I even loved this! We had to send 5 different leaves to school tomorrow for a ‘project’. Off we went as a family to get some leaves. How lovely to have a little family project.

So biting, bruising and art work. That is what school has brought us so far. Oh, and the flu. And also a constant cold for 3 weeks. And some added emotional stress for all of us. And the word ‘No’.

So far school is kicking our ass. Damn it!! I was trying for a win!