The C-Dog!

My son is officially weird. I've been suspicious of this fact for a while, but now I know it to be true. I cannot deny it any longer. He is full-on weird. I'm just glad that when the official news broke, it was only Grace and Kari that witnessed his fall into the category because his little girlfriend already loves him, right?

At the park today, after we climbed the monkey bar bridge approximately 72 times in a row because he's decided that climbing it the normal way isn't good enough and now he needs to master it by holding onto the sides (which he can't reach) like a big boy, he broke down into weird zone. He literally decided that he was a dog, or some other bizarre animal that is yet to be named. Still, I've decided that since at least a dog is "normal," he's a dog.

He began running circles in the sand and then flopped down randomly on his stomach. Suddenly, he buried his head in the sand sideways, and began to drag his face along the sand the way you see dogs do when they have just had a bath and are vigorously trying to dry themselves on the carpet. He drug his head along the sand, digging a little tunnel of dirt for himself around the perimeter of the playground. It was really quite something.

Apparently he thought so too because he realized the hilarity of the situation and began spontaneously laughing at himself, which made further head-dragging impossible, as he rolled to his back in a giggle fit. He then, sat up and began his cleansing routine...a sand shower. This involved copious amounts of sand thrown into the air and over his head. Again, followed by a giggle fit and then more head dragging.

When we left the park, I had to de-sand him first. I took off all his clothes and yes, he was naked as the day he was born in public, and it was as if he was a different color altogether...gray. There was the equivalent of a full diaper of poo in his pants, which I changed before we went home. He was none too pleased to be so exposed in front of his gal, but I was not bringing him home in that condition.

I told him: don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Still, all's well that ends well. He seemed irritated at the clean up but had a great time. This is Collin before nap time...exhausted and mad that I delayed his sleep by taking a picture. Still dirty.

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy I've Got Collin in My Tummy

Damien Dagger Teeth, you've got serious problems. No kidding. Serious. Problems. I can't spell it out more clearly than that. Today is the third time he tried to bite my child. And no, I don't think it's because I dipped him in tasty, tasty chocolate before we got to the park or because I taught him kung-fu and he kicked that little teeth-kid in the jugular. It's because the kid is a nut-bag.

I takes a lot for me to call another kid names. A lot. Kids are great. Kids are all cute, they are all sweet and wonderful and full of life and joy. But this one is a nut-bag. I'm sure that in six months he's going to be wonderful and sweet too and you know what? He's really cute, even now. But for the present, he's bonkers. And, maybe it's just my tasty-treat kid that makes him that way.

I just wish I knew why. I swear I'm not the mom who can't see the wrong her child is doing by bashing another kid in the head with a steam shovel toy or that he probably shouldn't be shoveling sand into another kid's mouth. In all truthfulness, Damien is literally taking running charges at a stationary, usually oblivious Collin and attempting a chomp-down.

Like today, Collin was gazing in amazement at a spider on a bush. He was totally alone, not a care in the world when Damien, like a jungle cat, actually charged THROUGH the bushes to attack. It was like freaking National Geographic. I swear I heard bongo drums or something. Thankfully, Damien's mother has become like his shadow and practically leaped over the bushes to protect my son and I ran around the bushes to get at him from the other side, and thus, no blood was shed. But, I saw those dagger teeth and that open mouth. We pretended it was a harmless incident and she said, not for the first time that day, "Not so close to Collin." And, we both laughed uncomfortably.

I watched him today, and noticed that he didn't seem to take lunges at other kids. It seems to be my child that inspires the biting fits. While he got close and in the face of other kids, it's my son that inspires the most attempts at chomps. What's the deal? Although, when he's not at the park, every mom there has asked, at one time or another, has your kid been bitten by "that boy" because mine has? Still, in a crowd, he seems to glom onto Collin like he's got radar.

This is for Damien....Lunch equals food, not Collin.

Ack! Dust!

My son is the bravest child I've ever seen. Mommy friends of mine have come to me in hopes of finding that their child was not the only one who feared the water going down the drain in the tub, or the vrrooooming vacuum. They have whispered to me, hoping that their kid wasn't a freak because he was afraid of his shadow, hoping my kid was also a freak.

But, alas my kid chases the vacuum, clapping with glee and has actually learned to turn it on himself to push it around. He puts his toys down the drain to watch them swirl and screams if you take him out of the tub before he waves bye-bye to every last drop of water going down. And, he kind of likes his buddy shadow. I figured he'd never, ever, in a million years be afraid of anything...while awake anyway (night terrors are a thing we deal with regularly).

Today though we find his nemesis. Dust. Yes, dust. Over the past week or so he's been increasingly interested in those specks of dust that you see floating through the air when sunlight beams through a window. At first he showed mild interest, pointing at the little flecks an making an "aaaah" sound. Then, it became a show of mild discomfort as the "aaah" was accompanied by stepping farther and farther away from the dust flecks and the vocalization became a bit louder and agitated.

Today, he progressed to full-on shrieking and crying complete with torrential downpour of tears and snot face. I've never seen anything like it. The most sunlight comes into our upstairs bathroom and he wouldn't even come into the room. He stood rooted to the door way, flailing his arms at the shards of sunlight, snot running out of his hysterical nose, shrieking to me as I tried to complete my routine in there. Apparently, he feared for my life.

It was pitiful. I tried to show him that dust wouldn't kill either of us. But, if you've ever tried to convince a toddler of anything like this, you know that you might as well be trying to get Jesus and Elvis to R.S.V.P. for your dinner party. Not going to happen. The best I could get him to do was wave a shaky hand through the dusty air while wailing hysterically as if the air itself was on fire.

This whole thing makes a few things abundantly clear: it's a totally adorable and weird thing to be afraid of, it makes it seem like my house is filthy and he'd better get over it pretty quick because there's nothing I can do about it.

Turn the Page!

I know, I know all kids do this. They pick a book that they love and they make you read it over and over and over and over and over again. And then you bury it in the back yard, put the play structure on top of it, maybe move to a new town and they still find it, pull it out from beneath the soil and make you read it again. But I feel like my son has taken this to extremes.

We bought this gigantic book at Costco a few months ago, which at the time, he seemed to hate. This ticked me off because it was $8 and it was meant to amuse him while we shopped, which it did not. I felt we had to buy it anyway because it has those little doors that you peek-a-boo with and he'd opened them and sort of bent them and I didn't think we could leave a "used" book behind. It was kind of like taking it to the bathroom with us. Stupid $8 book!

Fast forward to a month later and the gigundous book that's too over sized to fit anywhere is his favorite thing on the planet. If I were kidnapped by martians in the middle of the night, he'd be cool with it, so long as they left his book behind. I should be happy he likes to read, right? I should be loving the fact that instead of wanting to smack me, pull my hair or bite me, he wants to sit on my lap for long stretches, and I do mean loooooong stretches of time and read, right?

The thing is, we're reading the same book, every day...all day. And most of the time, we're reading the same page. God forbid we move on from the first page. No way, Jose! We NEED to talk about that garbage truck until we've talked ourselves blue in the face. And, don't forget that we've got to eat our fill of pretend ice cream, enough to make you pretend vomit! Yep, and there's got to be plenty of pretend petting the kitty too! So much pretending to do on one page! And then....we do it all AGAIN!

My favorite is when he makes me point at all the pictures for him. He actually takes my finger in his little fist and drags it around the page, making grunting noises: "eh? eh?" As if pointing himself is just too taxing for the hundred-thousandth time today.

I know that when he's fifteen I may have to restrain myself from dragging him and his algebra book onto my lap and asking him to point at the quadratic equation with me, but for now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm pretty sick of THIS book. I'm all for reading and snuggling, but maybe another book, even one about trucks would be okay by me.

I like when other people visit and he cons them into doing the reading.... :)

Collin's First Step...in the Democratic Process

It's a banner year for voters, young and old. And, the youngest in our household is learning to be part of the democratic process. We've bent the "no t.v." rule to allow for the presidential and, yesterday, for the vice presidential debates. He even laughed a few times, although I'm pretty sure he was just joining in when we did and he liked when Mommy talked funny like Mrs. Palin.

Bryon claims that he even pointed to the Obama and McCain in the paper after the presidential debates, a sight I missed because, sigh, I was away for the weekend. Yep, I'm still lamenting the time I missed that weekend. I'm pretty sure he grew!

But, with the military comes some voting pitfalls. I can't take him to the polls with me to let him poke pins in ballots, push the touch screen or check boxes; whatever the option is here. Mostly, I can't do that because I'm still registered to vote in Ohio. I've been trying to tell Collin how this is a really good thing in actuality, although it means missing out on the buzz of voting for "real" at the polls.

While I don't think he "gets" the idea that voting in Ohio means more than voting in California for this particular election because of the logistical math of Ohio being a swing state and California being a sort of done deal, I am in love with the idea of telling him about it. He just sort of keeps going back to the cupboard and asking for another cracker. Still, they say that they hear you, they absorb and that they are sponges. They learn language, life and everything from listening to you. I'm pretty sure Elmo isn't talking about swing states, right?

Collin decided, okay Mommy decided, that he should participate in the electoral process as much as he could, as early as he could. Because hey, it's never too early for the future president of the U.S. to start! So, he helped mail mommy's absentee ballot request this morning. I think that's a pretty big deal. I can't wait for him to help me vote...

Magellen...I am not

We went to the zoo today. Grace, Grace's mommy (Kari), Collin and me. We had a great time. Collin got to have his pacifier. Grace got to play with said pacifier. Collin got to enjoy this game immensely. I think even the gorillas outside this exhibit wanted a little paci of their own so they could try to one-up the cuteness factor of this game, as the little tykes in the strollers were drawing the crowds' attention away from their antics. Their swinging from ropes just wasn't cutting the mustard with these two hamming it up.

Upon entering the zoo, Kari and I promptly tucked our maps away in our respective diaper bags and declared that neither one of us was good at reading maps. This was a mistake. Still, I figured, it's a freaking zoo, right? How much trouble can you get into? There's signs EVERYWHERE! In fact, my famous (what could've been) last words were: we'll consult the map when it's time to find the exit!

How wrong I was about the trouble part. We started off fine, petting some goats, even brushing them. Awwwww. We had some lunch, nutritious of course. And even got a swirly straw that we had to purchase for $3 because they won't give you a straw for free as they could be dangerous to the animals...huh? Apparently $3 swirly straws are less dangerous.

That's when the trouble started. We veered off our path. We veered off any path. Somehow, we ended up on the zoo service road. As hearty travellers in the heat and the seemingly consistent uphill path, it took us approximately 18 miles to realize we were NO longer on the zoo path. Eventually, a ranger took pity on us and noted our existence BEHIND the exhibits and steered us back towards civilization, not before warning us to stay away from the fences "back here because they're lower than in the park and animals can get over them." Eeek.

In reality, we were wandering back there for close to forty minutes or so. Really. That's a long time to be at the zoo but not in the zoo. It was pretty hot, pretty weird and at one point, I thought we might be eaten by the Donner party or maybe a wildebeest. But, it was fun. Grace and Collin thought their mommies were on a great adventure. And, we were.

They're Registered at Pottery Barn

Collin's got a little girlfriend. Her name is Grace. It started off slow, the way most relationships should, as friends. But, she made the first move a few days ago and it's progressed from there. She hugged him and since then, they've been sharing shovels, buckets and holding hands at will. My shy guy has even decided that she's worthy of more hugs than I am, doling them out to her willy-nily and for reasons unknown to the rest of us but understood by the two of them.
They get along well, I think, because they are the only two on the playground that aren't yelling, running and jumping. They are the two that hang back and sit a spell, waiting to see how the whole scene pans out before they decide what they want to do. They are the two who let everyone else go first on the slide, even if it's their turn. They are the two that flick blades of grass between their fingers for eons and then sit there again tomorrow and do it again.

And, they are the two that can dig in the sand area for the entire playtime and never get tired of trading shovels. Well, that's what we call it. Really, it's Grace patiently allowing Collin to steal hers and Gracie's mom gently giving Gracie another one or me sneaking her another one so it's fair. And Gracie, true to her name will retort with, "That's alright Collin, we're sharing!"

They wave at one another from yards away, excited that their friend is coming. When one doesn't show up in the morning, the park is darker for their absence and I know Collin's neck is always craning around the corner, looking for his sunshine. Even if she isn't playing with him, she's playing near him and that's enough for him. She is showing him just how a three year-old should kick a ball, swing on a swing and wear sunglasses and that's how he likes his lessons taught; forget this mommy business. And, if she lets him bury her in the sand, all the better.

We are so glad to have found one another. And, it melts my heart to see the sweet affection...even if sometimes Collin knocks her off her feet with his hugs. I think she's teaching him to be a man this way too; because don't we all have a story of some stupid guy, blinded by love who was just trying to be kind and sweet but messed it up and did something dumb instead?