Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Good Night Ladies

The no-sleeping Port saga continues. *sigh* Ok, so we only moved the clocks up 1 hour, why, oh why on earth does the child now wake 2 hours earlier??? Seriously, if it is going to be like this for long, I am just going to turn all my clocks back and force myself to run on that time instead. I'll just show up an hour early to everything (or is it late? I am already confused!) so that I am on time.

The screaming has. got. to. stop.

Today was a little better at nap time. Of course, I ran the boys hard this morning with a mega Costco trip, a quick drop off of the groceries and a run to HEB (all without even getting them out of the car at the house). Sure, there were melt downs and of course, there was screaming. Lots of screaming, (more on that in a minute) but thankfully I had a sucker stashed in the diaper bag and it seemed to work.

Please don't get on me for giving my tantruming child a sucker. It was, as always, a last resort. It was just enough to make him calm down long enough to be pleasant for the rest of the trip. He had some goldfish and some water and was a good little camper after that.

Before the sucker, people were staring. People were hastily leaving the isles we were on. Old ladies with hair nets (Costco workers) were approaching me and speaking to me and the boys in baby talk. I couldn't take it anymore!

So, why was he screaming you ask?

Well let me tell you.

His first Christmas, when he was a mere 8 months old, he got this.

After he got over being scared of it, it became one of his favorite toys. He played with it constantly for months. The problem was, the darn thing eats batteries like candy, and 4 D size batteries every few days got mighty expensive. So, one day, the toy got put behind another toy, and then another, and then another, until it was pretty much out of sight in Kiddo's room (the toy black hole). I was so thankful the obsession had passed; the music that thing plays at maximum volume is no longer appealing once you've heard it a few bazillion times. (Good Night Ladies, anyone?)

Anyway, it has been in the toy black hole for a while now. Then the other day I moved some things around and pulled out a kid sized couch to put in the living room for the boys to sit on. I was tired of them destroying my couch. And when I pulled out the kiddie couch, all kinds of forgotten toys emerged from the rubble.

Today, Port found the ball toy. And he has not let it leave his side since.

He carries it everywhere! The thing is pretty heavy and awkward for a little guy to carry, so when he can he pushes it along the floor and if he can't push it, he slowly carries it through the house. When we got all ready to go to the store today, he picked up the toy and tried to carry it out the door.

Um, I don't think so!

I have a pretty strict no-toys-in-the-car rule. Only a few things have ever been allowed to travel short distances with us. And I have an extremely strict no-toys-in-the-store rule at all times. I do not ever want to go through the drama of losing a toy in a store, so we just do not bring them in at all.

However, I now have a little dynamo by the name of Port. And he doesn't like rules.

*sigh*

So the dang toy made it to the car. And he played it loudly and annoyingly all the way to Costco. And when he dropped the balls onto the floor and they rolled into the door well, he screamed non stop. When we got to the store and I opened his door, he wanted the balls so he could play the game some more. After I had to chase 2 of them through the parking lot because they fell out of the car when I opened the door, there was no way I was going to give them back to him. When he realized we were going into Costco without his beloved toy, the screaming began again.

And it did not stop until 30 minutes later; when I absolutely could not stand it anymore, when I had to strap him tight into the cart because he absolutely refused to stay in it, refused to let me carry him and refused to walk with me next to the cart; when I finally fished that cheap sucker out of the diaper bag.

I swear people in the store collectively sighed with relief when I finally handed him that candy.

I had been so distracted by the screaming that I had to completely retrace my steps through the store twice just to pick up the things I missed on my list.

Thankfully we got out of there fine, with no trouble from Kiddo (bless him that he doesn't usually give me grief when Port is going nuts).

The trip to HEB was ok. At one point Port refused to sit in the cart. But then he got a hold of my phone and he was perfectly content to play with that for the rest of the trip. Even though I really, really, really didn't want him to EVER touch my phone, I was kind of glad he was entertained. He added lots of cool letters to my grocery list and deleted a list I guess I don't need anymore. ;-)

But we made it home in one piece.

So nap time wasn't too bad. He put up a fight, but petered out relatively quick. He didn't sleep long though, which could be very good or very bad for tonight.

I hope I get some decent sleep. I really need it.

I will leave you with a Kiddo-speak for today. I call it the wisdom of a 5 year old:

Kiddo: "Do clothes cover our skin?"
Me: "Yes"
Kiddo : "Why do we wear clothes?"
Me: "Why do you think?"
Kiddo: "We wear clothes so no one sees your penis or your booby."


Man, I love that kid!

Until,
D :)

No comments: