TGIT

Thank God It's Thursday!!

Meaning - thank God I only have one more day of work this week!
Meaning - thank God Bryan comes home tomorrow - finally!
Meaning - thank God it's one more day until the weekend.
Meaning - RELIEF!

Love my little man Jack - but he's having a good time with his terrible two's. Mommy? Not so much.
We've had our ups and downs recently.  He's melted my heart and he's broken my heart. Let's recap a couple highlights and lowlights from this past week.

I have been a little stressed and the other day and had a little bit of a melt down. My sweet Jack came over and put his arm around my neck and gave me a squeeze and a big kiss. And stood there with his arm around my neck until I gained my composure. Although, little did he know I really started crying when he did that. (melted)


Jack was playing on the rug with his race cars and such. I had just finished doing chores and was so excited to spend some time with him. So, I ran over and plopped down next to him and with a big smile asked him if I could play, too. His response with a hand in my face, "GO AWAY MOMMY!" (broken - still mending)

Then I think I went to my room and cried again. (shattered)

He's beginning to talk A LOT. Which can (see last story) be so much fun. He's doing a lot of pretend play with his little friends - specifically Ernie, Elmo and his race cars. He's taking the dishtowels and putting them 'night, night' and having them sit with him while he plays. He talks to them, reads them books, teaches them their colors (WHICH HE'S AWESOME AT ... might we have a little designer on our hands ...?) and explains to them how the world works.

We spend the mornings counting school buses & tractors on the way to school (yes, tractors on the main roads - we don't have traffic, just tractors). He now screams in delight when we sees a 'BIG SEMI TRUCK!!!' and sounds like Cookie Monster when he says that. 

The other day Jack was at his little table coloring and had Elmo in the seat next to him. I was giving him his space and folding his clothes (but making sure that kid draws ONLY on his paper). He was making Elmo color, holding the crayon in Elmos hand and moving it along. It was pretty cute. Then he looked at Elmo very sternly and and told Elmo not to touch the blue crayon. Then, Jack got up out of his seat, grabbed Elmo's face, got nose to nose and looked him dead in the eye and shouted, "HEAR ME ELMO??"

Whoa ...

The little couches in his classroom where all of Jack and his friends read their books have been removed. They can all thank Jack. He won't stop jumping on them while screaming, "No More Monkey's Jumping on the Bed!!!" I mean, I don't condone it  (but that one time when he crawled into his crib...) so they should maybe stop reading the story - clearly he's taking the wrong thing away from it.

I've vowed to make an effort to make more crafts with Jack. This weekend we made our first spring time craft - a Caterpillar Terrarium! Jack is pretty obsessed with caterpillars recently. We used old Easter basket stuffing, paper towel rolls, egg cartons and pipe cleaners. All items I had around the house. He LOVES it. So now, it's our centerpiece in the kitchen and every night I move them around for him to see in the morning.

He's breaking things. But he doesn't understand that it's not a good thing. That once it's in the trash, it NEVER comes back. This includes one of his caterpillars (there were three) about 3 DVDs, a recorder (thank the lord) and a slew of books. Not sure how to make him get that I don't have a magic wand to make it all better.

"Sorry sweetheart, the DVD player only takes one whole DVD, not little pieces."

Enter tantrum from stage right. 

He likes to watch America Idol and sing along with the contestants, though he hasn't gotten any of the words right. He loves the books, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and "Baby Bear, Baby Bear." We spot things on our little adventures and repeat it back to each other.  However, his little toddler accent rocks.

He loves Georgia Southern. Every time he sees an eagle. He screams, "GEORGIA .... SOUTHERN." (I think I mentioned that in a previous post...?) But now it's for the Georgia Southern logo, the GSU campus buses, the parking permit in my car, any footballs - blue or not ... it's cute - but it's getting a little tiresome. :)

So only one of those updates were a tad painful. But - it's  a busy, busy little boy and a lot to keep up with. I never really got a break after Artsfest and my body has made it clear that I am no longer a spring chicken. My shoulder STILL hurts. Last Friday I feel asleep on the couch - trying my hardest to stay awake, considering it was 6:30!!! But I couldn't my eyelids fought to stay open while I watched Jack tear the living room apart. For a moment I thought I was dying - then I had nightmares about it being Friday and who would find Jack over the weekend while he was all alone ... Nice, really nice. Thank god I woke up! Barely ...  enough to crab a bowl of animal crackers, Jack and Happy to shuffle to my bed where he snacked, read books and I passed out. Great parenting, I know. But I had to contain him and he wasn't going to bed anytime soon.

Today was the best day, though. Get ready for a mental image...

I went and picked Jack up from school - they were on the playground. So I walked outside and FELL. I flat out bit it the dust. I went down hard, rolled my ankle in the sand. The whole way down I yelled  to myself, "Please stand up! Straighten you legs! Don't do this!!" Didn't work. I hit the ground, ripped a hole in my nice navy slacks and bruised my ego, for sure. While this was happening, I also watched Jack race past me squealing to the door to go home.  Once he was there, he told me to hurry up. (ouch. thanks, kid.)

Lastly, tonight I took out what might have been the most rancid diaper trash bag ever. I limped across the house nearly passing out from the stench ... Jack chased after me - but I closed the door behind me leaving Jack in the house (I walked to the garage door and back throwing the bag away so stop judging me). Jack started wailing. I get back to the door to hear the deadbolt lock as he was trying to get the door open. I  wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as I know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan (name that movie ... here's to see who's actually still reading this), my forehead pressed against the glass watching Jack have a level 4 tantrum because he couldn't help me throw away the poo (HUGE help phase right now) ... and then it was a tantrum because I was outside and he was inside. But I couldn't GET IN ...  My keys were on the counter IN the house. So, for 30 minutes I watched Jack regain his composure and he listened intently has I instructed him to unlock the deadbolt (Although he kept trying to see what I was pointing to outside the glass ... not understanding that I couldn't physically point to the deadbolt inside). Then we spent 30 minutes talking about deadbolts are for looking, not for Jack touching. (At least he knows what 'up high, on top, right there, the other way' all mean ... )