Funny Places Toddlers Put Stuff
One of my toddler daughter’s favorite pastimes is moving things from one place to another. Take her to a library or bookstore and she meticulously transfers a pile of books to a shelf across the room. Take her to Starbucks and she stacks the yogurt neatly beside the juice boxes. Take her to a hardware store and she drops the screws and nails into new places. At a toy store, every stuffie moves from shelf A to shelf B. Around the house, I’m always laughing as I find interesting little surprises that my daughter has set up for me to discover.
She gives me very creative ideas for supper:
She gets my slippers ready for me when I’m in the shower:
She makes sure her brother can always find his underwear:
She ensures that my hairspray is warmed up in the morning:
She knows how to make me smile when I’m putting the dishes away at night:
If I need an orange bucket, she finds one for me:
And my favorite…even salad dressing needs a little love sometimes:
Have you found anything around your house that your toddler has re-arranged? 🙂
Mission Mompossible (Murphy’s Law #3c)
The first cry from my 20-month-old daughter comes most days at 5:07. If I jump out of bed immediately and sprint to her room I can get to her before she starts full-on crying and wakes her brother.
Then the get-her-to-go-back-to-sleep game begins. I turn on her lullaby CD, make sure she has her soother, two dolls and baby orca stuffie and change her diaper stealthily, all without making too much eye contact.
I know the jig is up if she starts yelling “milkel! milkel!” or “book! book!” If I hear either of those words I know it’s all over. She’s up. I’m up. I turn on the lights.
However… if I successfully change her with no shouts there is a tiny chance she will go back to sleep.
I bundle up an armful of toddler, dolls and “bankies” (blankets) and rock her in our rickety old chair. The chair is on its last legs but the reassuring creaks and cracks lull my little one back to calmness.
Her big blue eyes start to flutter a little and I gather her up, ease her into the crib and tiptoe out of the room. I close her door as quietly as possible then pause at my bedroom door and listen. Music to my ears is hearing my husband and five-year-old son breathing deeply in the big bed; still asleep. Most mornings I hear a chipper little boy voice asking, “Daddy? Is it time to wake up? Where’s Mommy? Can I go find Mommy?”
My favorite days are the days when all three are sleeping and there is a chance for a few minutes alone. I tiptoe down the stairs, quieter than Santa on Christmas Eve. The bottom step is the worst; no matter where I step, some days it creaks, other days it doesn’t. Once down, I sneak into the kitchen, careful not to turn on many lights.
I flick the switch on the coffee maker. Usually (because Murphy’s Law is always in effect around here) one of the children wakes up the minute the coffee begins to drip. Our coffee maker is so loud that it sounds exactly like the pot full of boiling eggs my grandma used to make when I slept over. If I’m lucky enough to pour some coffee, the three loud beeps signalling that the brewing is finished will most definitely wake someone up and the cry of “Momma! Momma!” begins.
If, by some miracle, no one wakes from the beeps I’ll either knock something over, step on a piece of Lego or crash into the table and break the silence.
The other day I was so eager for some alone time that I crammed my feet into my five-year-old son’s Incredible Hulk socks rather than go upstairs to find my slippers.
Chances are pretty low that the quiet will last longer than 10 or 15 minutes. I admit that I love it when one child wakes before the other. I pour them some milk and have some precious early morning cuddles with them before the sibling rivalry, hugs, yells and laughter begin for another day.
Do any of you get almost desperate for a few minutes of alone time? How do you find it?
(You know you want some.)
You may also like:
Sleeping Through the Night (Murphy’s Law #3a)
4.5 Years of Sleep Deprivation (Murphy’s Law #3b)
Weekly Photo Challenge: Lost in the Details (of the beach)
My daughter loves getting lost in her own little world in the sand at the beach near our house. She will sit for a long, long time running the sand through her fingers and examining everything she finds.
Pink Shirt Day – Not Just For Kids
Cover of Don’t Laugh at Me
Today was Pink Shirt Day in Canada. This anti-bullying awareness day began in 2007 after a grade nine student was bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school.
Before I had my children I taught elementary school. One year I taught a multi-leveled grade one/two class. It was a wonderful year, with students ranging in age from six to eight. We talked a lot about being kind, helping each other and standing up for each other.
Another teacher introduced me to a children’s book called Don’t Laugh At Me, written by Allen Shamblin and Steve Seskin. It was also recorded by country singer Mark Wills. You can see the video here. Here are some of the lyrics:
I’m a little boy with glasses
The one they call the geek
A little girl who never smiles
‘Cause I’ve got braces on my teeth
And I know how it feels
To cry myself to sleep
I’m that kid on every playground
Who’s always chosen last
A single teenage mother
Tryin’ to overcome my past
You don’t have to be my friend
But is it too much to ask
Don’t laugh at me
Don’t call me names
Don’t get your pleasure from my pain
In God’s eyes we’re all the same
Someday we’ll all have perfect wings
Don’t laugh at me
When the kids and I read the book, listened to the song and eventually sang the song during a school assembly I was struck by how seriously the children took the anti-bullying message.
As adults, we think we’re pretty smart. We may be educated, well-travelled and have tons of life experience. But you know what? Those six and seven-year-old children had a far deeper grasp of basic kindness than many, many “grown-ups” do. As a kid, I just assumed that some day everyone would grow up. Unfortunately this doesn’t always happen.
I’ve been talking to a lot of friends lately about how mean and judgemental women are to each other and I’m sick of it. How can we teach our children to be accepting and kind but then turn around and rip another person to shreds?
I hope that every parent who sent their children off to school in pink shirts thought about why they were really doing it.
We need to stop and think about the way we treat others…not just the people we love but the people who are hard to love, the ones we are tempted to laugh at.
Our children already have this figured out.
Related articles
Murphy’s Monday Music
Life has been wild. Illness, sleep deprivation, more illness, more sleep deprivation…you get the picture. I realized today that from when the kiddos and I awakened at 4:00 a.m. until they were both asleep at 8:00 p.m., there were two minutes in those sixteen hours that I was alone. It was a Monday, that’s for sure.
I’m starting a new routine: Murphy’s Monday Music. Once in awhile, on a Monday I will post a song that has meaning to me at this point in time. I’ve got this beauty to share with you today:
I hope you like it.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward
For this week’s photo challenge (“Forward“) I chose this picture of my son, taken at our favorite beach a few months ago. We are looking forward a lot lately because we just registered him for kindergarten.
When he starts school, it will mark over 5.5 years that I have been at home with him full-time. Other than a few mornings a week of preschool this year and a few days at a babysitter in the early months after his sister was born, he and I have been joined at the hip since his birth.
It’s funny how as a parent, sometimes you just know. You know when it’s time for something. You know when it’s not time for something.
Had we stayed in Alberta, my son could have been in kindergarten this year because of different birthday cut-off dates. He was so, so not ready for it last September. Suddenly now, in February, he is ready with full force. So am I and I say that with no shame. 🙂
I’m delighted that he paces the halls now, asking, “But what are we DOING today, Momma? Where are we GOING?” Many, many days I’m ready to climb the walls because of his incessant talking, questioning and antagonizing his little sister. On the flip side, it’s so rewarding to see his tangible readiness staring me in the face. Two short years ago he was the clingy, shy little guy peeking around my leg at playgroups. Now he is (almost) ready to run into that school with all he’s got.
I’m glad we still have six months before it begins. He is too. We have a few mornings a week where we don’t have to rush anywhere. We can dump out the Lego box, pile the stuffed animals on the bed and laugh at the antics of my 20 month old daughter.
I don’t get people who say full-time mommas are “giving so much up” to stay home with their children. Five and a half years is a blip in my life. A beautiful, messy, loud, snuggly, sleep-deprived blip. I’ll milk it for all it’s worth.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Kiss
I am very grateful to be close to my parents (in location and in relationship). When my dear daughter was about six months old, my dad came down to give us a hand with the kiddies for a few days. We were out traipsing around the island one morning and I snapped pics with my iPhone (as usual). This was the result: a happy baby with her “Bubba.”
Related articles
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Kisses (bellaremyphotography.com)
No, Mommy Blogging is Not a Step Back For Feminism
As a new “mommy blogger” myself, it was with great amusement and minor annoyance that I read this article by Amana Manori on The Huffington Post Canada today.
According to Ms.Manori, women who blog strictly about motherhood are “[depicting themselves] as a crazy mother who is obsessed with canning baby food or the latest gizmo for their child’s nursery. Also, they probably don’t think that others see them as living in a bubble with no other interests than raising their bubble children.”
News flash Ms.Manori: We don’t care what you or anyone else thinks. We are confident enough in our very conscious decisions to raise our children and discuss raising our children in whatever ways we like.
It appears to me that Ms.Manori typed up her anti-mommy-blogger post just to get some hits on her own blog. Actually, I’m not sure why she calls herself a feminist, because she’s telling a huge group of other women that they are doing it all wrong. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a feminist as “an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women.” Ms.Manori is not advocating or supporting anyone in this post. (See Momastery & Parenting, Illustrated With Crappy Pictures for some examples of high quality mommy bloggers.)
She also demeans men by saying “I cringe at the thought that a man will read these blogs, in turn reinforcing antiquated ideas of women in the home.” I’m not sure what kind of men she hangs out with, but the men in my life value, respect and admire me for putting my career on the back burner for a few years to raise up two confident, kind, and giving members of society. My posts about the ins and outs of my crazy days at home with two little ones make the men in my life laugh and smile.
Now that I’ve gotten all of this off my chest, perhaps I will go and can some organic baby food. Once I’m done that I will sit and google “gizmos” for my child’s nursery. On second thought, I’ll just go to sleep. That’s the only thing I obsess about these days.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Home
I love my home. I live in a temperate rainforest. This pic was taken with my Nikon D60 in mid-autumn last year. Being outside is where I am at peace. If the kids are running wild inside and my patience is waning, all I need to do is open the door. The whole situation changes. The ocean air hits our senses and suddenly whatever everyone was upset about doesn’t matter. Sibling rivalry ceases, there is room to run and yell and all is well.
Dishwasher Tetris
When we moved to the island two years ago we rented a 1000-square-foot shoebox that had no dishwasher. I’d always wanted to live in a “character” house, until I actually did.
“Character house” is actually a pseudonym for tiny, old, full of mold & asbestos and very, very ugly spiders.
This was all a bit of a shock to us, having moved straight from a snowy boom-town on the prairies where a newish, 3000-square-foot house (including basement) was the norm.
The fact that our little white house was a 10 minute walk to a beautiful beach mostly made up for the bumping elbows, constant “excuse me’s” and continual stepping on playmobil knights & Lego. Nevermind the paper-thin walls, non-sleeping 3-year-old and non-sleeping newborn.
Speaking of a newborn…supplementing a 3-month-old with (gasp!) a bottle so an exhausted new momma could get a few hours of sleep meant that a dishwasher would have been really, really helpful. We gave in and bought a portable one from a kind retired guy who rebuilt it in his backyard. He and my dear husband lugged it up the steps and navigated it through the narrow 60-year-old doorways into our tiny kitchen.
Each night after both children were finally asleep (for a little while anyway) my husband or I would begin the nightly dishwasher routine:
- Get a good grip on the slippery metal sides and give a mighty pull to get it out from the wall.
- Back up to take a running start and push like crazy to get the flimsy wheels over the big hump between the hardwood and the lino.
- Retrieve any utensils, bottles or dishes we may need during the night. (Once the dishwasher was hooked up the rest of the kitchen was unusable.)
- Hook up the hose and plug in the plug.
- Unplug everything and move the dishwasher again to get the soap I forgot to take out from under the sink.
- Plug it all in again and start the damn thing.
Going through all of these steps meant that we tried to minimize the number of times we started the dishwasher. During our year in the little white house I started calling it Dishwasher Tetris: loading it to the absolute maximum by moving each plate, bowl and cup a millimetre to the left or right in order to squish something else in.
Now that our days in the little white house are behind us, we have the luxury of a built-in dishwasher again. I’m an expert at loading it to full capacity. The only glitch is my 1.5 year-old daughter who loves to “help” by hurling forks, spoons, cups and ceramic dishes in from a few feet away.
Being without something I’ve always taken for granted makes me very grateful for it when I get it back. Kind of like when I came home from tree planting in the bush and was most grateful for carpet and running water. But that’s another story. 🙂
murphy must have had kids 