“Awww come here, Mommy,” he said as he hugged me. “It’s okay.”

“Not really,” I replied. “I don’t want to clean up pee.” Then he put his hands on my cheeks and pinched them as he tried to stretch out my mouth.

“OUCH! Nathan, why’d you do that?” I yelped.

He then put his hands on his own cheeks and smiled, then pointed to his teeth. “Mile!”

“You mean you want me to smile?” I asked, giving him the biggest smile I could.

“Awww good job, Mommy! I’m so proud of you!” he said as he gave me a big hug. Well, heck. That was easy enough. Who knew a smile could make someone so happy?

“Everything’s ok, Mommy,” he said soothingly.

“Oh, Nathan,” I replied. “You know, insanity really is hereditary.”

“Yep,” he said matter-of-factly.

“You get it from your kids.”

“Yep,” he responded. After a brief hesitation, he smiled and said, “Me too, Mommy.”

No kidding, son. No kidding.

So as I was about to apply some lipstick, I noticed it had been mauled by what looks like little toddler teeth. I’m pretty sure Nathan ate it since I have yet to find any evidence of it being elsewhere. That’s ok… at least he left me some…

In other news, Nathan says the funniest things sometimes.

Me: “I love you, Nathan.”
Nathan: “I love me toooooooo!”

He’s at such a precious age. Don’t get me wrong… it’s NOT an easy age to parent by any stretch of the imagination. But his sweet disposition totally makes up for the frustrating times. Take my half-eaten lipstick, for example. It’s frustrating because that just-so-happens to be my favorite lipstick that I own (doesn’t it always work that way? Your favorite things are the ones that get destroyed) but yet I couldn’t be mad at him. It’s what kids his age do. They eat Mommy’s favorite things and then dole out hugs like candy so that you won’t be mad when you discover what they’ve been up to.

He has no idea I am stockpiling records of these little antics to tell his future wife one day… shhhhh…

Fortunately, he’s calmed down a lot over the past week or so.

We anticipated once that phase was over, he would probably start talking more. But we had no idea it would be like unleashing a dam! It happened so suddenly. I blinked and *POOF!* he started talking more and more like a big boy.

The other day, he found his missing cape. When I heard the triumphant sound of dancing feet, I peeked into his room and saw he had already put it on.

“I found my cape!” he exclaimed. I stared, speechless.

“What?” I asked, not really sure if I had really just heard him correctly use a sentence.

“I found my cape! I found it!” he said.

Wow. Just… wow. A couple of weeks ago, he would have said something like, “Look! Cape!” but this time, he used a whole sentence. And I was super impressed that he used his pronouns correctly. Just like a big boy! And now that he’s transitioning past this epic Misbehaving Phase, he’s becoming so dang sweet. He wraps his little arms around my neck and says, “I love you so much, Mommy” as he plants little kisses on my cheeks.

My favorite sentence he’s said this far was when he was sitting on his potty, reading a book as he tried to go. He opened one of his favorite books, The Little Engine That Could, ran his hands up and down the front page, and said, “I love books soooooooooooo much.”

Another new development… He’s minding me better when I explain things to him.

For example, my mom, Nathan, and I went to eat at Red Lobster the other day. Nathan was sitting beside me in the booth, and he repeatedly attempted to slide under the table, stand in the booth, talk to the people behind us, etc. I finally had enough, and I plopped him back down beside me and told him that was enough. He needed to sit still and stop trying to slide under the table. He did NOT like that one bit, and he threw a hideous temper tantrum which involved banshee-like shrieking and ripping out one of my earrings and hurling it onto the table. I picked his angry butt up out of the booth and marched him outside for a time out and a harsh scolding. After he completed his timeout, I told him his behavior was unacceptable and that if he chooses to continue to behave like a brat, I would take away his books. I told him when we went back inside, I expected him to mind like a big boy and not throw any more tantrums.

Well, he did pretty good when we went back in to finish our lunch.

But then when it was time to leave, he spied the lobster tank they keep out in the lobby.

Uh oh.

He ran towards the tank and stood inches from the glass. “Hi, fish!” he said, waving his hand. “Lots of fish in the fishtank,” he mused as he stood there, watching intently. I dreaded telling him it was time to go. We needed to leave, but when I tried to steer Nathan away from the tank, he resisted. A could feel a tantrum brewing. But I had a plan.

“Nathan,” I said. “We need to leave. If you’re good and don’t throw a temper tantrum, then I will let you look at the lobsters next time we come back. But, if you’re NOT good and you decide to throw a tantrum, then no more lobsters. I will NOT let you look at them the next time we come back. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, let’s go then.”

“Okay.”

Okay? Really? And then he turned around, grabbed my hand, and walked out of the restaurant like a big boy. It’s the little things like this that make me feel like I am doing something right.

“You talking to God?” I asked.

“Yeah, God’s in the clouds,” he replied. Then he put both hands on my face, tilted my head up towards the sky and said, “Say hi God!”

I’m not sure if he wanted me to say hi to God, or if he was asking God to say hi to me.

You see, I’ve been talking to Nathan a lot about God. To explain God in terms that his little mind can understand, I told him that God lives really, really far away… further than the sky. He lives so far away that we can’t see him, but he has really good eyesight so he can see us. And good hearing, too, so he can hear us. I tell Nathan that God loves him so very much, to which Nathan always replies, “I love God too!”

My sweet, sweet baby. The look on his face says it all; he really does love God. Even though he’s never seen God, he loves him nonetheless. To me, that is pure preciousness.

You see, my religion is extremely important to me. I want to bring Nathan up to know God and to love him, but not to the point that I’m shoving the Bible down his throat. I want him to love God because he WANTS to love God. The best I can do, I think, is to talk to him about God and guide him in the right direction, and pray God does the rest.

So far, God seems to be doing just that.

So just the other day, I heard him issue his telltale dominating meow. But before I could get into the living room to reprimand him, Nathan clamored through the kitchen and into the living room as fast as his little legs could carry him. He ran right up to Meeper, squatted down, and said, “No, Meepa! No no! MIND THE MOMMY!”

That’s right, folks. I am THE mommy.

“Ready to take your trains to the car wash?” I asked.

“No. Train wash,” Nathan stated matter-of-factly.

This kid is sharp. Very sharp.

Of course, I couldn’t help but giggle as I imagined us living in a house floating at the base of a raging water monstrosity that pelted us with water from every angle. Can you imagine the difficulty you would encounter just to leave to run errands? You would get drenched just getting to the car. Of course, since your house would be surrounded by water, you would have to have a boat docked to your front porch. Probably a paddle boat. And as you paddled towards shore to your waiting car, you would get soaking wet. And who wants to get into their car and run errands after battling angry waterfall droplets, paddling like a madman to shore, and getting soaked the bone in the process?

I can tell already that Nathan and I are going to have so much fun with storytelling.

Me: “Nathan, you’re not minding me. Do you want time out?”

Nathan: “Yes!”

Me: “You do? You want time out?”

Nathan: “YES!”

Me: “Fine. Go to time out.”

Nathan: “Yes, Mommy! I sorry! Yes, yes timeout!” (while throwing a temper tantrum and flopping around like a fish-out-of-water on the floor)

Me: “You don’t REALLY want time out, do you? Don’t say yes unless you REALLY want time out.”

Nathan: “Yes.”

Me: “…”

The above conversation is something I deal with every day, multiple times a day. It can really be enough to drive someone crazy, especially when temper tantrums are thrown into the mix. He knows darn good and well what the word “yes” means, so I don’t know why he is using it the wrong way. Unless he’s trying to test me. That is TOTALLY Nathan. He is my little tester… constantly testing his boundaries to see exactly how much he can get away with. Unfortunately, he does not realize that Mommy is not amused (and is, in fact, the OPPOSITE of amused) at his antics.

“PANK!” he said in a very, very Southern drawl.

You have learned well, my son. You have learned well.