Racing! I can’t help but smile every time I look at this picture. He’s just so adorable with his curly hair and legs that don’t reach the pedals. It won’t be long before he can play this for real without having to sit in his daddy’s lap. (Before I took the picture, he sat in Paul’s lap to race because Paul’s legs reach the pedals. When they were done, Nathan was content to sit in the seat and pretend like he was still racing.)

I don’t care when he gets up in the morning and plays with his toys. We hear him and immediately go in his room and remove the heater and humidifier. But night time means bed time.

It’s funny because I remember when I was a kid, I used to sneak out of bed to play with my toys, too. I could always hear my parents walking down the hall to check on me, and I would scramble back into bed, throw the covers over me, and pretend like I was asleep. I used to also sneak out of bed to grab a book and a flashlight, and then I would curl up under the covers with my flashlight and read.

Nathan’s not quite at that age yet. He always gets caught because he’s so loud. His little footsteps stomp all over the floor, echoing with freedom as he runs around the room with excitement. We can also hear the clicking noise the heater makes when the buttons are pushed. And last night I caught him messing around once again with his humidifier. It’s a penguin-shaped humidifier, complete with a swiveling head.

Nathan decaptiated it last night.

I walked in him to find him standing near the humidifier with the penguin’s head in his hands. “Look, Mommy!” he exclaimed upon seeing me. “I found this!” And then he proceeds to ceremoniously hand me the penguin’s head. As if that would get him out of trouble. Like the head was just LAYING around on the floor in some dark corner, lost for months, collecting dust and providing a home for tiny spiders and he JUST SO HAPPENED to have stumbled upon it.

Yeah right.

So he’s lost his TV privileges again for today. Along with the stories I read to him before bedtime. If he keeps it up, we’ll take away his dinosaurs (oh how he loves his dinosaurs). I hope he stops being so head-strong about this because he’s just going to get into more and more trouble. I hate that for him… but regardless, we still have to teach him about consequences.

In other news, Nathan ran up to me for a hug the other day. I squatted down to accept it and he wrapped his little arms around me. As he was hugging me, he patted my back and said sweetly, “You’re so precious.”

Precious? I couldn’t help but giggle. I sure do love that kid. Mischievousness and all.

That’s right, Nathan is grounded from TV today for not minding.

He totally gets it, too. After breakfast, we normally let him watch an episode of Blue’s Clues, but not today. He asked for Blue, but I reminded him that he doesn’t get to watch any of his shows today due to continuously getting out of bed last night. “Okay, Mommy,” he said quietly without resisting. He knows what he did. He knows he’s supposed to stay in bed at night. And he understands that he now has to deal with the consequences. I know he doesn’t like it, but at least he’s accepting it.

In other news, Nathan and I still have that cough. Mine is getting a little better, but Nathan’s is still junky-sounding and deep. But on the bright side, I successfully taught him to cover his mouth with his elbow when he coughs. And he does! He’s pretty good at remembering to do it, even when he’s in the process of running or playing with his toys.

He’s losing his baby-ness and is becoming more and more like a little boy.

In fact, Paul’s mom told me about the last time Nathan was over at their house, he picked his nose, opened up a drawer, and promptly flung his booger into it. Can you believe that? That’s not something babies do, that’s for sure.

I have so many more similar antics to look forward to, don’t I?

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.

Take last night, for example. Part of his bedtime routine includes me singing to him before we say our prayers. When I finished singing, I started reciting The Lord’s Prayer (which he loves… When I’m reciting it, I’ll pause and Nathan will say the next word) when all of a sudden, Nathan started flapping around in my lap like some sort of fish being electrocuted.

“What’s wrong, Nathan?” I asked, perplexed.

“I MAD AT YOU!” he replied. Wow. He’s never articulated his feelings to me before.

“Ok. Are you mad at me because you wanted more songs?”

“Yes,” he said sullenly.

“I understand. I really do. You’re allowed to be mad at me all you want, but throwing a tantrum when you’re mad is unacceptable. We’re done singing. Now it’s time to pray and then bed. Are you now ready to say our prayers so you can go night night?”

“Okay. Yes,” he whispered.

And that’s not the only new development. Yesterday, my mom took us to look for Christmas gifts. We didn’t get home until around 3:30 or so. I anticipated taking Nathan directly to bed to nap but needed to change his diaper first. Nathan balked at the prospect and started saying “NO! Go pee pee in the potty!” I replied that it was nap time and we could try when he got up. When I went to change his diaper, I was surprised to discover his diaper was completely dry. So I ushered him into the bathroom, sat him on his potty, and LO-AND-BEHOLD he peed!!

That was the first time he’d ever told me he needed to go potty… and then actually went! He was so proud of himself that he jumped up from the potty and did a little dance. And I was right there dancing with him!

He’s also starting to really take off with his reading. He has most of his books memorized, so oftentimes I’ll have him “read” to me. The other night, he sat in my lap and read The Little Red Caboose to me. Paul peeked through the door and watched us as Nathan relayed the adventures to me. As he was watching, he noticed that when Nathan hesitated, his eyes would scan the page looking for a cue. Although technically Nathan doesn’t know how to read yet, he recognizes a lot of words, but that was the first time Nathan’s ever scanned a page to remember what word or sentence comes next.

My mom said I was the same way. I also started recognizing words and “reading” to my parents when I was really little. The funny thing is that I remember it (I don’t remember my age at the time, but Mom told me I was almost three). I remember my parents being so shocked and proud of me for reading… but I felt incredibly guilty because I knew I wasn’t actually reading. I didn’t know how. I just recognized a ton of words.

Of course, in retrospect, I see that recognizing words is one of the first steps to learning how to read. Nathan has an incredible memory, so I’m not surprised that he’s memorized a lot of words and knows what the word looks like when spelled. I’m super excited to nourish his love for reading so can hopefully continue to love books through adulthood.

My baby is growing up. And it’s happening alarmingly fast.

That’s never good.

It sounded like something being banged on a tin can.  The only tin can in Nathan’s room is a rectangular one that holds his dry-erase markers. And I keep those high up on top of his dry-erase board. Or so I thought. I walked into Nathan’s room to investigate and this is what I saw.

Nathan's big art debut

And I kinda just stood there for a moment. I could feel my mouth slowly dropping open. Nathan jumped back from the wall, marker still in hand, and giggled. Impishly. He was very proud of what he had done. And when he saw the look on my face, he GUFFAWED. And then with much dismay, I noticed his chair.

The chair doesn’t look like it was on purpose. All the markers were laying in the chair. He had attempted to put the tops back on them, but some of them didn’t fit properly so they fell off. And then the markers bled onto the chair as they sat there.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to get that out.

I was able to get all the marker off the walls using a wet rag (since it was dry-erase markers) and I used Mr. Clean Magic Eraser on what didn’t come up the first time. The walls look fine now. The chair, though, that’s another story. Looks like Nathan will always have something to remember about his big art debut.

So today, I walked past him as he was playing in his room. I heard him say, “Time to clean up!” and as I peeked my head through the door, I saw him picking up his Hot Wheels, one in each hand, and transporting them to their proper place into the basket on the toy shelf. He did this multiple times until all 50+ Hot Wheels were picked up off the floor.

I could not be more proud. I know plenty of adults who are too lazy to clean up after themselves, so seeing my two-year-old do it without any prompting makes me feel like I’m doing something right. I tell him all the time how important it is to clean up after himself because if he doesn’t do it, then that means someone else has to, and that’s not right.

For instance, I used to be a waitress when I was 16 years old. And out of all the different people that I served, guess who I hated waiting on the most? FAMILIES WITH KIDS. I especially hated, HATED waiting on the families with small children. Why, you ask? Well, because the majority of all the parents that came in apparently thought it was perfectly fine and “normal” for their kids to fling food all over the table and floor, spill drinks, be disruptive, and make the most God-awful messes I’ve ever seen. And the kicker? The reason why I hated serving them so much, aside from the irritation of dealing with a child who has no discipline?

SHITTY TIPPERS.

I tell you, parents with messy kids tended to leave the saddest tips I’d ever seen. You see, servers don’t get paid crap. At the time (over a decade ago), the hourly rate was $2.13 an hour, and to this day, it still hasn’t gone up to minimum wage. That’s because servers are expected to make up the difference with tips. So here I am, busting my ass cleaning up after these bratty little booger-crusted hellions and for next to nothing. No matter how great of a server I was… never letting their drinks empty, bringing their orders out in a timely manner, etc… they still only left a dollar or two. Even if that tip was 10-20% of their bill, when they allow their child(ren) to leave such a horrendous mess, they should tip more because the server now has to go above and beyond to take care of something the parents apparently didn’t have the capacity to take care of themselves. And the more time I had to spend cleaning up after a table, the less turnover I had, the less tables I could wait on, and the less money I could make.

It was really such a welcome relief when the few families with well-behaved, respectful kids came in. That’s probably why whenever we go out to eat, our server inevitably comments on how well-behaved Nathan is.

Here’s the deal. People who let their kids make these disgusting messes pretty much look like complete Parenting Failures to all who observe them. Typically speaking, the messy kids are also the ones throwing tantrums, screaming, standing up in their seats, flinging food across the room, climbing up on top the tables, being disruptive and disturbing the other patrons, etc etc etc etc. Lazy parenting at it’s best, folks. So what gives me the right to say that?  Well, my two-year-old would LOVE to do those things. I’ve never, NEVER allowed him to drop his food on the floor, take food off his plate or play with it, stand up in his seat, climb on the table, or any of that. Don’t get me wrong, he definitely tries. But I am the PARENT. It’s my job to prepare him for the next stage in life, and letting him do all those things teaches him nothing but how to be self-absorbed, entitled, and bratty. My child will not be allowed to be a brat. I know he is capable of better, therefore I expect more of him. I teach him what I expect of him when we’re at the table. And when he doesn’t comply, there are consequences (like putting him in time out, for example. And there have been many, many times I’ve had to get up from the table, take him outside, and put him in time out for not minding me at the table.)

Time and time again, I see parents “check out” while their kid runs amok at restaurants.

There is no excuse. None. Put on your big girl (or boy) panties and BE A PARENT. Teach your child the right way to behave. It’s not the kids’ fault that their parents suck, and believe me they will pay for your failures as they grow into adults, and that’s not fair to the child.  They usually end up becoming bratty, self-absorbed and entitled adults who won’t be able to get far in life.  What a shame.

I can’t stand to see bad parenting because it’s so selfish on the parents’ part and is nothing but detrimental to the child. Your child deserves better. Your child deserves a parent who is going to at least TRY mold them into becoming a responsible adult. I have friends whom I am embarrassed to go eat with because their own children, who are older than my son, are hellions at the table. When we leave the restaurant, my son’s area is clean. There is no food on the floor, no spilled drinks (I understand it’s inevitable, but some kids spill their drink nearly every single time they eat) and no disruptions such as standing up in his chair or getting up and running around the table.

The world doesn’t revolve around a single one of us. We have to be respectful of others, and we have to understand how our actions affect those around us. It’s our job as parents to teach our children those same principals. Anything less is letting your child down and inadequately preparing him/her for life. That’s not fair to the child.

See, we’ve been “going to the potty” for a couple of months now, but it’s been slow. At first, he would only sit on his potty fully clothed. Then I coaxed him into sitting on it clad only in his diaper. It’s only recently that he’s begrudgingly allowed me to remove the diaper while he sits on the potty. Even then, I apparently have horrible timing. I’d have him sit on his potty while I read a book to him, but he would never go. There was one time that I pulled his pants up without a diaper so we could wash his hands before I put a fresh diaper on him, and he peed in his pants. Ten seconds after I got him off his potty. Figures. Anyway, we’ve not been having much luck with the process.

But yesterday when he woke up from his nap, his diaper was completely dry. I quickly ushered him into the bathroom to sit on his potty. After about 2-3 minutes… TA DA! HE PEED!

The look on his face was priceless.

I was so excited that as soon as he was done, I jumped up and down and did a little dance, shouting “Hooray! Hooray!” Paul came to the bathroom to see what all the commotion was about. When I told him about Nathan’s accomplishment, he praised Nathan for being a big boy. After I got Nathan’s diaper back on, Paul scooped him up and did a little dance, swinging him in his arms.

It was glorious.

Now to get Nathan to use his potty consistently and without me prompting. That’ll be nice. This is definitely a long process, much longer than I thought it would be. I hear some kids are really easy to potty train, but others? Not so much. I don’t make a huge deal out of it, though, because then Nathan would totally do the exact opposite. We’re just going at Nathan’s pace and I keep telling myself he won’t be in diapers forever. Just taking it one step at a time.

PRESCHOOLER.

And he doesn’t toddle anymore. He doesn’t even walk. He RUNS. EVERYWHERE. And let me tell you, this kid is fast. He’s growing more and more into a little boy. A big kid.

I’m not ready for this.

See, we often get those catalogs in the mail that are filled with pictures of kids’ toys. One arrived in the mail the other day. I like to flip through them and see what’s out there. I was thumbing through the toddler section and became slightly dismayed to see that Nathan wouldn’t be interested in most of those toys. I turned the page and GOLDMINE! It was filled with all kinds of toys Nathan would find intriguing. And then I looked up at the top of the page and saw the glaring words “PRESCHOOLERS AGES 3-4.”

Preschooler.

The word tastes funny in my mouth. It seems so… old… somehow. So grown-up and yet not. A contradiction. I have a preschooler and yet he’s still just a baby. It took me a while to get used to calling Nathan a toddler rather than an infant. And just when I became accustomed to that, he morphed into a preschooler right in front of me.

Watching your kid grow is a funny thing. I find myself becoming emotional over things like the thought of getting his first hair cut (It took him over two years to grow his hair; he was completely bald up until a few months ago. And now he has a mop on his head, and cutting it will be a bittersweet moment indeed.) and every time he goes up a size in shoes. There are so many firsts, so many changes, and it all happens so quickly. I just want to press a pause button and breathe him in before he grows any more…