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?

Nathan’s mood varies in the mornings. Most times he wakes up all jolly and full of rainbows and lolly pops. Other times, he wakes up grumpy and irritable. Full of “piss and vinegar” as the saying goes. He’s hard to deal with on those days, and it usually takes quite a bit of playing and bribing with books to get him into a better mood. In the picture above, he’d had a great morning. (Fortunately he has those more often than not.) Look at his morning hair! I was sitting on the ground when I took it, so the picture looks like he’s a giant in a tiny little room.

And see the mess behind him? Well, every night before he goes to bed, we clean up his room. And the first thing he does in the morning is drag his toys back out to play. I’ve really been working with him on cleaning up after himself. He and I always clean his room before he goes down for his nap. I set out some baskets, and we sort the toys. Legos here, cars there, blocks in that one, books in this one. Most of the time, he gets distracted and wants to play with the toys we are cleaning up, but I tell him we clean up first and THEN he can play with his toys again. This seems to work well. Just yesterday, he brought a basket filled with over 50 Hot Wheels and dumped most of them onto the coffee table. He played with them for a while, and when he was done –get this– he put them all back into the basket and carried it to his room!

Good work, son.

I know I say this a lot, but I have to say it again. I can’t believe how quickly he’s growing up.

Every so often, however, I really look forward to a nap. (How lucky am I that I still have the opportunity to nap? VERY.)

Today I wanted to get some rest. Nathan’s agenda for today, on the other hand, did not include sleeping. I laid with him for over an hour as he played with his hands and the blanket. When I finally told him to go to sleep or I would put him in his own bed, he pouted and pulled the covers up over his face. I laid there and watched him for over five minutes. He laid perfectly still, and the only reason I knew he was not asleep was because his breathing wasn’t deep and regular.

Pretending to be asleep for over five minutes is an ETERNITY in toddler time. I had to give him credit. He tried damn hard to make me think he was asleep. He didn’t twitch, didn’t talk, and he didn’t move at all. He was perfectly still.

I know adults that aren’t capable of pulling that off.

So finally, as I watched him, he slowly reached his hand up to the blanket that he had pulled over his face. His fingers carefully grasped the edge of the blanket and ever so slowly, he pulled the blanket down, exposing his wide-awake eyes.

“HI MOMMY!” he exclaimed when he saw me watching him. There was not one ounce of sleepiness in his voice.

“Go to sleep,” I responded. “Mommy’s tired but I can’t sleep unless you sleep.”

“No nap, Mommy. I sorry. Mommy TIRED. No nap. Get up?” he said as he sat up in one swift motion.

“No not yet,” I said as I pondered how it could be humanly possible for someone to sit up with such speed. “Seriously, I’m tired.” Then he plopped back down beside me and nestled his arm under my chin. I couldn’t help but kiss it.

“Get up? Ready get up?” he implored.

Fine. How could I say no? The kid laid as still as a statue for OVER FIVE MINUTES.

“Okay we’ll get up,” I sighed. Before I could finish that short sentence, however, Nathan was clamoring out of the bed and racing into his room. “BUT!” I called. “Since you didn’t nap, you’re going to have to play in your room for a while rather than roaming the house. Understand?”

“Okay, Mommy!” he said as he dove into his toys.

My baby boy is growing up and naps are starting to become more scarce. I don’t think he’s going to give them up entirely just yet because there have been plenty of times where he’s been so tired that he could hardly hold his eyes open. But it’s definitely heading in that direction. Hopefully, he still has a year or two of napping, even if it is sporadic. I can get so much done when he’s sleeping… not to mention, some time to myself is always nice.

Just another reminder that they don’t stay little for long…

Today there is some improvement, thankfully. His fever is finally gone, but he’s definitely still sick and VERY irritable.  But he is eating a little more and is finally drinking fluid on his own. (Before this, he was refusing to drink anything, and I was having to administer Pedialyte in a medicine dropper to him to prevent dehydration.)

I’m hoping that he will be better in a couple of days. In the meantime, bear with me because it’s been incredibly hard to post anything with him being so sick.

“Pway… okay?” Nathan said in a sad, quivering little voice. His eyes remained closed. “Pway? Pwease!? Okay?” he said.

I snuggled up next to him and kissed his forehead.

My sweet little boy loves to play so much that he apparently has nightmares about not being able to play anymore… it was so sweet and so sad at the same time. That little guy truly lives to play…

Neither cat used to meow late at night before our cat Turbo passed away in September, so I wonder if they are missing him. And prior to Turbo’s passing, Andrew had never pooped outside the litter box. He started after Turbo died, but we thought it was because we bought new litter boxes. Since then, his pooping problem has been sporadic, and it seemed like he only did it when he wanted attention. But for the past few days, it’s been DAILY. And now I want to pull my hair out.

ARG! (Yes, I just emitted pirate-speak. Which is what happens when you have cleaned up one too many piles of poop!)

My singing must have really wore him out!

Today, however, that is not the case. He woke up this morning with a stuffy nose, and it has been running like a leaky faucet all day long. He’s been fussy and is constantly swiping at his runny nose with his hands, effectively smearing snot all over his face. When I put him down for a nap, and he only slept lightly because of his nose was so stopped up. He kept trying to suck on his fingers, but then he couldn’t breathe so he would wake up. I don’t know if it’s a cold or allergies. He doesn’t have a fever and seems to have no other symptoms other than a stuffy nose that constantly drips clear fluid. I don’t hink he’s contagious since neither Paul nor I are showing any symptoms.

Poor lil guy. I hate when he doesn’t feel well.

I dozed from 5 am til almost 6 am, when I was roused from my partial slumber by my husband wiggling his toes. DAMN TOE-WIGGLER.

My back was killing me (as usual) so I laid there and tried to ignore the pain until around 7:15, when I got up and ate a bowl of cereal and took some Ibuprofen. Back to bed. Finally dozed off again from 7:30 until 8:45, when Nathan woke up. I got up, changed his diaper, and was able to sleep for a little bit longer while my husband got ready for work.

I hate when I can’t sleep. Ever read the book Insomnia by Stephen King? I tell myself my insomnia could always be worse. I could be seeing little bald doctors jumping in the shadows and auras streaming from people’s noggins. So my insomnia isn’t that bad…. but it’s still enough to where it drives me nuts trying to take care of a rather demanding 17-month old while functioning on only a couple hours of sleep.

(Yeah, can you believe Nathan is 17 months already? Where does time go? Oh wait. I know. IT DISAPPEARS ALONG WITH MY SLEEP.)

There is always nap time, right?