NO!

Wayyy back when my sister and I were in high school we watched a comedic variety show (I think it was All That) where they did a skit involving an exasperated parent and their toddler. The part of the skit that we remember and still quote went thus:

Toddler: I wanna go paint!
Parent: Okay, let’s go paint.
Toddler. NO.

It became one of our ‘quotables:’ “I wanna go paint/Okay let’s go paint/NO!” Oh, how we laughed.

Not laughing now. Oh, my God. IT’S TRUE.

This week Lydia has really dived into the parental frustration that is affectionately known as The Terrible Twos. Every single thing is a battle, from diaper changes and food to fun things like coloring, playing outside and reading books. And bedtime? I don’t even want to talk about it for fear of invoking Murphy’s Law — it can always get WORSE.

She’s still an awesome, very sweet girl, it’s just now when she melts down, it’s like that volcano in Iceland that even no one on NPR even attempts to pronounce — all traffic in our household stops until the ash of madness can clear.

One thing that did lift my spirits, however, happened the other day. I learned that she most definitely knows that biting others is VERY VERY BAD and you can get in VERY BIG TROUBLE. She must have finally picked this up from daycare because I have not had to sign an Oops Note in quite a while. The Husband and I were tackling her for a diaper change and pajama time — it was taking both of us — and in her anger at this gross breach of personal space she grabbed my finger and brought it to her teeth.

As soon as my finger touched her teeth she stopped — she did not bite, and her tantrum totally subsided as she looked at me with wide-eyed horror. I gave her The Look that my parents have so many times given me and calmly told her, “No, ma’am; we do not bite, especially Mommy and Daddy. That hurts people.”

She was upset nearly to the point of tears and when I asked her for a hug and for her to say, “Sorry,” she immediately crawled into my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck.

The Husband and I are both hoping Lydia will soon better understand and her over her frustrations. The sooner she does that, the more cute pictures I can get. Ha.

what Renton did

Earlier this evening I think I got a few people curious by tweeting that Renton did the nastiest thing ever. So nasty, in fact, that I wasn’t sure if I could write about it . . .

Well, I’m over that, so if you still DON’T want to know, then read no further. Seriously.

Early this morning Renton birthed one of his small children after much strain and consternation. We rejoiced since each small child means no vet trip. Unfortunately all the strain got to him and he barfed in the basement. Hey, at least it was in the basement this time!

So before I got Lydia up for school I ambitiously went downstairs to take care of the barf, lest Lydia be amused by it. Being pregnant did not help that endeavor and I quickly tossed the messy paper towels into a little trash can near the litter box and hightailed it back upstairs. Eww eww eww.

This afternoon I arrived home with a very thirsty Lydia, who had been chanting, “Juice. Juice. Juice,” all the way home. As we rounded the corner to head up the basement steps, I see that the little trash can is knocked over. “Odd,” I think, “maybe Steven accidentally knocked it over.”

But the messy paper towels are missing, save a small little piece . . . and I used a LOT of paper towels this morning to clean up all that barf.

Do you see where this is going?? Oh yes.

Apparently Renton was feeling quite peckish after clearing his system earlier, and really I’m quite thankful he was all cleared out and ready to go, because that fool cat ate FIVE PAPER TOWELS. I hope he enjoyed them.

I know that they have already gone all the way through his system because as Lydia and I began to go up the stairs, we were met with the sight of his, err, leavings there on the landing. Pure paper towels, all balled up into the form of little small children, just how his body likes to make them.

Not only did those paper towels go all the way through him, they did it in less than 12 hours.

This is the point where Lydia and I both started screaming, “Ewwwww!”

This evening, Renton has been in the best mood I have seen him in years. He has been thoroughly cleansed this Holy Week. I just wish the sight could be cleansed from my memory.

conversation with a toddler

Last night the three of us were sitting at the dinner table together. This is actually a rare event since Lydia insists on eating right when we walk in the door after work and school, but this time she was content to sit with Steven and me while we ate our food.

Lydia amused herself by swirling around a water droplet on the table with the spout of her sippy cup while Steven and I talked about the day.

“Lydia’s the oldest one in her room now,” I told Steven, “They tell me that she is running the class and is telling all the other kids what to do.” He laughed.

I looked over at Lydia. “Lydia, are you the boss in your class?”

She didn’t look up from her water droplet, but replied, “Uh huh.”

“Are you going to be the boss of Samuel when he gets here?”

“Uh huh,” she said, still smearing the water.

“Are you the boss of Mommy and Daddy?”

“Uh huh,” she chirped, still messing with her water.

“Do we let you do too much?”

She finally looked up for a moment and replied, “Nnnnnooooooooooo.”

Later she ate a bunch of steamed broccoli without any seasoning whatsoever on it. This one never ceases to amaze.

hey honey, look! we got a survey in the mail

I started thinking about it last year.

As the calendar rolled around to 2010, I started anticipating it.

As news stories started popping up, trying to make something political of it, I started getting excited. It was almost time.

And last week, it finally came . . . my very own questionnaire for the 2010 Census. Yessssssss. After ten long years of waiting.

“You’re the only person I know who can get so excited over a census,” Steven said as I danced around with my envelope.

Why so excited over a mandatory count? I really couldn’t care too much about how many representatives we get in Congress (Alabama’s hasn’t changed in years anyway) or how many funds get allocated to Chelsea. For me, it’s all about the genealogy.

Thanks to the power of the intertubes, I’ve been able to see a lot of the census records of my ancestors, and it has been fascinating — not only for the information on the records themselves, but seeing the awesome proof that they truly walked the earth, farming and preaching and raising families.

The earliest census record I have is that of Edward and Elsey Snellgrove, my sixth-great grandparents. They show up on the 1800 Census. Edward died two years later. Coincidentally, they are also Bill Clinton’s fifth-great grandparents.

The latest census records to be released are from the year 1930. I have the copies showing all four of my grandparents. My mother’s father was 14; two years later the tornado was to come through Columbiana and take his house with it (today’s the anniversary of that, by the bye). My mother’s mother was 9 and in Calera. My dad’s father was 9; he would turn 10 a few months later. My dad’s mom is 10; maybe a year or two after this picture was taken:

Census records aren’t released until 72 years after the year of he census, so the first census I will show up in, 1990, won’t be forthcoming until 2072 — I’ll be 92 if I’m still around. I missed the 1980 census by 32 days.

In part I find my own fulfillment of the census information so interesting because I hope my own grandkids and great-grandkids, perhaps even sixth-great grandkids, will one day pull up the information and think, “Wow, Granny Carrie was only 29 and Grandpa Sam wasn’t even born yet! She had to have known he was coming, though.”

Ohh yeah, I know he’s coming. He likes to kick and remind me about every five seconds or so.

sputnik update

Figured I’d give a little Sputnik update. He is growing, and it’s starting to get noticeable. I’ve got two pairs of ‘normal’ pants that still work for me, though one of them I have to jerryrig with hairbands, but the rest of my pants are now of the maternity sort. The saggy, baggy, want-to-hang-below-your-butt maternity pants, oh how I hate them. There’s got to be a better way to do pregnancy clothing.

At least my regular shirts are still good.

Sputnik is a big kicker; I see dancing or kickboxing in this kid’s future. He can almost hurt.

I passed the oh so fun glucose test last week so FOOD FOR ME! As we speak The Husband is on his way to the Dairy Queen to fetch me a hot fudge sundae that I was denied yesterday (Lyida told me, “No!”)

The Braxton Hicks contractions have started up as well, especially if I do too much or sit in a car for a long period of time. Fifteen more weeks of these? Where’s my sundae?!

Ooh, I hear The Husband now! Yay!

yo gabba gabba made me cry

Lydia has taken up a new addiction recently — the kids’ show Yo Gabba Gabba. Oh, how enthralled she is!

Thankfully, it’s a pretty snazzy show and both Steven and I are able to sit through it. In fact, it can be rather entertaining. Thank God our child was not born during the Age of Barney the Dinosaur.

Saturday morning found the three of us parked on the sofa watching Lydia’s newest video and learning about Greetings, with the Daddy’s Girl parked in Steven’s lap.

As the characters began a song about “goodbye,” my mind began to travel as it does and I found myself upon a horribly sweet and simultaneously morbid thought. This song, with its words of, “Goodbye, see ya later, we had fun,” would be a good pick for a kids’ funeral.

Why why why do I think of stuff like this? I think a lot of women, especially moms, inadvertently come up with these torturous mind trails. When your kid takes a tumble down the stairs; before you’ve reached the bottom after them your mind has already gone through an entire worst-case scenario that ends up with you having to call everyone in your contact list . . . . only to reach the bottom of that long staircase and your child pops right up, saying,”Uh oh.” And my sister says I don’t plan ahead. Hrmmph.

So there I am watching Yo Gabba Gabba with my husband and daughter, trying with my utmost effort not to burst into tears as they sing goodbye.

hop back on again

This weekend has been the first nice weekend in two months and it was time to GET OUTSIDE. Yesterday Lydia went to the zoo with her cousin Elizabeth.

Today the men are still working on The Project downstairs so Lydia and I went outside to enjoy the day. We took out her scoot-about tricycle that she got for Christmas so she could finally try it outdoors and she was having a blast. She rode all around the driveway while I snapped picture after picture of her.

At one point she went NASCAR and made the same circle loop over and over again around the bit of brick wall that separates the two garage doors. She giggled and smiled while going, “Wheeee!” whenever someone walked by her.

Then on the 52nd turn, there was a crash and a wail as Lydia faceplanted off of her bike. She was covered in sawdust, blood, and tears so we hightailed it upstairs to clean her up.

Once she was as doctored as much as she would let me do, she wanted right back outside. Once outside, she went straight to her bike and hopped back on, swollen lip and all.

That’s the spirit, baby.

general familial update

Mea culpa for the absence. My body has not enjoyed pregnancy near as much this time around, so for the last month or so I have been fighting the Virus of Death. I finally got rid of it a few weeks ago, but now I have strept throat. Again. The doctors keep telling me my immune system just isn’t going to function as well right now, being with child and what, so . . . waiting for June ever so much here.

Today we received bonifide confirmation that Sputnik is indeed a boy. He is measuring right on target at 48% percentile and is currently sitting breech. Hopefully he’ll re-situate himself before long.

I started feeling him wiggle around about a week and a half ago so it’s nice to know he’s kicking around in there. Just like with Lydia, I’m not really showing yet. I have to be nakers to really tell and only The Husband gets those kind of privileges (if that’s what you want to call it).

Lydia has no awareness of the brother that is coming and, really, it’s kinda tough to explain to a 19 month old who lives in the ever-present and NOW something huge that is coming in five months. We’ll have to wait for the time to get closer and for her to level up a bit.

Speaking of Lydia, she is growing by leaps and bounds lately, especially her hair. Sometimes I think she could use a bit of a trim — it’s getting in her eyes — but when I mention this to The Husband he yelps as if hurt. I would pull it back into a ponytail but she won’t let me mess with it. However, there is someone at daycare she will trust her red locks to. I wonder how they gained that trust? She came home this afternoon looking like this, and I about died from cuteness:

Sometimes she tries her own hand with her hair. At her cousin’s house last weekend, she figured her Aunt Cathy’s potato soup would make a wonderful hair mousse.

And the speaking, oh! the speaking! She’s a veritable chatterbox, even if she’s telling you a story in complete babble. She’ll pull out a book and tell you all about it in her own language. She knows some of the Queen’s English, too. She’s got perhaps 15 to 20 words she knows and uses, and she will parrot back just about any word you say to her. This can get you in trouble if you aren’t thinking about what you’re saying around her.

There’s an attitude there, too. She will point her finger at Renton if he gets too close to her toys and say, “No no no!” Sometimes she points that finger at us. She’s got sass.

Lydia’s got a kind heart as well. If you ever need a hug or kiss, just ask her for one and she is always willing to oblige. She gives the sweetest kisses. There is just no better thing she could ever give me.