Queen of Rambles

Oh. My. God.

It was dark outside this morning when Erik decided he needed a snack. I am not sure what time the sun rises, but 4:15 ain’t it.

We came out to get a cereal bar because I’ll be damned if anyone is going to eat in my bed. He immediately saw the dark and was beyond excited. I was confused at first (remember, it was still the middle of the night), but then I realized that he hasn’t seen the dark since daylight savings switched over.

I was not going to start my day at 4:15, so as soon as he was done with the cereal bar I dragged him back to bed and told him he had to sleep.

Ha!

He babbled on and on about the darkness. I put a pillow over my head and ignored him. He tossed and turned and never did go back to sleep. At 5:30 he announced he had to pee. What is a potty training mother supposed to do? Backslide and tell him to pee in his diaper? I don’t think so.

So up we went.

It was still dark outside.

And up we stayed. No nap for us all day long.

It’s a good thing I was in bed at 8:59 last night or today could have been a whole lot worse.

Did you know there are people out jogging at 6 am? And the nasty, gross, crowded Wal-Mart is calm, pleasant and clean at 7 am? Not that I want to make a habit of being awake that early, but it sure was nice to get a few things that you simply can’t pick up at Target (like a really cheap radio controlled monster truck and a big pitcher thingee that holds a bag of flour).

By the time we went to the gym at 9:30, it felt like we’d already been up half the day.

I am ready to declare Erik day time potty trained. He only had one accident today and that was totally my fault. We went to the park with no bathroom and were there for two hours. I saw him holding himself and sort of tried to get him to pee, but he was having a lot of fun and there was no place to pee. He was really unhappy when he wet himself, so that’s a good sign. He was dry at the gym, the grocery store and Michael’s. Now watch him wet himself ten times tomorrow.

I just have one question. What am I supposed to do in two weeks when we are on our trip. If all goes according to plan we will be in airports or airplanes for approximately 15 hours. I can keep taking him to the bathroom on the plane, but there are certain times when it is simply impossible to get to a toilet. Do we revert to diapers for the day or just carry a bunch of underwear and shorts in the backpack? At this point I think I’m inclined to just carry the extra underwear and shorts. I’m not even going to attempt to bring all the toys I usually bring. He’s not interested and they take up a ton of space. He’s a pretty good self-entertainer when there are people around.

Speaking of his self-entertaining. . .

Remember I said we were going to cut off all his TV time? It was to the point that all he wanted to do was watch TV. We arrived there slowly. I never wanted to be the mom of the kid who was a couch potato at age two, but it was just so easy and I’m lazy by nature. We are now letting him watch TV for 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes while I take my shower, and 1 hour at bedtime. The first day was pure HELL. The second day was only hellish. The third day was fine.

The boy is like a different child. He’s a lot happier and less whiny. He plays with toys. We talk a lot more. We’ve been painting and coloring and cooking and just generally doing the things that we should have been doing all along. We even cleaned the walls and baseboards today. What the hell am I doing cleaning walls and baseboards?

Now let’s hope I remember this and don’t get complacent again. There are, of course, downsides to doing this. I can’t just sit on my computer all day staring at blogs and e-mail. I have to be engaged and doing things. He knows that the computer can play games, so as soon as I look at it he wants to play too. And I have to be. . . well. . . more engaged. Being engaged all day gets tiring, especially when you are an introvert who needs me-time.

And on that note, I think I better go have some me-time before I go to bed. Can I hold out till 9 pm?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 7:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.