Why does he have to get smarter and smarter?

So Mateo....

That little boy is killing me with his absolute cuteness and eager to do so much so quickly.

He's started to say "mmmm" when eating something he is particularly fond of. I tell you, it's the cutest thing ever. I've yet to capture it on video, though.

He's babbling nonstop, which isn't so new, but he's making all kinds of new sounds and it just tickles us to listen to him.

He's starting to become embarrassed when we laugh at him for doing something silly. He did some odd chicken dance thing last week, and my husband and I started laughing our heads off. Mateo went to his Daddy and wanted to sit down on his lap, like that was going to get us to stop. He had a look of wonder and annoyance on his face, like he wanted to be pleased at making us laugh, but he wasn't quite sure why we were laughing. Another time, I was putting him to bed, and my husband was saying good night to him. Mateo reached up to give him a hug, and when he was done, he waved at my husband and say, "bye!" It was so abrupt and just goofy that we both started laughing. Mateo got embarrassed and hit me, as in, "stoooooppppp laughing at me!!!", and that just made me laugh even more.

He's saying "oh no" when things drop or fall, which is similar to his months of "uh oh," but more clear.

He can do a somersault.

Man, there are so many other things that happened this past week, but they're all very small things that add up to a lot of changing, and I just can't capture them all.

I think this is one of the reasons I became a parent (but didn't realize it until now).

I took Mateo to daycare this morning, and he was raring to go. When we got into his room, he waited for me to fill out his day paper, and when I told him it was time to go into the other room, he ran to the connecting doorway, darted through and was going to keep going.

"Hey, wait a minute. Come back," I said.

He immediately stopped and turned around to look at me. I was squatting in the doorway so I'd be at his height.

"Aren't you going to let me give you a kiss?" I asked.

His face lit up. He ran back to me with his arms open and gave me a hug. Then he dipped his head toward me so I could give him a kiss (something he's been doing recently).

I gave him a good kiss on the head.

"Okay, now you can go have fun."

He smiled and ran off. When he was in the middle of the room, he turned around, tilted his head to the side (this kills me), and looked right at me. I tilted my head and smiled. He ran to the door to wait for me to go to our car.

When I got out to the front, he was standing at the door with his hands on the glass. I waved, and he smiled.

Not only did I get all this love and cuteness from him then, but when he woke up this morning, he was feeling a little out of sorts, so we spent a lot of time in the rocking chair snuggling while he drank his milk.

And this, I now realize, is one of the many reasons I became a parent. And I'm sure more will occur as he gets older. I'll simply add them to the list.

What I've learned...the series continues.

It seems the one thing that's flourishing with Mateo is his talking. He's now added "here you go" and "all done" to his list of statements. He's saying "Hi" all the time, to everything and everyone (including our two cats, whom he's not always so nice to). My husband and I swear we've heard him say other things, like last night we both thought he said "bye, dadda" (what I heard) or "night, dadda" (what my husband heard).

He's turning into quite the lazy bones. For a child who used to get up anywhere from 4:30AM to 5:30AM every day, this is really odd for both my husband and I. On Saturday he slept until 6AM and on Sunday until 6:30AM. I haven't been able to sleep in two days in a row since before he was born, and even then it was rare because I was having difficulty sleeping (this is coming from someone who gets up at 3:50AM, weekdays). On the days he goes to daycare, we've been having to wake him up at 6AM, and it takes forever to get him to respond to us. Naps are just as bad, but since we usually take the opportunity to clean up the condo or take a nap ourselves (or I do because I love my sleep), it's not so bad. On Friday when I woke him up, after rolling around and moaning and groaning, he told me to "go."

He understands "let's go wash your hands" and will run to the bathroom. When he's getting his teeth brushed, he'll tell me when he's "all done" and I have to tell him no, no you're not. Bossy little thing.

I feel 100% comfortable leaving him sitting on the couch, watching a favorite show, but only when I know he's in the mood to just sit and be still. You can see the living room from our kitchen, so I often take the chance to clean up the dishes or make dinner while he's sitting on the couch with a favorite blanket over his legs, sippy cup within reach. Yesterday he was watching The Wiggles while I was cleaning up the kitchen, and he turned to look at me and gave me the biggest smile and then turned back to his show. Melted my heart, I tell you. I love the freedom, and I know he loves the independence.

He tells stories while looking at his books. It's not often he'll allow me to read to him, so usually he sits on my lap while turning the pages of a favorite book, blabbering on and on about what's going happening.

He loves to act the silly goof, most recently running around with a jacket hood on his head.

New things.

So even though this past week has been pretty rough on us all, I did manage to learn a few new things about my baby boy:

1. He's loud. He's A-bomb loud. Loud as all get out. LOUD. And he likes to demonstrate his loud abilities when we're in a very quiet store, such as the Hallmark store, by screeching and screaming over not much of anything and causing the Hallmark lady to find us in the aisles of cards to see if I am trying to hide the fact that I was pinching him. Nope, no pinching. He's just loud.

2. He's making more decisions and finding the fact that I ask him and understand what he does want when given choices simply something to be tickled about. Since he wasn't eating much of anything these past 5 days, I would show him is favorite foods and ask him if he wanted it, to which, most of the times, he'd shake his head and say a curt "No." When I gave him three choices of TV shows to watch, he chose Little Einsteins by giving me a big grunt and smile. He's got a good handle on "no," but has yet to learn "yes." Although I think "moooorrr" is really "yes" to him.

3. When he's sick, he doesn't get he's sick and turns into a big giant booger butt who for some reason wants to suffocate our tiny cat Zoe. I know it's boredom and frustration and just not feeling well, but man can that kid really push his luck. I secretly wish Zoe would bat him a good one to teach him a lesson, but she's just about the most patient cat to ever exist (or stupid) and never retaliates Mateo's attacks.

4. He understands "do you want to go to bed?" and "do you want to go to sleep?" because whenever I say that during one of his attacks on Zoe, he'll promptly shake his head no. Of course he doesn't want to go to bed! He wants to kill Zoe! Don't you see???!

So basically, we're getting to the point where we're actually communicating with each other. And even though I get lots of head shakes and "no's!," I think it's pretty darn neat.

When your child gets sick.

I'm pretty much at my wits end, and it's only a random Sunday, the 34th year of my life.

Last night my husband and I got to experience the joys of what a colicky baby would be like if we had had one. Luckily for us, Mateo was no where near what a colicky baby is like, from what I've heard and read, although when he was a baby and was crying incessantly over nothing as far was we could tell, I would have argued that one with you.

Now I know better.

Last night was one of the hardest nights by far. Mateo was having some sort of stomach distress, and he would wake up and cry and scream and writhe in pain for what seemed like hours before passing out in exhaustion. At some point I realized it was his belly hurting him, so I began to give him doses of infant gas relief, followed by some serious pats on the back until I got a few burps out of him. It was only then that he would relax and go back to sleep.

This went on every few hours until about 3:30 AM, when he passed out after taking Tylenol and more gas medicine (not only has he been sick since Tuesday night, but a canine tooth is very close to pushing through his gums). I watched Flipping Out until I decided I couldn't stay awake anymore, and when I stood up with him slung over my shoulder like a sack of sadness, he let out 5 consecutive burps, some of which made me fear he was about to puke all over my back, and then I put him down in his crib for another 3 hours of sleep.

Mateo hasn't been much better today. His belly issues seem to be resolved, but his fever is back, he still doesn't want to eat and his breathing isn't the best. He went back to sleep at 7:30 AM, then again at 11 AM but still looks tired. He's going back to the doctor tomorrow.

My husband and I had to play the "who calls in sick to work" game - again, and when he asked me what we should do, I said, "let's play rock paper scissors!" Then I said he needs to stay home because I stayed home Thursday and Friday and in the process made an ass out of myself (which, for guilt reasons, I will not go into in this post or any other). Hopefully we'll get a better answer from his doctor about what's going on with him.

This is just another reminder that when you're a parent, you can't ever get too comfortable. We had a really long stretch of no big illnesses since his bad week in February, and I think I may have cursed our good luck one too many times by mentioning how Mateo's health has been pretty good since that time.

And it's times like these I really wish one of us was a stay at home parent. Just knowing that one of us could stay home with him without having to ruin a day at work would be so nice for the conscious.

Clear differences between our parental roles.

On average I can get Mateo to sleep in about 30 minutes. This includes teeth brushing, inhaler, milk, stories, some silliness and a lot of love. Once I know he's pretty much ready to sleep, I lay him in his crib, tell him I love him and to have good dreams, and I leave the room. Most times he's still awake.

Yes, I'm that good.

Well, now I am. It's taken months and months of toughening myself up and getting a solid routine going.

Then there is my husband. For demonstration purposes, I'll explain what happened last night.

Mateo's been sick these past few days, so getting him to bed early is top priority for me. Last night he was showing signs of being over the day around 5:50ish, so I started his routine. By 6:20ish, he was asleep in my arms. I didn't put him down because I knew my husband would be home soon and would want to at least see him, if not give him a kiss or two.

My husband opened Mateo's door, and I told him to be quiet but to come in. Then, like the idiot I am, I started talking to my husband in a whisper, and for whatever reason, this made Mateo open his eyes. To his amazement, his Daddy was standing there, and since he LOVES his Daddy, he wanted to get his little chubby hands on him as quickly as he could.

After we did a Mateo switch, the first thing Mateo did was reach up and touch my husband's nose, waiting for my husband to say "beeeep!" (By the way, he doesn't do this to me because I'm all business, most of the time and won't put up with nose beeping when it's time for bed.)

My husband whispered, "Beeep..."

Mateo giggled. And did it again. And again.

I said quietly, "He's never going to go to sleep if you keep responding to him. Lock up his arm."

Mateo has a favorite blanket, and when it's time for serious bedtime business, I have to cover his arm with the blanket and hold it so he doesn't keep octopus touching everything he can get to. If I let him do this, he would never go to sleep.

My husband put Mateo's arm under the blanket, and Mateo proceeded to cry in distress.

I gave Mateo a kiss and left the two to figure the situation out.

After a few minutes, my husband yelled for more milk. I went in the room to get the sippy cup, and found Mateo sitting up, all smiles and my husband looking guilty.

"You're right, he just thinks it's all fun and games with me," he told me. Mateo smiled.

He said that maybe I should take over because Mateo wasn't settling down.

"I already put him to sleep," I said. "Now it's your turn, good luck."

Then I said I'd be back in 10 minutes to take over.

Around 10 minutes later, my husband conceded defeat and yelled, "Mommmmmmaaaa!"

I walked in to find Mateo looking even more happy and awake than he was 10 minutes ago. We did another Mateo switcheroo, I got down to business, and he was in his crib within 10 minutes (still awake, but ready to sleep, because again, I'm that good.

"What happened?" my husband asked me sheepishly.

"Nothing, I just put him down."

"I tried putting him in his crib and all he did was laugh and clap," he told me.

"Do you leave after you put him in the crib?"

"No...," he said. "I tell him I love him."

"I do too! But when he's down, you need to walk out. Not sit in the chair or stand there, watching him. He thinks you're playing around."

And this is how our roles are defined: I am the no messing around, all business parent (which is why he eats, drinks, gets changed, has diapers, goes to his doctor appointments, etc.) and my husband is the all fun and games parent (which is why Mateo's face lights up so much when he sees his Daddy for the first time that day).

And so that's just how it is.

Play on color.

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My child is SMART.

He never ceases to amaze me. When new things happen, I might be very nonchalant about them, but inside I'm bursting with pride. This weekend the following happened:

1. He knows where his nose is! He was watching Yo Gabba Gabba when some song came on about what your nose, eyes and mouth does. When the singer sang "The nose on my face...," he pointed to his nose.

2. He knows where his head is too! Last night I was giving him his bath, and one of his bath toys is a plastic bowl (the best toys are, in fact, not a toy). I told him to put it on his head. So he did. He's brilliant.

3. He's polite! He knows to cover his mouth when he coughs (although he probably does this 3 times out of 10), he wipes his mouth with a napkin, wipes his runny nose with a napkin (or shirt), and all of a sudden doesn't like having dirty hands while eating (which makes me his constant hand cleaner).

4. He calls me Momma! But slowly I realized he's calling everyone Momma, including his Dad. And his Grandma. So....The thrill of being Momma has passed.

5. He follows simple commands! "Give it to Momma." "Bring that to me." "Go give this to your Daddy." Soon I'll have a full blown slave!

6. He's trying to follow dance moves he sees on TV. Then he just goes nuts and dances his Monkey Dance.

7. He truly is a show-off. We had a friend over, and Mateo spent 30 minutes doing everything possible to ensure our friend paid attention to him. This included flipping over while on his giraffe rocker (soon to be leaving his toy collection because of this), dragging his play tent everywhere, handing our friend dust bunnies that only he can find, and basically making me crazed and causing me to sweat immensely from having to chase him around.

Momma

I picked Mateo up from daycare today, and he was outside with his old caretaker, Miss J. She was holding him and being silly, making him laugh in glee.

I walked to the gate surrounding the playground to watch him. As soon as he saw me, his eyes got huge and he said, "MOMMA!" Miss J was turned the other way, and she said "what?" while turning around.

I tell you, the 'mommas' were so few and far between while the 'daddas' were all over the place, it was making me feel very sad and neglected. Today was the first time he said it that spontaneously and out of the blue, and it means more to me because he didn't expect to see me.

I'm finally a momma after 17 long months.

When your child gets a certified letter, what do YOU do?

There are two places where the employees of the establishment feel no necessity in making confidential or personal information unknown to the masses waiting: The pharmacy and the post office.

Today's post is about the post office.

Today I had to go to the post office to pick up a certified letter to my 17-month old son (yes, that’s correct, I’m not making this up). I wasn’t sure how I was going to get the letter from the clerk since it wasn’t addressed to me, and Mateo couldn’t sign the notice saying I was his agent and could pick it up for him, so I did what I’ve done in the past for checks written out to him; I signed his name, then “minor by,” then signed my name. The space I had to do this in was extremely tiny, and even I had a really hard time reading what I wrote when I looked at it again.

If it came down to it, sure, I would bring my baby in, but he certainly doesn’t have an ID, so they’d have to just assume I wasn’t making it up. I could bring the school-issued “emergency” picture ID of him. But he looks like a wild boy in the picture and slightly lost and even more confused, and I’m not sure they’d believe the child in the picture was him.

When I got to the counter, the clerk took the notice, barely looked at the side where I had to sign, walked to the cabinet where the "to be picked-up" mail is held, and began sorting through all the envelopes until he found the one address to my son.

He brought it back to the counter and said, “Oh, Kaiser! They must want to get a hold you pretty badly!” And yes, everyone could hear him.

I mean, come on. Who does that? Sure, he has every right to open sealed packages and rummage through them, looking for bombs and guns and illegal drugs, but why did he have to make an announcement of how a giant in the health care industry really wanted to get a hold of me*.

You might be thinking, so what, who cares, no one knows who you are. But what I was thinking was, Ohmygod, everyone’s going to think I’m some deadbeat who doesn’t pay her bills. But I do! Yes, on occasion, I have been known to forget, and I pay the required late payment, beat myself up mentally at spending money on something so stupid, but didn't I just write a post about how I paid Comcast TWICE, which certainly proves to me I'm a wonderful bill payer. Why else would Kaiser be sending out certified mail? Unless they were telling me I was dead or dying. And even then, that’s pretty cold.

Then the clerk noticed the envelope wasn’t addressed to me, per se (it was addressed as “To the parents of….,” which I would think means it is addressed to me, but how the heck does the clerk even know I’m the parent of this person? It’s all madness).

“Oh, you’re not the addressee,” he said.

Ah, my time for redemption, I thought. I’ll show you. No, I am not the addressee, because “Mateo” is clearly a male name (or so I think). And therefore, that means you shouldn’t be insinuating anything about me and how Kaiser really wants to get a hold of me and making all these random people waiting for their turn to be humiliated think I’m some loser who can’t pay bills!!!

“No, I’m his mother,” I said. “He’s only 17 months old.”

“Oh! Well, then. I’m sure they’re sending you a letter saying he’s going to grow up big and strong and healthy,” he told me.

Yeaahhh…okay.

The letter was not telling me we owed money and that Kaiser was sending goons after us, nor was it telling me Mateo was going to grow up big and strong and healthy (even though he will), but it was something totally unrelated to both. My husband even predicted the night before what the letter was about, and he was correct.

You’re dying to know, aren’t you? Well, I’m not telling.

*I’m now thinking, hindsight being 20/20 and all, that I should have said, “Oh! It must be about the Head of ER Physicians job I applied for!” because even though I hardly get carded anymore (but then again, I hardly go anywhere to be carded at, and I probably don’t look as young as I used to (thanks, Mateo)), I still do look a lot younger than I actually am, which confuses some people on occasion.

Dumbstruck by Barney.

And I SWORE there would be no Barney in my house. Barney is my, and Mateo's, new bestest pal.

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New things about my wean.

I taught Mateo how to blow kisses along with a very loud "mmmmmawwwww" sound. So he's been doing that all weekend, the most while at Trader Joe's, where he was blowing random kisses to women. Part of our deal of where I teach him this smooth move and he uses it, is that he was only supposed to blow kisses to me. He's already learning how not to listen to me.

I've got a little Casanova on my hands, I tell you.

He's starting to say "go, go, go" because I say that a lot to him when I'm trying to get him moving faster and to stop lollygagging.

Yesterday we were hanging outside in the “greenbelt” (I just love that term), both of us sitting on a bench (okay, I was sitting, Mateo was standing and trying to fall on his head as I kept a firm hand on any part of his body or clothes that couldn't get away from me), when we both noticed an old woman pushing a shopping cart from the Foodmaxx across the street. She full-on Froggered it and didn’t cause any accidents either!

I had a brief moment where I thought I should be nice and unlock the gate for her since she was heading our way. I had a quick vision of me letting go of Mateo for that split second, him careening over the back of the bench, landing on the cement and cracking his delicate skull open, which was enough for me to sit still and keep hanging on to him.

When the lady got inside the courtyard area (adjacent to the greenbelt, of course), she slowly pushed the shopping cart off to her condo unit, as do many residents at our condo complex.

That’s when Mateo started saying, “Go, go, go! Go, go, go!” towards the lady. Luckily it wasn’t really loud or coherent enough for anyone but me to hear it.

So what I’ve learned about my baby boy this weekend: He’s a Casanova in training and he’s slightly rude. Half his daddy and half his mommy.

What I learned about my child this weekend.

It's pretty amazing; Mateo seems to change so fast these days that I thought I might post weekly updates about the new things I've learned he can do (and some he's been doing for some time, but it takes a master of rearing children to open my eyes and see the baby light).

So these are the things I've learned about my wean this past weekend:

1. He has added "where'd it go? where'd he go? where'd dada go?" to his vocabulary along with "sit," "down," and "up."

I never realized he was saying "where'd it go?" until Grandma informed me. I think this is something he has been saying for some time now, but more the inflection of it. This morning (2:30AM to be exact) he said it clear as day when I dropped his pacifier on the rug when I was attempting to plug him up and get him back to sleep.

My husband has heard "down" before, but I never have until he was sitting at his new desk and I kept asking him if he wanted down, and he would say "no!" When he finally did want down, he would say, "down? down?" while trying to get the chair to move. When he first saw the desk Sunday morning, he walked over to the chair and said, "sit?"

I'm not sure why everything is a question to him, but as long as he's talking, I'm all for it.

2. He pat, pat, pats his lap or belly when watching the part on Little Einsteins where the kids have to pat their laps to get the ship moving.

3. He blows kisses. I've showed him this all weekend, but he never did it until this morning - totally unprovoked at that. My heart melted.

4. He can "sssshhhhh" by putting his finger up to his mouth. He thinks this is funny and doesn't get that it means to be quiet, but regardless, it's really cute.

So, basically, my kid is a genius. And next weekend he'll be even more of a genius because I'm sure there will be more to post. Jealous? Haven't received a blown kiss from you child today? Don't be a hater.

Ah, to be alone again.

To give some history. My husband used to work a nightmarish retail job where he had to be there basically from morning to evening, sometimes not coming home until 7 or 8 PM, and always working Friday and Sunday (and sometimes Saturday). I worked a normal "corporate" job, slinging loan documents about and causing havoc with my bad attitude. I still work a corporate job, but now I sling other stuff, and I still have my bad attitude, but it's toned down a lot since Mateo arrived and my meds kicked in.

Basically I was alone a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean, A LOT. I was lonely. I was sad. I was lonely and sad. I picked up some hobbies that kept me busy, but I was still lonely and sad. I was even more sad when my husband had a day off with me and would constantly be on his cell phone making sure his employees weren't burning down the store and fighting customers. I was probably at the loneliest when the phone would ring at 2 AM and the store's alarm company was calling to tell my husband (the first person on the list to call, of course) that some one just broke into the store, the police have been called, he needs to be there like 15 minutes ago.

Then he got a corporate job, slinging junk and making phone calls, and he has had a regular schedule (give or take days where he's a whopping 15 minutes late getting home, something I can definitely deal with), and is pretty much around all the time now. Well, at least on the weekends he is.

My loneliness is long gone. I have company 24/7, including two annoying and neurotic cats. Now I wish for solitude. I don't want to be lonely, just peaceful and alone. There is a difference.

My husband wanted to go out tonight after work with our work friend, and I was all for it. Why? Because when I got Mateo to sleep, I would have a couple of hours to myself doing what I wanted to do. This time last year, if he had said he wanted to go out after work, which meant I would have to go get Mateo after work, which meant I couldn't go as well, I would be very irate and a tad jealous. I wanted to go out after work too! I wanted to drink a couple of beers and shoot the breeze! I wanted to people watch and make fun of them! I wanted to have some fun with adults!

Then I realized that my tolerance for alcohol is pretty much zilch at this point (over 9 months of not drinking will do that to a gal), I'm tired, I shoot the breeze at work enough as it is, and why people watch when you can write about people...on your blog!

My jealousy soon diminished.

I was looking forward to tonight since the moment we agreed he should go out and I should pick up Mateo. I was going to get that little boy to bed way before 7 PM, have my luxurious two hours or so to read, watch the shows I wanted to watch, blog, fall asleep, listen to music, eat junk food (it is my foolish diet day) - whatever. But especially, I'd be alone. For the most part.

Mateo, of course, had other plans. He was perfectly fine after I picked him up from daycare. He even made a quick pit stop with me at the eye doctor's so I could pick up some contacts to tie me over until my appointment at the end of this month. But as soon as we got inside, he saw a sippy cup, decided he was dying of thirst, and needed water RIGHT NOW, so he flipped out. My time to get him fed and relaxed for the night was limited, so instead of trying to soothe him, I hurried to get stuff put away before I fed him.

Right when we stepped in the door, our phone started ringing. It was my husband asking me to call him back to tell him how Mateo was today, and then he added that he wanted me to look up the BART schedule to see when the last direct train to Fremont was leaving. "If you could do that for me, that would be great...... I love you," he said.

Okay, add that to my list of things to do tonight, I thought. Because trying to get onto my laptop to look up a BART schedule while my child was turning into a real grumpasaurus was not happening at the moment.

My normal routine when getting home is to go into our bedroom and change. When I walked into our bedroom I was greeted with two piles of cat puke. Since I had a screaming toddler on my hands, I couldn't take the time to clean it up.

I grabbed my clothes, went into Mateo's room, changed while he flopped about the floor, grabbed him when I was done, took him into the kitchen and gave him dinner. The food seemed to help him calm down, so when he was finished, I took him into the bathroom to wash his hands and brush his teeth. Then it was PJ time.

We watched Barney (he watched, I surfed the Internet), and when the show was over we went into his room to get ready for bed.

I thought it was going to be easy. He seemed tired. But with his cup of milk he turned into a toddler who just woke up from a nap. All he wanted to do was play and mess around. After a bit, I put my foot down and put him in his crib and left.

I went into our bedroom to write, and listened to Mateo mew. He mewed, then mewed louder, and louder, and then started crying. Lately he's been going poop after we put him down, so I had to go check to make sure he didn't need to be changed. I walked in and he was standing up, crying his little head off.

After a bazillion attempts at trying to get him to calm down, I gave up and gave him more milk. This did the trick and he soon passed out.

When all this was finally done, it was 7:45 PM. My lovely night relatively alone was shot. I wasn't too happy, but what was I going to do. My husband called at bit after 8 PM saying he was in Fremont and was picking up or dinner. Forty minutes later he walked in the door.

So I basically got an hour alone, which is better than nothing, but still.

The topper of the evening was my husband getting mad because I didn't want to watch TV for another 15 minutes and had requested that since it's taken us 20 minutes to watch 7 minutes of 30 Days (pausing to talk), we should just stop it for the evening so I could go to bed. After he got annoyed, I informed him that I can't have a nightlife because I have to get up with Mateo every Saturday and Sunday, and since I never know how long he'll sleep in (average is 5:30 AM), I needed to go to bed early so I wouldn't be so tired in the morning. If he wanted to stay up and watch TV, more power to him, but this lady was tired and ready for bed.

I still don't get the whole watch TV with me thing.

And yes, I cleaned up the cat puke.

When the kindness of strangers really f's you up.

I'm trying to get Mateo to walk more instead of being strolled, especially during less busy times in parking lots in case he gets it in his head to run off or won't hold my hand.

Today he did pretty good leaving daycare and held my hand until we got to the parking lot. It helped that someone was entering the gated area as we left since he gets timid, even with people he sees all the time.

When we got home, I called my husband to see if he needed the stroller tomorrow morning to bring Mateo out to the car or if I could leave it in the car. He said he didn't need it.

As soon as Mateo's feet hit the parking lot pavement, a mischievous grin opened on his face and he started walking off. I was about 2 feet behind him, so I hurried up and took his hand. As with most toddlers, when he's not feeling timid, he thinks he's invincible and king of the world. And so, with the touch of my hand, he turned into a Grumpasaurus, freaked out and melted to the ground.

No coaxing could convince him to get up, so I had to carry him into the condo complex. When we got through the gate to the "greenbelt" as it's known in real estate listings, I put him down again. He immediately freaked out, fell to the ground and screamed his little head off.

Since I don't deal with this too often because I'm not lucky enough to actually take care of my own kid on a day to day basis (notice the weird sarcasm there?), I usually find this funny. I spent some time trying to gently persuade him to get up off the ground and to calm down, but I realized it was pretty futile.

I looked up and noticed one of my fellow condo residents standing in his back yard area, watching me as I was trying to get my screaming Grumpasaurus up off the ground. He waved at me, so I waved back, even though I had never seen him before.

"Does he want candy?" he asked me.

For a split second I began to doubt he was even talking to me. Since I had Mateo, I'm way more friendlier with strangers than I ever was....well....since probably age 2. So I didn't hesitate to wave back. But now that he asked if Mateo wanted candy...maybe he wasn't talking to me. Ah heck, I answered anyway.

"No...he just wants to be picked up," I said.

I decided to ignore the man since my child's face was turning bright red and he was now really freaking out. I picked up Mateo and started heading to our building.

A few seconds later I heard, "Excuse me! Wait!"

I turned around and the man was coming out his back yard area to the pathway. He had something in his hand. Something shiny. Something purple. Something candy bar-shaped.

"Here you go, big boy," he said to Mateo. Mateo grabbed the candy bar and smiled.

"Now you're all smiles," I said. "Say 'thank you."

There was no way Mateo was going to say thank you, but you know, parents should reinforce these things. Plus the whole thing was weird, so I wanted to get out of there.

Mateo had calmed down a whole lot now that he had the candy bar in his hand. I briefly saw an image of a nut on the package, so I already knew there was no way he could have it. You know, because of the peanut butter incident and me telling the doctor I wouldn't give him peanut butter (or any nuts) until he was three? Ya, because of that.

When we got inside, I knew I had to take the candy bar away from him, and I also knew this was going to break his little heart. I braced myself for another freak-out and took the candy bar away from him.

This is what the man gave him: Cadbury "not for a 17-month old child who can barely eat animal cookies without almost choking" chocolate bar.

And....said freak out ensued.

He clung to me, followed me, wailed at me, had to sit on my lap and nowhere else, refused graham crackers, refused water, refused any sort of love as long as it was on his terms. His favorite shows wouldn't calm him down. His woobie wouldn't calm him down. The one thing I knew would calm him down I wasn't about to give him (pacifier), so we both dealt with the situation until it was time to feed him, which just brought on another bout of tears, clinginess and trying to get in between me and the counter - at all costs.

So yeah, for all you weirdos out there, don't give toddlers candy. I know you have nothing but good (and sorta weird) intentions, but just don't. It really screws up a mom's night. Really. Like REALLY.

And I was thinking I could get away with not giving him a bath.

(Check out other wordless posts on Wordless Wednesday.)

Who needs sleep?

Apparently Mateo doesn't, and because he doesn't, I don't. Which has lead to an impromptu day off for me.

Mateo decided 1:30 AM was the perfect time to wake up. My husband, thank goodness, or so I thought, decided to get up and deal with whatever it was that was making Mateo cry and wail. It seems he's suffering from night terrors or turning things in his room into scary objects, we're not really sure, so it's now a rare night that he sleeps all night without one time waking up full throttle, tears flowing down his cheeks.

I got up to use the bathroom, thinking how lucky I was that I didn't have to get up and take care of Mateo, and then went back to bed. An hour later (confirmed by the clock when I squinted enough to make the numbers clear) my husband came back into the room.

"You need to take over. I've been in there an hour, he's had milk, he's been changed," he told me.

I got up and listened to Mateo's mewings. I didn't want to go in and cause an unnecessary ruckus, and in hopes that he would just put himself back to sleep so I could go back to sleep, I just patiently waited. His mews got louder, louder, and then finally he was crying again.

I went in, and he lost it. Crocodile tears were streaming, he was Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyding on me (I want you to pick me up! No! Don't touch me!) and he was on the verge of really losing it.

I tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to get him back to sleep. I even went to so far as to lay on the floor next to his crib and do some intense hand holding (the only way he'd lay down and not freak out). Every so often I'd look up and see his eyes, wide as saucers, staring at something in his room that may or may not be scary to him.

I finally gave up and took him into the living room so I could sit with him on the couch while he watched the Sprout channel. Then I decided maybe he was hungry because he didn't eat dinner very well. I took him over to the fruit bowl and pointed at a banana and asked, "do you want a banana?"

He smiled in glee.

Back to the couch for some banana eating and TV show watching. When he was finished, Mateo decided he wanted to get down, so I let him down, stretched out and tried to not completely fall asleep, but get some sort of rest. I also had to figure out if I was capable of getting dressed for work, going to San Francisco, working all day, picking up Mateo, taking care of him and all that good stuff on about 4 hours of sleep.

At about 4 AM my husband came into the living room (this is our normal waking time).

"You've got to be kidding me," he said. Mateo was wandering around the living room, looking at toys and talking to Zoe.

I shook my head "no."

"Did he ever go to sleep?" he asked me.

I shook my head "no."

"Are you going to work?"

I shook my head "no."

That was pretty much the extent of my communication abilities at the time.

I decided to try getting Mateo down again, this time with some more milk. I told him to go to his room, so off he went with this woobie enveloping him (blanket around shoulders, capping head), and after drinking most of the milk, he passed out with his eyes and mouth open.

I was back to sleep at 5 AM to be woken at 7:20 AM by a very grumpy little boy.

And it makes me wonder: How did I do it when I was getting up every two hours, three hours, four hours, etc. to feed him? I know the simple answer is: Because you just do it. But why is it harder now, when I am getting a good 6 hours of sleep straight most nights (although every night I am woken up by a certain fuzzy cat who wants some company, and her one way of ensuring this happens is by trying to run off with my glasses), to run on barely any steam? Not even the thought of caffeine being pumped into my body all day seems a feasible solution.

All I know is I love my little grumpasaurus, clingy as he may be. And I hope tonight is better for him because it's barely noon and my brain has fuzzed over again.

A few things I learned about my child this weekend.

We knew our child loves baby crack (aka whipped topping with caramel swirls from a Starbucks frappuccino), but we didn't know to what extent.

We walked to our local Starbucks on Saturday while pushing Mateo in his car with icy, caffeine-filled frappuccinos dancing before our eyes. My husband not only had visions of a refreshing drink, but he wanted to load our child up with sugar.

"I'm going to ask if they'll give us a small cup filled with whipped topping, even if I have to pay!" he told me.

Ah, good idea, I thought. We've already screwed up Mateo's routine by taking him to Happy Hollow and eliminating a nice two hour nap from his day, now we're going to load him up on sugar.

When we got there, my husband asked if he could get a small cup of whipped topping with caramel on top. The girl didn't blink an eye and said, "sure."

When I was thinking small cup, I was thinking like a shot glass or something. Because who really consumes a "huge" small cup of whipped topping? But that's what we got. And the top was covered with caramel. No swirls here, no sirree.

Mateo sat in my lap while my husband used a straw to feed Mateo the whipped topping. After a bit, my husband thought it would be cute to teach him to dip his pacifier into the whipped topping so he could suck the topping off his pacifier. The things we are teaching are child, I tell you.

Mateo wasn't going for this plan, and when we weren't paying attention, he grabbed the straw. He then dipped the straw into the cup, got some whipped topping on it, and put the straw into his mouth. My husband and I sat dumbly watching him do this. Not only is it amazing that he took the initiative to administer his own baby crack, but he was actually doing a really good job of it.

This morning he started doing the other thing that he was taught but we thought he didn't learn - putting his pacifier in his yogurt and then putting the pacifier in his mouth. While this probably seemed like a great idea to him, especially since there weren't any straws around, it really just made a huge mess of him and his food tray.

The other things I learned about Mateo: He can say Elmo, he can stomp on command and he willingly tells his Daddy "bye" by waving when his Daddy is leaving the house or Mateo's room. I know, I know, not quite as spectacular as self-administering baby crack, but we take the little milestones when they come.

Childproofing a litter box.

I've had a few hits lately on people searching about how to baby/childproof a litter box.

Amazingly we haven't had any issues. Mateo is 16 months old, almost 17 months, a walker, a runner (sorta) and very inquisitive.

He has managed to learn that the litter box area and the cat food area are definite "no" zones. I think one of the things that helped us is we never made a big deal about the two areas, unless he does show some interest, and then we firmly tell him "No - that's the cats' food" or "No - that's dirty."

It also helps that he's never been left alone (too much) to wander around these areas. Granted, our condo is small, so he's usually in eyesight wherever he is.

With that said, I would suggest putting the litter box on a platform or somehow gating if off so the baby/toddler can't get to it. Those were our two thoughts, but then we realized how much of a non-issue it became.

I am still waiting for the day Mateo has a handful of litter or pee clumps in his hand. So far, so good.

I am a sucker.

Mateo had his grumpasaurus moments today. And since I was still getting over whatever illness I obtained last week (kindergerms), I couldn't be a full goofy mom with him. His attempts at playing turned into much frustration on both our parts, and I ended up slightly abused and rather perturbed at my child.

My list of abuses today were:

1. A full sippy cup slammed on big toe. I managed not to cry or swear. Or run off and hide in the bathroom while I cried and swore.

2. Plenty of "nnnnooooooooe"s followed by slaps. "Nooooeeee" is his new favorite word. I hate his new favorite word.

3. A good punch to the eye. After saying "ow!", he began to laugh. Because anything that causes an "ow" from someone is very funny. Veeeeerrry funny indeed.

4. Lots of hair pulling.

5. T-shirt and then hair grabbed by hands full of refried beans. I pretty much lost it then and walked out of the kitchen, telling my husband, "He's not my child. I'm done. I'm leaving. My child would so not do that to me!!!" I still have beans in my hair, thank you very much.

Then comes bed time. And Mateo actually sat through three books with no pacifier in his mouth and no page grabbing and no fussing and no screaming over my reading. He actually sat very intently, pointing to different things while telling me about them after I was done reading the page. Before that, he very gently gave his daddy these cute side hugs. It was almost like he was whispering something special to him. Even though he wasn't doing it to me, it definitely pulled at my heart strings.

After I finished the last book, Mateo finished his milk, and then settled down. No fussing, no yelling at me, no insisting to sit up straight or be let down. The most he did was touch my face with his chubby hand.

While we listened to his lullaby CD, I rubbed his forehead and arm. His eyes slowly closed, then opened, then closed. While still awake, but only slightly, I put him down in his crib. Not a single peep came from him.

I left and walked into the kitchen and told my husband, "He just made up for all the things he did to me today."

Dang I love that little dude, beans in my hair and all.