Things Bubba NEEDS (According to Him)

Like most small children, when Bubba likes something, he’s typically not content to admire it from afar. No, he’d much prefer to just have whatever it is he’s set his sights on, and the sooner the better; he doesn’t “want” things, he “needs” them. In the past few days alone, Bubba has informed me — with urgency! — that he needs the following items:

A fast motorcycle

A treasure chest (?!)

A skateboard (a real one, not a toy — he clarified)

Some peanut butter crackers (at 2am)

A trash truck (presumably full-size and functional; perhaps he can get a job and bring in some money?)

A tow truck (see above; we already have a toy tow truck, but apparently that is not sufficient)

An orange bus (i.e. an actual giant Los Angeles public transit vehicle)

A school bus (perhaps he plans to drive this during the day and then pick up some night shifts with the orange bus)

More lollipops

A zebra

A blue Lightning McQueen car (I don’t think that exists; isn’t his red color essential to LM’s very essence?)

And a dinosaur.

 

Fortunately, obtaining all of these exciting items shouldn’t be any trouble at all — Bubba knows what to do. After each request, he follows up with one more demand: “I need to go to Target.”

The Conman

Despite the fact that Bubba has a tendency to forget about the existence of the number six (along with any number greater than ten¹), I have no doubts that my son is smart as a whip. As the illustrious and industrious George Costanza once said, oh, maybe not academically², but he is perceptive! This is a child who knows what he wants, understands the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving his dastardly goals, then does whatever it takes to destroy said obstacles and get what he wants anyway.

He’s an evil, evil genius.

Case in point: our morning routine. Since moving out of his crib and into his Certified Big Boy Bed last month, he has woken up at 6am on the dot every morning — virtually without exception! — wide awake and ready for action. Now, obviously, that is simply too early to get out of bed and commence playing; the sun hasn’t even risen yet, for god’s sake! In an attempt to secure a few precious minutes of extra sleep (and in hopes of magically training him to sleep later³), as soon as I hear that 30 pound human alarm clock I scurry into his room and snuggle up with him before he can hop out of bed on his own and get into trouble. For the past six weeks, I’ve told him the same thing each morning: “it’s still nighttime, Bud. It’s not time to play yet. We have to stay in bed a little bit longer.”

And he accepted it, for a while. Or so I thought. Now I see that he was simply biding his time, formulating a plan to defeat me.

The other day, instead of cuddling up with me upon my arrival at 6:01am per our usual routine, he sat up and told me, “I’m gonna be right back.”

Um, what? You’re two, and it’s 6am. What pressing non-sleep matters do you have to attend to, exactly? But it was funny, and I was curious to see what he had in mind, so I didn’t protest when he climbed over me and out of bed. I heard him trot into the living room, at which point he hollered once more, “I’m gonna be right back!” in a blatantly transparent attempt to assuage any concerns I might be developing. I waited a moment or two, during which he again claimed to be coming “right back” no fewer than four times, and then finally decided that I had better see what he was doing since he obviously was not planning to return any time soon.

When I reached the living room, I was greeted with the sight of Bubba playing happily with his six thousand Hot Wheels. When he saw me, he smiled and said, “I playing!”

That’s right, he conned me. He never had any intention of returning; he just knew I wouldn’t have let him out of bed had he informed me that his real intention was to enjoy a pre-dawn free-for-all with the Hot Wheels. Evil. Genius.

Of course, I wasn’t going to fall for that again, so when he tried to pull the same stunt again the next morning, I put the kibosh on his antics and forced him to remain in bed with me until a reasonable hour like a normal human. By the following day, when he didn’t make any effort to trick me into getting out of bed, I assumed he had learned his lesson and that I had won this particular battle.

In reality, he was just working on his next ruse.

Yesterday morning, after our usual “it’s too early to get up” / “but I wanna play!” / “nope, sorry” dialog, he fell silent for a moment, then spoke up again: “I need a new diaper. There’s poop in there.” Tired as I was, I certainly wasn’t going to make my son stew in his own filth⁴, so we got out of bed and I stripped him down for a diaper change.

AND GUESS WHAT?! THERE WAS NO POOP.

He conned me again. Because of course by the time I put an (unnecessary) fresh diaper on him and re-dressed him, he hopped right off the changing table and ran off to play.

Goddammit. I need to step up my game. You win this round, Spider-Man…

…………………………………

Footnotes:

¹…three, four, five, seven, eight, nine, ten, seven, eight, nine, ten! Ten cars! (Could be 7 cars, could be 30…it’s always ten.)

²Seriously, his counting is abysmal. Should I be worried? Nah, who needs to count higher than five.

³Isn’t it adorable that I think this might actually work?

⁴I do have some standards. Very few…but there are some.

Throwback Thursday: High School Mo Showed a Lot of Skin

The other night, my friend and I took a little journey down memory lane and pored through our senior yearbook.

Big mistake.

Apparently, I had forgotten that I had some serious sartorial crises in my teens — virtually every photo of me had us cackling while I cried, “what am I wearing?!” And I’m not just talking about your run-of-the-mill embarrassing teenaged fashion choices here, kids. My problem wasn’t wearing too much flannel or one too many pairs of overalls; no, my fashion crime was shopping exclusively in the slut section of Forever 21. According to the photo evidence, between the ages of 15 and 18 I found anything that covered up more than 15% of my body to be completely unacceptable. My midriff was constantly exposed. My necklines were so low no bra could possibly be contained. There were spaghetti straps at every turn. HELP!

The really baffling thing is that despite the skank-tastic wardrobe, High School Mo was a total square. I never went to parties, was shocked and scandalized at the thought of people my age having sex, and I most certainly did not have an endless string of potential suitors chasing after me. So what the hell was I doing dressing like 2007 Nicole Richie?!

Enjoy, for example, this backless little number that amounted to little more than a handkerchief and a couple of shoestrings:

I believe this photo was taken at a Souplantation, which makes it all the more cringe-worthy. Who wears club-wear to eat unlimited salad and chili?! Sixteen-year-olds who spend too much money at Forever 21, that’s who.

At least I didn’t wear that top to school, I suppose. Of course, my schoolwear wasn’t much better:

Not only is that a cropped turtleneck (who knew those existed?!), but it appears that I determined those ill-fitting jeans to be too high-waisted for my tastes, because I cut off the waistband. God forbid there be an extra inch of fabric in the 12″ expanse between my pants and my shirt — that would be hideous!

This next photo was technically taken sometime during my first year of college, but I most definitely wore this very outfit back in high school, so I am including it:

Is that a four-year-old’s shirt I’m wearing? Or the top half of a bathing suit, maybe? I’m pretty punk rock with that studded belt, at least.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this gem — my senior prom dress:

It’s backless (sadly not visible from this angle), there’s a slit practically up to my waist, and it cost me $17 at Charlotte Russe. I wore it to prom. Beat that, bitches.

Your Son Won’t Wear SpiderMan Pajamas Forever (and other reassurances)

As a parent, I’ve found myself saying some pretty weird things, stuff no sane human could ever envision themselves saying outside of an LSD trip or psychotic break. I certainly never could have anticipated having reason to say the words “stop straddling the arm of the couch like a horse or I’ll have to take your ketchup away” in that order, that’s for sure, but I said just that the other night and I didn’t even find it all that strange.

Now, while I couldn’t have predicted having to address couch-riding and ketchup-gorging specifically, I’ve spent enough time with small children over the course my life (courtesy of my four million relatives and my one-woman teenaged babysitting empire) to know that children are, in a word, bonkers, and that they have a unique penchant for developing bizarre but ultimately harmless habits and obsessions. So as Bubba grew out of babyhood and started doing crazy toddler things (like eating gallons of ketchup on a regular basis), I knew well enough not to be concerned — I just roll with it. My husband, on the other hand, came into parenthood completely inexperienced and, as a result, finds himself frequently baffled by the behavior of the little weirdo living in our house. Virtually every day, the poor man observes something our child has done or said and then asks me, “is that normal?” or “should we be putting a stop to this?!”

above: bonkers. below: also bonkers (those are lemons he’s gnawing on, straight up)

Of course, dear TFW need not worry. As I continue to reassure him, nothing Bubba does is outside the realm of normal toddler insanity, and it’s unlikely that any of his obsessions will be permanent (of course, I am saying this as a 30-year-old woman who still sleeps with her baby blanket, so, ya know…grain of salt on that one). Here are just a few things I’ve had to promise my husband recently:

• He’ll get over the SpiderMan pajamas eventually; letting him wear them to Target and Grandma’s house for now won’t hurt. (Plus, he’s super cute.)
• Someday he will eat something other than ketchup-drenched hot dogs.
• He won’t need me to fall asleep with him forever. (I hope.)
• Taking fifty toys and a plastic baseball bat to bed is no big deal.
• If he wants to watch the same stupid movie 600 times in a row, just go with it.
• If he’s not in imminent danger and is having fun, most things are not worth arguing over. (See: lemon eating.)
• He won’t insist on taking toys with him everywhere he goes forever. (Probably.)

If you’re in a similar position as my husband and finding yourself alarmed at your child’s antics, don’t panic! Nothing lasts forever, and before you know it, the behavior will cease (and be replaced by something weirder). Go with the flow and enjoy the show, and try not to vomit when your child wants to feed you a fistful of warm ketchup!

Five Fun Ways to Make Bedtime Last Forever (as Told by a Toddler)

I’ve been super busy lately with work, marathon training¹, and compulsively watching The Wire², so I enlisted Bubba to fill in for me today. As usual, he was thrilled to use this public forum to contribute another dose of his patented life advice. Take it away, Bubba:

As my mom shared a couple weeks ago, I am officially a Certified Big Boy. That’s right, folks: no more bottles, no more crib, and no more waking up in the middle of the night demanding to join Mom in her luxurious sleeping quarters³. I have my very own bed, complete with awesome construction bedding (THERE’S A DUMP TRUCK ON MY PILLOW!!! This is very, very exciting and I never miss an opportunity to point this out), and I have to say that I don’t miss that baby stuff one bit. My bed is quite cozy, and even I knew that those bottles were just a crutch upon which I could not rely forever. Best of all, though, is something I really don’t think my mom anticipated when she initiated this whole Big Boy Bed thing:

I can’t be trusted to be alone in there while awake (just think of the trouble I could stir up!), so my mom has to lay down in bed with me until I’m almost 100% asleep⁴. EVERY NIGHT! No matter how long it takes!!!

It’s almost unbelievable, you guys! The first few nights, I just asked for a couple songs and poked her in the eye a few times (SO fun), but when I realized that there really didn’t appear to be any limits to how long she’d stick around, I started upping the ante. Can you blame me? Why bother going to sleep when you don’t really have to?

Of course, being an active toddler, sometimes I am pretty tired at night, and trying to stay awake can be a challenge — god forbid I fall asleep quickly and quietly! Luckily, I have developed a few tricks to keep up my sleeve that are guaranteed to keep both my mom AND me awake for as long as humanly possible:

1) Insist on bringing a bunch of stupid shit to bed with you. I’m not talking about a couple of teddy bears — think outside the box! I like to have a variety of accoutrements at my disposal, from Hot Wheels to baseball bats to footballs. Not only will this devious little plan necessitate about sixteen trips out to the living room to gather all your goodies, but you can also play with them once you’re finally forced to lay down! I like to zoom my cars around on Mom’s head and back, for instance. Just don’t get too cocky: if you try to start a game of catch by throwing a football at your half-asleep mother’s face, she will take said football away and you will not get it back till morning. Trust me.

I have not yet concocted a scheme to get that wagon into bed with me, but I’m working on it. Check back in a few weeks and I’ll let you know if I’ve made any progress.

2) Create a sleepy-time ritual that has no foreseeable end. While trying (desperately, I might add) to convince me to close my eyes a few weeks ago, my mom made the adorable mistake of telling me that “everyone else was sleeping.” Everyone, you say? Do you mean…Grandma? And Auntie Jamie? And Ethan from school? And the mailman? And the dog? And my teddy bear? You guys, the possibilities are literally endless. I can easily spend a solid ten minutes confirming that every person, place, and thing in my vocabulary is indeed fast asleep. TV sleeping? Check. Basketball hoop sleeping? You better believe it.

3) Reminisce about old (or not-so-old) times. One of my absolute favorite tactics is to ask my mom if she remembers something. “Remember puke?” I’ll ask, referring to the time I had pneumonia and vomited Motrin all over her. When she confirms that she does indeed remember the incident in question, I proceed to recollect the whole story, sparing no detail. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that pneumonia story: Two shots! Puke got on Gokey! Doctors! Ah, good times. And again, this one has limitless potential! There’s no law dictating that a memory must be old before it can be a topic for reminiscence — ask her if she remembers eating hot dogs for dinner two hours ago! Or if she remembers the Spider-Man pajamas you are wearing right now!

4) Be sweet and adorable. After thirty minutes or so, when I can sense my mom growing a little impatient, I drop the obnoxiousness and dial up the charm. “Mama,” I’ll whisper quietly, gently stroking her face with an angelic smile upon my own, “I love you.” Like she’s gonna leave me alone in there after that, right?!

5) If all else fails, be pathetic. If the other tactics lose their effectiveness and she decides to leave before you’re ready to go to sleep, it’s time to swallow your pride and dig deep: puppy-dog eyes and a teary plea of “Mama lay down too??” or “Mama stay with Bubba pwease!!!” almost always does the trick. Guilt-tripping is an underrated tool, really.

See? With the right techniques, staying up until all hours of the night is easy, and it’s great fun for all involved⁵. And as evidenced by the above screen-capture from the baby cam, I do, eventually, fall asleep. When I’m good and ready.

…………………………………

Footnotes:

¹Yes, I’m torturing myself with this nonsense again. Maybe this time I’ll eat enough to stave off the debilitating hunger that had me fantasizing about flashing my boobs in exchange for a single unsalted pretzel by mile 18.

²I’m only 10 years behind on my TV watching now! Someday I’ll get around to checking out that Friends show everyone talks about.

³If you don’t have a thick, fluffy mattress topper, I implore you to stop everything that you’re doing and go to Target to procure one IMMEDIATELY. Your life will never be the same.

⁴Before you chastise me, let me clarify that I do know that I could leave him in there to fall asleep on his own; I have both a monitor and a camera to keep tabs on him and could no doubt run in there at the first sign of danger and/or naughtiness. But alas, I am more than just a little insane, and the thought of him roaming about in his room alone — in the dark, no less! — is too much to bear.

⁵This is a lie. Except for #4, that one is pretty fun.

Throwback Thursday: See Bubba Grow

On New Years day 2012, I had a teeny tiny baby (and giant boobs from breastfeeding…ah, good times). I don’t know what happened, but by January of 2013, I had a walking, talking, toddler, and now, one year later, there’s a giant toy-hoarding preschooler residing in my house. If you ever want to feel really nostalgic and sad, just look at some old photos of your child: it’s positively heart-wrenching.

Based on the above-depicted progression, I’m assuming that this time next year he’ll be sixteen and driving my car.