At least he was polite about it.

Sometimes I think Tucker has IBS because the moment she finishes eating, homegirl needs to go outside thatminuteorshewilldie.  Or at least, that’s how she makes it seem as she scarfs down the last bite & then starts prancing like a show pony on meth at the back door.

IMG 0170 1024x768 At least he was polite about it.

In the kitchen this morning, Tuck was finishing her (second!  damn dog for acting like I hadn’t fed her!) breakfast & Harrison walks over to her, points & says “Tuck!  Poop!”

Except when he says “Tuck” it sounds like “touch” & it’s really darling.

So I asked him if he needed to poop & he shakes his head no & says, “Tuck, poop!”

So I shrug & ask him if Tuck needs to poop & he says, “Yes.  Tuck, poop please!”

Maybe it’s one of those things where you had to be there to find it roll-on-the-ground funny, but I was still laughing two hours later.

HeirtoBlair500x150 v41 At least he was polite about it.

Joe the Caterpillar.

joe1 Joe the Caterpillar.“Look, Harrison!  A caterpillar!  See how fuzzy it is?”  I squat down to his level by the back porch.  It’s a gorgeous spring day & we’re playing in the backyard, waiting for Gram to come over.

“Oooooh!” he says.  I wonder if he’ll tell me the caterpillar is gross or run away, but he stands brave next to me.  I scoop up the fuzzy little bug, letting it crawl over my fingers.

“Hold out your finger,” I whisper & I show him to hold his hand flat & I let the caterpillar roll over to his tiny fingers.

He sits with the caterpillar crawling up his arm & I run inside for a tupperware.  I’m not that great at “teaching moments” or “home preschooling,” but I totally do bugs after being raised with two boys.  I show him the bucket & ask him to find the best sticks for the caterpillar to crawl over & to find the best grass.

 ”What do you want to name him?” I ask.  “Herman?  Bob?  Maxwell?”  He shakes his head to each suggestion.  I obviously suck at naming bugs.  “Ummm….Joe?”

“Yeah!  Cool!”

Boy mom win!

It’s like toddlers do lines of pixie sticks & rage.

591ad016769211e180d51231380fcd7e 7 Its like toddlers do lines of pixie sticks & rage.

This essentially sums up our weekend.

That’s mud.  The only shit in this picture is the ‘tude sported by the toddler.  By the way, I finally understand why some animals eat their young.  I’m kidding.

(kind of.)

I feel disloyal complaining about Harrison being two or a toddler or all boy because 90% of the time, he is an absolute joy & my BFF.  Fomer difficult baby = supreme awesome toddler.  But then there’s the occasional day where he wakes up with a rabid bee up his ass & it’s like he did lines of pixie sticks & rage.

Saturday was that day.  He woke up piss-angry at the universe & with Doug playing in a golf tournament all day, it was ALL MOMMA ALL THE TIME.  He’s all NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, ANYONE BUT THE LADY WITH THE BIRTH CANAL & LOUD LAUGH.  I made him pancakes for breakfast – he threw them on the floor.  I turned on Curious George – he screamed for Bob the Builder.  He begged to go outside – it was pouring rain.  We had a showing so I scrambled to straighten before heading out the door, sweating & looking a hot damn mess.  We hit up Chick Fil A, his favorite sliding spot but since it was 10:30, there were no other “babies” there.  Cue more you-killed-my-puppy-&-served-it-as-stir-fry tears.  Came home & put the kid in bed where he threw the most epic rebellion since the American Revolution & 5 minutes after he finally quieted, God decided it was an awesome time to play a joke on me.

So it thundered.

Long story short, I opened a beer at 5pm on the nose & had the kid in bed by 7:30pm.  When Doug got home late (thanks to the rain), I was pretty much drooling into a pillow with rat nest hair.  But that’s just motherhood some days…it’s a freaking war zone & you come out with as few scars as possible & praise God that you’re still alive.

& that you didn’t serve toddler with sides of green beans & biscuits.

weekendcollage Its like toddlers do lines of pixie sticks & rage.

(Then I’m mid-writing this all down but he begs to be rocked before bed & I ask him if he wants Momma to tell him a story so he says, “yeah, cool” into the crook of my neck & my heart putters out.  I’m totally ready to do this all over again tomorrow.)

“To be or not to be?” is actually NOT the question.

poop To be or not to be? is actually NOT the question.

ahhh, motherhood.

p.s. it was chocolate

Reason #2345 that I hate toddler teething.

My hand pauses mid-air above the blue paint swatches.  ::sniff sniff::

“Harrison?  Do you stink?”  I should probably learn to phrase that better, I tell myself as I set him on the ground & peer into the back of his pants.  What a mom thing to do, right?   Sure enough, poop in the diaper.  I shrug & figure that a little poop in the pants for twenty minutes never hurt anyone, especially since the wipes had been accidentally moved from the car to the house.

Nate saunters over & helps pick out a paint color.  “What stinks?” he asks, making that face where one lip curls up.

“Harry.  It’s kind of making your nose burn, isn’t it?” I explain as I decide between paint brushes.

“The poop is strong in you, my son,” Nate says, lifting Harrison out of my arms.  “Should we change him??”  I explain that for the first time, I left the house without diapers & wipes so it figures he would need them.  But no worries, we’re headed to Target & we can just snag the goods & I’ll change him there. Motherhood on the fly, yo. I give myself Elle Woods sorority snaps for being flexible.

“Holy hell, that smells,” I complain as we climb into the car.  “How on earth is it that strong?”  Absolute confusion & poop talk reign as we swing through the Target parking lot.

Nate lifts Harrison out of the car, I grab a cart & he says, “Wait.  Stop.  We’ve got a problem.”  I look at him in a panic like, DO NOT TELL ME THEY SHUT DOWN THE TARGET STARBUCKS, but no, he’s holding out the baby at arms length & I’m looking at a strange brown stain down the front of his shirt thinking that he may be sexy, but I can’t take this man anywhere.  “That’s shit you’re looking at,” he explains.

Sure enough, my husband has toddler diarrhea running down his tshirt.  Which means the toddler has diarrhea oozing out of his diaper, looking totally pissed.  This is not happening.

“That,” I declare, “is nasty.  & filthy.  & gross”

“Yeah?  It’s on you, too,” he points out as he loads the kid back in the car.

Stealing is for losers. Copyright 2008-2012 Beth Anne Ballance