Stuck Up

Recently we went to visit my parents for the weekend. Usually Little Ninja sleeps in the study, Husband sleeps on the couch (we won't go into that for now, but it's for the best. For me.) And I sleep on queen with Meatball on the floor next to me.

The first night Ninja was cooperative and slept willingly and happily in her "princess bed." However, the second night she refused and kept crawling into my bed. I didn't press the matter because we were leaving in the morning, and I was worn down. At first I thought she was asleep while getting Meatball and I ready for bed, but then an hour later I found her sleeping on my side of the bed, the side I needed to be on since Meatball was on the floor on that side.

I quietly tiptoed into the room and was going to gently nudge her over when she sat straight up, completely awake and said, "No Mommy, I don't want to sleep on that side. There is something dirty there!"

"What's dirty? You mean, on that side of the bed?" I asked

"Uh-huh. Look!" as she pointed to three small boogers lined neatly along the edge of the bed.

Horrifying. How could my mother fail so utterly in housekeeping and hospitality?! How could she let us sleep on such filthy sheets!

"I wonder where they came from?" I said in a digusted manner.

In an equally disgusted tone of voice she said, "From MY NOSE."

Precious Moments

When Meat Ball turned one year old, I was consumed with guilt. It seemed like I missed the first year of his life completely. Between working, trying to be a good wife, being a mother to a toddler, I realized that I lost the joy and privilege of savoring many of Meat Ball's milestones.

He is almost thirteen months now, and I have been playing catch up the past three weeks. He's an early sleeper, so usually he's so tired, I just throw him into bed and play with Ninja until it's her bedtime. Now I start the bedtime routine EARLY for the both of them so now I can spend a good 20-30 minutes cuddling and reading to Meat Ball before he's too sleepy.

And man, is he adorable!

My sister says that he looks like a precious moments kid. And he does. He has such sad emo eyes, a button nose, rosebud mouth. And three big rabbit teeth. And he is so sweet. I mean so sweet that your insides just melt and puddle around your toes and all you can do is drool and say, awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.... He will flirt with you, bat his lashes, he will hide in your shoulder, peek up shyly and offer the sweetest toothy smile and when you melt on the floor in response, he will duck his head down again to hide and peek up with just one big soulful eye to see if you saw that. And of course you saw that, but you are already a messy puddle on the floor and there is just no where to go. While you are holding him, he will grab your neck with his chubby hands and find the perfect, most comfortable fit for his big round head in the crook of your jaw and he will just hug you the sweetest, most heavenly hug for an amazing 10 seconds. He'll then look up at you, give you a wet kiss with a hearty "MMMMMMMMMM MAAAAAAHHHH" and hug your neck again.

Meat Ball loves water. If a substance is in liquid form, he's all over it. While take a bath, he like to dunk his face in the water. At first I thought he was losing his balance. But his butt is so big and stable, so I thought that was weird. I watched him very slowly and purposefully lean over, put his face in the water, and then come up sputtering and laughing his head off. He hears water running and he's there. I am pretty sure that he'll be a surfer like his father. And I'll squander away many years of my life worrying about him drowning or getting eaten by sharks. Now I am just reducing my lifespan by my panic attacks when I find him playing in the toilet. Especially since Ninja is a recent potty-trained graduate, but doesn't like the flushing part.

So I am going to be better about remembering Meat Ball. It is a well known fact that children grow up too soon. My wish is so do everything to slow down time. Not look forward to every naptime, bedtime so I can get stuff done. I am going to consciously treasure all the moments, good and bad, with my children. And try my best to record what I can. I can easily see me in twenty years angry at myself now for not making more of an effort to remember these precious moments.

Potty Mouth

The following are frequent comments made by my three-year-old daughter during and after certain bodily functions:

"OMIGOD! That's a lot of poo-poo!"

"My poo-poo is squiggly today."

"I peeped! (as in past tense for pee)"

"Moooommmmy.... I'm dooooooonnnnnee. No wait! There's more coming out! Goooooooo awaaaaaay. Close the door!"

"Mommy, can you help me get it out?"

Potty Talk

I am overjoyed that my 3 year old daughter is finally starting to use the toilet consistently. But does she really have to yell,

"OH MY GOD! That's A LOT of POO POO!!"

every. single. time. In public restroom stalls. Where I am locked in with her. With many strangers around.

Toddler Logic

Coming home from work I was greeted with a breathless excitement, a throttling hug and this shriek-ment from Little Ninja:

MOMMY! I FAN-PEE'D ("fart", in Chinese, but with English past tense) and I JUMPED All! Day! Long! Because.... I love to eat COOKIEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeesssssssssss!!!!!!

*farrrt* She runs away.

Like an elephant

While we were brushing our teeth in preparation for bed. Little Ninja turned to me and said,

"Mommy, when I was a baby, I drank milk from your neh-neh (Mandarin for breast). I drank it when I was hungry. Do you remember that? Do you remember?"

Yes, darling Ninja, I do remember.

Torn

Today I had the complete opposite convictions about my children.

This morning during breakfast, Little Ninja and Meat Ball were so interactive with each other that I got misty-eyed. While Meat Ball was sitting in his highchair, Ninja would crawl underneath the table, crawl back up, jump up and down yelling "PEEKABOO! BOO! BOO!" This, in turn, caused Meat Ball to fall into peals of laughter and squeals, which would cause Ninja to laugh her little almost-three-year-old head off. The process repeated itself many times. The hilarious part of the game was that at no time was Little Ninja ever out of Meat Ball's sight. It was a laborious process of climbing under the table and back up the seating bench for Ninja. Meat Ball would stare at her intently the whole time, but every time she finally made it back up and out, yelling "PEEKABOO!" Meat Ball would act so surprised and lose himself in a fit of guffaws.

Then...

This afternoon, I was a bad parent and pushed the children to their limit. I wanted to hang out and cook with some friends. No naps for either one. Little Ninja fell asleep on the way home and I carried her upstairs. She woke up to complete darkness (even though it was only 6:30pm. Durn winter!) and had a complete freak-out meltdown. Meat Ball was also tired and cranky, but he is just so much more chill than his big sister. I tried to calm Ninja down, who was screaming, thrashing, crying, and wanted to hug me. However poor Meat Ball, who was so scared at all this commotion, wanted a snuggle with me as well. That set Ninja completely off the deep end. She is a VERY strong two year old. "NOOOOOOOOO! Meat Ball TOUCHED ME! Meat Ball FAR AWAY NOW!!" I then had two screaming terrified children vying for my attention and my embrace. It just broke my heart to push Meat Ball away as he tried to crawl on me while I was holding Ninja. But poor Ninja (who really is a sweet thing) was just too discombobulated, sleep, hungry and worked up, really needed me to help calm her down. I had to get Meat Ball away, lest one of Ninja's wildly failing limbs hurt him. I wasn't able to comfort either one of them adequately. For about an hour, I wished I had only one child. And why was a I dumb enough to thing two little ones at once was such a good idea?

Now that the two are safely tucked in their beds asleep, I can breathe and rationally know that this little episode was nothing. Many single parents go through this daily. I am lucky that even though my husband works many nights and I have to do a lot of this on my own, I HAVE a partner. And I know that I am fortunate also in that when things really get hairy, the hospital he works as an emergency room doctor is less than a mile away. My plan is to throw the kiddos in the double stroller for a calming walk, show up to the ER and just leave the little monsters with him so I can get a drink. On second thought, maybe a sling would be more convenient so he can at least wear one kiddo, lest pushing the stroller slows him down. I am nothing if not considerate.

Mr. Chuckles

We go to this fancy-smancy photographer to document our children's first year of life. Little Ninja had some fabulous photos. Meat Ball, however, got shafted. Every photo "for him" ended up being a Ninja-fest. We only got a couple of good Meat Ball pics and THOUSANDS of Ninja shots. It's suppose to be for Meat Ball's baby book. How do we explain that his baby book contains more pictures of his sister than him?!

The sad thing is, if he were the only child, I think we would get some fabulous shots of him as well. The problem is, he is not as photogenic as his big sister. It's hard to compete with her. I could just take him alone, but this is a fancy-smancy photographer and each session costs more than our entire wedding photo package.

By his pictures, you would never guess just how giggly he is. Ninety-percent of the time he is chuckling. He is so easy to incite laughter. His laugh is hilarious. It really sounds like he's coughing, with high pitch squeal interjections. So it's *cough* *cough* *cough* *heeeeeeeeeee!* *cough* *cough*.

When he laughs, his eyes just disappears, his nose crinkles, and rivers of drool pours out of his mouth. He flaps his arm hard, so he almost flies, but instead makes loud thumps against his little baby boobs.

I have to be this descriptive lest I forget this. He's almost 9 months old and we have NO video evidence that he exists! Mind you, we have a top of the line video camera. However what little footage we actually have is mainly audio of many people talking and a visual of a wall... or the floor. My very smart, high-educated, physician husband is an AV idiot. Oh yeah, he can MAKE a video camera out of some toilet paper rolls, aluminum foil, a battery, and a wire hanger. But a retarded blind monkey can work a video camera better than Hubby.

Hubby videotaped Little Ninja's first birthday party. Please allow me to describe the footage:

The visual: We see the ground, a brick patio, swinging back and forth.

Audio: People talking, Hubby's voice is the loudest. Suddenly we hear things like, "Oooooooo... here's the cake!"

The visual: Brick patio panning up to backyard and patio table. Cake on the table. One big candle lit. Little Ninja is her grandfather's arms. Children and their parents gathered around.

Audio: People singing "Happy Bir-"

The visual: Abrupt Black Out.

The End

Brillance is thy middle name, dear Hubster.

Well, excuuuuuuse me!

After after her bath, I sort-of-too-roughly towel dried my 2.75 year old daughter's hair.

Little Ninja: Don't do that anymore! It makes me ANGRY!

Me: Well, excuuuuu-uuuse me.

Little Ninja: You're excuuuuuuuu-uuuuse!