Running Away From Ham

E having a sad moment at day care.

I feel like every morning is like the Amazing Race, even today, though more successful than yesterday, was a blur of lunch boxes, neon pink clothing, curls, and one orange sneaker. Then the sounds -- of my nagging voice, Mark’s calm one, and one whiney toddler. Oh, the whining…

“Use your big girl voice.”
“But I don’t want to wear a shirt….!”
“Here. How about this purple one?”
“No, no, no!!”

And, off she runs, to hide in the corner near the front door.

I finally grab the first shirt I find and try to make it fun… It is the I Rode the Prudent Living Train t-shirt – 3 sizes too big, but I’m desperate. I also realize that it’ll require a warmer sweatshirt over it, but I decide to deal with that later (or let the day care teacher handle it).

“Here you go, how about a train shirt!?”
“YEAH!!” she cheers.

Yeah, happy toddler! I keep my cheer to myself, not wanting to jinx it, then take advantage of the next few minutes of happiness to get her diaper changed, pants and socks on.

Then I find a sweatshirt. But she wants a fleece sweater. Ok, fleece sweater it is. NO, now she wants the sweatshirt. I put both on the floor for her to choose and put on. She picks the sweatshirt.

Mark helps her into her shoes, then she runs up to me in the kitchen, where I’m finishing up her lunch.

“Mommy, I want ham, please!”
“You can have a piece,” I say, as I attempt to hand her a slice.
“NOOOooo!! I want that plate!”
“That’s the plate with your sandwich on it. You can have another plate for your slice of ham.”

I hand her a paper plate with a slice of ham on it. She screams “Nooo,” and throws it on the floor. And, now I’m ticked off. I am patient, and I have raised a good kid. I pick my battles wisely, sometimes letting her do things I wouldn’t normally encourage, because she asks nicely. And, 90% of the time, I have an angel – she knows that she will usually get what she wants (within reason), if she is gentle, nice, and does not whine. And, when I do say "No," she knows that there is an alternative solution -- a compromise, so we have fewer temper-tantrums. We discuss more, we bargain. We communicate. I'm proud of how far we've come.

But, when we do discuss, compromise, communicate, and I give her what she wants, and she throws it on the floor. ARGH!

“Absolutely not! You will pick up that plate right now!”
“No!!”
“Excuse me?? You don’t say no to me. Pick it up now.”

She refuses, so I lead her over to the plate to help me pick it up and put the ham in the garbage. Then she runs back to her corner to pout. I go back to finishing up her lunch.

Then I hear the door close.

Mark says, “Did she just?”
“Yep, she just left,” I said, nonchalantly.
“I’ll go get her.”

“Okay.” Fine. Whatever. She can’t get far, can’t open the door at the top of the stairs. But, did my not-even-2-year-old just run away from home for the first time? Because of… ham? I cringe to think what other tricks she’ll have up her sleeve in a few more months.

Mark came in holding her. She wore an exaggerated pout, pointed right in my direction, from the safety of his arms.

She got her coat on, and somehow we all managed to get out the door on time, hugs and kisses, and I-love-yous all around.

Can I Just Say...

YAWWWNNN... Ugh. What a Monday morning. Mark and I had complete communication failure this morning. Yesterday, I had asked him if he would mind bringing E to day care, so that I could get to work at a more decent time (since I have to be to work earlier than him).

He swears he agreed to this, but all I remember is him wandering off silently to never speak of it again. As usual, I interpreted this as a "no" and went about my Monday morning as usual. I got myself ready, made lunches, then turned around to find Mark all ready but not E.

"What's going on?" I asked.
"I'm just getting myself ready. You're getting her ready, right?" he said, sleepily.
"No. I don't know. Why?"
"The new plan, right? You get her ready, then I take her to day care?" he asked.
"Did we agree to that? You didn't say anything."
"Yeah, I did. I was like, 'Oh yeah, fine.'"
"Yeah... 99% sure you didn't say anything."
"Well, are we doing it or not? I can go either way with this..."

So, I rushed to get E ready in time for him to take her to day care, trying to make sure that he wasn't late for work.

Once they were gone, I proceeded to clean the kitchen, look everywhere for the key to the office (which I never found -- thank God for early-arriving coworkers who could let me in this morning), and plopped down in my chair at work ready to conquer my day.

Then I had a meltdown, because I didn't get to see her off to day care, as I have almost every day for the past year and a half. I can't get her face out of my mind, her big eyes, looking up at me all confused, asking, "You take me, Mommy?" and me having to tell her, "No, Daddy will take you today, but I'll pick you up."

My little 1.75-year-old, looked up at Mark, then back at me. Then, she reached out for his hand and casually walked out the door. No tears. I know this is a good thing, but sometimes I'm not ready for her to be so grown up.

And, in this moment, a (relatively) smooth Monday morning getting out the door leaves me a nervous wreck and weepy. This mom stuff is so weird...

Up next: grocery shopping, dinner prep, cleaning the apartment, then getting ready to head off to New York on Wednesday for our very first 7-day vacation with friends (and E)!

From The Craft Table

Just wanted to say a happy "Hello!" from our craft table today -- where there's more paint on the table than on the paper, our limbs are more decorated than our canvas, and our accidental-art approach takes "mixed media" to a whole new level!

E climbs up on the table -- she insists on sitting on the table top, so all her tools are within reach.

"I want black paper, Mommy. And red paint," she insists, very seriously instructing me on the preparation of her supplies. I happily comply, curious about what she might create. She continues to politely list her needs:

"Some yellow paint here now." She points at the bottom left corner of her page.

"Mommy, can we make orange?"

I quickly show her the two tubes of red and yellow paint and begin mixing. She scoops some up with her brush and continues to work away.

Then blue. It glows against the black paper. She squeals with delight as she spreads it across the page.

"Now I need those paints, Mommy." She points to her watercolors and adds, "Need some water."

I go and fill one of her little play teacups with a little water. She takes it from me and very carefully pours the water across each of her watercolors (and drenches the case). She dips her fingers in paint, then her paintbrush, and begins making dots on the paper. She carefully watches how the watercolors are absorbed by the paper. She tries each color until she finds just the right one.

"Purple! Oooh, purple!" she says. The purple is only partially absorbed by the black paper and creates areas of shadow and light -- a grungy but shimmery effect. She smiles happily, then dots the purple across the page.

By now she tires of painting the page and proceeds to paint the table (ok), pen cup (alright), bulletin board (um, well...), and lamp (wait a minute...). I reach for her, but she squirms away from me, legs flail over her painting, watercolors tip and spill.

I get her in the bathroom for cleanup, which must happen completely by her terms. "No bath," she insists, though standing in the tub to wash her hands and legs is acceptable.

"If you just want to sit down," I offer...
"No, no, no, Mommy."

Sitting down would qualify this cleanup time as a "bath," which may lead to the inconvenient "washing up time" in which there will be no avoiding the torturous "hair cleaning."

Half a bottle of soap later, her hands are washed, a task that distracted her enough to allow me to wipe most the paint off her legs. She runs off to play, and I wipe down the table.

Tomorrow, we'll start again.

Our HappyMess!!

Ok, so I know that I've been saying "More art!!" on the blog for awhile now, but now I have the inspiration to actually follow through!!

Lately, doing art projects with E has been more "mess" than creation -- which is creation, really, I know. And, E has been running around saying "happiness" as "happy-mess" which is, quite honestly, adorable. I wanted to change my entire blog name to "Our HappyMess" and start fresh doing only art projects from now on, but... you know me, next week, I'll be into... um, fly fishing or something.

So, my sister-in-law suggested maybe just making that one part of the blog... She knows me so well. I may even just make it a weekly feature, who knows...

But anyway, the point is... while looking for fun things to add to my Amazon wishlist... I stumbled upon the Art Lab books. Wow! I guess I'm late to the Art Lab scene. The author of the drawing/mixed media Art Lab book, shown here, was -- Carla Sonheim! I had never heard of her, so I Googled her... and do you know what I found out??

She has a BLOG -- the Art of Silliness (and an Etsy shop)! She even posted today! I commented right away, of course. She has online classes, and free online tutorials! And, I'm just so inspired to do more fun, silly art projects with my amazing kid -- more messes, more creativity, less of me saying, "Careful, that's permanent marker!" and more of me saying, "Let's create! Let's explore!"

I just hope that E is up for it this weekend! Maybe some left over Halloween candy at the craft table will sweeten the deal! Of course, I'll post all of our creations here.

Check out this sweet, "blob" illustration from Carla's site, found on her Go Blob Hunting Tutorial page!

www.CarlaSonheim.com

Wonderful Halloween!

So, what do I do when I'm too tired the day after to write about our Halloween?? I direct you to my sister-in-law's site to see pics and read a beautiful post about Halloween in a small town. I felt like I had grown up there with them!

We had such a nice time with family! We did crafts and danced at the town hall, trick-or-treated in the parking lot, went on a hayride through town, then back to Nini's house for pizza and candy!

E got out some of Nini's toys and played for a long time in the living room. She was so happy to talk about the entire adventure this morning on her way into day care.

"I dance in the lights," she said, and "I eat candy!"