My Son the Chauvinist

I don't know who's teaching my son to be a chauvinist, but someone is! First there was this exchange about women's work. And today we had this conversation:

Theo: Mommy, does Daddy read the Sports section at breakfast?
Me: What do you think? [Theo has a tendency to ask questions he knows the answers to, so we now either have him answer the question or we help him rephrase it into a statement.]
Theo: Yes!
Me: I think you're right. And what do you do at breakfast?
Theo: I read the paper. I read the Sports section.
Me (snickering at my four-going-on-forty child): Yes...yes you do.
Theo: And Mommy reads about the weddings!

Um, what? I've never once read the Wedding section in front of him! In fact, I don't think our paper even has a wedding section! And I'm not particularly fond of weddings, so even if it did, it wouldn't be a section I'd read! Not sure where he gets the idea that he and Daddy read sports while I read about weddings, but...

Though in his defense, he's at least right that I don't read the Sports section. I read the Food section. Which is far less girly than the Wedding section. ;-)

Well, If You REALLY Want It...

Theo wants to share everything that is Sam's. Everything. This isn't unusual among siblings, I'm sure, but it was particularly amusing today, when we had the following discussion in the car:

Theo: Mom, what did you get at Target?
Me: Bubble bath, hand soap, some prune juice for Sam.
Theo: I want to share Sammy's prune juice! I would like to have some!
Me (laughing): No, I don't think you need prune juice.
Theo: Why not? I want some!
Me: Because people drink prune juice when they can't poop. You poop quite regularly.
Theo: If I don't poop, then I can have prune juice!!

I suppose. If he only knew that most normal people don't clamor for prune juice. Yet another reason why he'd fit in very well at that "old-person daycare" he aspires to go to.

At Least He's Honest

Heard the following last night while I was working, having handed off a feisty Theo to Chris for a couple of hours:

Chris: Theo, why are you acting up tonight?
Theo: Because I like to act up!

At least he's honest....

The Littlest Peanut Speaks...FOR REAL!

Well, sort of. He makes a small cooing sound. That counts, right?!

Nothing Says Love Like the Dollar Tree

Following up on my previous post about Theo picking out some birthday presents for my Mom at the Dollar Tree... We went to my sister's house on Wednesday to meet up with her and our Mom for lunch, and Theo gave my Mom her gift bag and announced, "Yeah, I got this at the Dollar Place."

Note to self: Must school young Theo on the fact that you don't tell someone just how cheap their present was. Reminds me of the first time Chris bought me a dozen roses. He presented them to me and proudly announced, "They were on sale!"

Four-Year-Olds Know Everything

The age of four is a challenging one. It's fun because kiddos come up with crazy, creative, funny things to talk about! And it's exhausting because they're convinced they know everything. As demonstrated in this comment by Theo, when he wanted to look at a music box that my sister bought for my Mom's birthday:

Theo: Grandma, I want to see that. Here, let me show you exactly how it works.

One-Track Mind

Theo loves the school bus pretty much more than life. On the rare occasions that the bus hasn't come and I've had to take him to school, he is all out of sorts. Today, I have to pick him up from school because he has a dentist appointment. As you might imagine, this news didn't go over well. We had the following conversation in the car:

Theo (whining loudly): I don't want you to pick me up from school! I want to ride the bus! Why can't I ride the bus?
Me (rather exasperated from already having explained this half a dozen times): You have a dentist appointment. The bus won't get you home in time. You can ride the bus home again on Monday, but not today.
Theo (whining even more): But I want to ride my bus! I don't want you to pick me up! I don't like you to pick me up! I want to ride the bus instead!
Me: Theo, I'm picking you up. And I'm not talking about this anymore.
Theo: No! Ride the bus or nothing! Ride the bus or nothing, Mom! Those are my choices! I'm riding the bus or nothing! I am making the decision, Mom!
Me: Well, it's not your decision to make. Let's talk about something else....
Theo: I am going to ride the bus, Mom!
Me (forcing a cheerful tone): So what are you going to do at preschool today?
Theo: I am going to bring a toy for Share Day, and then I am going to get on Bus #102 and I am going to ride my bus home!

Sigh...I asked for that one, didn't I?

The Littlest Peanut Speaks

Well, okay, the littlest peanut didn't really speak, but his actions spoke volumes!

We started Sam on solid foods last week. Well, let me rephrase that--we started our fourth attempt at solids last week. The first three attempts didn't go so well. He loved them, but they didn't love him. I think his digestive system just wasn't ready for them yet.

But last week seemed to go reasonably well. Sam loved the food we tried (sweet potatoes) and didn't seem overly fussy after eating them (as he did after eating both peaches and rice cereal). So far so good...except that he got rather constipated. In a way, this is a good thing--his acid-reflux medicine gives him diarrhea, so it was actually good to have him bulk up a bit, so to speak. But he went three days with only one small poop, and by midway through the second day, he was pretty fussy. And we were thinking, "Just poop and be done with it, man!"

So on the third day, Sam fussed most of the day. Didn't nap well and just mildly fussed and fussed and fussed all day long. So I didn't get any work done, and when he got home from work, Chris took the boys to the hardware store to give me some quiet work time.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Sam finally pooped on the way to the hardware store. And Chris, knowing he would only be in there a few minutes, debated just saving the diaper change for home. But then he thought, "No, I'll be nice to Cathleen and just get it over with." Because he's a nice guy. Unfortunately, now I pretty much owe him for life! You see, young Sam had a Stage 4 Diaper Blowout of epic proportions. Poop...everywhere.... Here is how it went down, as Chris related it to me:

Upon lifting Sam out of the car seat, he realized the epic proportions of the Great Poop Explosion of 2012. Sam was wearing a cloth diaper, and his legs are so skinny that they don't really fill out the leg holes, so there's gapping. (I'd love to keep him in disposables until his legs finally fill out the cloth diapers, but we're on a budget, so we deal with the gapping....) And so, the poop (a lovely shade of sweet-potato orange!) was all down both of his legs, all up his back, and all over the car seat. Chris hurried to the men's room in the hardware store and set about cleaning up the disaster. Sam, who had been sitting placidly in his mess, decided he did not want to be changed, and he started screaming like crazy. Theo, meanwhile, thought the men's room was a fun place to explore and was turning the light on and off, turning the faucet on and off, and pulling paper towels out of the dispenser to "help" Chris. Chris went through half a pack of wipies (all that were left in my diaper bag) and a bunch of paper towels to clean up all the poop. Sam's pants went into the trash, deemed unsalvageable. His poop-soaked onesie and diaper went in a plastic bag to bring home for me to wash. And after spending 15 minutes changing Sam, redressing him in a new outfit, and attempting to manage Theo in the bathroom, Chris emerged from the men's room to a joking comment of, "What were you doing to that baby, beating him?" from a bystander. He laughed, mentioned the diaper blowout, and headed straight over to the cleaning section, where he bought a $5 pack of shop rags, which he used to line the pooped-on car seat for Sam's ride home.

And so they returned home, battle-weary and without the plants that Chris had set out to buy. But Sam pooped, so life is good!

Gifts

Now that Theo is almost 4 1/2, I decided it would be fun to start letting him pick out birthday gifts for people. My Mom's birthday is today, so yesterday I took the boys to the Dollar Tree, gave Theo $4 to put in his pocket, and told him that $4 would allow him to choose one card and three gifts for Grandma Diane. (I'm not really horribly cheap--we bought her better gifts, too! I just wanted to take him someplace where he could choose whatever he wanted, and I wouldn't have to say, "Oh, no--you don't have enough money for that!" Soon enough he can learn about how far money goes at various places, but for now, I wanted someplace where he would be able to choose several small things. Besides, the stuff at the Dollar Tree is so ridiculous sometimes that I thought it would be fun to see what awful things he found!)

Upon getting his $4 and being told that we were going to go pick out presents for Grandma Diane, he announced, "I will put this in my piggy bank!" I laughed and told him the idea was to get something for Grandma, not to save the money for himself. So he thought for a moment and said, "I will let her go to a hotel! Can she stay in a hotel for $4??" Um...not the kind of hotel she'd want to stay in, methinks!! Staying in a hotel is Theo's very favorite treat in the world, so I thought it was cute that he thought Grandma would surely love that, too!

Theo took his task very seriously. He carried a basket around and very carefully examined many items to determine what Grandma Diane would like best. (To my surprise, he actually put each item back after examining it! We don't generally let him touch things in stores, and if it's a store where he can touch things, such as the children's consignment store, we usually have to hound him quite a bit about putting an item back before getting another one off the shelf.)

I was sort of hoping he'd select the giant flyswatter that was nearly as big as him (see what I mean about weird stuff at the Dollar Tree?!), but he merely made two of them into "wings" to show me how he could fly, and then put them back on the rack.

I didn't offer a word of help on this--I wanted to see what he thought Grandma Diane would like, so I just stood back and watched. What did he end up with? A tacky foam pumpkin, a Halloween banner that says "Be Very Afraid!" and has a skull on it, and a Lightning McQueen (from Cars) velvet wall poster that she can color. Oh, and a card with a kitty on it. When he was finished choosing his items, he said very sweetly, "Do they have food here?" I told him they did, and he said, "Can we get Gwamma Diane some food, too?" I agreed that we could spend one more dollar and pick out one food item for her, so he selected a bag of cookies with neon yellow and pink icing, because "Gwamma Diane yuvs cookies!"

Then he dragged his heavy basket up to the register and paid. He was a little disappointed not to get any change back, but overall he was just proud as a peacock of his purchases. And I was proud as a peacock of him!

Lofty Aspirations

Yesterday, we took a family trip to the dump. For exactly the reason you'd assume: We had a bunch of old stuff to...well, dump. And Chris could've gone on his own, but Sam needed a nap (and naps well in the car), and I figured Theo would get a kick out of the dump.

That's an understatement. Theo loved the dump. When he saw the excavator moving piles of trash from one area to another, he exclaimed, "Mom! How old do I have to be to work at the dump?!"

Sam looked unimpressed. I think he aspires to loftier pursuits. :-)

It Happens to the Best of Us

Theo, solemnly, to me: "Mom, I'm getting old."

Yeah, one day you're four, and the next day you're playing canasta in the retirement home....

Well, Yes, That IS a Good Indicator

On Sunday morning, Theo came strolling into the den after he woke up. I was in there working on the computer, and he picked up a little stress-squeeze toy that was sitting on my desk. It's a little Sumo wrestler--Chris got it for me as a little joke one Christmas.

Theo examined the squeezy Sumo guy and commented, "Mom, this is a man. He has hair and arms and legs and a penis. That's a pretty good clue."

Um, yes. That last one is a pretty good clue. Though for the record, he's wearing a mawashi (Sumo loincloth), and he appears to be gender-neutral--no penises on display! I think Theo just wanted an excuse to throw in his current favorite word!

Don't Mess with Texas!

Theo has a paper map of the United States that my aunt and uncle sent to him, and he LOVES it. He likes to look at all the states and talk about who lives where and where we've visited. The only problem with this map is that, like any paper map, it's well worn at the creases, and it tends to tear in places. So this morning, Theo solemnly announced to me that the map had a new rip, saying, "Mom, I just need to stop ripping Texas."

I couldn't help but think of the old "Don't mess with Texas!" saying, and Theo couldn't figure out why I was snickering!