The preparation paradox

With a toddler there is a fine line between too much preparation for a new activity and too little. For example if you tell your toddler that you're going to do something fun, say, in a few hours, you can expect gnashing of teeth and floods of tears that it's not happening RIGHT NOW! But if you DON'T explain the new activity carefully enough before you get there, then you may end up with a very confused and nervous toddler who gnashes his teeth and produces floods of tears.....and the new and fun activity won't end up being quite as fun as you'd hoped. It's a paradox.

Yesterday at 3:15 I told Fintan we were going to a Halloween parade at a nursing home. "Won't that be fun?" I asked. "Yes!" Fintan said, "I want to put my costume on RIGHT NOW!"

So I put his costume on RIGHT NOW and I put Coen's costume on RIGHT NOW and I was patting myself on the back that I was going to make it on time. I shoved my camera in my back pocket and we headed out the door.

We pulled into the parking lot five minutes early and I wrapped Coen onto me and we walked inside along with the other early birds. Fintan looked at the other costumes with appreciation at first and seemed happy enough. More people were showing up. The entrance became quite crowded with little Spidermen and fairy princesses. Then a man walked by, threading his through the crowd in a white jacket. Fintan's eyes widened and I could see his little brain working: "Wait a second, what exactly IS a Halloween parade?"

I'm not sure of the exact conclusion he came to, but it was probably something like this: Halloween parade=white jacket=doctor=shots. Floods of tears immediately made their appearance and it was too late for explanations. The Halloween Parade wasn't happening for us.

We went outside and he gnashed his teeth on a muffin instead.

The more we get together

Recent Fintan funnies:

Last Friday I found Fintan sitting on his train-table singing to his shadow on the wall: "....'cause your friends are my friends and my friends are your friends. The more we get together the happier we'll be!" I caught a quick pic of it before he stopped.



This morning Fintan was sitting on the potty (aren't 93% of his funnies happening on the toilet lately?) and he started singing "Oh where oh where has my little boy gone? Oh where oh where can he be? He's poo-pooing on the PO--O--TTY!"

Here are some pics from this weekend:

Love this expression


Hangin' with Luna at the mulch pile:


Walking with Nini:


Happy little bunny-man


And here's a short video since Lalove asked for one. :)

One in a million

My husband is the best man in the world. I can say that without the slightest bit of irony. He really is. Sometimes I don't treat him like he is, but he always treats me like I treat him like he is. And I love him. Things have been rough at the Klein house for a while now. I mentioned in my last post that we have sore backs, knees, hips, feet, etc. because Coen requires a great deal of intervention to get to sleep. Pat is never above taking over with our littlest guy as soon as he walks in the door at the end of a long workday, either. He washes his hands and immediately takes him. Every day. His nice shirts always end up smelling like baby puke, but he's not above that. And I'm not at all above allowing him to hold him for hours on end either. I should be, but I'm not. Sometimes in the middle of the night, after I nurse him, Coen won't go back to sleep. Pat gets up and takes over. He never complains. Sometimes he's in there with him for hours, jiggling him the whole time. So there are more deposits of baby puke racked up during the midnight shift. And still he leaves for work with a smile on his face and a kiss for all of us on the way out. He worries about me during the day when I'm home alone and I know he wants to be here to help. He checks up on me. He rarely goes anywhere without us because he knows how much we miss him and how the together time seems so rare and precious, even when I give him a hard time for every little thing because I'm just being me.

Yesterday was my birthday. Pat surprised me by taking the day off work. He took over most of the Coen duties except when it was time to nurse him. Fintan and I went out and picked up doughnuts and a pumpkin spice latte, and ice water, and headed to the park in the morning. Then when Fintan went down for his nap, and after I nursed Coen, I got to leave the house to do whatever I wanted. I got a haircut. And I went to the grocery store and the drug store and the library all by myself. I enjoyed every moment of it.

Then we all went to dinner as a family and Pat held Coen so I could eat and then I nursed Coen so he could eat. I had a wonderful day. I do realize how lucky I am, even if I sometimes lose sight of it and forget to let him know. I'm really going to do my best to stop being so "me" and try my darnedest to treat him like he treats me like I treat him. He so deserves it.

I love you, Pat! More than you know.

Sleep

Pat made a joke recently (this morning? Yesterday? Five days ago? It's all such a blur) about Fintan and his sleep schedule. He said that maybe Fintan's going to make a really good doctor someday because he can get by on so little sleep. Or that maybe he'll start sleeping a lot when he's a teenager. Can you imagine? He asked, saying: "Fintan get out of bed you lazy sacka...don't you know what time it is?! GET UP!" He had me laughing pretty hard. And now Coen's a boy after his brother's heart. He sleeps longer when he does sleep but the process of getting him to sleep is going to be the death of his parents. Pat says we're going to take our feet, back and knee transplant costs out of his college fund. Sounds fair, no?

The milk takes the cheese

Yet another Fintan funny, from tonight after his jammies were on and it was time to read books:

Me: "I'm going to get the milk."

Fintan (singing): "We're going to get the milk! We're going to get the milk! Hi ho the derry oh, we're going to get the milk. (I start laughing so he continues) "The milk takes the cheese! The milk takes the cheese! Hi Ho the derry oh the milk takes the cheese."

Truly I think Fintan takes the cheese.

Baking in the bathtub

Tonight in the bath:

Fintan: "I need three cups of water (pours it from his inverted drum into his hair-rinsing scoop) one, two, three, four! That's just enough. Now I'll stir it all up. I'm stirring it all up, Mommy!"

Me: "Good job! You're doing a great job stirring, sweetie."

Fintan: "Just a little more water. There now it's full, Mommy. Now I stir it all up. Stir it all up."

Me: "Oh, that looks really good, Fintan! What are you making?"

Fintan: "Toast."

An itsy bitsy bit stuck

Today's funnies:

Fintan: "Mommy's drying the shower walls."

Me: "Yes, Mommy is drying the shower walls."

Fintan: "Cool."

Later from Fintan while sitting on the toilet, complete with appropriate hand motions:

"The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout,
down came the rain and washed the spider out!
out came the sun and dried up all the rain
and the itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout
down came the rain and washed the spider out!
out came the sun and dried up all the rain
and the itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout
down came the rain..."