There are two times a day during which I could potentially blog: nap and after 7:30. Nap of late has been a disaster. I remember being pretty obnoxious as a teenager, but I'm pretty sure that nothing compares to the irrational, unreasonable two year old. He is alternately sweet and hilarious, then angry and rebellious, pushing every limit he knows. It's a delight really.
Maybe I should talk about some of the good stuff. No, no....that's not how I work, y'all know me better than that. I'll start with the ugly. The main thing that's (still) driving me completely insane is nap. All I want him to do is nap in his bed. Is that really so much to ask? Apparently so. I've tried putting him to bed later, putting him to bed earlier, threatening to take things away, bribing him, ignoring him completely, marveling over his genius when he does sleep in the bed, and, of course, begging shamefully. None of this works. Nada. My latest trick of giving him a couple pieces of the (100 piece) train set when he naps in bed has been the most effective, at best a 50% success rate.
People without children or with perfect children who nap properly like to tell me that he's ready to give up that nap. Oh really? Then why does he sleep TWO HOURS on the days that he does nap? And why is he a complete train wreck when he does not? Hmmmm? I thought so. So don't you dare say that in the comments, or I'll...I'll....um, tell you that you're wrong. So there.
Also causing problems, but not nearly as severe, is the sudden possessiveness of toys. Piglet's going to have to learn that all toys in a house with two boys only 20 months apart are going to be community property. He is in great distress that his brother Pigpen is suddenly interested in toys. But he loves his brother so....
I'll move onto the good stuff. Piglet is a talker. I have no idea where he could possibly get this trait. He talks when he wakes up, he talks while he's eating, he talks in the car, he talks, talks, talks, all day long. The house is never quiet. Pigpen, as a result, is already trying to talk at 9 months, thus far managing "mama" and "dada", though I doubt they have much meaning to him. It's noisy around here.
Pigpen is very interested in being precise. "Eat your salad!" I say. "First," he clarifies. "Yes, first." I'm not sure what he thinks is coming next, but he's very into "first" right now. He's very specific. If I say that we're going to Target, he says, "And Piglet? And Pigpen? And Mommy? Daddy's at work." and nods solemnly to seal the deal. He wants to know who belongs to what and what belongs to whom. He specifically wants to know what is his. He believes everything is his, but is trying to get order straight in his mind.
He loves Pigpen to pieces, so much that he's generally squashing him or squeezing him or gifting him with something random, like the socks and shoes off of his feet everytime we're in the car. He sings songs in a sweet, tuneless way, especially his ABC's minus the W. He likes to count things, but when he gets to 12 he gets confused and starts back at 8, occasionally jumping ahead to 14 and just saying 14 over and over again. His hero is Thomas, but his favorite is Emily. He demands that I sing the Emily song from Thomas, but that I substitute his girlfriend's name. The line goes, "There's no one else like Emily!" and he sings it over and over again with his girlfriend's name. If I sing the theme to Elmo's world, I have to sing it with Pigpen's name. It's all very confusing and noisy and loud around our house, and there is a great deal of song.
Maybe this is why Pigpen wants to do things so badly. He's been sitting up for quite a while now, but due to safety concerns, he's never had the amount of floor time to which he's entitled. If he's developmentally delayed, it will be Piglet's fault for being such a danger to him. He wants to crawl in a bad way, but can't figure out what to do with his knees, so he just cries instead. Pigpen has the best laugh I've ever heard. I have yet to encounter someone who doesn't laugh when he does, it's rather contagious.
Pigpen is also the best sleeper ever. He puts himself to sleep and actually seems rather relieved to find himself in his crib at bedtime. He sleeps all night long and wakes up happy in the morning and after naps. At this age, Piglet had dropped his morning nap, but Pigpen is still going strong at an hour and a half, so I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Ahhhh. That feels better. As though I've purged myself of thoughts. Whew. Let's try to do this more often, shall we?
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