Life at Chez Elle can be a bit on the interesting side. Apart from the normal routine of getting up the child and wondering if he is or is not still wearing his pajamas our mornings are pretty typical in the life of a toddler. I ask the child what he wants for breakfast and his reply is the same that it has been for the last 150 days give or take one or 2. Oatmeal. At some point along the way I gave up on eating the oatmeal with him. I have that short attention span. Alas, I make oatmeal nearly every day and only force him to branch out on occasion. The trusty husband prepares his own breakfast of Cheerios and toast and as he poors the wholesome little nuggets into a bowl we get a Pavlov?s Dog response from the child as he sprints down the hall shouting, “more! more!” We give him 2.
Since the child has all but stopped throwing his food breakfast is quiet and we say goodbye to the man of the house. Once the child?s father walks out the door the day quickly spirals downward ending somewhere with the mother drowning herself in a bottle of Merlot.
Once the trusty husband leaves the house I have about 30 minutes before the child stops picking splinters out of his ass as he pines away for his dad. This means he finally realizes that I am holed up in my office trying to answer emails and read as many blogs as I can before he comes in and tells me I am finished. When I can no longer stand the whining the real fun begins. It becomes a game to find where the child has dumped his cup of Cheerios and who can move faster to get to them. Me, to clean them up off the unswept floor or the child to shove the dirty snack into his face.
From there I consider doing the breakfast dishes, but in reality the dishwasher is probably full and needs to be run. I then contemplate what I should wear for the day and decide that it is ok to wear sweats one more day and that shirt doesn?t smell as bad as CS said it did yesterday. I look at my hair and say a pony tail is as good as it gets. For the child I do pull out a designer outfit because by God I may look like shit, but I don?t want people thinking I?m a bad mom or something. Getting the child dressed may or may not be followed by combing his hair and wiping the Cheerio crumbs off his face that he beat me to.
Seeing as I let my child eat Cheerios off the floor and he has a cat hair or two hanging out his mouth I think it is probably time I swept the floor.
After the houswork is done it is play time. The boy thinks Steve the Cat, George and the Furry Red Muppet need naps. He crawls up into the rocking chair tucks them in with a blankie and reads them bedtime stories. Cute? I think so too.
Lunch goes by without incident and I manage to get through without an ounce of Sweet Potato Soup on my shirt. Good thing I dressed up. We watch the Furry Red Muppet portion of a Public Broadcast Network Show, and it never is a new episode. I?ve seen the feet one 8 times this week and it is only Thursday. I take the child for his nap and he is out in about 2 minutes.
Now I get 1 hour of free time. If I am really really lucky he will sleep an hour and 5 whole minutes. Then there are the days he wakes up after 45 or 50 minutes. I just let him stay in his bed. I call it quiet time. Of course he rocks when he wakes up so I have to trapse around the house pretending to do stuff so he will call out for me. If I don?t make noise he somehow doesn?t know that I am there and rocks. Either that or he knows and does it to irritate me. If I don?t distract him, after too long he will start removing clothing.
Post nap is met with the boy proclaiming, “movie!” Newest favorite, Curious George. Most of the time we lay on the couch and watch it together. Mainly because the music is by Jack Johnson and we all know how much I love the Jack.
We toodle away the afternoon. There is more of the no no don?t do that, no it is not ok to eat that Cheerio I missed while sweeping, please don?t color on the walls, no I?m not happy and you know it, it isn?t ok to clean the cat puke up yourself, what is the rule about jumping on the couch, please keep your clothes on, I just windexed that and no you cannot run around the house with your mouth full of banana.
By the time the trusty husband gets home I am pretty much worn out and that bottle of cooking sherry is looking pretty tempting