Thursday, November 29, 2012

Sick But Smart

D. is sick again with a nasty cold.  I had a feeling he was coming down with something yesterday because whenever he is getting sick, the bedtime routine is BAD.  Torturously bad meaning that while I'm trying to wash I.'s hair or comb it out or braid it, D. is being as naughty as he can be.  I call it the Pinball Gremlin routine because he literally goes from one thing he knows he's not supposed to do, to the next thing to the next thing and then repeats over and over again as I get more frustrated and sweaty.  Yesterday he went from opening drawers all the way to unrolling the toliet paper to opening up the toilet to pulling on the toliet flusher to messing with his sister's jewelry case, this last one on his tippy tippy toes.  Let me say this first, I have childproofed the cabinets in the bathroom but not the drawers because there isn't anything unsafe in the drawers; it's just that he keeps pulling them all the way out that I have a problem with.  Yes, I did get a toliet lock but it doesn't work with our toliet lid; it actually prevent the lid from closing so not too helpful there.  My solution last night to his antics was to park I. on top of the toliet so he couldn't open the lid and put her in charge of thwarting toliet flushing and jewelry case antics.  I, while combing through her hair which is for some reason snarling like crazy these days, would systematically balance on one leg while blocking drawers with my other leg and took the toliet paper off the roll to stop that annoyance.

Yet somehow he just continued getting into trouble, slipping on the rug leading to banging his head into the wall which erupted into howls at the top of his lungs.  Meanwhile, I. was lamenting loudly about all the negative aspects of having a little brother.  It almost got to be too much and all I wanted was to throw them both in their beds and collapse on the couch downstairs.  We made it through, albeit not as gracefully as I would have like and definitely a lot more sweatier.  So when he woke up crying last night and I could hear the congestion, I wasn't surprised.

On the smart side of things, D. continues to surprise me with things he understands.   I mean, he's only 15, almost 16 months old.  But all of a sudden he's doing sign language back to me - cat, dog, bird, airplane, more, please, frog.  Also, he likes to go outside on the patio to play and was gesturing to me that he wanted to go out there.  I was cleaning up the kitchen and I told him we would as soon as I went to the bathroom.  Well do you know that little guy immediately left the kitchen and went and opened the bathroom door for me and waited?  Lastly, I don't talk on the phone hardly at all when the kids are around because to be honest, it's usually just not worth the aggravation that typically ensues.  On Wednesdays, I talk to my mom while he's down for a nap and sometimes we're not done when it's time to get him up so he has seen my earpiece maybe once a week.  Yesterday he was rummaging through the diaper bag pockets, another one of his favorite activities, and discovered my earpiece.  He ran over to me with it in his hand and then stuck it in his ear.  This kid was alert and observant from the moment he came out so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Gotta run and get D. up and I. from school.  Also need to keep hydrating since I foresee a good possibility that it's going to be another sweaty bedtime hour.

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