Kids say the darndest things

You know those parents that tell silly little stories about their kid on their blog? Oh come on, you know the type. They tell a story that they think is so cute and funny, but in reality it's probably not cute or funny, it's just that they are so head over heels in love with their kid that they believe everything that he or she does is "so adorable."

Well guess what? I am that parent. Get used to it.

***Story 1***

A few weeks back we went to my hometown for the weekend. We also went to church with my parents. Now it's no secret that my parents' church service is *ahem* a tad bit longer than the church we attend at home, but I figured with enough crayons, books, snacks, and juice, Ian would be able to make it through the entire service.

I was wrong.

I guess when you turn 2 years old you get a better grasp on the concept of time, because at the time we would be getting out of church at home, Ian looked up and realized that this service was only a little more than halfway done.
Always a man of action, Ian decided he would take the initiative to bring the service to a close by yelling (and I do mean yelling) "DONE! ALL DONE!"

As the eyes of those nearby began to look my way, I quickly covered Ian's mouth, whispered in his ear long enough so the people close to us would think I was the type of parent that knew how to keep her kid in check (ha!), and then slowly uncovered his mouth. I guess whatever I said worked, although he did feel the need to belt out one final "DONE!" before he finally quieted down.

***Story 2***

DISCLAIMER: This story will make use of the word "poo poo"

That same weekend while at my parents house, I briefly saw an Ian shaped blur run past me and into the living room. The smell that followed said blur however, was uh -how shall I say this- not so fresh.

Me: (shouting from the guest room) Ian, did you poo poo?
Ian: (shouting back) No
Me: (getting up and walking into the living room giving my very best stern Momma face) Ian, did you poo poo?
Ian: (wide eyed) Nooooo
Me: (checking the foul smelling diaper) Ian you did poo poo. You didn't tell me the truth. If I ask you "Did you poo poo?" and you did, you need to answer yes. Do you understand?
Ian: Yes
Me: (giving myself an imaginary pat on the back for successfully explaining truthfulness to my obviously brilliant kid) So, Ian, did you poo poo?
Ian: No

***Story 3***

It's Monday morning and I hear Ian babbling to himself in bed. I head into his room to get him up and going.
"Good morning Pooh. Are you ready to get up?" Ian, stands up in his crib obviously mulling over the question, then he grabs his favorite blanket, squats back down in the bed, and replies "No".
Fair enough, I think to myself. I like to stay in the bed late on Monday mornings too. I turn my back to the kiddo to begin looking through his dresser for clothes for the day, when I realize the shirt I'm looking for is in the closet. When I turn back around I see that Ian has changed his mind and is ready to get out of bed. In fact, he's thrown his leg over the top bar of the crib and is attempting to climb out. Caught off guard, the only reaction I can muster is a sigh combined with an "Oh Lord". While I was content to let him hit the floor and learn his lesson, Ian looked down, and then realized, apparently, this wasn't the brightest idea. He then looked back up at me and replied "Oh Lord".

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Ian

You see this?


This is my living room.

It's nothing too fancy, just a couch, a couple of chairs, an ottoman, a ladder bookshelf, and a TV (not pictured). I show you this photo, not because I think my living room is wonderfully decorated (I'm working on it). I show you this because you will need it as reference for the rest of this story, so just take a good look and stash it in your memory box.

*****Picture it*****

It's a nice, sunny Saturday afternoon and Dan and I have been straightening up the house. As we tidy up each room and move on to the next, we make sure to close the door to the newly cleaned room. It's a precaution, you see. If we leave the doors open, Ian will crawl into the room, close the door, and then sit right in front of it so that we can't open door. As you can imagine, it's the perfect toddler game, but not so much fun for Mommy and Daddy.

Anyway, once all of the rooms were cleaned, Dan decided to watch some TV in the living room, Ian was playing basketball in the corner next to the TV, and I decided to head into to kitchen to make some lunch.

As I'm preparing lunch, and basking in the glow of our freshly cleaned home, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Ian was crawling away from his basketball game. I didn't give it much thought since I knew that we closed all of the doors in the house, which meant he had to stay in the common area. After a couple of minutes of silence from Ian, I decided to find out what he was doing.

"Pooh", I called out. "What are you doing?"

Silence.

Me: "Dan, is Ian playing basketball over there."
Hubby: "Nah, I think he's behind the couch playing with some of his other toys."

Thanking God for open floor plans, I peer over the counter to sneak a peek at the kid.

Hmm, no Ian.

I glanced down the main hallway to see if he was sitting there playing.

Nothing.

At this point, my heart starts racing a little bit. Where the heck is this kid? I'm nervous, but I'm steadily reassuring myself that it was silly to get worked up over this. Obviously he's in the house, and odds are he's fine.

So now I'm thinking maybe I didn't close one of the doors all the way, and he managed to get into one of the rooms. I checked 2 of the bedrooms, and when I still didn't see the master of hide and seek, I decided to ask Dan to help me find him. After another 15 seconds or so of searching I heard Dan exclaim "Boy! What are you doing there?", and then he proceeds to laugh quite loudly.

I hurriedly head back towards the living room where the noise was coming from, and this is what I saw.


Do you know where he is? Go ahead, refer back to the living room pic. I'll give you a minute.
.
.
.

Yep, that rascal crawled behind the ladder bookshelf and was quietly crouching behind it. Crouching, I say! He only stood up once Dan saw him. We thought this was so hilarious that, of course, we just had to take a picture.

When will I ever stop underestimating this kid?

Loss of Innocence

Reminisce with me for a moment, will you?

Let's go back in time, way back. Back to when storks delivered babies and little people lived inside the television. Back to a time where Santa Claus was real and the Tooth Fairy left money under your pillow. Yes, lets go back...

Let's go to a time of youth; a time of innocence. Ah yes, the good ol' days.

Remember how much fun it was to play outside for hours on end? Or how thrilled you were when your parents bought a new toy for you?

Speaking of toys, do you see this toy below? This is one of Ian's favorite toys.


He will crawl up to the basketball goal, grab one of the toy basketballs, and DUNK IT! The little scoreboard section lights up, and it plays a little song and there is even fake crowd/applause sounds. It's pretty cool.

Now Ian doesn't know about batteries, or the fact that there is a little lever that trips whenever the ball goes through the goal to signal the music/scoreboard. All he knows is that if he can manage to put that ball through the circle, the baby party will begin.

One morning as I was preparing Ian's bottle, I heard him grab the toy basketball. Just a few moments later, I heard "dun dun na naaaaaaa" (that's the best I can do to imitate the initial sound played when a basket is made. use your imagination).

Me: "Whoo hoo!! Way to go Ian! Yeah!!"

As I continued in the kitchen, I noticed that Ian was silent for a little bit. Just when I was about to check to make sure he didn't get into something he shouldn't have, I heard "dun dun na naaaaaaa".

Me again: "Yippee, Pooh. You made another one." <dun dun na naaaaaaa> "Alright Ian, you're on a ro...." <dun dun na naaaaaaa> "Wow, you're getting really goo..." <dun dun na naaaaaaa>

As you can imagine, by this time I'm eagerly heading towards the living room to see my baby Shaq perform. Busy with visions of NBA drafts, early retirement, and season tickets for my favorite NBA team (the one Ian would be playing for of course), it never dawned on me that while I had been hearing the music to signal a basket had been made, I had not been hearing the basketball go through the hoop.

Yep, that's right. When I got to the living room, this is what I saw.



If you notice, Ian doesn't have a basketball in his hand. Nope, they are both safe and sound. He did figure out that it wasn't the ball going through the hoop that started the fun, it was the lever.

Ah, they grow up so fast :)

Not the best idea I've had

For Father's day, I thought it would be cool to decorate Dan's card with Ian's footprints and handprints (is that a word?). Ian's footprints were so tiny when he was born, I thought it was be a cool comparison to show just how far he has come.

Impressed with my stroke of genius, I loaded Ian up in the car, and off we went to the craft store to buy blue, non-toxic, water soluble paint. After we made our paint purchase, it was time to go to work. "This shouldn't take more than 5 minutes", I thought to myself. "Get the paint, pour it into a container, dab hands/feet, get the imprints, and clean up. No problem."

What I forgot, is that my sweet baby boy is not the same barely mobile baby of few months ago. That baby of yesteryear was content to lay on his playmat or sit in his bouncy chair for hours on end.
The Ian of today, however, he is a mover and a shaker. He can crawl from the living room to the front door in 7 seconds flat. He's got places to go and people to see and he will not remain in one spot for more than, oh, 10 seconds.

All those facts totally slipped my mind.

Anyway, with our newly purchase paint, I grabbed a container and poured a wee bit of the blue paint into it. That was easy enough. I decided to start with his feet. I figured his feet would be the easiest and I would be able to keep a firm grasp on his foot, on the off chance he decided to wiggle his foot around.
I dipped Ian's foot into the blue paint. He had a look on his face that said "I don't know about this" but nothing could have prepared me for what was to come. I went to create the imprint of his foot on the card, and you could've sworn that I stuck his foot into the mouth of a hungry shark. "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH" he shrieked, and then he did what any normal person would do when trying to defend yourself against a vicious shark attacking your foot. He kicked. I have never seen his left leg move so fast in my life. He kicked and wiggled away from me and then proceeded to roll in the floor, flailing his legs back and forth. When I finally caught him, both his legs and the floor were smeared with blue paint.

I grabbed this still wriggling child, took him into the bathroom and cleaned his legs and feet. I assured Ian that everything was OK and he calmed down.
The freshly calmed Ian and I went to have a look at the card, and there was blue blob that in no way, shape, or form resembled his foot. "Oh well", I thought. "I'll just forget the feet imprints. We'll have better luck with his hands."

That's right, I, the naive parent, still thought I could manage to get decent handprints from the little one. So we repeated the process, except this time with his left hand.
The reaction was immediate this go 'round. After I removed Ian's hand from the paint, he immediately balled it up into a fist and began yelling. I managed to get him to open his hand and quickly dabbed it on the card before he got his hand free, (the kid is freakishly strong) and then he did it. In an attempt to get the paint off of his hand, he smeared it all over his face.
I again, scooped him up and took him to the bathroom. After I made sure that he didn't have any paint in his mouth, I looked at both of us in the mirror and I completely lost it. I started laughing and I couldn't stop. Ian had managed not only to cover his own face in enough blue paint, making him worthy of smurf status, but I was also the proud owner of a few blue streaks on my face as well.
After we were both all cleaned up, I promised myself to make sure all arts and crafts projects take place outside of the house.

Ah, the joys of parenting.

Are you kidding me?

I guess the previous person that lived in our house had kids, because when we moved in there were a few baby-proofing mechanisms in place. One thing that was missing though was electrical outlet covers. Well, now that Ian is crawling, pulling up, and toying with the idea of cruising, he decided that electrical outlets looked like they would be great fun. Not to worry though, I immediately rushed out to the store and bought some outlet covers. Problem solved, right? Let's continue with the story, shall we?

Once the covers were in place, we put Ian back on the floor and let him have at it. He immediately crawled over to his favorite electrical outlet and noticed that something looked different. He looked at it for a few seconds, and then decided to ignore it.
Whoo hoo!! Success. Dan and I congratulated ourselves on being great parents and went on with our evening.

Fast forward to today. Dan, Ian and I were all hanging out in the living room. I needed to go into the kitchen and Dan was on the opposite side of the living room than Ian. No need to worry though, because the living room is a safe zone. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ian eyeing his favorite electrical outlet. I chuckle to myself and say "You go ahead and try to get to that outlet little man. You may have forgotten, but we've taken care of that."

You see where this is going don't you? I continued doing my business in the kitchen, and all of a sudden I hear Dan say "Argh, No! How did you do that?". I go into the living room and what do I see? A bright eyed, curious Ian with an electrical outlet cover in his hand.

Uh, yeah. I think this kid is already smarter than me.

Sweetie, please don't give Mommy a HEART ATTACK

So I had my first real lesson in "Always keep your eye on the baby" yesterday. I was preparing to feed my son his new favorite meal-oatmeal with applesauce if you're curious- when I noticed that the detachable tray on his high chair was dirty. So because I am a genius, I buckled him in and then took the tray with me into the kitchen to clean it off. As I'm walking back into the dining room, my son decides this would be the best time use all of his strength to fling himself forward so that he could place his head between his feet (the kid is flexible, gotta give him that).

It gets a little fuzzy at this point, but I'll try and recall what happened.

I know I must have yelled out something, because hubby came running out of the room yelling "What's wrong, what happened?" I also noticed that somehow the tray that I had been making spotless was no longer in my hands.
With my new found freedom, I decided the smart thing to do would be to grab my child so he wouldn't land head first onto the wood floor (yes he was buckled in, but it's a thin little strap for goodness sakes). As I'm running toward my firstborn, I realized that I had apparently strapped 50lb weights to each one of my ankles which made it take about twenty minutes to take the 3 steps needed to grab him. After I finally reached him and sat him in an upright position, I prepared myself for the onslaught of tears that was bound to begin any second, and what does this little daredevil do? He looks at me with wide eyes and a slight grin as if to say "That was scary, but FUN!"

I passed out shortly thereafter