he's just getting mean

Time: Today at noon.
Place: The kitchen table.
Scene: Andy and I eating lunch while listening to some tunes.

John Denver's "Country Roads" came on. Naturally, being a born n' bred West Virginian I started singing it to him. After all, he needs to learn that one if he's going to be wearing his Mountie jersey.

Andy was working on his fruit cup and I was sitting there singing. Not too loudly or bawdily, mind you. And he stopped eating, took the spoon out of his mouth, held his hand up to my face and said, "NO, Mommy! Stop singing! I'm trying to eat my dinner!"

This behavior isn't unusual, sadly. He's gotten downright insulting. In fact, just a few moments ago I read him some stories, closed his blinds and told him it was time to take a nap. He yelled, "Nooo! I'm not taking a naaaaaap!" Then he ran out of the room, down the hall, and into my bedroom where he promptly slammed the door and barricaded himself behind my bed.

Truly, he did.

don't pull the wool

I admit it: I mess with my kid just a little bit. I can't help it. He's fascinating. Sometimes it's hard to think of him as an actual human being, but every day he proves that he is.

He still sleeps with his Booba. And if you'll recall, there are 3 of them. They rotate around the house, sharing the job of being Andy's companion. Now he doesn't take Booba with him everywhere any longer. Booba has become strictly a bed bunny. He'll bring Booba downstairs with him in the morning or after a nap but then poor Booba is always discarded on the floor. I feel bad for that wabbit.

Anyway, at nap time today I put Andy in his bed. Booba #1 was down in the basement on the floor so I went to the closet and pulled out Booba #2 and handed it to Andy. He looped his finger through the tag on Booba's posterior, inspected it quickly and handed it right back to me.

"I want the better Booba."

I still can't really figure out how he knows which Booba is which, but again I'm sure I'm not giving him enough credit. But just for curiosity's sake, I went to the closet, pretended to switch Boobas, and then handed him the same Booba he'd just rejected. I was sure he'd smile and be happy with it.

He did smile. He took it from me. He looped his finger through Booba's tag. Then his face immediately clouded.

"This isn't the better Booba."

I stifled a laugh and said, "Yes it is honey." (I know. It was just wrong of me.)

He handed it to me and said dully, "Nooooooooooooo it isn't."

So I went and got Booba #3, the better Booba and gave it to him. He immediately lay down and asked for his blankies.

How did he know? I can't even tell the difference between those damn things.

wha????

At dinner tonight Andy pointed angrily at his blueberry muffin and said sharply, "RESPECT, muffin!"

He demands it.

direct and to the point

Andy has the stomach flu today, which is horribly gross. Yet he still managed to give me fodder for Qwerty's Blog, even in his somewhat depressed state.

Actually, now that the intestinal pyrotechnics have hopefully subsided, he feels pretty decent. Enough to yank a cat's tail or two, and enough to be antsy at the dinner table. In addition he was entirely un-amused by his plain noodles, sans any buttery or acidic sauce.

He was done playing with them and mashing crackers into the table. I was done, but Shawn wasn't finished eating and we try to encourage him to stay at the table until everybody is done. Of course, he's 2, so that doesn't always happen and we certainly don't force him.

Tonight he was ready to get down and said repeatedly, "I want to get down now, Mommy."

I said, "Honey can you wait until Daddy stops eating?"

He looked at me with an angelic face and said, "Okay Mommy."

The he turned to look at his father and said, "Stop eating Daddy. I want to get down now."

phone chatter

On the phone with my mom:

"Oh my gaaaaawd. I throw things."

He sure does.

who?

This afternoon after lunch I was sitting by the fire and Andy came to sit on my lap with a picture book of animals. We went through each page and he told me what the animal was and then made the animal's noise.

We got to the owl and he said, "hoo".

I got all up in his ear and said, "Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!" (There are a couple of owls in his favorite Rudolph movie and I was imitating them.)

He turned to face me and said, "That's enough, Mommy. That's enough out of the owl."