‘Pianos Aren’t for Standing’

‘Pianos Aren’t for Standing’

I heard myself saying the above phrase and wondered what my life has come to. Rafael is now 21 months old, and Lou’s aunt came up with a fitting nickname: Captain Destructo. Rafael can systematically destroy one room at a time before you have a chance to locate the tornado that is him. I haven’t blogged in about a year and a half, and part of the excuse includes my lack of free time. Even when he naps (thankfully, still once a day for 2+ hours), I find myself removing plastic Easter eggs from under the stove, fishing out pajamas from the no-longer-locking garbage can, and dustbusting cheese chunks from under his highchair.

When he was itty-bitty, I didn’t use that much baby-talk. I try harder now to have more “conversations” with him so that I: a) don’t lose my mind in the course of a day, and b) help to build his vocabulary…I think? I may not be using baby-talk, but I find my ‘toddler anecdotes’ won’t really cut it in the real world, either. This brings me to some awesome Mom-quotes I’ve heard myself say recently:

“When you put the macaroni in your hair, that tells me you’re done eating.”

Rafael’s ability to self-feed does take some of the pressure off of me, and the spoons. Unfortunately, his exploration with texture and artistic expression leaves me hosing down the kitchen daily, as if I am one of the penguin keepers at Lincoln Park Zoo.

I am in no way a control freak mom, as evidenced by the time I was doing my back exercises on the floor (with my son right next to me, I thought) when I heard water splashing. This is a very bad sign with a toddler. As I rush to the bathroom, I realize one of 2 things. Either one of us left the toilet seat up, or Rafael is a baby genius and has defeated the toilet lock. At any rate, his “month-by-month” scrapbook was floating in the toilet, which prompted me to say, “Your photo album doesn’t want to go swimming today!”

Thankfully, he’s taken to playing with toys now, at least for several minutes at a time, which is refreshing compared to his ‘play’ at 16 months which just involved taking everything off of every shelf. His Nativity set from Christmas still makes him happy, so we find ourselves setting it up a few times a day. However, I don’t like to advocate violence, especially on Saints and Holy People, so I’ve set some boundaries:

“There was no police chase in the manger with Jesus.”

And as I end, here, let me leave you with the last bit of wisdom I imparted on my son a few weeks ago. I mean, honestly, where do I come up with this stuff? Seriously, it just comes out:

“You can’t hit your mommy. If I’m not allowed to hit my mommy, neither are you.”