Supporting you in motherhood, one little blog post at a time
I had the delusion that I would take T.Puzzle out for a lovely lunch (his choice) on his last day before returning to preschool.
Instead, this is how he behaved at the eye doctor’s:
Then, it went from bad to worse on the ride home…
We are clearly tired of going to the eye doctor.
Lucky for us we get to go back in three weeks.
Rock. On.
You know your day is long if you are spending a majority of it praying to the ‘napping gods’ that your very contrary three year old will take an afternoon snooze. T.Puzzle is on the dreaded cusp of outgrowing his nap altogether. It’s not such a bad thing on days we are on the go and everyone is in a good mood. On the days when despite all appearances (crazy running, yelling and jumping), T.Puzzle’s little body needs recovery time post-surgery; a nap can be a much needed thing. In addition to the health benefits it also should hopefully improve his mood as it seems he woke up on the oppositional defiant side of his bed this morning.
Apparently, ‘No!’ and ‘I not!’ can never be overused in his wiseguy opinion.
Thank god he’s asleep right now. At least if he’s sleeping he ain’t talking and therein lies the real beauty of a napping child.
I took little T.Puzzle for his pre-op physical. He still holds on to an element of three year old unpredictability that makes trips to the doctor more exciting than they should be. When the doctor prepares to examine his mouth, he clamps it shut and throws his hands protectively over his lips.
The doctor switches gears.
“Why don’t I look in your ears instead?” she asks little T.Puzzle.
He immediately shoots both his hands up and theatrically covers his ears. He also manages a sliver of a smile while maintaining a rigidly closed mouth.
Impressive.
The doctor turns to me.
“Looks like someone is really full of it today.”
“He’s pretty much full of it every single day,” I say.
Luckily, he’s full of dimples, too, and that has saved him more times that I can count.
I have been experimenting with the boys’ tae kwon do schedules. Of course it means more work and planning for me, but I think it is necessary. I am now splitting them up into a junior’s class for Full Speed and keeping little T.Puzze in the tiny tigers class.
The results have been significant especially for little T.Puzzle. He has shown great improvement with the absence of Full Speed in his class. As for Full Speed, he is concentrating better surrounded by the older crowd of the junior’s class. Overall, this new schedule change seems to be a win-win.
These great improvements haven’t completely erased my bad tae kwon do memories. As little T.Puzzle was lining up for the start of tiny tigers yesterday, a new student was crying and didn’t want to go on the mat. By the end of class the new student had adjusted and wound up having a great time. The instructor wanted to commend him and that’s when talk shifted to, “If you think this kid’s start was rough, let’s all remember how T.Puzzle was when he first started and where he is now.”
Before you know it, parent after parent threw in their own unique memory and story of how little T.Puzzle was practically out of his mind not wanting to do tae kwon do when he started.
“Remember how he hid under the table in the corner?” one said.
Another piped in, “Or how he would refuse to do jumping jacks or listen to anything the instructor would say?”
“Don’t forget how he would throw himself on the floor and not move,” said another.
Ah, this is the stuff of which legends are made…
We happily survived our visiting nephews. There were some tense moments here and there, but overall, they are good kids. It is fun to talk to them and hear their ever-expanding take on the world around us.
Grandma and Grandpa picked all the boys up (T.Puzzle and Full Speed included) this morning and took them to church. With all the activity we’ve experienced in the past few weeks, my mommy-instinct was on high alert that little T.Puzzle needed to attempt a nap today. I tried to explain this as clearly as possible to Mad Dog who chose to politely ignore my warning. As we headed to pick up the boys, Mad Dog decides that this is the day he HAS to sync Grandma’s phone. A phone sync can be a long and tedious process. I knew, I mean really, really KNEW, we were running out of time concerning little T.Puzzle.
“Do the phone sync another day,” I urged. “T.Puzzle needs some rest time, pronto!”
It was like I wasn’t even talking. Mad Dog was convinced the phone sync would be fast and we’d get little T.Puzzle home soon enough (I strongly disagreed). Well over an hour later the phone was still backing up and little T.Puzzle’s mood had hit the danger zone.
So, when little T.Puzzle reached his inevitable level-10 meltdown, guess who had the honor of dealing with this disaster? (And it got very ugly, fast.)
Me.
Never doubt the mommy-instinct. Those who go against it inevitably will have an irate wife experiencing her own meltdown. Or something like that (insert your own worst nightmare here).