Those are the words that have propelled me out of bed in the mornings lately. He repeats himself, a little louder each time, and isn't above yanking the covers off my previously sleeping body. Some mornings, he even finds my glasses and thrusts them into my hands.
"Mama! This! On!" he commands.
Though I often wish he would let me be and find his own breakfast, I have to remind myself how precious are these moments - how fleeting is this stage of his. I drag my tired body out of bed and follow him out of my bedroom, pausing only long enough for him to turn off the television.
"S'dark!" he announces as he makes his way to the kitchen. "Mama! S'dark!"
"Yes, Baby," I reply, reaching for the light switch. "And do you know why it's dark? It's dark because the rest of the world is still sleeping."
He scowls at me, then walks in his special Toddler Waddle/Walk to his table. "Poon!" he shouts. I help him climb into the chair, then quickly fetch his spoon. His eyes light up, and he licks his lips eagerly with anticipation. I get something from the refrigerator and bring it to him. "Go-yer!" he exclaims happily, almost shrieking. I barely have a chance to remove the lid before he thrusts his spoon into the yogurt.
It really is a joy to watch him eat. He grips the spoon forcefully in his right hand, carefully cradling the yogurt cup with his left. He inserts the spoon, pulls it out, puts it into his mouth, and continues to eat. Sometimes it drips on him ("Uh-oh! Mama! Uh-oh!"), which requires my immediate attention, and he has difficulty scraping out the last bits of yogurt. But, inevitably, he will point to the empty cup and ask, quite pointedly, "More?"
He knows there is more. He knows where to find more. Sometimes he's content with my explanation that he is only allowed to eat one yogurt for breakfast. Other times, he jumps down from his chair and runs to the refrigerator himself, struggling in vain to open the heavy doors.
When he wants to eat cereal, he'll bring you the box, but beware: you can't provide him with enough. When he wants to eat fruit, he'll tell you ("Each!" "Ban!" "Pum!" "Air!"), and a meltdown may ensue because the fruit isn't large enough to appease his appetite.
And yet, I can't imagine another way to start my day. With a few simple commands, he's able to get me (or my husband) up and moving about - and any thoughts of returning to my warm bed after breakfast are immediately banished, no matter the time.
As I trudge through work each day, thankful for my own job, a sense of nervous curiosity sweeps over me as the numbers on the corner of my computer screen slowly creep to 5:30. I jump when I hear my e-mail ding, I nervously scour my friends' Facebook statuses, and the last person I want to see calling my cell phone is my husband.
You know that scene in Gone With the Wind where the entire city of Atlanta is waiting for news on the killed and wounded of Gettysburg, and Scarlett rips the listing from Uncle Peter's hands to search for Ashley's name? And when Rhett comes by and asks her who is among the listed, she says that someone from all the families in her county were affected.
That's what it's like waiting to hear about the latest round of Disney cuts. Everyone in this town knows someone who's affected by them.
I've been quiet on Vox lately but have kept my general resolution of writing a little bit every day. Sadly, I have nothing to report on the creative front, but my family blog is a little more up to date now and I've revamped the department newsletter at work.
Orlando is abuzz with the news of Disney's latest layoffs. There are roughly 60,000 Cast Members in Central Florida, a number that is seemingly dwindling by the day. Tuesday brought news of layoffs in departments where some of my husband's friends work, and yesterday brought news of friends cut from various areas. It appears no one is safe: merchandise designers, park operations managers, and even one of the Master Sommeliers have been cut.
It's not so much the Happiest Place on Earth anymore. Those whose departments have already been affected are relieved for themselves but sad to see their colleagues' offices suddenly emptied. And those in departments not yet visited by the Reaper and his scythe trudge through their days in fearful anticipation, dreading a visit from HR or a phone call asking them to show up at the Sun Trust building.
No one knows what's going on, and it seems those who do know aren't sharing with those who need to know.
Every new jobless claims number reported on the news each week is a person - a family - affected. And as I hear more about people laid off, especially those close to me and/or my husband, I can only offer up simultaneous prayers for help and thanksgiving: help to guide us through these fearful times and thanksgiving for my job and all the blessings I have.
Right now, I'm one of the lucky ones. And don't think I don't know it.
Money is one of those topics that no one really likes to talk about. It's something everyone needs (save for very few who truly live off the earth) yet no one wants to discuss it. No one wants to hear about how much or how little you have, about how you're struggling to make ends meet or having difficulty deciding which yacht to buy outright.
It's no wonder, then, that the majority of people in this country are in dire financial straits.
If there is one thing my parents did not do for me that I so wish they did - and that I have every intention of doing for my son - is sit down with me at an early age and explain monetary concepts. I remember being so proud of having a savings account when I was younger, and how delighted I was to deposit $85 that I collected on my 7th birthday into that account. I remember receiving checks in the mail - a couple hundred dollars here, a thousand dollars there - and endorsing the checks, thinking they were going to said savings account. I remember receiving savings bonds and proudly putting them in Daddy's hiding place. I remember believing that I had enough squirreled away to pay for college and have money to spare.
And I also remember, five or six years later, asking my father how much money I had in my savings account, only to be told he closed that account some time ago. Did he move the money into a mutual fund for me? Open CDs? Transfer the funds into another savings account?
No.
I remember at least two instances when, just before bedtime, Daddy asked my sister and me to endorse our savings bonds. These savings bonds were prizes from selling Girl Scout cookies and, in my case, prizes from a game show I was on as a child. Did this money go into a savings account? Was it moved into a Coverdell IRA?
No.
When I finally left for college, my mother pulled out the last of my savings bonds: eight $100 bonds and one $50 bond. I asked where the rest of it was, and she said this was all that I had earned. Either she didn't know what my father did or she was in denial. Either way, ten years after I received my last check from Goodson & Toddman, all of my childhood savings totaled $850.
When I think of that, I get incredibly upset.
It can be argued that my parents sent me to the best schools and paid for my education, and I should be grateful and not feel cheated. And yet, I do.
Anyway, this history explains a lot about my attitude towards money. I have a love-hate relationship with it, really. I love it because of all the things I can do with it: eat, wear clothes and shoes, drive to and from work, travel, sleep in a comfortable house. But I also hate it because I feel like it was essentially stolen from me as a child.
I don't know why my father needed me to endorse those savings bonds. I don't know what he did with the money in my savings account or with the checks I received from that game show. What I do know is that, 20 years later, it still smarts, so much that I find myself getting angry reading news stories about AIG's bonuses and overall bank bailouts. I realize it's necessary to shore up the banks and keep the economy from completely spiralling into a total panic. I would just rather not know that some people are getting richer at the expense of the taxpayers.
The Boy is turning two in less than four weeks. With a new number comes a new class, new teachers, and new benchmarks to hit. At this time last year, I was starting to get a little stressed because he wasn't walking and wasn't consistent with using his sippy cup. Now that he happily runs around the house (sometimes literally) and clearly gets enough fluids drinking from his sippy cups, I realize that my anxiety wasn't completely necessary. All the same, the proactive steps I took did ease him into the next classroom, so I spoke with a teacher today from the two-year-old class to identify what skillsets The Boy ought to have before he transitions.
And this is when I learned the big thing in the two-year-old class is potty training.
[sigh]
About five months ago, when The Boy was 18 months old, his teachers asked if I wanted to get him started on potty training. I declined, reasoning that if he wasn't remotely interested in undressing himself, he clearly wasn't interested in using the potty. Fast forward a few months and he's starting to show some interest in removing his clothing, but only when the bathtub is filling or I've dressed him in a shirt or pants that he doesn't want to wear. All the same, as much as he likes playing with toilet paper and flushing the toilet (not simultaneously, thank goodness), he hasn't shown a whole lot of interest in really, um, interacting with it.
So I asked Chris today to swing by Target and pick up a little potty chair. I brought home the seat that fits onto the big toilet, but The Boy seems overwhelmed by the idea of sitting on the big commode. I can't blame him, really. I'm a little leery of things that are three-quarters my height, too.
I'm elated that his teachers at school are going to be working with him on potty training during the day, which will make the whole process go so much faster, especially when The Boy see his classmates going into the bathroom and using the toilet instead of pooping and peeing in their diapers. After all, peer pressure can be a good thing. I just don't know that he's ready, and I really don't want him to get so anxious that it becomes a prolonged (translation: year-long) process.
Of course, he could very well be ready and I just don't recognize any of the signs. Either way, it appears potty training is coming to my house sooner than I expected.
Wish me luck. I think I'm going to need it.
If you could trade places with any of your co-workers for a day, whose shoes would you most like to find yourself in?
I wouldn't want to trade places with any of my coworkers. It's not because I don't think their jobs are particularly difficult or that my life is so much better than theirs. Really, it's because I like my boss, I'm good at what I do, and my days are pretty well structured so that I can come into the office, crank out my work, and leave around 5:30 without feeling like I'm abandoning my post. (Taking time off or calling out on a Monday, though, is another story altogether.)
And really, I don't think any of my coworkers would like to trade places for a day with me,either. There's a lot going on at my desk, none of it particularly fun, and, except for the new refrigerator in my cube and my proximity to the break room, my job doesn't exactly come with a lot of perks.
I read this article this morning about 10 children hospitalized after a daycare employee mistakenly gave them windshield wiper fluid, thinking it was Kool Aid.
After being sufficiently appalled at the error (How on earth do you not smell the chemicals as you're pouring it into cups? And how could you miss the writing on the label?), I realized there are a lot of beverages that look like other things, just because of the unnatural food dyes. Someone could have put it in a locker room refrigerator, thinking it was Powerade or Gatorade. If the wiper fluid was green, it could have even been HiC!
This has steeled my resolve to keep The Boy on (soy) milk and water for as long as possible - and certainly for as long as he's in daycare. I may open the list to tomato juice and watered down apple juice in the coming months, but only at home.
And nothing with really crazy colors. That's just a recipe for disaster.
I was thinking the other day how generally easy-going The Boy is. We give him options on what he will wear, we let him decide what he wants to play with, we (try to) listen to him intently (sometimes without understanding a single word), and we take him very seriously.
That last part likely explains why "No!" isn't something we often hear.
Last night at dinner, he said "no" quite a bit. "Do you want to eat?" we would ask. A stern shake of his head indicated the answer, and that was that. A few minutes later, we'd ask again, only to get the same response. We put him in his chair in front of his chicken nuggets, only to have him leap up and run back to his toys. Finally, I posited the winning question: "Do you want yogurt?" His eyes lit up, and he came running.
I read somewhere that the best way to keep a toddler's use of "No!" at a minimum is to take his statement very seriously. In our case last night, he wasn't really indicating that he didn't want to eat, just that he didn't want to eat chicken nuggets.
This finally registered this morning when I was dressing him. He awoke with remnants of a nosebleed and wet pajamas (through both of which he slept soundly for 11 hours, despite only having yogurt for dinner), so I quickly changed his diaper and dressed him in a t-shirt. After breakfast, I offered a couple of options for bottoms, and when neither met his approval, I chose a pair of shorts for him. Once dressed (complete with socks and shoes), he looked down at his shorts, grunted and tugged at them, then pointed to the beach pants he had previously scoffed. "Would you rather wear pants today?" I asked. "Ess," he replied with a nod, then promptly sat down so that I could take off his shorts and dress him in pants.
It completely amazes me, this easy-going nature. I don't dare claim that he's a perfect child and never throws a tantrum. Quite the contrary - he refused five times to have his picture taken at school on Monday and is often adamant about wanting certain playthings (drumsticks and Thomas the Tank Engine, to be specific). But when he talks to us and we actually stop, get down to his level, and really listen, it's like communicating with a little man.
A little man with a limited vocabulary and difficulty with pronunciation, sure, but a little man nonetheless.
I just looked at my calendar. The Boy will be two years old in just a little more than four weeks! Moreover, my elder niece will be eight years old in five days. I still remember the day my sister told me she was pregnant!
Where has the time gone?
Sometimes I think it's a little unfortunate that I live my life out of my planner. Within its pages, I record appointments, important dates, upcoming events, and lists of things to do. Sometimes, items are carefully printed, but they're usually scribbled hastily, barely legible and decipherable only by me.
I wonder if his upcoming birthday would have registered if I didn't have it written. It probably would have, only much, much later. Like the day before.
Don Henly, perhaps? Phil Collins? Or maybe Travis Barker or Tre Cool?
Regardless, The Boy loves the drums. Moreover, he loves to drum. If he spies drumsticks, he wants them, and once in hand, he wants to drum on everything: the coffee table, the Diaper Genie, the ottoman, the floor... It's so adorably cute, it's infectious. I've already decided if he's still this interested in drums when he's three, I'll sign him up for lessons. Hey - Einstein took violin lessons when he was four, and they say kids who play music have a higher aptitude for math and science than those who don't.
I captured the funniest moment on camera this weekend when he was sitting on Chris's lap, bongos propped up against his daddy's knees. Drumsticks in hand, he lifted his arms in the air then began drumming on the bongos. Before we knew it, he started drumming mid-air to his right, making "pfth pfth" drumming sounds as he did, then back to the middle, and over to his left (again with the "pfth pfth" sounds). As he did this, I realized he was playing on an extended kit - and seriously wondered where he picked up on this! After all, it's not like we have a drum set in the house, and the extent of "drumming" that we do is all from Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour.
One of these days, I will figure out how to compress the video to make it suitable for posting. In the meantime, you'll have to take my word for it.
