Caught With My Parenting Pants Down

I'm shell-shocked. I just attempted to take the Little Man to his first class. And it went oh-so-badly. SO badly.

I chose a play/gymnastics class at My Gym, thinking that he would enjoy the physicality of it and benefit from someone teaching him how to control his ever-lengthening body (the kid is over 38" tall at 2 1/2 and has the wingspan of a condor - I'd like to give him at least a shot at coordination!) We got there for our free trial class a few minutes early. And the Little Man went apeshit. There was all this stuff to play with - ladders, slides, a ball pit (SURELY cleaner than McDonalds) a basketball goal at which he could dunk, and lo, other children! He ran around happily from one thing to the other, diving, climbing, sliding and generally laughing like a madman. And he didn't push, he didn't hit, he didn't make any negative contact whatsoever with another child. I was so proud!

Then class started. The teacher sat down for Circle Time. And all the other little kiddies dutifully sat on their mommies' laps and patted the ground. Except for me, who was trying to figure out what the hell was going on and keep an eye on the Little Man, who was having no part of these silly people who were sitting when you could be running and playing! I finally pulled my head out and went and grabbed the boy and carried him, protesting loudly, over to the circle. And I made the stupid mistake of sitting beside the teacher to the left, so I got over to the circle just in time for the "question of the day": What is your name, and what is your Mommy's name?

Oh my.

My son knows his name. He says it when he wants to point out that something is unequivocally his, or to say "I not a boy. I Little Man!". When I ask him what his name is, his reply is always "Darwin" (our cat) or "No-No" (our former cat) or sometimes Mommy, accompanied by a giggle. He is a smartass, you see (I have NO idea where he gets that from). And I don't think he has a clue what my name is. He calls me various forms of Mommy, and sometimes Honey, which is what his dad uses most of the time.

Fortunately/unfortunately when she posed the questions to my son who I knew had no answers, he was still wrestling with me trying to get back to the playing. All she actually got out of him was an "I stuck!" At which, you know, they chuckled. However, the chuckling stopped as the wrestling billowed into a full-blown temper tantrum while the next polite, socially-apt child was giving his well-formed answer to the teacher.

I gave the Little man a hushed lecture, a series of choices and an ultimatum, but finally we got up and left. After a sum-total of about 5 minutes in the room. My kid is clearly not down with the Circle Time, or any other structured activity for that matter.

How is it that 10 other kids in the same general age group (ok, he IS on the younger end) can manage to sit and participate in a group activity and mine is the only one that acts like he was raised in the wild by hyenas? Do you have to start at 6-mos with the expensive-ass Gymboree classes to instill this behavior in your kid? Or maybe this is my penance for not attending church regularly (or at all). And are they really supposed to know their mom's real name at 2 1/2? I read Parenting - how could I be missing out on such vital knowledge as "your son is socially incapable AND he doesn't know your name, shame, shame".

The Little Man has been behaving really well for the past month, minding and learning new phrases like crazy. He's polite - says please, thank you, no, thank you, you're welcome and blesses people when they sneeze. Last weekend we put up his big-boy bed in his new room and he's slept in it fine every night except the first (besides rolling out of it onto the toddler mattress on the floor occasionally). And he can get up and down the ladder to the top bunk safely (yes, we taught him this for fear of him getting up to the top bunk some non-safe way like climbing up a pile of pillows, which he attempted, and not knowing how to get down). And he's started helping with chores around the house. I thought he was a little ahead for his age!

This is the first time in about 6 months I've felt like a completely inept parent. Help me, Internets! How do you give a bright, active, independent kid group social skills? Because I obviously sure as hell don't know. At this rate he'll be the kid in kindergarten that's running laps around the room while class is going on. I can see a lot of principal time in my future.

Eh.

Worlds Collide

I've been tossing around in bed tonight with pregnancy-induced insomnia and heartburn, playing an endless loop of "what went wrong at work today" in my head to the theme song of Higglytown Heroes. As I had a horrid week at work, hate having insomnia and the ever-present heartburn, and double-hate Higglytown Heroes (and that I was up to watch it at 6:30 AM), I dub this montage "Things I Hate the Most About My Lives".

The end.

An Announcement

Being the spotty poster that I am, I've failed to write about a fairly significant thing going on: I'm pregnant. Yep, you'd think that this would trickle into a post faster than, say, a comma key, but then you'd be mistaken. This is because I'm looking out for your best interest. Because I care for my readers, the both of you. You skipped the whining about months and months of fertility angst, the crazed rantings from the weeks of hormonal insanity (courtesy of Chlomid's first cousin), and all bitchy posts from the first-trimester ickiness. You're just in time for stories from the 2nd trimester. Of which there are none. Well, at least not many.

Except that I'm growing out of my clothes ALREADY at 5 months. These second babies really do blossom out early, so I've alreay broken out the always-attractive Pregnancy Pants. Bleh.

And that, along with insomnia and ever-present heartburn and the weird joint pain that I get, I now have some sort of weird pain in my lower abdomen that wakes me up when I turn over in bed. (Love my doc, but "just ligaments stretching", my ass. I think I pulled a muscle.)

Oh, and my kids are already abusing each other. The Little Man has gotten in several pretty good head-butts in the belly despite the constant "be careful of Mommy's belly!" warnings. And the little one kicks him in the head whenever he lays down on my belly, generating confused looks from the abuse-ee.

And we found out we're having a girl. :-) The Little Man seems excited and will say "Yes, I having Baby Sister", but if you ask him where she is, the answer is always "in the car" or "downstairs". And when I go downstairs and get in the car, he's right.

Welcome to the blog, Little Sis.

A Lesson in Self-Editing, Brought to you by Dell

My comma key just fell off. FELL OFF! I realize that I type probably 72% more commas than are strictly necessary, and leave at least 30% more than are needed after editing. However. It's a bit harsh to have the key actually try to flee for its life after a little over-exertion. Maybe it's a pre-set by Dell - after so many commas, the key is set to just pop off.

I wonder how many "a"s I have left.

An Addendum - I must say many thanks to those who said a few words at the reported demise of my comma key. However, the following evening, courtesy of a long 30 minutes with tweezers and a magnifying glass, it lives again! Take that, Dell!

And even milk!

The Little Man is becoming quite the little card. He's getting more articulate, and (likely thanks to the massive amount of TV he imbibes) tries out a lot of things and phrases daily that I have no recollection teaching him. Thank God we haven't started him on the Cheech & Chong or hard-core Sci-Fi yet, so mostly when he tries out new material it cracks my ass up.

A sampling:

• He practiced pratfalls in the living room the other day. Falling on the edge of the couch cushion to the floor, over and over and over. For no apparent reason, and not necessarily even looking up to see audience response.
• He randomly picked this line up out of a train documentary "[Trains haul] gas, oil and even milk!" He spent the rest of the day coming up to me and saying, "Even milk, Mommy! Even milk!"
• I was changing him out of his pajamas and the shirt got stuck half-way over his head. He looked at me with his little face sticking out of the middle of his bunched up yellow shirt and said, "Mommy! A sunflower!"
• This morning right after rising, he started tugging at his full, saggy-wet diper. I asked him, "Are you wet? Do we need to change your pants?" "No, Mommy, I have gas." "You have gas?" I asked him, starting to giggle. "Yes, Mommy, gas, oil, and even milk!"
• We're in the car and I hear this little voice pipe up from the back seat in an adoring tone,"Fuck!" My mind instantly went into overdrive about where he learned this - was it me? Mr. Me? My parents? And, wherever he got it, he hasn't been using that term nearly long enough to be actually fond of it. I looked in the rear-view and finally saw him staring lovingly at his truck. You know, when you're two that "tr" sound can be awfully hard to pronounce.