heartbreaker

Over the past few months Lydia has taken up with a new boyfriend at her daycare. This one is younger than her -- CRADLEROBBER -- and many times when I go by in the afternoon to pick her up I'm told about how they walk around the playground holding hands, sharing hugs and kisses, and all sorts of cute toddler stuff. There's even a picture on the daycare's Facebook page of them sharing a kiss. This boyfriend has held up for quite some time.

Until today. Lydia has moved into the new Toddler 3 room this week and also has moved on from cute little Brody.

One of the directors caught me this afternoon and told me the news: "Ohh, Lydia broke Brody's heart today." She then relayed the story to me.

For Lydia and Brody's usual playground routine, Brody would hold out his hand for Lydia, she would put her hand in his, and they would walk around the playground together, hand in hand. Today, her new beau, Colin, held out his hand for her, which she took. When Brody came up and extended his hand to her, she slapped it away with a, "No!"

Brody was reduced to tears. TEARS. Her rejection made this boy cry, y'all.

The director asked Brody if Lydia broke his heart, and he replied with a mad, "Yeah."

Oh sweetheart, you have to be careful with all the hearts you're leading around that playground.

the slow countdown to liftoff

Poor Samuel. Someday when he's eight or nine he'll be reading this site and go, "Moooooooom, you never wrote about me like you did Lyyyyyyyyydiaaaaa!," in a whiny voice.

And I'll say, "Well sweetie, that's because Lydia was being whiiiiiiny all the time back then, just like you are now, only with a dash of tantrums included. My poor pregnant self had no time to write about the quiet child all cozy inside of me."

But Lydia is choosing to sleep late this morning (the best Mother's Day gift ever!) so I'm stealing a moment.

Sputnik is chugging along; I'm 33 1/2 weeks right now, so I've started that long 10-week march -- 6 1/2 weeks, 6 1/2 weeks -- and I am ever so ready. I have carried this one higher than Lydia and it's been tougher to breathe and eat, though apparently I don't look all that pregnant, just thicker. In fact, I'm not even wearing maternity shirts! My regular ones are getting by just fine. I do have the stretchy pants, though, as my hips have totally stretched out. Good for birthin'.

A few weeks ago we finally got a move on the room, and it is now painted and muralized. I always wanted to paint murals on my walls as a kid (my plan then was to paint dolphins and killer whales) but I was never allowed, so now I get to paint on my kids' rooms. Life is awesome!









As with Lydia's room two years ago, I painted all this the day I was off for my birthday, though this time I managed to completely wear myself out and was practically immobile by Sunday.

Even with the former office turning into another nursery, Lydia really has no clue. All she said when we got the crib together was, "Night night! Night night!" and motioned to be let in the crib. Oh man, her world is gonna be rocked. Ours too, baby girl, ours too.

NO!

Wayyy back when my sister and I were in high school we watched a comedic variety show (I think it was All That) where they did a skit involving an exasperated parent and their toddler. The part of the skit that we remember and still quote went thus:

Toddler: I wanna go paint!
Parent: Okay, let's go paint.
Toddler. NO.

It became one of our 'quotables:' "I wanna go paint/Okay let's go paint/NO!" Oh, how we laughed.

Not laughing now. Oh, my God. IT'S TRUE.

This week Lydia has really dived into the parental frustration that is affectionately known as The Terrible Twos. Every single thing is a battle, from diaper changes and food to fun things like coloring, playing outside and reading books. And bedtime? I don't even want to talk about it for fear of invoking Murphy's Law -- it can always get WORSE.

She's still an awesome, very sweet girl, it's just now when she melts down, it's like that volcano in Iceland that even no one on NPR even attempts to pronounce -- all traffic in our household stops until the ash of madness can clear.

One thing that did lift my spirits, however, happened the other day. I learned that she most definitely knows that biting others is VERY VERY BAD and you can get in VERY BIG TROUBLE. She must have finally picked this up from daycare because I have not had to sign an Oops Note in quite a while. The Husband and I were tackling her for a diaper change and pajama time -- it was taking both of us -- and in her anger at this gross breach of personal space she grabbed my finger and brought it to her teeth.

As soon as my finger touched her teeth she stopped -- she did not bite, and her tantrum totally subsided as she looked at me with wide-eyed horror. I gave her The Look that my parents have so many times given me and calmly told her, "No, ma'am; we do not bite, especially Mommy and Daddy. That hurts people."

She was upset nearly to the point of tears and when I asked her for a hug and for her to say, "Sorry," she immediately crawled into my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck.

The Husband and I are both hoping Lydia will soon better understand and her over her frustrations. The sooner she does that, the more cute pictures I can get. Ha.