brat

When I was little, my parents used to sing that Longfellow rhyme to me about the little girl with the curl who was indeed good when she was good, but when she was bad she was horrid. I always thought it was a terrible thing to tell a child and it really hurt me and even scared me a little to think I was capable of being a horrid person. My parents also told me that my dead grandmother was always watching me from Heaven and if I ever did anything bad she would come to my mother in a dream and tell her what I did and I would be punished. So not only was I a horrid terrible rotten to the core person at heart, but dead people followed me around just so they could tell my mother how evil I was.

Of course Jake is the most wonderful cutest smartest baby ever, but Jake has taken to being horrid and throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way. Ignoring them works, but it sure can be difficult to do when he is ten tantrums deep into the day. We don't touch him or talk to him or even look at him when his temper flares, and we certainly don't give him what he wants. He throws himself on his knees, cries for a minute or so, and then looks at you with giant tears in his eyes and screams "PLEASE?!?!". And then we turn away and laugh at him behind his back for being so pathetic and turn back around and suggest that he get a book or take a drink of water or start breathing again or do something equally as constructive.

I try to keep any thing that Jake isn't allowed to have out of his sight and his reach. Phones, cups, sunglasses, pens, and remotes are his favorite things. Unfortunately we have them all over the house and it is really a task to keep them up. Dave locks his telephone keys and lets Jake play with it. I am too much of a tech-tard to figure out how to lock mine so I keep it in my pocket. Jake still gets his hands on it and calls everyone, which reminds me I really have to edit my contacts. Jake freaks if his blood sugar dips below fully-saturated, so I keep pieces of cheese and fruit and graham crackers on the radiator cover in the kitchen and on the dining room chairs so there is a full buffet whenever Jake is amok. Other than that, he is still a pretty good baby so I guess we'll keep him awhile longer.

Keeping the house from becoming a trash pile while keeping Jake from becoming a complete menace is becoming increasingly difficult. Now that his attention span has shortened to about a nano-second, I can't give him a spoon and a lid and expect him to sit and figure out what the hell a spoon and a lid is for while I get a load of clothes put in or a sinkful of dishes scrubbed. I just run after him and pick up what ever it is that he decided to throw last while I watch him kick the next thing across the floor. It's rough.

There are very few times that I wish I had a backyard or playroom, but sometimes I think my life would be just a bit easier if I could toss the kid out the door and into a play yard and watch him from the window while I got some work done. Instead I have to either trip over him or cart him to a park where he can wear himself out substantially so he will sit still for five minutes when we get home so I can get the floor swept. It's a lot of effort to get a little work done around the house.

I think I'm going to buy one of those big tarpy floor mats and start investing in (edible, just in case) paste and let him stick cheerios and puffed wheat and other crap to construction paper. And then I'll send it to you and you can put it up on your fridge because people like you love stuff like that. Maybe I'll even allow him some stickers, and I'll start printing those toddler coloring pages off the free teaching sites on the Internet. I think that will keep him entertained for a few minutes at a time while I pick his books up off the floor and chisel the cheese and pasta off the side of the credenza. If Jake practices with crafts now, maybe by the time it's cold outside he will be so talented at it and love it so much that I won't have to worry about the fact that he will be bolted in the house all day long with no room to run. And if he is bolted in the house all day long, I'm bolted in the house all day long. Goodlord, I'm gonna need some damned glitter. And fast.