Be Careful What you Say... (The 2nd installment in my "Be Careful" series - LOL)

I can clearly remember wishing (yes, yes, I know how that gets me in trouble, but this was wayyyyyy before I had figured all that out) that Jake would be a little more attentive to what I was saying. The speech therapist that he saw for a little while used to say that getting him to repeat back what I said was one of the best ways to increase his vocabulary. OK, well, that sounded all well and good at the time...however, it's become abundantly clear that I really should have thought harder about exactly WHAT he might be listening to and IF those were really the best words to use to expand his vocabulary?!?!? You see where this is heading???

Fast forward about 9 months and here we are with the second installment in my "Be Careful" series..."Be Careful What You Say" (ah, heck, you have to be careful about what ANYONE within earshot says...and that's much, much harder than it sounds)!!!! This past week has been particularly well suited to reinforce this lesson for me...oh, where shall I even begin?!?!

So...Jake has started to use his little potty seat (the part that comes off the potty chair for use on the big people potty, as he calls it) on my potty. And, of course, this has only served to reinforce his belief that he and I SHARE a bathroom. Prior to this, he's claimed the second sink in my bathroom as HIS and moved his little potty chair in as further claim to the space. NOW, he's using my potty!! So, one day last week, he decided that he didn't want me to remove the little potty seat from the top of MY potty and was fairly insistent that I use his seat. So, in an effort to reason with my 3 year old (side note: reasoning and 3 year olds are really mutually exclusive things, but mommies, having been worn down over time, are the only ones who continue to challenge that law of nature...yes, and LOSE big), I try to explain to him why it's impractical for a mommy to use a little seat like that. Eventually, when every last rational argument failed to deter him, I simply said "Mommy's heiney is way, way too big to sit on that little potty seat". And NO, it didn't work and I had to pee sooooo bad that I ended up sitting on the stupid little thing...NOT a pretty picture.

OK, so fast forward a couple of days...I'm carrying in a new potty seat to his new school to see if it might help him to be more comfortable on the potty there (do you get the sense, most of my life these days revolves around the potty?? Sad, but true). We get inside and his teacher greets us and says "wow, what do you have here, Jake" and my little parrot proceeds to tell her that we've brought in a new potty seat, but that "my mommy can't use it because her heiney is way, way, way (yes, he added a third) too wobbly to use it" (not sure where the heck the "wobbly" came from and very, very thankful he can't explain it to me as it might actually make me suicidal). I'm quite sure I was a very nice shade of Macintosh red for most of the day...

This reminds me of another time, back around last Christmas, which will obviously show that I'm no longer able to claim that I'm capable of learning from past mistakes...I was recording our big Christmas morning as Jake ran from present to present and I happened to catch Nanny scratching her head...not once, not twice, but a few times. So, later when we watched the tape on the big TV, and Jake said "nanny scratch head", I told him "Yes, Nanny has bugs", which of course prompted my mother to chase me around the house. Oh, how I thought that was soooo funny!! Fast forward about a week to Jake's check-up at his pediatrician's office. The nurse was checking him over and said "does anything hurt?" "does anything itch?" to which he replied innocently "Nanny has bugs in her head"!!! The nurse turned and looked directly at me, and of course, I tried the 'ol ..."Jakey, now don't joke around like that, why would you even say that?" (Yes, yes, yes, just DIG that hole a little deeper, mommy!!!!!) To which he seriously replied, "because nanny scratched her head and mommy told me she has bugs, right momma?" I'm thinking, Fire Engine Red would describe my complexion for most of that day!!! Like those southwest airline commercials say..."Want to get away???"

The other lesson you learn as a new mommy is that there are things you say ALL THE TIME, that you are totally and completely unaware of...and I mean ALL THE TIME! These things will become VERY, VERY evident to you as your little one begins to repeat them back to you. For example, I now realize that I say "maybe so" an awful lot. So, when I say, Jake can you pick those toys up please? I get a very nice "maybe so" in return. I also say "what did I say?" a lot, probably when I get to the 20th time of making the same request without any compliance. So, now when asked to do something which is absolutely NOT possible, like serving my son ice cream for breakfast, he says "Momma, what did I say?" Nicceeeee. It's also interesting to have your 3 year old begin to count backwards from 3 in an effort to force you to do what he's asked (as you do to him)...especially when this happens in public. Nicceeeee!! Nanny recently added her own little "line of fame" by saying "I'll smack your little face" to him in total and complete jest... Two days later, we're in line at Shoprite and he's pressing all the buttons on the credit card reader machine which is wreaking havoc with the cash register and driving the clerk insane and I say "Jake, I'm not kidding, you stop that right now" to which he responds, hands on hips, "Momma, I'll smack your little face"...Niceeeeeee!!!! Trust me, that one turned a few heads...

I've also noticed that now that he's reached this parrot phase, I've become hyper sensitized to anyone using any curses or profane language. It's like my ears are constantly sweeping the area in search of some word that needs "bleeping out" and/or someone who needs to get the "mommy look"...that look that means, HEY ASSHOLE, can't you see there's a child over here? Don't make me come over there! As a group, the Posse has somehow learned to adapt to the situation...when the kids are present, there's very, very little cursing going on (and any slips are met with multiple mommy looks, even from the non-mommies). Then, when we're in one of the rare of "adult only" moments...we go almost back to our pre-kid selves...which still isn't all that bad. VERY funny how Jake and Jordan have completely altered our lives...heck, they're at the very center now! Who would have thought it?

Line of the weekend... "Momma, my po-po (that's what he call his penis) says it doesn't want to wear didies (what he calls diapers) anymore"...OK, so my question is...is this 'my penis talks to me' thing going to be a recurring thing? And if so, OMG, what else is it going to tell him/me? And what's the consequence if we choose to not listen?? LOL

Back soon...