Shoes off, it’s always the rule

Sophia loves to put her shoes on, and she will happily put them on upon request.  It means we get to go somewhere.  While she may not like change and new places she does like to leave the house to explore playgrounds and even go grocery shopping.  She’ll even hint at times that she wants to go out and at other times she just wants to wear her shoes around the house.

Usually Kurt and I don’t wear our outdoor shoes inside, but we never applied that rule with Sophia because for the longest time she didn’t do much walking on dirty outdoor surfaces.  I have a pair of slippers for her but they’re a pair of Robeez shoes.  I think they’re too hard for her to put on herself so we allow the outdoor sandals.  But because she climbs on the couch by flinging her foot on top of the cushion and then pulling herself up, we decided to insist that she take them off prior to sitting on the couch.

We only had to tell her once and now she very obediently sits on the floor to remove her shoes.  Such a good girl.  She has also gone as far as to apply the rule to climbing on the chairs at the dining table.  It really isn’t necessary.  They’re just wooden chairs that are easily wiped down, but why stop her?

On Friday we all went out to Baskin Robbins after dinner.  I helped Sophia pull the heavy chair from the table before sitting in my own chair, then I looked over an noticed she wasn’t climbing up yet, “What are you doing?”  At first she was trying to take off her shoe while standing, but then she sat on the floor tugged at her sandal.  Kurt came to the table with his cone, “What is she doing?”

“She’s taking off her shoes before climbing up, of course.”

I crave it on rare occasion, so Sophia and I shared a meal. Who knew it would promote bathing? The bath time push isn’t an official one therefore no equipment is supplied, but I think the responsibility is implied when certain meals are advertised for children. McDonalds BBQ sauce should come with soap and towel!

Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55’s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.

No, Sophia doesn’t have jaundice nor has she been smoking dried banana skins. Not that I know of anyway. She has been incredibly mellow for the past couple days though. Mellow, even for her.

The day before yesterday I spent the morning running errands. Sophia became frustrated with getting in and out of the car so I took her to the park to burn off some energy before doing some grocery shopping. She went to the play equipment excitedly but once on it she just stood there like a bump as kids made their way around her. She would wander around the park a bit, then climb on the equipment again, and just stand. I chalked it up to not being fully recovered from her cold. We didn’t stay very long.

Yesterday morning she woke up crying as she did everyday that she was sick. After about five minutes, she went back to sleep for an hour then cried again. I got her up at eight, gave her milk, and made breakfast as usual. She didn’t touch her breakfast.

It was supposed to be my cleaning day so I zoomed up and down the stairs gathering stuff together. Sophia got upset because she could keep up with me so I sat with her and read one of the books she always carries with her. After the third time through the book I told her I had to go clean the house. She wasn’t happy.

It was only 10am and she looked tired. Her tantrum seemed to me like a cry for a nap. I picked her up and put her in her crib with her book. She protested for about five minutes and then either sat quietly plotting my demise or fell asleep. It was completely silent until about three, but even then, I only heard a couple tiny sounds that didn’t seem like a fully awakened toddler.

I had left her there all day with the assumption that she must have needed the sleep, but at Kurt’s urging I got her up at four thirty so that she would still sleep at night. I opened the door to a fully awake toddler, laying on her back, and reading her book. She cuddled with us the rest of the evening. She wasn’t interested in playing at all.

Everyone knows that babies are messy and that upon becoming a parent there will be drool, vomit, pee, and poop with which to contend, but I don’t think anyone considers the snot. Maybe it’s because babies come from the hospital complete with a nasal aspirator and one assumes that with that no one has to touch a single snotty thing. One would be wrong.

Sometimes babies sneeze and snot flies forth like projectile vomit. Sometimes while they sleep, snot gets rubbed all over their face and sometimes their sinuses get so backed up it coats their eyelashes. Sometimes toddlers like to multi task. At around fifteen months, Sophia discovered that when she sucks her thumb her index finger only need to be extended and it fits perfectly in the nostril. She would pull out little boogies and not even know it sometimes.

A few months ago at dinner Sophia had a boogie just above her top lip. Kurt was eating when he noticed and called it to my attention. I hadn’t sat down yet so I went over and without hesitation picked it off her face with my fingers. “Eeeww, mom’s are gross!” Kurt said. I went to the trash and flicked it off then washed my hands before sitting down to eat. What’s the big deal? After being shit on a little boogie is nothing.

I guess Sophia noticed that I picked a boogie off her face because a few days later she came up to hand me something small from between her fingers. Usually I get bits of paper so I took it without any thought. It was a little baby boogie. I’ll treasure it always honey…Where’s the trash can? Don’t worry the trash doesn’t go out for few days.

Sophia is getting over a cold she had last week. The first night as always, we didn’t think to turn on her humidifier and the next morning we had the snot face to contend with. Unlike her colds last year, this year Sophia has REALLY long hair. She had the ends of a thin lock inhaled into her nose and over the night her mucus membranes worked overtime to seal the lock in place. When she was younger, I would simply use a washcloth and warm water to loosen up all the dried snotty goodness. This time I gave the hair a tug and out came the snot cork. Getting the snot out of the hair and keeping it out is a completely different story.

Everything creates a learning opportunity for a toddler from taking things apart in order to learn the inner workings to watching mom and dad. In this case, congested Sophia applied knowledge gained from Dad’s constant sinus infections. Our mimicking little monkey learned to blow her own nose today, granted she doesn’t blow quite hard enough.

Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55’s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.

This was our conversation on the way to dinner:

Kurt: We’re old…mostly you.
Me: Really, you were born in 72 and I wasn’t even alive yet.
Kurt: Ok I’m old and you’re a young whipper snapper. Coot.
Me: My cooter isn’t a snapper.
Kurt: I beg to differ; it’s a Penis Fly Trap.

We went out for Chinese food and Sophia played with all the tea cups as if they were stacking cups. I suppose they do stack nicely. Kurt poured tea in ours and Sophia insisted that she also get some. Hers received a complimentary ice cube. She promptly and purposely dumped it all on the seat just as she dumps the water out of the toy watering can at swimming; only the Chinese restaurant wasn’t in the middle of a pool.

After Kurt finished his tea Sophia had two cups, two saucers, and an extra plate meant for us to share our food with her. We did give her some of our food to try and she did try it in a manner of speaking. She tried using a fork to put the rice in a tea cup, and she tried tipping the tea cup to empty the rice back into the dish. She also organized the dishes. The cups fit neatly in the middle of the saucers and she organized them this way. She then stacked the cups together, and in a separate pile she stacked the saucers together. Kurt and I were impressed by her categorization. Of course after dinner we loaded her into the car and she began chewing on her books. Not as impressive.

My fortune for the night, “Remember three months from this date. Good things are in store for you.

“I’ve stopped taking my birth control pills.”
“Oh, you guys are trying?”
“No.”
“Ha! Well unless you stopped having sex, you’re trying.”
“No we aren’t.”
“Uumm yes you are.”
“We’re just letting it happen.”
“You’re trying.”
*Audible sigh*

*Three months later*

“I’m disappointed that I’m not pregnant yet.”
“I thought you said you weren’t trying.”

Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55’s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.

I received my new credit card with my new name on Monday so I replaced it with the old one in my wallet and put the old card on top of the shredder downstairs. That night I decided to go to Kmart and Target to see what they carried for bicycle trailers and left Sophia downstairs with Kurt.

I came back home within thirty minutes empty handed. Neither store had anything or at least nothing in stock. Kurt told me that when I left Sophia grabbed my old credit card off of the shredder, went upstairs, put her jacket half on, and knocked at the door hoping to come with me. Aaaww

I asked Kurt to wake the baby from her nap yesterday because I was making dinner. She didn’t fall asleep until three but I didn’t want her to take too late and then not go to bed at night. He went up and I heard Sophia crying, then Kurt laughing. He came down with fussy baby in his arms. Though I was curious as to why the crying baby made him laugh, I wasn’t looking.

Kurt: I’m guessing when you put her down for her nap she was fully dressed?
Me: Yes

I looked up. Sophia had no pants and had pulled her left arm out of it’s sleeve through the neck hole. She looked like a cave baby with a diaper.

I hate electronics, computers (except my laptop *petting HP Pavilion*), and gadgets of all sorts (except my digital SLR *petting Nikon D60*). Anytime something is made in order to make our lives simpler it complicates things. It’s just one more thing to break. *grumble*

Last week we had a bit of heat wave. Shut up you out-of-staters! It was hot. Even I thought it was hot. I, who used to wear a poncho at work to make a statement about how fucking cold the office was during the winter or anytime the AC was on in the summer.

Even though Thursday was two degrees cooler than Wednesday, according to the weatherman, that day truly tested my patients. Truly. It actually started out well. Knowing I wanted to spend the day in the sun, I packed a soft-sided cooler big enough to hold at least a half-rack of beer. I didn’t pack any beer. The cooler was way more than I needed for snacks, but I brought a lot of water because it was going to be HOT.

Sophia and I went to her swim class then I took her to the beach. It’s not really a beach. There isn’t any sand, but it’s all we have, so it’s a beach. The parks and recreation department recently made “improvements” to the area and added a playground. It sucks ass for toddlers or anyone who is prone to motion sickness. The person who chose the park equipment apparently LOVES climbing and spinning in circles. The first is fine, the latter not so much. Spinning Sucks! We moved on to a different park within the area. It hadn’t been updated since the ‘70s. When was my last tetanus shot? *shrug* Oh well, at least there wasn’t any spinning.

So far, we had been in and out of the car three times. One more stop before heading home. I had to pick a couple things for dinner. I used the car remote to simultaneously lock and arm the car alarm as usual before heading into the store with Sophia. I grabbed the couple of things I needed, paid, and headed back to the car in the now blazing sun with my recently purchased perishables. I pushed the button that should simultaneously disarm and unlock the car. Nothing. Pushed it again. Still nothing. I pushed it another 500 times, each time thinking, “it’s gotta work *this* time.” No go. Poor Sophia, her toddler head was baking in the sun. I grumbled and headed back to the entrance of the store with the cart and Sophia to call my hubby. “How do I open this stupid piece of shit remote and what battery does it need?” I asked.

I opened the stupid remote and out fell the battery and the metal piece that is supposed to hold said battery in place. SHIT! I went back to the car. Holding the battery in place while firmly pressing on the metal piece to try and give it just enough of a connection I pressed the button. The alarm system was not convinced. Many sailor words, which some oddly refer to as “French” as in “Please excuse my French”, few out of my mouth. I don’t understand why it’s referred to as French. If they were at all French they would be spelled completely different. Shit would be “shautet” and pronounced something like “saw-eh” and Fuck would be “faucket”, pronounced “fock-eh”. Neither have the punch of a hard consonant ending that I sought. Don’t get me wrong. I love the French and their language sounds beautiful. They just add too many useless damn vowels. Except for maybe ex-president Dubya, one always knows the origin of a word like entrepreneur by the number of vowels.

With one last GODDANMIT-STUPID-FUCKER-WORK-ALREADY I said screw it and opened the trunk with the actual key. The alarm went off, of course. I put the groceries in, slammed it shut, and tried to open the door with the key. No go. Once the alarm goes off the doors remain locked. Bastard.

I wheeled the cart and baby back to the store to purchase a new battery. EVERYONE in the parking lot stared at me. I went back to the car with the remote and new battery. Nothing. Thoughts ran through my mind of being able to get into the car someday and then happily backing over the remote repeatedly. It made me smile briefly. I think the remote knew it. Bastard.

I didn’t know what to do. Everyone I knew was at work. If I called a towing company there still wouldn’t be anyway for me to get home. Even if they were inclined to give rides it would be illegal for them to take me without a car seat for Sophia. Oh wait! My friend who lives close is on maternity leave. Yay! I opened the trunk to retrieve my rotting-in-the-sun perishables, which set off the alarm again. People stared at me, again. I called my friend to pick me up.

I sounded like a lost kid calling mom, “can you come get me?”
“Where are you?”
“Fred Meyer”

Seriously, that’s how the conversation went. I was a pathetic lost puppy. Poor Sophia was confused about why we couldn’t just get in the car and why it kept making that sound.

Remembering that I had brought a cooler I went back to the trunk of the car and opened it one last time. The alarm went off AGAIN and people stared at me AGAIN. After removing our snacks and water all my groceries fit into it. Yay!