the happy homewrecker

Four years ago tonight I was in labor. I was eating chicken and rice for dinner; Gary cooked because I was totally scatterbrained, and he was royally ticking me off because he kept trying to talk to me while I was breathing through contractions. I was excited about being in labor, worried that it wasn't the real deal, and I had no idea what was in store for me.

Being the mother of Baby Spencer was a million times more difficult than I thought it would be. There were days when I thought I wasn't going to make it through to the next morning without walking out the door, there were nights when I'd have gladly given all the money we had for three consecutive hours of sleep. I thought postpartum depression was going to be the end of me. I thought I wasn't cut out to be a mother. Somehow, not in spite of how hard things were, but because of it, I grew to love him more than I could have ever imagined. The things we went through, we did them together.

Now he's turning four and I can't believe that I have a child who will be starting kindergarten next year. I remember being four. It freaks me out that he is an age that I remember being. I can't believe that he's reading and writing and asking a lot of questions that sound awfully grown-up. He has this whole preschool life outside of our house, and a growing circle of friends, and a way of making me feel like I'm the World's Best Mom even when I feel like every parenting decision I make is the wrong one. I love his grin, the way he dances with abandon, how he loves and looks after Ginger like only a big brother can.

Happy fourth birthday, Spencer-boy.

This afternoon Spencer was rubbing his eyes, yawning, and was obviously tired. I suggested that he rest on his bed for awhile with some books or his Leap Pad, and he freaked out. Which only confirmed that he was very tired. I told him he could have quiet time or take a nap. He started screaming that he didn't want either one, so I plopped him on his bed with his books and took Ginger back into the living room. After five minutes he was still screaming ("I don't waaaaant quieeeet tiiiiime!"); Ginger was ready to go down for a nap so I told him that if he didn't stop the screaming, I was going to pull down the blinds and he was going to take a nap. The noise stopped, and I figured he was reading books. After putting her down and coming downstairs five minutes later, it was still quiet, so I peeked into his room: he'd tucked himself into bed and was totally zonked out, with the blinds still up and the light on. This from the kid who has fought sleep for most of his life. Sometimes he totally surprises me.

Spencer is in the midst of his first real playdate. His best friend at school is a little girl, I'll call her Molly. It's always Molly this and Molly that; he has a picture of her taped to his wall and often he'll sigh about how much he loves her. Heh. I invited Molly over to play this afternoon and the two of them are battling it out in a game of Chutes and Ladders. Listening to their conversation is so funny; Spencer just told her that we have a 'crawl basement.'

Bit of a monkey emergency here: I found the greatest pens at Target in the Dollar Spot; they come in a little plastic tube and have a fuzzy monkey on one end. I bought all the ones from our local Target (they had seven) and my sister was supposed to get some from her Target the very next day, but she didn't get around to it and now we can't find them at any stores near either of us. If anyone happens to find any, I'll gladly pay you for them (and shipping!). The people I talked to at the stores said that they have zebras, giraffes, etc. but no monkeys left. Must be the whole Curious George thing . . .

So I'm starting to plan Spencer's fourth birthday party. Instead of a big family and friends type deal, we're going to do a small party with some of Spencer's preschool friends. I read somewhere once that it's ideal to invite one child for every year of your child's age. Assuming that we'll get one child who can't attend, I'm going to invite five kiddos.

The theme? Monkeys! I don't know that I've ever introduced you to Mike. Mike is Spencer's monkey friend from Build-a-Bear. Mom and Carrie took him to BaB awhile back, I think maybe when Ginger was first born, and let him make a stuffed animal and bought him one outfit (khakis and an Ohio University t-shirt, of all things). Since then his wardrobe has expanded to include a pair of jeans and soccer t-shirt (with the words, "Grab the marshmallows, my game is on fire!") and a 'first day of school' outfit: navy blue shorts, a plaid shirt and sweater vest, and a backpack.

Spencer loves Mike. Sometimes when we go out, we take the umbrella stroller so that he can push Mike while I push Ginger in the shopping cart. He takes him in the car, he takes him to bed every night (and brings him out to breakfast every morning), and sometimes he refers to him as "my Mike." As in, "Has anyone seen my Mike? I want to take my Mike with me." Mike even wears big boy underwear. Very often I'll come upon Mike lying face down on the living room floor, with his underwear and his pants around his ankles, looking like he's been pantsed, but really his pants just have a tendency to fall down.

Spencer's never been as attached to any stuffed animal as he has Mike, so when I saw this party theme in a Martha Stewart Kids magazine last year, I knew it would be perfect for Spencer's birthday. Carrie and I are going to make this cake, and I've already picked up some dessert plates in yellow and some paper napkins in brown. I'm thinking we might play Pin the Monkey on the Palm Tree and make a monkey door hanger craft. Those two activities, plus cake and presents and play time, I figure should take up about 90 minutes. Carrie and Mom are going to be here to help out; Carrie deals with several dozen kindergarteners every day so I'm sure she'll be very helpful in wrangling half a dozen preschoolers.

We're doing to serve juice boxes with the cake (most of the kids at preschool are still using sippy cups) and make them up to look like monkeys the way the paper cups were done in the Martha Stewart photo; I'm also going to make little favor bags using brown paper lunch bags. Here's where I need help: I'm trying to find monkey or banana-themed items to put into the bags. I'd like to stay away from anything junky (i.e. key chains---what's a four year old going to do with a key chain?) or expensive. Yesterday I found little sticky notepads with a picture of a monkey on them in the dollar bin at a local store and grabbed some of those. I'd like to include some kind of sweet, I was thinking maybe Runts because they have bananas in the mix. Any other ideas?

More of Spencer being unintentionally funny: Mom and Carrie sent him a small soldier-type nutcracker that they found in an after-Christmas sale; last night he ran around the house yelling, "Is somebody gonna crack my nuts tonight?"

I swear, my mind is not usually in the gutter (although I did have a very interesting dream last night involving Gary, Selma Hayek, and myself, but that's another story), but it was really hard not to snicker when I heard Spencer, who had just rediscovered some toy tools, yell from the living room, "I"m going to screw everything!"

I'm about at my wits' end with Spencer. Over the past week he's been acting just awful, worse than his typical three-year old misbehavior. He doesn't listen to a single word we say, and during the last couple of days he's smacked Ginger in the face once and pushed her down at least once that I saw with my own eyes. We've always given him time-outs (on the stairs because it's far from the family room and there's no toys to play with there), but they don't seem to be doing any good. In instances where I can't give a time-out (like if we're out somewhere), I start taking away the books that he gets read---usually two before his nap and four before bed. He doesn't really seem to have a lot of privileges, so I'm not sure what else I could withhold. I feel like the time-outs and the taking away of stories aren't working, but I don't know what else to try. Any moms who've been there & done that have suggestions?

Dawn made note in her blog of some of her little one's funny (and mostly adorable) word pronounciations. We have 'bitamin' over here, too. Also "fuwhoa" (squirrel) and "guwhoa" (girl). It took me forever to figure out he was saying 'squirrel.' He says "nana" for banana, he used to pronounce pancakes as "cancakes," and refers to a Kenny Chesney song as "Key Wime Pie."  Also "cross the street", which is "frost the freet," and "crying" comes out as "frying." Even Mom and Carrie have taken to saying "frabby" instead of "crabby." One of our favorites is "truck," which he pronounces with an f and comes out as . . . well, you can probably guess. I'm sure his preschool teachers are going to love that one.