As recently noted in this post, my daughter is now eight and the years are flying by faster than I ever could have imagined.

Seriously — as soon as the drudgery of diaper changing is behind you, time speeds up. There’s just something about not dealing with another person’s poop on a daily basis that profoundly affects the time-space continuum. Those of you with kids still in diapers will soon see what I mean. Remember — you  heard it here first.

But I digress… What I really wanted to talk about was this post below. I wrote it two years ago and having gone back and read it again, I’m shocked that I only have another year before I’m supposed to start having open and honest discussions with my daughter about her lady parts and how they pertain to babymaking and S-E-X and all the other stuff that should, ideally, be covered in such conversations.

One year? I can’t even envision my baby, who is, in some ways, pretty sheltered, even being interested such things. Just answering her casual inquiries about why I need tampons practically sends her running from the room in total disgust.

Anyway, since this old post, published in the summer of 2006 is more relevant than ever, I thought I’d allow it an encore because really, does talking about sex EVER go out of style?

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Growing Up: The Magical Mystery Tour

What do you remember about learning, or NOT learning the facts of life? You know — puberty, periods, sex and the like. Do you recall what you thought before you really knew what the deal was? And guys? What about you?

I ask because last night I read this really interesting post by Tori about her daughter knowing the in’s and outs of having a period and it brought back all kinds of memories of growing up female.

As I noted in Tori’s comments, my first experience with the curse, the monthly bill or as some call it, our friend, was seeing my much, much older sister changing her maxi pad in the bathroom when I was about 4. I was simultaneously mystified and horrified. She shooed me out of there but later I went back into the bathroom, plucked her pad out of the trash, unwrapped it and just looked at it. If I’d known the expression back then, you can bet I would have been saying “WTF????”

Later, at a large holiday gathering I told everyone at the table about my discovery and even used my grandfather’s hankie as a prop to demonstrate how my sister put on a maxi pad.

Yeah…she never really stopped being pissed about that.

I wouldn’t have any more period shenanigans for quite some time after that and though I recall whispers and mentions of “the period” as I got older. it wasn’t until I read Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret by my beloved Judy Blume, when I was about 9 or 10 that I started to form a vague idea of what it was all about. I became very interested in the gear and would often peek inside people’s cabinets to see if they had any tampons or pads. My mom had the pads so those were no big deal but the tampons intrigued me. You must understand that I still was not clear on the bleeding part or where it actually came from so I was very curious as to where this big old Q-tip was supposed to go.

Rather fortuitously, around that same time, my mom got me a book that was supposed to take care of everything and edumacate me on the mysterious details of womanhood. But it really didn’t help all that much. I had all the information…you know, like you bleed every 28 days to shed the uterine lining unless you’re pregnant yada yada yada but the diagrams were so scientific; so encyclopedic. It was hard to relate to or even imagine that I had all that weird stuff inside me.

And sex? Oh yeah, I definitely wanted the scoop on sex. Forget it. No mention of the deed whatsoever. The book was strictly focused the assorted lady parts. All I knew about sex or “baby-making” was what I learned from an after- school special, which was also rather vague and as I recall, kind of cartoony. But it wouldn’t be long before information and MIS-information trickled down from older girls.

As I recall, the first real scoop I ever heard about anything sexual was from my friend’s sister. She had befriended Lola, a French exchange student that we were in total awe of and Lola had informed her that when you “suck a boy’s penis” your lips get salty. I was all “Ewwww! Why the hell would anyone want to do THAT???” And really…salty?? Not quite how I’d describe it but I suppose it’s in the ball park of accurate. At the time, though, I imagined my lips encrusted with salt crystals like a pretzel…lol

And I’ll never forget my cursory introduction to concept of homosexuality. Again, the same older sister as before was outside with my friend and I and in the distance, a girl name Jo rode past on the boulevard. Big sister and Jo exchanged some snarky words and then my friend’s sister shouted out what sounded like “You’re a lead!”

As usual, I was clueless.

“Lead?” I asked, “Why is she calling her a lead?”

And my friend broke into gales of laughter. “Not LEAD!!! LEZ!!!”

Me: Lez?
Friend: Yeah, lez.
Me: What’s a lez?
Friend: A girl that likes girls
Me: So?
Friend: A girl that likes girls instead of boys
Me: Ohhhhh.

I tried to play it off but I was SO confused.

In the next few years, I would learn the more accurate facts about sex but never from a parent. My mom passed away before I ever even got my period (at age 14 I was a late bloomer) and my stepmom did try to have “the talk” with us but my stepsister and I tormented her with the most ridiculous questions and then laughed hysterically.

I plan on teaching my daughter all that puberty stuff as we go along and definitely, I want her to know everything about her period by age nine because girls develop SO early now. We’ve drunk organic milk since I was pregnant with her and we eat mostly organic meats so she’s being deprived of all those synthetic growth hormones. Add to that the fact that I was the last girl of all my friends to “become a woman” and it’s entirely possible that she, too, will be a late bloomer. Hopefully, if that’s the case, she won’t hate it as much as I did.

As for the big sex talk, I guess that sort of goes along with the period talk but God, nine seems awfully young to be discussing such mature things. I do suspect I’m deluding myself, though, and that if I waited any longer, I run the risk of being laughed at and ridiculed like my poor stepmother was.

She’ll be six in a couple months and nine in only three years. I only have three years (or less) to address all of this.

*deep breath*

God, I dread this growing up shit.

I just got my annual open invitation to my step-aunt’s house for Thanksgiving

*big sigh*

This is always a downer for me because I know I won’t be going. And then I think about how long it’s been since I’ve seen everyone. And I think about all the people who have never met my son and probably never will. It just bums me out because I’d actually really love to go. But I can’t because SHE will be there — “she” being my sister.

My sister and I haven’t spoken in four years; since my father’s memorial service. I know. It’s SUCH a cliché. Family member dies and surviving family members have a falling out and never speak again. Thing is…it wasn’t over an inheritance or who got Dad’s favorite fishing pole or whatever.

It was over something as ridiculous an an imaginary slight; something that didn’t even happen. My husband was ready to beat someone’s ass because of how my sister and her husband treated me over this nonsense, on the night before our dad’s memorial service, and I apologized for something I didn’t even do to keep the peace.

But I guess that wasn’t enough.

When we left to go home, I foolishly thought that everything was okay. I thought my apology had appeased her and her idiot husband and that we could just move past that awful weekend. I even fought with my own husband, who by then officially despised both of them, about inviting them as I did every year, to my daughter’s birthday party. She never responded. Never RSVP’d. The day of my daughter’s party a birthday card arrived with a note inside, to a child that wasn’t old enough to read, saying they were sorry they wouldn’t be able to come.

She couldn’t be bothered to let me know me via phone, email, text, instant message or any other means and say that they wouldn’t be able to come? Seriously?

I made no attempts after that to contact her. That was in August of 2004. At Christmas she sent my daughter a $50 check which I quietly ripped up and threw away. I really resented that she thought she could still have contact with my child while treating me like I had the plague. We were a package deal — my daughter, my husband and myself. Take all of us. Or none of us.

The following spring, she sent my daughter a souvenir t-shirt from Europe. I put it up in the closet and forgot all about it, still pissed that she thought she could be a part of my child’s life while totally shunning me.

To be honest, I don’t miss her that much. For someone only five feet tall, a full nine inches shorter than myself, she was always kind of scary to me. Perhaps it’s because she’s ten years older and was always very bossy, critical and scathingly judgmental. In any case, her absence in my life has actually allowed me to exhale and relax a little. I no longer had to worry about what tactless, hurtful thing she would say to me or have to choke back a biting response for the sake of family harmony.

And my God, she’s always had the most enormous chip on her shoulder. It involved numerous gripes and perceived injustices — blended family issues, being adopted issues, feeling like my dad liked his “new” family better issues… It was always something and she spent her life keeping score.

But to be fair, she had good qualities, too. She was very generous with money and material things, if that could be considered a “good” quality. I think because of her extreme emotional constipation, it was her way of showing love. She also had a strange sort of charisma — that she reserved for other people. I rarely got to enjoy that side of her.

The really messed up part is how nobody in the family (step-family) will acknowledge this falling out between us. Everyone knows but they all tiptoe around it, which is so typical — they always pretend unpleasant things don’t really exist. But if you make any reference to it at all, even just to say that you don’t want to attend some event because she and her idiot husband might be there, they all start making noises about how they don’t want to get involved and it REALLY pisses me off. I have NEVER asked anyone to GET INVOLVED. Apparently merely expecting those people to acknowledge reality is one really tall effing order.

I know she would NEVER refrain from attending something because I might be there. She’s just that kind of in-your-face obnoxious. So…I opt out instead. I just can’t stomach the idea of being around her — the tension, the visceral anxiety I would feel — it’s just not worth it. I honestly dread the day someone in the “family” dies because I know there won’t be any avoiding her. And how befitting that the last time I saw her was when someone died. Gah.

I can’t decide if I’m doing my children a disservice or not. They’re not related to any of the people that would be at this Thanksgiving thing any more than I am. I actually have no other family if you don’t count my assload of step-relatives. Do they count? Should they? It seems now that my Dad is gone, so many of those ties have frayed. He truly was the glue that held us all together.

So, we’ll either spend Thanksgiving with my mother-in-law, here in town, or she’ll leave to go to one of my husband’s sibling’s homes around the state. Of course, we’ll be invited and of course, we probably won’t go.

My husband, who comes from an awesome family, just doesn’t know how good he has it. He doesn’t make any extraneous efforts to maintain a close relationship with his siblings. I mean he loves them and all, but he doesn’t realize how lucky he his and doesn’t cherish what he has.

I feel like my kids are the ones who are getting cheated. They deserve to have a circle of aunts, uncles and cousins that they actually know and love. So…I think I’m going to push for some kind of extended family Thanksgiving this year.

Just not with MY family…

About once or twice a year, I find myself writing about my how quickly my babies are growing up. I know it’s a well-worn path in the mommy blogosphere but I find myself there once again and I simply cannot suppress the urge to put my melancholy into words.

My daughter is eight now. Eight. When I was a kid, I knew girls that were getting boobs at nine. Boobs. Breasts. Puberty. Nine.

I often find myself wondering how much longer it will be before she rejects me altogether and retreats into her secret tween world where moms are hopelessly lame and most unwelcome. I shudder and feel slightly sick thinking about it.

Last night, my husband and I were musing at how she has really blossomed this year; really come into her own, so to speak. Even her Brownie troop leader noticed it at the first post-summer meeting. Theoretically, this is a good thing and yet, sitting on the porch, I actually cried about her growing up and becoming this, this…person. It’s silly, I know.

She’s something of an enigma to me, my daughter. She’s similar to me in so many ways and yet so different. Sometimes I wonder if this is, simply put, the way of the mother-daughter relationship.

Interestingly enough, however, I find that as she matures, there is much more for us to share. Last weekend we watched “The Devil Wears Prada” together. The weekend before that we watched “Little Women.” I was secretly thrilled that she was interested enough to sit down and watch with me. It gave me hope that maybe we aren’t so different after all.

In any case, I’m working on trying to keep her close to me, to build a bridge between us that will withstand pubertal mood swings, teenage tantrums and any other unforeseen curveballs.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Breaking old habits and trying to incorporate new, more effective ways of relating to my kids takes a certain amount of discipline, which I don’t naturally possess. I just hope I can keep it up. This growing-up thing is agonizing to me, at times. Dealing with a sullen, distant pre-teen child in the near future would probably send me over the edge…

On the same topic, I’ve been reading a book called “Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers.” Peers aren’t yet an issue for us but I’m reading it because it was recommended to me by Cristina, my partner over at Green Mom Finds. This book has helped me to understand the nature of children in ways I never did before and it suddenly all seems so obvious. *smacks head*  I won’t bore you with the details but I highly, HIGHLY recommend it.

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Have you noticed I’ve been away from the computer a lot the past week or two? Not much blogging happening and almost no twittering… It’s AMAZING how much stuff you can actually get done when you pretend blogs don’t exist — like finish the other three books in the Twilight saga AND start reading the partial draft for book five.

Is there something wrong with me (like severe arrested development) that though I’m a grown woman, I STILL enjoy “young adult” fiction? Is it weird that I think about the characters from the Twilight books like they’re real?

Is it weird that I wish I had someone, like a book club or even a friend (ahem…that would be you, Apryl) to discuss them with?

Is it weird that I CAN’T F*CKING WAIT FOR THE MOVIE TO COME OUT ON 11-21-08?  That I will happily sit in a theater crammed to the gills with gaggles of teenage girls and probably a few boys to watch a movie that will probably NEVER compare to the books?

Is it weird that reading these books has unearthed something long buried in me? That now when I listen to desperate, heart-wrenching love songs I totally GET THEM again?  Because I’m NOT SAPPY ENOUGH already.

Well, I don’t care. And if anyone out there wants to discuss Edward Cullen as the perfect male, I’m available.

In the interest of getting a grip (see previous post) and doing something that would make me feel a bit shinier and less mom-ish, I decided to use some of my birthday money (Yes, I had a birthday last week, didn’t mention it because hello? AM OFFICIALLY OLD. No need to celebrate THAT) to update things a bit, namely my wardrobe.

I have sworn on my just-finished copy of Twilight that I will never, EVER buy another cheap v-neck tee shirt from Target or anywhere else because there just comes a point where the “it’s just so easy” factor is surpassed by the “you totally look like a boring mom who hasn’t had fun in a frillion years” factor.

Furthermore, the casualness of such attire doesn’t connote some kind of carefree attitude about clothing and style. It merely connotes that I’ve given up, that I’ve conceded to putting all my time and energy into my children and family and to hell with me because I’m just good old mom.

To hell with THAT.

And thus, I’ve acquired some kick-ass jeans, four shirts, a pair of shoes, three new bras and several pair of the coolest underwear ever. Now don’t laugh at me. I’m admittedly behind the curve…but I decided to deviate  from what I normally buy and got some hipster (as in, on-my-hips) underwear with lace edging and they’re SO awesome. No more sticking out of the back of my pants or slightly pinching my hips and forming a junior muffin-top. They’re frakking brilliant. Why have I been religiously buying six packs of Hanes Her Way bikini underwear for so damned long? Why didn’t you tell me about these fantabulous underwear, people? WHY?

The wardrobe updating will continue until I feel sufficiently transformed and there’s no telling when that will be but in the interim, I’ve decided that a new bag is in order and thus I’m moving on to an updated version of a trés cool Kenneth Cole that I used to have and literally used until it was falling apart. CAN’T WAIT for it to get here.

And now, some unsolicited advice after spending many hours at the mall today…

Ladies, WHY do you bring your men shopping with you? I’ve never seen so many bored, miserable looking guys as I did today, all either following a woman around while she shopped (one dutifully pushing a stroller) or waiting outside the fitting rooms.

The looks on these guys faces said things that fell somewhere between “Man, why didn’t anyone tell me BEFORE I got married that I’d have to do stuff like this? I’d rather be out with the guys. Or watching the game. Anything but this. I’m going to doze off and hopefully dream about (insert the name of a hot chick who doesn’t make her man go shopping). Don’t wake me until it’s time to hit the food court” and “Where are my balls? I swear I had them yesterday”

I’m not trying to be mean but these guys did NOT look happy. Do your relationship a favor and leave the menfolk at home —  unless they actually ask to come shopping with you.

In other news, I’m finally getting a haircut this week. It’s been almost two years since I had a trauma-inducing cut and it’s taken this long for me to get my nerve up again. If they ruin my hair, which is finally long again, and I have to cut it all off to fix it, someone will die. So wish them luck.

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Media Diet (or what I’ve been watching, reading etc)

• The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down - Funniest faux documentary (mockumentary?) I’ve seen in a while. And totally dead-on.

• Mysterious Skin - That kid from “Third Rock from the Sun” grew up to be a total hottie and he’s awesome in this bizarre and slightly unsettling flick. Highly recommend.

• Superbad - Holy mother of all things good and decent..I haven’t laughed so hard at such juvenile humor in ages. You need to see it, if only so you’ll get the inevitable “McLovin” references that will surely dot our pop culture landscape for years to come.

• Twilight - So yeah. I finally buckled. I finally caved. I finally read the book ever that, while scorchingly hot, rather ironically has not one iota of sex in it. Now I have to read the next three books in the series. Hope my family is prepared to have no clean laundry or hot meals for at least another week.

Lately, I’ve been lost in my head. Daydreaming. Longing. Wishing I had a time machine or some such device that would let me be young again. It’s not that I want to relive my youth, my glory days, per se. I don’t want to repeat history — I got my ya ya’s out before settling down, had a good long stint of married life before having kids. Theoretically, I did everything right and yet, I find myself wishing for something I’ll never have again — a carefree life; a life where the future is but a vague concept; a life where fun is the only thing that matters.

I want to get dressed up to go out at midnight. I want to drink without worrying about a hangover. I want to be reckless. I want to sneak backstage and party with the band. I want to hang out of a car window while screaming my head off. I want to go to late night after parties and make out with someone cute that I’ll never see again. I want to go out to breakfast at 4am and giggle uncontrollably because my friends are tripping too hard to order. I want to meet weird people and have deep conversations with them over too many drinks and too many cigarettes. I want my posse of crazy girlfriends and all the drama that comes with them. I want to flirt with lanky, long-haired boys that have no money or prospects. I want to take roadtrips without any advance planning and too many people in the car. I want to be seduced. I want to get love letters. I want bootycalls. I want to have an urgent need to go to the record store because I just heard the most amazing song. I want to live on pizza and saltine crackers. I want to be idealistic. I want to be as skinny as I was when I thought I was fat. I want to come home at dawn with five other people in tow and pile onto my bed and sleep with them. I want to feel the feeling of having a crush. I want to feel that feeling of kissing someone in a way that makes you ache with desire. I want to rage against the machine. I want to LIVE.

It’s not that I hate the life I have. I wouldn’t change it for anything. But at heart, I’m a restless soul. I always want more from life than is possible. And this thing…this daydream that won’t stop, this longing — how do I make it go away?

You can call it whatever you want — a mid-life crisis, a housewife’s lament, whatever.  Just tell me I’m not the only one who’s ever felt this way.

Do you? Have you?

I recently threw a birthday party for my daughter. The shindig was held at a local park, because I’m cheap becoming a firm believer in the old-fashioned birthday party that doesn’t involve commercial characters, venues or entertainment or cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

In other words? I’m no longer keeping up with the Joneses or even trying.

No, this party was going to be a total throwback to my own youth where play and games were the primary staples of party entertainment and thus, I planned an assortment of activities including musical chairs, sack races and a hula hoop contest. For the winners of the games, I bought some small, fun prizes, in addition to the parting gift that everyone would receive.

So, games ensued and of course, there were winners — winners who would get prizes for their efforts because winning multiple elimination rounds in a sack race on a hot day? Is no easy feat and certainly deserves some recognition. Right?

So when it was time to hand out the prizes to said winners, I was suddenly besieged by ten little girls all clamoring to reach into my prize bag, “I want a prize! I want a prize!”

I tried to calmly and gently explain that everyone would be going home with a goody that was equally as desirable as the game prizes; that nobody would be leaving empty-handed.

Well, that explanation wasn’t good enough. I actually saw tears beginning to well up in one girl’s eyes and seeing as crying is usually contagious among young girls, I made the only decision I could and gave prizes to everyone because, let’s face it, a bunch of crying children at a party is a major buzzkill.

Unfortunately, this left no more prizes for the other games and rather ironically, prizeless games are not a huge draw. The crowd of girls dispersed to go play instead.

Later that day, while reflecting on whether I made a mistake in planning games with prizes, it occurred to me that the girls, mostly eight or almost eight  years old didn’t seem to understand that in a game, not everyone wins — that only the winner wins. And while I’m not a particularly competitive person by nature, I do believe that striving to win, to want to win, to want to excel, is not a bad thing.

However, it seems these days, in our misguided quest to make everyone the same and to protect from low self-esteem or hurt feelings, we’ve actually done our kids a serious disservice because in real life? We’re NOT all winners ALL the time. Life is, for the most part, a meritocracy based on our skills and abilities to perform well in some way, or in comparison to others.

I’m also of the opinion that losing gracefully is actually a skill that must be taught and mastered through experience. When we don’t win, we should, in theory, be compelled to try harder next time, to improve ourselves or at the very least, be okay with not being number one.

I don’t believe you can give someone self-esteem and you can’t nurture it by shielding them from losing or by telling them they’re a perfect and unique person just as they are.

Sure, that may be actually true because we ARE all unique and special in our own way but just telling kids that, from birth on, does nothing for them except breed a generation of mediocre underachievers with serious entitlement issues.

I am special and unique, like a snowflake, and that alone is reason to let me into your college or give me a promotion. I don’t need to work harder or try harder or improve myself because I am perfect just as I am.

That’s such crap.

Would Olympic athletes be compelled to be the best athlete they can be if everyone was handed a gold medal for participating? Would graduating from Harvard with honors mean anything if everyone graduated with honors regardless of their academic performance? I know those are extreme analogies but that’s how so many things are handled these days.

A somewhat related example… On a stormy day last year, in lieu of going outside, the first graders had a dance-off to burn off some energy and have some fun. My daughter, who apparently has some mad moves and skillz, won the dance-off, as voted by teachers and fellow students.

When she was presented with a little trinket, cries of cheating from the other girls ensued. How the hell do you cheat in a dance off?

Well, you don’t — but some of the other kids were upset that THEY didn’t win, or that they ALL didn’t win and thus, like me at the birthday party, the teacher opted to keep the peace by letting everyone visit the treasure box for a prize rather than deal with non-winner fallout and possible parental intervention.

Now, I’m not personally opposed to kids getting something from the treasure box. Whatever. I don’t really care. But I do oppose what was being reinforced to the kids about life and winning and losing and self-esteem.

Now to be fair, my daughter is also not a gracious loser in anything. She’s naturally competitive and loves to win. BUT the times she’s come home grousing about not winning something and that it’s not fair, I’ve told her straight up that you win some and you lose some; that having fun while doing your best is the key to enjoying competition. Has it sunk in yet? Meh. Maybe.

But am I actively contributing to the next generation of whiny, mediocre underachievers who feel the world owes them a medal just for showing up? HELL NO.

I don’t know exactly who is responsible for this cultural shift from meritocracy to whinocracy but something tells me that it’s largely fueled by well-intentioned parents who, in a misguided attempt to protect their kids, are shielding them from every possible hurt or disappointment and insist that everyone from coaches to teachers do the same OR ELSE!!!

I know some will think I’m a bad, bad person for having competitive games at a party and for thinking only winners should get prizes. I also know some will agree with me completely. I’d love to hear your point of view, whatever it may be.

Yesterday we were watching Rick Steves’ Europe. As you’ve probably already deduced, it’s a travel show about Europe. And in Europe there are lots and lots of museums that Rick Steves likes to visit and of course, edumacate us on the works of art contained therein:

8 Year old daughter: What’s so great about a naked statue man with no arms anyway?

Dude. For reals…what’s up with all the half arms???

Incidentally, we had a naked man statue (arms intact) peeking out from behind some foliage in our tropical jungle of a backyard. Shut up — he came with the house. Anyway, for a while TQ decided he was scary because he was, she claimed, always looking at her. One day, he just keeled over and the back yard is now safe again; naked statue man can no longer watch us or bring harm to us with his naked statue man powers.

My son, my baby, turned three in June. And like every parent has said at least once, where has the time gone? When I started this blog he was not quite six months old.

I don’t write about my kids a whole lot, at least not in depth, for various reasons and because of that, you probably don’t know much about my son, whom I normally refer to as P (He really needs a better alias).

Well, as you may have guessed, he’s undeniably cute. Women everywhere fawn all over the cuteness. And his hair. It brings all the ladies to the yard.

He’s also an endless source of amusement for me. He recently went through this period where if you said or did something he didn’t like he’d go “Dooooon’t. Doooooo. Daaaat!” with big breaths in between each word, which always made me laugh.

Now he says “You ‘noyin me!” if you say or do something he’s not down with. (He learned it from his sister, who learned it from her friend, which kind of annoys ME) I know, it probably doesn’t sound that funny — unless you can see and hear him actually say it, in which case it’s freaking hilarious.

But if I laugh when he’s being serious, he gets all indignant and says “Dat NOT FUNNY, Mama!” which he learned from me because I’ve said “It’s not funny” to him many times for laughing while I’m trying to explain why he shouldn’t turn the oven on or pull the cat’s tail or some other potentially dangerous misdeed.

However, he’s got this impish quality that makes it nearly impossible to get truly upset at him — but if you you do he says “You MEAN me, Mommy! You make me SAD!”

Mean? Sad? Oy. Even though I know his charges are absurd, it’s still like a knife to the heart…

Today, I moved my bread machine from the kitchen counter to the floor without a second thought. I needed the space. What could possibly happen?

“Mommeeeeee!!! My brother is peeing in the bread machine!!!” yelled my daughter. (She often refers to him as “my brother” like I don’t know who he is)

I run into the kitchen and there he is with his little butt squeezed into the bread machine. Peeing. With a huge grin on his face. I could do nothing but laugh. Then I lifted him out and saw that by some miracle, the pee was only in the baking pan, which is, thankfully, removable and washable.

We have a childproof latch thing on out refrigerator. It’s not a lock but you have to be able to reach it to push the button and undo it. We put it on because when P was younger, he was forever getting into it and bringing me weird things like a bottle of ketchup or a bag of carrots.

When he started bringing me things in glass, I conceded to the latch, which served us well until he finally broke it recently by pulling on the door with all his weight.

Today he brought me a package of feta cheese, insisting I open it and give him some. Later, he got out a container of sour cream and proceeded to eat it with his fingers. Later it was a vegetarian corn dog. And finally, some yogurt. No wonder the kid is never hungry at dinnertime…

Almost every night, I read him a story and then he asks me to sleep in his room. For eight minutes. “Sleep Mama. Sleep my room eight minutes” and then he wraps himself all around me like an octopus or he curls up into a little ball and fits right into the empty space formed by my own curled up body so we’re like two nested C’s.

To quote Forrest Gump, we’re like peas and carrots, P and me. He’s pretty much my constant companion and I’m his. If, when we’re out, someone he doesn’t know starts talking to him and giving him a lot of unwanted attention, he will put his hands on my cheeks and pull me towards him for a kiss. It’s obviously a security thing but it still melts my heart every time.

He can be a handful sometimes but he’s also funny, affectionate and incredibly sweet. I can hardly remember our lives before he came along; it’s like he’s always been here. And I wish so much I could just freeze him at three because tantrums and all, I love this age.

So…I’m going to be really sad when he starts school this Monday. He’ll go from 8-2pm every day, attending a speech-centered preschool program at our local elementary school. He talks and he can mostly get his point across but sometimes we just can’t understand him so this will be really good for him. But still. EVERY. DAY. I know some people are jumping for joy when they’re kids start school but I’m not there yet.

I met his teacher and she seems nice and his class only has six kids in it so he’ll get a lot of attention and I will volunteer as much as I can but I’m still really going to miss my baby…now an official preschooler *sigh*

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