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All About Mr. Aric

Sep 28th, 12 / 0 Comments

I feel like I’ve been writing about Abby so much (and she’s not even here yet!) that poor Aric has gotten the short end of the blogging stick. So here are some awesome things he’s been up to lately:

His vocabulary has simply EXPLODED! I can’t even believe some of the sentences that come out of his mouth. Things like, “Mine Daddy picked-ed me up from Jody’s house.” “I help you vacuum, Momma!” “Oh no! The sun in my eyes! I shut my eyes.” “Mommy, come play downstairs with Aric.”
He’s starting to respond to the TV. You know how every kids show these days breaks that 4th wall and asks kids questions? Aric’s answering them now! Like during Mickey Mouse Clubhouse he tells Mickey which Mouse-ka-tool he needs. And he’s usually right!
Aric knows all his colors, shapes, letters, and animal sounds and he’s learning about same vs. different.
He sings his ABCs pretty much all the time. Or twinkle twinkle. Or the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song. Or Call Me, Maybe. He’s basically the singing-est babe in town.
We have reached imaginative play! He pretends to be a kitty, puppy, or frog on the regular. He loves pretending to run from scary monsters (or BE the scary monster!).
He wants to do everything Mom and Dad are doing. If we’re vacuuming, he wants in. If we’re eating anything remotely different than him, he needs it. If I’m painting, I’d best be getting him a brush because OMG THAT’S THE COOLEST THING EVAR! And it’s always started with a “I help you, Momma!” or “I eat Momma’s chips. Aric’s chips yukky.”
We haven’t tried potty training again. He’s still very resistant, but he likes to sit on the potty when all the other kids a day care does. And he likes to report when his BFF poops on the potty. When you ask him if he pooped on the potty, he says, “No, Momma. Aric poops in his diaper.” As though I’m a complete idiot.
The following conversation happened in the car the other day, leading me to think is this what I’m in for as a boy mom?
“Momma, Aric tooted.”
“You tooted?”
“Yeah, I tooted out of my mouth.”
“Honey, that’s a burp. You burp out of your mouth, and toots come out of your butt.” (Said while thinking at least I’m teaching him about bodily habits, right?)
“Yeah. Burps in my mouth, toots in my butt.”
He’s just the cutest dang kid I’ve ever met:

Aric, videos

Toddlers as Sour Patch Kids

Jul 6th, 12 / 3 Comments

Aric is in this ….. phase …. right now. At least I hope to GOD it’s a phase and not what will be his forever personality. This child? Has turned into a whiny, spoiled, brat.

On our 4th of July day off this week, we didn’t do a thing. I do feel bad about that, keeping Aric cooped up in the house all day, but it was HOT! Over 100 degrees hot! And humid! And I just didn’t even want to put the dog outside. So maybe that had something to do with his attitude. But that day, it was positively awful. I was googling Fed-Ex to see if they were open so I could ship him up to my mom who is up north in the cooler-ish weather lounging in a lake all day.

Jerk.

ANYWAY.

He was AWFUL. When he wasn’t crying about not getting his way, he was whining about not getting his way. We let him stay up late the night before watching Mulan (which he was TOTALLY into for about 30 minutes) and enjoying his first homemade malt. Then he woke up a full hour early. Meaning I was up before 7 on my mid-week day off. And it went downhill from there. He whined all morning about wanting to watch TV (I really try and limit the boob-tube). He whined when I caved and turned on the TV and GOD FORBID MICKEY MOUSE WASN’T ON!!! He whined when we gave him a snack. He whined while we made his lunch. HE THREW HIS ENTIRE LUNCH PLATE ON THE FLOOR.

I was already at the end of a VERY short rope and it was barely noon.

So we put him down for a nap. After 30 minutes of wrangling him BACK into his bed he finally slept. For 45 minutes. And he refused to go back to sleep after that.

Around 3 I’d had enough of everything, so I went to lay down on my bed to try and nap. For 30 STRAIGHT MINUTES, he whined NON-STOP. I snapped. I picked him up, put him in his room, and shut the door without saying a word. I didn’t care what he did in his room as long as he was SILENT FOR 10 FREAKING MINUTES.

And he was. He read books quietly and peacefully in his room for almost 45 minutes while I rested and cried my eyes out at JUST HOW FRUSTRATED he has been making me lately.

Is it my fault he’s this whiny and entitled? He DEMANDS we get up from the couch and “walk” with him to his playroom. When we don’t? Temper tantrum. He DEMANDS specific snacks RIGHTTHISSECOND. If not? Temper tantrum. He used to have good manners, saying please (usually) and thank you (almost always). Now? HAHAHAHA!!!!

Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s the fact that we’ve been cooped up for so long because of the heat. Maybe it’s the changes in his routine this summer rotating between different daycare providers each week. Maybe it’s because I’m a shitty parent who is turning her child into one of those entitled, bratty children that are just starting to enter the workplace assuming that they are going to get everything handed to them and if not OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING!

What’s going to happen when this new baby comes? It will be the dead of winter, which means more being cooped up in the house unless I want to bundle up a new born AND a toddler and haul them to the mall or something ridiculous. Which means more energy from a tot who, quite honestly, needs his running time. And I won’t be able to devote nearly as much time to him as he’ll be used to. And it will be just so much easier to cave in to his demands, thus creating an even MORE spoiled child.

AAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

Please tell me this is a phase. Please tell me this is just the terrible twos. Please tell me that at some point it WILL get better and he WILL sleep again (even if he doesn’t nap, I’m OK with that. I’ll still put him in his room for an hour of quiet reading time. I just need him to sleep at night). Please tell me that I’m not actually creating a monster.

Oh, and the title of the post?

First they’re sour:

Then they’re sweet:

Both videos were shot within 10 minutes of each other. Also, this was shot a week ago. He’s since gotten much, much better at singing and ~~requests~~ demands we listen to this song over and over and over in the car each day. I LOVE when he gets to the “I missed you so bad!” part! So, it’s not ALL terrible. I guess.