I wonder if hospitals do trades… because I’m thinking that when I deliver Cal I might see if they’ll take Ford back.
Not really.
But the thought definitely occurred to me the other day after a morning where that kid woke up on the entirely wrong side of the crib…
Ford spent the first 2 hours of the day whining and clinging and crying until I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I was putting away dishes and had a DVR’d episode of “My Carolina Today” playing in the background while Ford was playing nicely by himself surgically attaching himself to my left leg. I thought his mood was rallying when he paused in front of the TV at one point, looked up at a shot of me on the screen, broke into a huge grin, pointed up at the TV… and yelled out “DADA!” then kind of bit/drooled on my knee and toddled away.
That ingrate.
So I maturely marched right over behind him… said, “C’mon Cal, it’s time to go” (two can play this game, buddy) and piled him into the car for a pre-Rhyme Time trip to the grocery store. Anything to get out of the house.
I should point out, though, that both the car, and the grocery store, and pretty much anywhere Ford’s not allowed to roam free are only safe for us now if I’m armed with either a sippy cup, or a no-spill snack bowl (which, btw don’t work for crap. I could find Ford on a crowded New York subway from the trail of food he dumps out of those things). Yes… I have created a munching monster. Whoops. It’s a miracle that apple juice doesn’t come out of his eyes instead of tears. And I honestly think he might turn into a Cheerio one of these days. But it keeps him quiet. And it gives him this kind of lovely all-over honey nut scent most of the time, so I’m kind of over it.
We made it halfway through the grocery store before he housed the entire cup of “O’s” and got antsy for something else to keep his attention. Nothing was doing the trick, so all of Food Lion and I were treated to 30 minutes of the glorious half cry/half squeal/half nasal “ehhhhhh” of a whine. It rocked.
On the way to Rhyme Time the whining and writhing in the carseat amped up. Bob and Mike were on the radio hand-cuffing each other and letting a turkey peck food off each other’s bellies and I honestly wished I could trade places with them. It was that bad. Then, to really sock it to me on the way inside, Ford dropped a giant load in his pants just as we were making our way in to the library, and by the time Miss Melanie started the class off on “The Wheels on the Bus” I was contemplating faking a solo trip to the bathroom and letting Ford find his own way home. But then I spotted an interesting scene in the back of the room…
Ford had wandered back there as he tends to do because… well, he’s 1 and he wanders. He was trying his best all by his lonesome to climb up on one of the benches when some little schmuck… ahem… another little boy who had to be at least 4, decided he wanted to sit on the bench instead. This little brat marched over, shoved Ford out of the way, climbed up onto the bench himself and proceeded to kick my kid squarely in the face. Wearing boots.
Oh it was on, people.
Minutes before, I myself had been ready to throw Ford out the window. But the minute I saw somebody picking on my little guy the mama bear in me came out. I seriously almost went over and sucker-punched a child. Ford took it like a freaking champ though. He kind of glanced back to me across the room with a stunned look on his face, and when I smiled and gave him the “you’re ok” look he rolled with it and continued on trying to crawl up next to the a-hole other kid. I guess one of the benefits to raising a klutz is that my little guy is no stranger to pain. Ford self-induces enough face-plants a day that this kid’s size 5 to his grill was nothing.
As I stood up to go remove Ford from the situation before things really got ugly, I looked around to see if there was another mom on her way to the back too, but there was no one else even looking in that direction. And in the 2 minutes it took me to heave-ho my 9 ½ -month pregnant self off the ground and walk to where they were, the older kid swatted at Ford another 4 or 5 times and (unsuccessfully –ha!) tried to push him off the bench until I made it back there and sat in-between them to break things up. I sat for a minute or two looking around for the other kid’s mom before I realized what had happened…
Ford had had a rough morning, but that was not his norm. The reason it was so unpleasant to me was because I’m not used to it and I was missing my little dreamboat who jabbers to himself while unloading every basket of toys in the house, comes over for a quick hug every now-and-then mid-play, and then proceeds on to be a pretty easy kiddo most of the time. But this must have been par for the course for the other kid. His mom had had one day too many of it and pulled my bathroom trick for real. Not that I could blame her.
So I left Rhyme Time with a new lease on life. And on Ford. And wouldn’t you know that little episode helped pull him out of his funk too, because he was positively peachy the entire car-ride home. He discovered about halfway there that his voice sounded like Darth Vader when he talks into his sippy-cup top and he had us both in stitches trying out different words with his new low register.
No matter how mad I get at that little booger he’ll always be able to win me back over by making me laugh. I guess he’s like his daddy that way.
