Mornings with Oscar

It will come as a surprise to exactly no one that young toddlers are sort of a pain. And require a lot of close supervision. So despite my thought each week that I could get so. much. done. on Monday morning I rarely do.

This morning I refocused away from my to-do list and tried to document time with a toddler.

First he refused to eat a banana for breakfast (he normally loves them) and when we got in the car he threw the banana at Biscuit. So she ate most of it.

After dropping Biscuit off at school Oscar and I went to Trader Joes where he was cooed at by the employees who know him by name and he enjoyed a sample of vegetarian sausage. He's actually very fun to shop with as long as he can't reach anything in the cart and throw it overboard (I'm looking at you, shallow carts at Raleys!) I gave him a pear to snack on and it turns out that while he loves apples, he doesn't love pears. So I ate that. Back in the car he finally ate some banana.

When we got home he helped carry in a bag and I put him in his highchair to eat rice krispies and milk (he ate a huge bowl of them yesterday). He threw the spoon and the rice krispies so I gave up in disgust, put him down and started doing dishes.

I heard a tell tale clinking and turned around to see that he'd grabbed the bowl off the table and was serving himself on the chair. He really does prefer to self feed these days. Especially with utensils. The tidiness didn't last and he started smearing it on the floor.

I asked him to clean it up so he helpfully picked up a single rice puff and put it in the trash. I wiped up the rest and he was off to grab books and ask for a story.

That lasted about 4 short pages. And he was off again to play with tools. For several minutes!

At this point (9:45) I realized if I wanted to fit in a run and not have him fall asleep in the stroller I'd better get on it. So while he tried to escape my (very messy) bed

I put on running clothes. Note he is still in pajamas. Whatever.

It was still chilly at 10 but very sunny. I had sort of a crappy run. Three miles just under a 10 minute pace. Bleh. Whatever at least I got out there. By the end he was soooooo close to dozing off.

So of course he was wide awake when we came in and helpfully threw away two dirty diapers (sense a theme here? He loves to throw away trash)

11 am time to try again on food. He ate the turkey and cheese. Threw the pear again (this time in sliced form but he wasn't fooled) and tried a big bite of red bell pepper. But only one bite. Then he went over and tried to open a drawer well over his head while signing "more, more." I opened the drawer and spotted a nearly empty bag of Craisins that he'd had a few of over a week ago. Yep, he remembered they were there! So Craisins and tangerine for dessert.

This is where Typepad crapped out on me 8 hours ago. 9:45 pm and I'm back to the post. Keeping it short in hopes of technological success.

At 11:15 I provide the pre-nap baba and he is very relaxed.

11:25 he laughs at my presumption he would like to nap

11:30 I hold him down. Surprisingly, he relaxes and I can sneak out.

11:45 I sneak the phone around the door to snap this photo. Proof of what my ears have told me. He's happy but not asleep.

Noon. He's asleep. And stayed asleep for 2 hours (!) While I tried to tick things off the to do list and spent way too long on this post and attendant technical challenges. Oh well.

Comments

[Sonja]

Hahahaha. Ooof. I'm kind of exhausted just reading about it... and I'm reminded that this is in my not-too-distant future.
Noah used to puzzle me with his eating habits (as I'm sure all toddlers do) - I finally figured that he had food days (where he'd eat and eat and eat and then eat some more) and non-food days (where he ate practically nothing).

[Melissa Haworth]

Sonja,
YES some days are eating days some days are not. He ate a big breakfast this morning so perhaps yesterday was a non eating day.
At least toddlers are cute and funny which makes up for a lot.
:) Melissa