I hate snowsuits!

Please note: this blog was actually written November 27th, but I was so pi**** off with how the day turned out I couldn’t sit down to finish it til today, December 4th! Now that’s angry! Ha ha!

November 27th
I’m getting Matthew ready to take him to the Santa Claus parade today, and he needed to wear his snowsuit. What a fiasco that was! The snowpants went on fine, then I had to wedge Matthew’s feet into the boots. He thought he was being helpful by pointing his toes a certain way and then stiffening up to keep them in this position. No it didn’t help. The hard part too was trying to tuck the pants into the boots while keeping the snowpants OUTSIDE the boots. OK that took a little effort but I got it done. Then I had to reach up to find the inner lining of the snowpants and pull them down over the boots, followed by the snowpants. Then I had to roll up the bottoms of the snowpants because I bought him a size 4 when he’s really only a size 3 (with my luck he’ll have a huge growth spurt in December and I’ll be in trouble if I buy size 3). The snowpants exercise probably took about 9 minutes total, by which point I was sweaty with aggravation and Matthew was bored and started getting fussy. Then I put on his coat, tucked his hat into the diaper bag since we were going into the car anyways, got myself ready and we proceeded to the car.

We got to the car, I dropped my keys on the ground and blurted out a swearword and a little voice repeated it. Oops! Into the car we went, and I tried to strap him into the carseat. Well, with a full snowsuit on the straps on the carseat needed to be adjusted, and this required me to pull him out, place him on the seat beside the carseat with his Blues Clues book to stop him from whining, then I had to get in on the other side of the car and adjust the straps. Once that was done, I tried to put him into the carseat again. Well after fiddling with the blasted latch for what seemed like eternity, it became clear that there was no way I could squish him into the carseat and latch this thing because the snowsuit is just too damn puffy!

I sighed, wiped more aggravation-induced sweat from my brow, admitted defeat, and told Matthew we can’t go to the Santa Claus parade. Whining ensued. Then it quickly proceeded to extreme-whining, followed by ear-splitting whining, the highest and most annoying level of whining there is. I’m frustrated beyond belief at this point, and it took every ounce of strength in me to not smash all the windows of my car. After all it took to get him ready to go out, I didn’t want to turn around and go back inside, so I suggested we go for a walk. He wasn’t interested, preferring to sit in the car all dressed up in his snowsuit and push the buttons on his Blues Clues book. The only way I could get him to agree to go for a walk was to bring this Blues Clues book. So I pull him out of the car and we make our way across the street. We get halfway across the street when he refuses to walk any further. He’s done! So I had to pick him up and walk him the rest of the way across the street, the whole time having to listen to “noooooo Mommy!!!”. We got to the sidewalk; he stopped again. I offered to take him into the house. “Noooo Mommy!!!”. Then he turned around and started in the direction of the park (damn! I was hoping to get out of going there!).

We get to the park, and it appears that people don’t use parks when there’s snow on the ground so we had the whole place to ourselves. But Matthew isn’t used to walking in snow, as his feet kept sinking and slipping on ice, so it was a while before we actually made it to any of the equipment. He goes for the slides, and tries to walk up the steps to get to the second biggest slide. Well you see, the slides are made of plastic but the structures themselves are powder-coated steel, which is extremely slippery when wet. So poor little Matthew was slipping and sliding and getting totally ticked off that he kept taking one step forward and two steps behind after he’d fall. He summoned my help, I got him to one of the slides, he went down ONCE and got fed up and left the slides. But would he go on anything else? No. He just kept walking around with a grumpy look on his face. And he kept trying to convince me to take off his mittens. After about 30 minutes at the park I gave up and took him home. Of course more “nooooooo Mommy!!!” started up, and continued the entire way home.

We got home, both of us exhausted, I offer him his “dankie”, and he settled down for a 2 hour nap! Phew! Finally some peace and quiet!

I’ll try the whole snowsuit thing once more but if it goes the way it did today, we’ll be staying in the house til April!

Keeps getting his foot stuck? Hmmmm…

Friday morning Matthew was down for a nap, and I hear some whining coming from his room which progresses to panic crying. So I run in to see what’s wrong; he got his leg stuck between the bars of his crib and couldn’t figure a way to get his leg out. After I get him unstuck and apologize for not coming sooner and calm him down, I tell him if it ever happens again he has to call Mommy and I’ll come rescue him. So guess what happens the next day? Yup, somehow he got his foot stuck in the crib again. This time he calls out for me, and when I ask him what’s wrong he looks up at me and says “tuck” (as in stuck). Ok, I pull the leg out and we leave the room and go play. Next nap, the crib tried to swallow his leg again! Anyone see a pattern forming here? So now what am I supposed to do? He’s obviously trying to weasel out of naptime, but if I continue to ignore him one day there’s going to be a legitimate emergency and if he survives it I’ll never live down the guilt!

Maybe it’s just time to put him into his big boy bed.

Matthew’s Christmas list

For those enquiring (or is it inquiring???) minds who wanna know, here’s what Matthew could use for Christmas:

-Books. Lots of books. Pop-ups, rhyming stories, books with CD’s for when he needs a story and I’m too lazy to read, books with those buttons that make noises to go with the stories that get really old after about 5 minutes of pushing the same button.
-Clothes. Size 4’s. T-shirts, turtlenecks, pants, jammies, and socks (size 6-8 shoe).
-Sing-along CD’s. I need some more songs to sing to him and I can’t think of anymore.
-Anything that’ll teach him numbers and colours.
-Bathtub toys. I’m getting really bored of the ones we’ve got!
-Soap crayons. He’s wearing them down already!
-Colouring books
-Play-doh and accessories
-Craft stuff, like construction paper, kiddie glue, kiddie scissors (for when he’s a little older), stickers, sparkles, pom poms, popsicle stix etc.
-Finger paints and accessories (like smocks, drop cloths, a hose and some cleaners to clean up after him!)
-Airplanes, cars, trains, trucks. This kid is definitely a boy on the go!
-Anything interactive, like games or those mats you put on the floor that make noise when you step on them. Matthew and I need some new games to play on Fridays.

That’s all I can think of for now. I’ll post more if I think of anything.

Soap crayons rock!!!

I decided to clean the bathroom this morning and put Matthew in the bathtub with some soap crayons to keep him occupied and out of the way. It worked brilliantly! He stayed out of the way the entire time I was cleaning. By the time I was done the bathtub was almost covered in soap crayon drawings, as were his hands, so we took a shower to clean ourselves up. I also thought while I was there I could use a face cloth and wipe off the crayon mess in the shower. Big mistake! He saw me and screamed “NOOOOO MOMMMMYYYY!!!” and grabbed my hand and pushed it away from his “art”! Ha ha ha! So they’re still there waiting for Daddy to come home to admire. Then since there was no room left at his level of the bathtub to draw on, he made me pick him up so he could draw really high up on the walls. Then he moved to my shoulder and started drawing his favourite numbers, 9 and 4 (at least that’s what he claims they were).

Then we got out of the shower and he peed on my newly scrubbed bathroom floor!

Shhh, don’t tell Chris

I ate Matthew’s Smarties.

Crabby Hallowe’en

Our first time out trick-or-treating wasn’t too bad. However Matthew was tired since he refused to have an afternoon nap so he wasn’t always cooperative throughout our trek. He whined off and on, which took the fun out of it. Plus Daddy wasn’t really up to this sort of thing (he thinks Hallowe’en is stupid; what kind of a childhood did this guy have???) so in the end we only did 4 houses. But that’s less candy for me to get into. I still haven’t touched his 2 boxes of Smarties. Aren’t I a wonderful mother?