HAIR

Just about every single person who has seen Wyatt in the past year has pleaded with me to cut his hair. At first I kept making excuses. The hairdresser cancelled on us, then he got sick, etc. etc. Honestly though if you saw any of my family pictures you would understand my trepidation with childhood haircuts. Oh wait you can see them…..here are the poster children for bad haircuts:

As you can see, I fear the straight bang, Frankenstein cut for good reason.

My poor, poor sister had to endure even worse.

And then, Oh Boy, Wyatt's first haircut (commissioned by Daddy Dearest) ends up a Hot Mess! I could cry every time I look at this!! So sorry Baby. Hate Daddy, not Mommy. Look, it's little Lloyd.

Lord, help me if this happens again. I would rather have him look like a shaggy dog than this.

My ultimate fear, and I have stated this before, is that he would end up looking like this:

You remember Peter from the Cosby Show!

You laugh because it is entirely possible!!!!


So, my apologies everyone. It looks like you will have to deal with my child’s unconventional hair and lack of grooming. I still think he is adorable.

And Relax…. He doesn’t look like this yet:

(yes, that is Kate Hudson and her SON)

Winken Blinken and Nod

I can never get enough of this. And it is a rarity when Wyatt gives in to fatigue and -gasp- lies his head down on my shoulder! I was loving every moment of this 45 second stint in heaven. So much so that I was actually running through the scenario in my head where Brett or Erin or Mary would say something above a whisper causing Wyatt to wake up, and I would then bite their heads off like a lioness.

Quite the Mother

Wyatt has been showing his “Mother Hen” side for a while now. I guess I cannot say that “Mother Hen” is the best description of what he has become. He is a bit more like “The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.” You know the part about giving them some broth, Without any bread, and Whipping them all soundly, and sending them to bed.

At daycare Wyatt is the self-proclaimed disciplinarian of all the other kids, regardless of age. He has been spotted hitting a little boy for trying to scale the kiddy fence and screaming “Baa Boy!” at the top of his lungs because a little girl was sitting in his chair. I have no idea where he could have gotten this (Read: He absolutely got it from me. I was a BOSS when I was little i.e. pushing kids out of line to get to the front and giving my dolly “shots” with large sewing needles.) So naturally I started to worry. And feel guilty; like I do so well. Are we too hard on him? Too negative? To authoritative? I started to ponder the idea of replacing the word “No” with more communicative phrases like “Mommy doesn’t like it when you play in the toilet, it makes her sad,” and reserving the word “No” only for times when he was in danger of catching himself on fire. But alas, my little boy does something to put my heart at ease; something that shows his nurturing side. While we were having some family time in the living room the other night Wyatt dissapeared to his room. He emerged with his black cabbage patch doll, “R.J.”, circa 1986 (no, not a hand me down from his mom, but his father!) In the other arm he carried a package of diaper wipes. Without a word to either of us, he proceeded to care for RJ in a very motherly way.... He wiped his butt. “Shu wee,” he mused as his wiped him all clean and then made a return trip to his bedroom to fetch him a clean diaper. His kids might not be huggers, but at least they won't have dingle berries!

Rise and Shine

Let me just start out by saying that I got peed on this morning.

Wyatt woke up in a funk- disheveled hair (of course), crusty eyes, and tears. It was my morning to get him ready and take him to the sitters. Let’s just say that I am out of practice in morning rituals. Wyatt is the ‘wake up slowly, take off all my clothes, grab a cup (or bottle if some poor sucker falls for his trickery), and relax while watching Mickey Mouse naked’ type. I, on the other hand, am more of the ‘get up, throw on some clothes, eat and do my make-up in the car simultaneously’ type. Our styles make for an interesting morning as you will see...


He was pretty much screaming from the second Brett walked out the front door. He wanted to watch Mickey Mouse on my bed, but we had about 3 minutes to get out of the house before I would be late for work. Ding Ding, round 1. I had to literally fight to get his shirt on. Then he threw such a whaling fit that he got a spanking :( Followed by more screaming, kicking of the legs, and hitting of the mommy in the face. Followed by another spanking :( Followed by the piece de resistance ... the peeing on the mommy. Now, normally any official would say that in this Mother/Son Mixed Martial Arts match Wyatt would have won. Until……. The stream of pee goes from mommy to his own face (he was laying down- to help you visualize). And this was the first morning pee, so you can imagine the gravity of the situation. Wyatt kicked up the screaming two notches. I took off the shirt I had worked so hard to get on and put him in the shower. I was considering ear plugs at this point. As I turned to get a towel… BOOM! Down he goes, face first, in the shower. My ears are bleeding now. I got him out of the shower (he wasn’t hurt) and wrapped him in a towel. I cannot tell you how I got him in his clothes. Some super woman must have intervened, and though I was deaf at this point, we were one step closer to getting out the door. Then something magical happened. Wyatt saw his jacket. Someone flipped the switch. He stopped crying. “Jacket, Jacket, Dat one!” As he slipped into the jacket he became my little angel again and the screaming ceased. Truce.

Outside he waited for me at the porch. “Hand” he said reaching for mine. We walked hand in hand to the car. The ride was mostly silent. I was rehashing the hellacious events in my mind; feeling guilty like only a mother can.

“Momma” he says.
“Yes baby?”
“I la you” he says.

God, I love this child. As I wipe a tear from my eye, I look down and catch a glance of myself. I am still wearing my pee pants- to work.



(Side note, this picture is not from this morning- see no jacket here. Don't worry Mom I did not take this picture myself while putting on my make-up and driving!)

Ice Cream = Happiness

Yesterday as a family we decided we were going to escape the monotony of home life and go somewhere really out of the ordinary. So it was with great excitement that we picked up our little boy from daycare and headed off to the great unknown… McDonalds Playland! You see, Wyatt has never actually played in the indoor playground. He has probably only had Chicken Mc Nuggets a few times in his life. (I know some of you are taking great objection to this and some of you are applauding us.)

Wyatt entered the plastic vortex very mystified. He watched the other kids playing and listened to their screams, unsure as to whether they were shouting with glee or wretched fear. But, it wasn’t too long before he was bounding up the stairs and hanging from the various plastic hangy-down things (technical term). He was stinky and sweaty and I swallowed hard and held my breath as I joined him in the tube slide. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to fit, but alas, we emerged from the tube intact and with an obscene amount of static cling. Like most kids, Wyatt was absolutely absorbed in play land. Brett came in the area with food and we tried to lure Wyatt out with chicken nuggets to no avail. He barely let Brett eat his sandwich and kept shouting from the tower “Um on Daddy, Um on. Um on Daddy, Um on” while flapping his appendages like a chicken wing. Which we figured was his version of the ‘come hither’ motion we have done to him hundreds of times while coaxing his little feet to move faster. He was adorable and we had so much fun playing and exploring with him. Much to my surprise Brett did not cause the play land to collapse. Thank God for steel reinforcements! Once I decided it was time to go, I braced myself for the fit that was about to commence as we would have to carry his panic stricken, dead weight, temper tantrum body out of the structure. So I thought quickly. “Wyatt do you want some ice cream?” He popped his little head out of whatever hole it had been in and peered through the mesh screen. “Yeah!” he shouted so loudly that it caused another mother to audibly crack up. He marched his barefoot little self straight out so quickly that I had to catch him before he ran behind the cashier’s counter.

We ordered him a kiddy cone, which he held with both hands never taking his eyes off of it while walking to the car. The normal screaming and back-arching that has become his M.O. didn’t occur and he slid right into his car seat. We thought he was so cute with baby sized cone that we snapped a picture. I smiled and asked him if he liked his ice cream cone. To which he replied, “Yep. Happy!” (Mother’s mental note- February 25th 2009 Wyatt is able to identify his emotions.) In my mind will forever be etched the image of Wyatt’s first self-proclaimed HAPPY moment. See McDonald’s can’t be all bad! They hook ‘em early, those genius marketing strategists!

Gluttony

It’s Cheat Day, no not like on a boyfriend or on a test, something much, much better. Today I am cheating on my diet. This is the day I have been looking forward to. My crazy no carb, no sugar diet, has been broken. My usual 1300 calorie diet has been replaced by a schmorgas board of carbs, sugar, and calories.

I woke up this morning bright eyed and ready to greet the breakfast of my dreams: cream puffs and a sugary latte. To which I followed with pecan pralines and a sugar cookie that I was saving from Valentines Day; then I was on to a lunch of a pound of pasta. At first the idea of eating whatever I wanted made my heart race with glee. However, as the day progressed my glee has been replaced with both a headache and a stomach ache. I feel like a little kid who ate too much Easter Candy. Ooohhh, which makes me think…. I could still add a Cadbury Egg to my cheat day! The latter statement really sums up my personality: If left to my own devilish devices I would eat myself sick. Flash to the movie Seven in which my movie star lover Brad Pitt stars and to the scene where the obese man is forced to eat until his stomach explodes. I don’t feel too far removed from this scene right now.

Something so right...

I am pretty sure that my child is a genius. I know that everyone says that, but Wyatt is seriously starting to confirm this hypothesis. He can count to the teens. I say teens because once he hits thirteen he just keeps going i.e. "one, two, tree, pours, pive, sic, seben, eight, nine, ten, leben, twelbe, turteen, turteen, turteen, turteen, turteen, turteen, turteen...... " he can go for a while. It's like a cd that is skipping. He can not only count that high, but if you write out the numbers he can tell you what they are. He loves going to the store because all of the isles are numbered. He shouts out the number each time we are in that isle. His reasoning skills seem advanced as well. Por ejemplo,

Wyatt: "Outside, outside." Standing by the door.
Mommy: " No baby, it is too cold to go outside. Let's stay inside."
Wyatt: "Ah Jacket"

How in the world has this little creature out smarted me?!?!?! 'It's too cold you say Mommy?Then lets get a coat on a go outside to play!' I am in trouble. Big trouble. I better stay on my toes. No erroneous, excuses for this kid. Somehow I don't think 'because I said so' is not going to be my go-to phrase.

Another amazing development in our child's life is that we have given up the Baba (aka bottle), which is hands down his favorite thing in the world, next to wrestling on our king size bed with Dad. We were at the point where he would have a bottle to fall asleep and then he would flood his diaper by 11pm waking up in Lake Pee Pee, which led to lots of crying and unpleasantness, not to mention an incredible amount of laundry. Last night Brett went to bed early (which never happens). Wyatt and I stayed up and read books and played. At one point around 8:30 he realized that Dad was missing, and went to find him. I told him that Daddy had gone night night. To which my sweet child replied, "Ah nig night". Translated means 'I want to go to bed'. I asked him if he was sure and he said "Yep" then proceeded to grab all the necessities: 1 plush stuffed fish named Dorothy, 5 blankets, and 1 pillow. I helped him carry all of them to his crib where he gave me a quick peck and tried to climb into bed. We did the usual ceremonious counting of the blankets and kissing of the fish. The little angel said "la you" (translated means music to my ears... I love you), and once I closed the doors I heard little chattering. Some thing about 'No, No.' and I am pretty sure I heard a 'one, two, tree, pours'. Then nothing. Within 4 minutes the little creature was asleep. This is one of my favorite parts of the day. He is absolutely precious and this is where I always get a kiss; these things are obvious. But there is more to it for me. I take a certain amount of pride in knowing that this little thing is comfortable enough in his surroundings that he doesn't need a pacifier or a bottle. His autonomy makes me think we are doing something right.