We're very lucky.
Jack is the sort of child
we all assume we'll have
when we decide to have children,
and the sort of child
less experienced parents
congratulate themselves for.January and February 2004
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Thursday, Aug. 25, 2005 - DAD
More Two than Cute
Two is a very cute age, and just as well, because it is also infuriating at times. People will often say (and its mostly pretty young ladies) "He's just too cute" to which I often reply, "indeed he is sometimes more two than he is cute."
A case in point. The harvest has begun in earnest here and tomatoes are on sale at 8.50 a bushel... that's a lot of tomatoes... but it so happens we use a lot of tomato sauce when cooking in our household, so its worth our while to can (preserve) both tomatoes and tomato sauce. We also can peaches... because we can (yum).
Well, last Sunday was canning day and Jack did not take kindly to not being the centre of the universe that day. A far as he was concerned, the Universe was awry. One might say, he had a bad case of "two".
Towards the middle of the afternoon, as we were cleaning up ready for company, Misti turned her back on him for a moment to find Jack running amok in his fresh diaper stash. "Jack!!" she exclaimed. He turned around, looked her square in the eye, and said "A bad case of two" and proceeded with his devilment. We both split our sides over that one.
The next evening, Jack had a dose of the tardies everywhere we went. He has decided to push our limits and he is finding them. On returning the shopping cart to its corral, I said to Jack "c'mon mate, lets jump in the car!" I felt the now familiar and rather tiresome weight on my arm of Jack resisting, then he jumped, both feet at once, and proceeded to hop across the car-park in this manner. I looked at him somewhat bemused and a little short of temper and, reading my expression, he looked at me and said " I jump a (to the) car..." I cracked up.
The following day, we went to feed the ducks and Jack had staged what I have come to call a sit in. We'll feed the ducks, then he'll prop on his cute little butt and won't budge an inch for anything. He just watches the ducks and passes the time of day. For all the things I do right as a parent, watching the day pass aimlessly with a toddler is not something I'm good at. We had locked horns on a couple of occasions over this and I had said to him "I don't much like it when we fight." In his 2 year old innocence, he thought watching the ducks was "fighting". (Its not a word we have a lot of context for in our lives.). So this day, I pick him up and, in exasperation, I say, "well, what do you want to do?" His answer... "fight".... as I say, more two than cute some days!!
I have to give Misti credit here. As a working Mom, when she is with Jack, she is truly with him. I found out, in relaying that tale, that she and Jack will sit and watch the ducks for hours, literally, when I am off doing something else. They break the bread into tiny pieces and sit and watch.
She is amazing. I simply don't have that brand of patience.
All of this is building up to our very long (over 24 hours) trip to Australia in a couple of weeks. Jack would pick now to be "very two". Misti's "may 03" birth mom group has declared me a saint for attempting this without "St James' Vallium for Children". You see, not only can I not sleep on a moving vehicle, but even if I get the urge, I can't plug in my c-pap, so falling into deep sleep is dangerous.
Saint I will never be. More likely I'll arrive at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne, an aging middle-class hippie with sun-dried tomatoes where his eyes used to be talking gibberish in shorthand while trying to ride herd on an energetic, somewhat rested toddler. The true saint of that moment will be my sister, Trudi, who has offered to drive 100 miles round trip in some of the worst traffic Australia has to offer so that Jack and I don't have to deal with a bus-ride. All Hail Saint Trudi !!(and thank heavens for family!!)
So there we have it. It looks like Jack and I are going to make this monumental journey together as he approaches the peak of his "two-ness". The things we sign on for as parents...
Take Care.
Rod
PS...Sorry, no photos, not enough day !!!
