Thursday, July 9, 2009

I haven't been blogging lately...

...but I have been resonating with a book titled: Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace (Ayelet Waldman)

David and the roll of peppermints

I'm not sure if the third time is the charm but I managed to survive my third trip to my parents sans Jon.

I bribed. I overindulged my kids with candy. I bought them lots of timbits. I let them listen to the Robert Munsch storytelling CD seven times even though I was annoyed with it the first time. At one point in the trip when all three of them were either whining, crying or complaining, I put in a Natalie Merchant CD and turned up the music very loud.

But, all in all, it was another great experience.

Here are two David memories.

On the drive to Stouffville, I remember (as I think back on it) that he was very quiet for a two hour stretch. At the time I assumed he was just listening to the music. As I cleaned up the car after getting to my parents though, I realized just what was keeping him quiet. We had stopped at my grandparents' place in Sarnia and they had given us a roll of peppermints to take with us. Somehow that brand new roll of peppermints ended up in David's possession. As I discovered, he entertained himself during that two hour stretch by sampling every since peppermint in that roll. Some were dissolved in various stages - they were nicely placed in a semi-circle around his car seat. Others must have been consumed in their entirety.

On the drive home, I tried to limit his sugar intake. I gave a rather large bag of trail mix to David and had a long talk wit him about ratios, about how he needed to eat five nuts or raisins for every M&M and how he WASN"T allowed to eat all the M&Ms. Once again, as I recall, there was a stretch of our trip home when David was very quiet. At the time, I think I assumed he was busy counting. When I got home and discovered the bag of trail mix, I found out that dear David did not grasp the concept of ratios but that he had taken to heart my command to not eat all the M&Ms. There was one M&M left in the bag. The bag was still full.

"No!" he said shaking his finger at me

Because of David Shannon's book No David, we've associated that word with David. Lately though, it seems to be Jacob's credo.

When I tell him not to do something ("No Jacob - you can't put your hands in the toilet"), he's been imitating me and repeating "No, no, no". Pursed lips. Index finger wagging.

When David tripped and banged his head against the door, Jacob walked up to the door, bent down to where David's head hit it, and sternly wagged his finger. "No, no, no"

When he's in bed and finds his empty water cup off to the corner, he picks it up. "No, no, no" he says, shaking both his finger and the cup at the same time (no small feat).