Last night we held a going away party for our friends who are about to jump into the mission field in Paris, France (yeah I know, poor them). We discovered that hosting a party is so much easier when other people bring most of the food.

It was a very enjoyable evening, and we had a good turnout. We visited with a lot of people we hadn’t seen in a while, and I’m fairly certain I gave myself diabetes from all the cake and sweets.

Totally worth it.

Little Button had a blast as well. She made a new friend at the party - a couple we know brought their son, Lucas, who is 3 ¹/₂. Button was a little shy and standoffish at first (after all, J has been telling her that boys are bad until she’s 30), but she soon warmed up to Lucas and they spent several ours playing together. They had a blast running around, sliding, watching TV, eating cake, and chatting. The current state of our playroom is proof that good times were had by all. By the end of the night, Lucas was calling J “Daddo” and Button was (repeatedly) asking Lucas if she could hug him.

At one point, they even closed themselves inside the pantry and conspired together. Soon, Lucas emerged to ask me if he could have a breakfast bar - which was no doubt Button’s idea, as she asks for them several times per day. I walked into the pantry to find Button holding the box of breakfast bars.

It was so nice to see her really playing and interacting with another child. I have been somewhat concerned about her tendency to be a little aloof around other children, blaming myself for not socializing her enough. While it’s probably accurate that I’ve been a little lazy in getting her used to other kids, it occurred to me last night that most of the kids in our peer group are younger than she is.

Button is very advanced for her age in language skills - which when said by a parent may come across as bragging, but really it’s just a fact, and one we take very little credit for. A fact that has been stated by our pediatrician and just about every adult who comes in contact with her. Actually, we learned last night that apparently our friends who have kids sit around and talk to each other about how brilliant Button is.

So needless to say, the kids she usually “plays” with, who are mostly several months younger than she is, don’t have the same language skills and therefore can’t fully engage in her favorite form of entertainment: endless conversation.

Last night between Button and Lucas, there was a constant stream of chatter emerging from the playroom. When they eventually came down to join us, they continued to make observations to each other, ask and answer questions (in complete sentences). It was really quite adorable to watch them interact.

And by the end of the evening, Button finally had to admit defeat and concede that she had met someone with more energy than she has (gasp). She was completely worn out and started insisting that she was “ready for her nap right now” before all the guests had left.

When J put her to bed, she wiggled under her covers and sighed as though she did not know it was possible to be THAT comfortable. Then she said, “Daddo, I had a great day.”

Indeed.

Being “quiet” remains the ultimate challenge for Little Button, and being forced to do so is evidently a memorable and scarring experience for her.

“Ok Button, we need to go to Kinkos. Let’s find your shoes.”

“Mama, I don’t wanna go be quiet at Kinkos.”

We’ve been trying to get her to be quiet while Mama or Daddo are on the phone. So far, this is the most success we’ve had:

“Have to be quiet while Mama’s on the phone. Good girl for being quiet. I’m being quiet while Mama’s on the phone. Be very very quiet because Mama’s on the phone. Good for being quiet while Mama’s on the phone… MAMA, I DON’T WANNA BE QUIET ANYMORE. I WANNA TALK SOME MORE.”

She’s also becoming quite the Little Mommy to her toys.  Things we have overheard recently:

• “I gave the floor a spanking because it pushed me. The floor was mean to me.”
• “Did you fall out of your swing?  I’m sorry.  NOW YOU BE CAREFUL AND DON’T FALL OUT AGAIN.”
• “Oven, you’re in time out.  You gonna mess with me?  You’re in TIME OUT.”
• “Be quiet.  DON’T BOTHER ME WHILE I’M ON THE PHONE.”

I’m not really sure where she gets some of these things.  I’m quite sure I’ve never told her not to bother me while I was on the phone.  And we don’t really use the phrase “Are you gonna mess with me” around here.

At any rate, when Kid #2 gets here, he/she is in for a surprise.

Ok, I upgraded Wordpress so hopefully it will start working for me again.  I’m doubtful though, since it’s still not letting me add categories.

This has been a difficult week.  My mom has been ill with some sort of excruciatingly painful nervous system disorder that the doctors were unable to diagnose for weeks.  They’re medicating her, and it’s working to take the pain away, but the medication makes her crazy.

She’s usually a really emotional person anyway, but when she’s on this medication it’s like being around a bipolar schizophrenic with Alzheimer’s.  I couldn’t let her watch Little Button for her normal 2 days this week because she’s seriously not herself and I was too worried about her judgment.  When I told her I would be keeping Button home this week, I might as well have stabbed her best friend, run over her dog, and published a book on “why my mother is a failure.”

The other day I went over to my parents’ house to wrap all their Christmas presents (I was trying to be helpful in any way they would let me, since my mom has been ill) and I totally overdid it.  I was useless and dead by the time I got home to J.

Though I’m now in second trimester, I’m not getting my energy back.  This is different from the first time around, and much more inconvenient with a toddler.  A toddler with rampant energy who can sing at the top of her lungs and spin in circles and dance for 4 hours straight while I sit on the couch staring at her in disbelief.

I think I finally got all my Christmas shopping done.  This season has absolutely kicked my butt.  Last year I ordered everything online and was done several weeks before Christmas.  I had a giant spreadsheet detailing gifts purchased and to-be-purchased for each member of my family and J’s family, as well as automated price totaling to ensure that money between each person was balanced and that no one was left out.  Last year, I was the ultimate anal-retentive Christmas Elf.

This year, I’m more like the Christmas Sloth.  I only sort of remember what I’ve gotten each person, so I hope it’s somewhat balanced.  Since I waited so late, I couldn’t order anything online so I’ve had to leave the comfort of my home to actually SHOP.  Which is more of a challenge with aforementioned 2-year-old.  Ok, “challenge” would be putting it mildly.

The other day I was especially low on energy, but we had to go shopping so I packed up Little Button in the car and we made several stops.  At each and every store, she made every effort to run away from me, refused to use her “inside voice” and had a total temper tantrum when she had to give up her lollipop to enter one particular store.

Nearing the end of my rope, I decided to cut the trip short - but we HAD to make one more stop to get a very necessary gift for J.   While inside the store, I had her by the hand so she wouldn’t go running off - and she somehow managed to end up sprawled on the floor while I was trying to make a difficult decision about the merchandise.  I pulled her up by the arm, but she slipped out of my grasp and banged her eyebrow on the tile.

Total.  System.  Meltdown.  You would have thought she cracked her head wide open.

With everybody staring, we left the store for the sake of the other shoppers.  We walked around outside.  She cried.  People stared.  We sat on a bench.  She cried.  People stared.  We stopped and ate lunch.  She recovered.  We re-entered the store in the hopes that I could FINALLY get the 10 minutes I needed to make the purchase and go home.

The second we entered,  she immediately broke away from my grasp and went running through the store, tripped on her own feet, crashed and burned, and went careening into a display case.

OH. MY. GAWD.

As the hysterical crying ensued, and once again everybody in the store stopped to stare at the bad mom with the crazy child, I snapped myself out of the open-mouthed stare and went to pick her up.

At this point, I became THAT MOM who refuses to take her screaming kid out of the store.  I was getting that gift, dammit, because I COULD NOT ENDURE coming back here again.

Through the remainder of the time at the store, Button intermittently cried, sang at the top of her lungs, tried to get away from my death grip, squirmed, talked excessively (loudly) so I could not hear the salesperson, batted at my hair, wiped snot all over the place (did I mention she has a cold?) and threw tissues on the floor.

In the end, I walked away from salespeople who couldn’t wait to see me go, with a gift that I paid entirely too much for because I couldn’t think clearly enough to make a sound decision.  I put Button in the car, sat in the driver’s seat, and cried.

I’m so tired every day.  I really need to go grocery shopping.  I really need to finish painting my mom’s Christmas present.  I really need to buy something for Button from Santa.  I really need to do laundry and finish cleaning in preparation for the inlaws who are coming on Monday.

I really need to visit a friend in the hospital who just had an emergency hysterectomy.  And I need to make some meals for her family because for crying out loud, they have 5 toddlers (no, that’s not a typo) and her husband is having to be Mommy and Daddy and Nurse and Santa.

So there are obviously people in this world who have it much harder than I do.  But somehow that doesn’t stop me from wanting to curl up in bed and wish it would all just go away.  In the meantime, I guess I’ll go on complaining.

Thanks for being my audience.

The other day, Little Button looked at the small crater on my nose that has replaced the mole I’ve had there for my entire life.“That’s a mole.”

“No honey, there’s no mole there anymore. It used to be, but now it’s gone.”

“God took it off.”

“No, the doctor took it off.”

And that would be the part of me that’s stubborn enough to deny, to my 2-year-old, that God deserves any credit for the removal of the mole.

Mostly because I’m pretty sure that if God had volunteered to “take it off” for me, it would have been a heck of a lot cheaper and the insurance company wouldn’t be hassling me with letters about “preexisting conditions.”

I usually neglect the mention of holidays on this blog. I don’t know why. It seems that every time one comes up I’m so engrossed in my plans that I just forget the “traditional holiday post” until after the holiday has passed…and then it doesn’t seem to make any sense to post about it.

This year I’m breaking my own tradition and wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving before the holiday.

Tomorrow we’re boarding a flight for Seattle, which I am both looking forward to and incredibly apprehensive about. See, Little Button doesn’t sleep on planes. The last flight she took was an overnight flight and she didn’t sleep the entire time. I didn’t even know that was possible for a (just barely) 2-year-old.

This flight is during the day (thank goodness) but it falls right in the middle of her nap time. Which means that she’s just not going to nap tomorrow.

Which will either a) be great in helping her adjust to the time change because we can put her to bed 2 hours early… or b) she will dissolve into the screaming tantrum throwing toddler of doom and we will all be killed by the blazes of fire shooting out of her eyes.

Probably that second one.

So I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your families. I hope you eat entirely too much and fall asleep after dinner. I hope you laugh and share and create memories that you treasure.

And if you hear a banshee scream, followed by an explosion, that’s just our little corner of Seattle blowing up from The Toddler Meltdown of 2007.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Edited to add: I just realized that even solution “a” above isn’t a reality, because it’s 2 hours earlier in Seattle, so we really need to put her to bed 2 hours LATER in order to avoid her waking up at 5am. Yep…we’re doomed.