I saw my dear friend Lisa's post on her Facebook page this morning--the post was about how her toddler son Brendan had gotten into the toilet and was using it as his own personal hand-washing center. I had to laugh as our son Jeremy was quite the naughty pet during his toddler years. I thought I'd relate some of his escapades to prove that you CAN survive raising a boy without losing your sanity!
When Jeremy was a baby, he was the most sweet and innocent thing--he was loving and cute and never gave us a lick of trouble...well, that is except for the colic that drove us crazy. Luckily, Daddy solved that problem by cutting a large X in the nipple of Jeremy's bottle and thickening up the formula with some rice cereal. After that, things were golden. Well...until Jeremy turned 18 months...
Once Jeremy became an official "Toddler," he was hell on wheels! We couldn't leave him unattended for a single second. Once, while Toddy was deployed, I slowly, but certainly, became desperate for a shower as watching after the kiddo was a 24/7 job and there was just no time for maternal hygiene. One day, he was happily absorbed in playing with his Legos in the living room so I thought I could dash in for a quick shower. I dashed in & out of the hot water and came out of the bathroom to complete and utter silence in the house. Wrapping my bath towel tighter around me, I quickly began a re-con of the house to find my wayward son. I finally heard his toddler giggles out on the screened-in porch and walked out there to see what was going on. What to my wondering eyes should appear but my son, buck-naked, with the lid of my purple nail polish in hand. I gasped, and he trilled out, "Hi Mommy! Look at my pretty purple pee-pee!" I quickly whisked him into the bathtub and used some baby wipes dipped in nail polish remover to clean off the "pretty purple pee-pee." Of course, I thought that was the height of my naughty toddler's escapades but I was so wrong!
While Toddy was deployed, Jeremy got naughtier and naughtier. I guess he missed Daddy and felt that he should make his feelings known by acting out at home. One morning, I was jarred awake by the sound of the Bee Gees at 6 a.m. I raced out to the living room to find out why the stereo was on, only to trip over the web of dental floss our son had woven through the furniture, making me feel like Gulliver in my own home. Once I was able to pull myself up, I saw the culprit passed out on the couch with an open box of popsicles laying across his stomach. I then saw several melted cherry (RED) popsicles lying all over my beautiful Turkish rug. I had to hold my breath and count to 10 before I picked the miscreant up and put him back in his crib.
I thought things would improve as my naughty son got older--boy, I was SO wrong. The worst was yet to come! Once we moved to Puerto Rico, things got crazier. Jeremy had so many crazy escapades, we came up with a new nickname for him: the "E.R. Cowboy." This is because we had to take him to the ER soooo many times. When we were living in temporary housing before we were assigned a house, my hubs decided to invite his new co-workers over for Christmas dinner. The apartment we lived in was open-air and you could hear a pin drop in the next room. Jeremy had gotten in the habit (at 3 1/2 years of age) of eating string of all things, and we ended up having to "pull out" the consequences.
Well, this holiday, our guests had the opportunity to listen to Jeremy's latest exploits. Imagine if you can, a beautiful holiday dinner where Toddy is getting ready to carve the Christmas turkey. Then, imagine hearing a tiny toddler voice call out from the bathroom, "Daddy! I have a string hanging out of my butt!" Then, you see Dad throw down his napkin and carving knife, push back chair, sigh loudly, then stomp off into the house. In the distance, you hear, "Daddy, the string feels like it's hanging, like I'm a bell." Then you hear Daddy say, "You're not gonna eat string anymore, are you?" Then Jeremy says, "Wheeee--Daddy! You pulled that string right out!" I looked at all of our dinner guests and not one of them could finish their dinners. Gotta love toddlers!
The next excitement from our dear toddler came when he and his friends Tyler & Lane decided they wanted to play "tag" in the house at our friends' house while we were watching the Superbowl. Someone decided to throw water on the floor and the next thing you know, Jeremy decided to slip and fall and go headfirst into our friends' coffee table. Daddy took Jeremy to the ER and he ended up having to have his eyebrow glued shut so he didn't have to have stitches.
But, the fun didn't stop there! When Jeremy turned 4, he decided that he wanted to taste everything around him. This included anything he could find around the house. I was hosting some of the base's Chief Petty Officer wives so we could create the centerpieces for that year's Khaki Ball. We were using some small fishbowls, sand, candles, and those wide, flat, glass florist marbles for some color. We were coming to the end of our decorating when our son announced to me, "Those marbles are yummy!" I looked him right in the eye and said, "What do you mean by that?" He looked at me and said, "The glass was yummy." I finally figured out that he had eaten a marble (maybe more) so I called the Chief I knew at the base hospital to find out what I should do. I got in touch with the Chief, only to find out that my own husband was there in his office. I was told that I should take 2 chopsticks and "dig" through the boy's "bm's" for the next 3 days to make sure it passed. When I called the Chief after 4 days to let him know I hadn't found anything, he remarked that the glass marble would probably turn into a diamond... When I asked Jeremy why in the world he had eaten the marble in the first place, the only explanation he could come up with was, "Sorry Mommy, it was just so shiny!" Grrrrr...
This reminds me of the time Jeremy swallowed a quarter--of course I was concerned, but when I called the hospital, they patched me through to our Chief friend again--once again, Hubs was in the office when I called. The Chief told me what to do to help the quarter pass and of course, Hubs had his own witty retort to the predicament. When I wailed about how our son swallowed a quarter, Hubs had to come back with, "Well, I'd only be concerned if he shit out two dimes and a nickel!" Yeah, that's my man...
Still, things really got wacky once Jeremy got to kindergarten. Apparently, his friends were able to reallllly influence him--to his own detriment. We both got a call from the school nurse one day in which she informed us that one of Jeremy's friends had dared him to drink the blue juice in his cold packs from his lunch box. Turns out, the stuff is pretty tame but it makes your poop/pee turn bright green so we had a few interesting days...
Then came the heart-stopping phone call I received from the school nurse when she asked me, in a halting, Spanish-tinged accent, if I would come down to the school and tell her "what Jeremy nose look like normally." Of course, I flew to the school, heart in hand, only to find out that my day-dreaming son had been holding the hand of the girl he liked while he was in line, and was so enamored of her, that he ended up walking face-first into the latch of a metal gate and broke his nose. I still can hear the crunch when the ER doctor had to re-set the boy's nose at the hospital.
We were lucky to not have any catastrophes for about 3 years until we moved back to the States. Then, the bad luck bug seemed to strike again. We had to take Jeremy to the ER again when he decided to use a box cutter (without our knowledge) to open a plastic package and instead, opened his finger. Then, imagine our horror when we had to take him to Patient First last year when he had a horrible cough and fever, only to find out that he had been diagnosed with the H1N1 variation of the flu and that he had actually developed pneumonia. Talk about scaring the pants off of the parental units!! Luckily, this year seems to be accident/sickness/trouble free as far as the boy is concerned...
No comments:
Post a Comment