It’s been like Christmas here lately. Every day we’ve been getting new things. Some things, like this easel, I bought but most everything else has come in the mail. We are one bunch of spoiled brats when it comes to getting fun things in the mail. And most of those fun things come from you guys! So thanks a lot you spoiling spoilers!

Just kidding. Of course we LOVE snail mail and I will try to blog about each little wonderful thoughtful thing we have so generously received but it’s going to take some time because, did I say it already? WE ARE SPOILED!!!! And we’ve gotten a lot of things!

While we are on the subject of spoiling, I should add that Toby wasn’t very happy with me regarding the purchase of this easel for Baby Bug. He is away on another business trip and you know how it goes, when the cat’s away the mice will play! By playing, I mean painting of course.

I’ve had it in my head to paint several paintings while he is gone. It’s so much easier to paint and make a mess when he is not around to get after me about cleaning up. Toby hates clutter and while I’m not a very cluttered person in general, I am very cluttery when I’m in the middle of a project. My motto is: I make BIG messes but I clean them up in a big way!

So anyway, I had it in my head that if I got Baby Bug her own easel then she might leave my paints alone. “Ha ha, very funny” you say? It was a thought. I don’t know how well it will work. As you can see I need very little justification to go out and buy Baby Bug something neat and fun to play with. Especially when it only costs twenty bucks! How could I not buy it! Of all people who should have an easel, I think Baby Bug should have one. Right? Right!

Hmph.

Toby does not think so. You know why? Because he thinks she is spoiled. He thinks that she will not feel her talents as an artist are special (Don’t you love how we already assume she is a talented artist?) because she has everything any artist could ever want before she is even old enough to realize that these things are special. He thinks that she doesn’t care where she colors or paints. She draws on the wall, the couch, the floor, on paper, not on paper… etc etc. What’s going to make an easel special to a two-year-old?

Bah Humbug. So maybe he has a point. But this is also coming from the guy who doesn’t think she needs a puppy or a goldfish either. Cold-hearted, I say!

I guess we just have different ways of looking at things. I’m a little short-sighted, thinking about how I am going to get through the day and keep my little busy bee occupied. Toby is thinking of her career as an artist. I say, the easel won’t hurt but maybe I’ll hold off on buying her a laptop. She can use mine. (!)

Toby comes from a very different childhood than I did. I was smothered with gifts even when my parents couldn’t afford them. I remember photos of me at birthday parties sitting in the middle of mountains of presents. Do I remember any of those presents specifically? Maybe. Not really.

Does Toby remember his presents? Yes. When he was ten (not two), his dad gave him a single-reflex camera. I don’t think it was anything fancy. Just an old beat-up Pentax (correct me if I’m wrong Ponnays… Toby is out of phone distance) but that camera was everything to Toby. It still is.

I think this photo tells a better story than what I can come up with now that it is midnight and I am turning into a pumpkin. I am SO tired! I cleaned all day from top to bottom. I cleaned EVERYTHING!!!! The house will be in tip top shape when Toby gets home on Tuesday.

I also did some jumping on the bed. You know, to get the dust out or something spring cleaning-ish like that. I thought it would be super cool to take a picture of my feet while I was jumping and then like an idiot I jumped too close to the edge and toppled over the footboard and caught myself on the closet like a pelican face-planting into a window. So graceful. Then to add to my humility, Baby Bug started singing “No more monkeys jumping on the bed.”

So I’m a bit sore. Sore and tired. I’d love to blog about my car getting broken into and the super fun beach time and tea party I had with my nieces but I need to turn in so I can turn back into a princess tomorrow morning. This pumpkin business is not very becoming.

This is me "taking a moment", not to be confused with "having a moment." I had several moments today. Today was chock full of moments. In fact, there were so many moments, I feared that if one more moment hit me I would completely snap and run for the hills screaming.

Pounce is sick. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. The vet doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. We got an x-ray done and all it shows is that he has a lot of air in his stomach and his esophagus. The air could be from all the choking and gasping and yowling he did on the car ride to the vet or it could be something really serious. We don’t know. We’re supposed to take him to a specialized clinic in a few days if he doesn’t get better.

But even though I’m sadder than sad about Pounce, that was not why I had so many “moments” today. Today I think I fully understood the wrath and wrangling of a full-blown-two-year-old. It’s true. The twos are terrible! Worse than I ever imagined and Baby Bug is probably a pretty good kid. I do not know how you parents of multiple kids do it. I’m ready to wave my white flag in defeat. She really got the best of me today.

It was probably not smart to take Baby Bug with me to the vet today with Pounce. I didn’t really have a choice since Toby’s been working like a mad man and I don’t have a list of babysitters handy to help out when a sudden cat illness might strike. But I went early and I thought I could get him in and looked at before lunchtime and nap time. It’s a first-come first-serve sort of clinic and you just never know if you’re going to be lucky and breeze right in or if you are going to be stuck in the waiting room for a few hours.

We got stuck waiting. And waiting and waiting waiting waiting…

Play this clip over and over for three hours straight with no break. It sort of sounds cute at first but quickly that one note (a b sharp perhaps?) starts to get very very very old. It’s sort of like Chinese water torture.

Then imagine that you are trying to translate the whining into English and you have to pay attention or else a five alarm dolphin squeal will go off in your ears and break windows. Then imagine Baby Bug throwing herself on the dirty veterinarian waiting room floor, slathering her wet snotty tears in cat urine.

So lovely, no?

THEN imagine that there is a crotchety old @hole of a man in the waiting room making loud comments to the girls at the front desk about you and your poor mothering skills. I know I should not care what old crotchety @holes say but I guess I was not born with that amazing ability to let stuff like that roll off my back. I don’t really care what he thinks. I know he’s a mean old man and he probably needs a drink but it didn’t stop me from sweating and stressing about how to keep Baby Bug quiet.

Nothing worked. I tried to color with her. I even offered to let her draw with my favorite Sharpie pen. I threw her in the air and made funny sounds. I let her comb my hair and poke me in the eye. I invented funny games of jumping over the lines in the linoleum. I gave her cookies. I let her dump the contents of my purse. I even let her climb on the magazine rack. Nothing stopped the whining. Nothing! It’s a constant with her these days.

I kept telling myself that how you act under stress shows your true character. It’s my mantra these days. Be calm. Do not freak out. Do not yell at the two-year-old. Do not start crying. Do not threaten to put the two-year-old in the smelly urinated in cat carrier. What would Jesus do sort of stuff. I barely held my crap together today. Barely.

I know these are the precious years. I know it’s important to enjoy every moment. I know they fly by fast and you never get a chance to do them over again. But man! Can I do this? This is harder than anything I’ve ever done! This is harder than that one time I had to interview the president of my college about a sexual harassment scandal. And that was NOT easy. Believe me.

Now that she’s blessedly asleep (no nap today) I am a little bit proud of myself that I didn’t lose it. I may have sweat blood out of my arm pits but I didn’t slap her like I wanted to so badly. I didn’t yell. I didn’t even call Toby crying until after we were in the car driving home. I almost… pretty much held it together. It didn’t feel like it but it’s over.

Now I can just worry about Pounce and hope that tomorrow is a better day.