danieljohnson

Distraction is the skill that every parent that wants to remain sane needs to develope. I need to distract Daniel to get him out of his bed, to go to day care, to get him into the car, to eat his dinner, to take a bath.... Well, you get the picture. Today, when I picked him up from day care we had to stop for a second to smell some flowers. Then Daniel discovered a dandelion that he wanted to take home because it was so pretty, smelled so nice and most importantly because there was an ant in it. I didn't really find his idea that amusing so I tried to make him put the flower back in the bushes by telling him that the ant would get lost and wouldn't find its way back to his home if we took it home.  (Evil, I know.) He didn't fall for that anyways. He put the dandelion in the trunk of the car, bent closer to it and whispered to the ant:" Don't worry, you can live with us". Of course, when we got home the ant was gone. Luckily, Daniel got over that quickly and found another ant on the ground.

So later, when it was time for Daniel to go to bed there was an incident that I don't really need to relive again. Daniel was as usual upset because he had to go to bed. He was absolutely not going to pee in the toilet, he just wanted to go straight to bed. It doesn't work that way. If he doesn't pee before bedtime, he will pee in his bed. So I stayed in the bathroom while he went to his room when all of a sudden I hear this dripping noise from Daniels room. I thought he was spilling his water. But no, he was peeing on the floor. Intentionally. And he said that he peed on the floor because he didn't get to stay up. Where do these ideas come to his head? It's not like us parents do this kind of stuff and I hope they don't do this at day care...I guess it's just another one of the joys of parenthood...

It's pretty cool to see how Daniel evolves from a toddler to a little kid with a mind of his own. He's got some pretty neat ideas and thinks about the world around us like only a child can. There's so many things that are amazing that we adults lose that perspective about. Today when I came home from work I saw a constallation of some sort in our front yard. We have a little snow depth measuring thingy on the front lawn. That is shaped as a sign with a snowman on it. Daniel had been outside after Marc picked him up from day care and he had been doing "yard work". When he came in he told Marc that he built a little snowman stand. It was very creative. He used a broomstick, a shovel, some pieces of wood that we had out front and it was shaped as a teepee.

This picking up from daycare has really gotten easier for us parents. Thank god... The other day when I picked him up he ran to me and gave me a big hug. Then he just stared at me for a long time and examined something on my face very thoroughly. Finally he informed me with in a not so suttle voice " Mom, you have hair up your nose! We have to cut it out." When I told Marc this at home, Daniel stared at him for a while and said that Dad doesn't have hair in his nose, he has beard there.

It's funny how you as a parent go about waiting for that first word, and how you after a year or three get sick and tired of that same word. For me the word is Mommy. Sometimes I think that the word Mommy should be banned. I hear it so much I think it's my name. Mommy Johnson. There's a million ways of saying it. Daniel is an expert and he has a bunch of different ways of saying mommy: There's the whining - mommy, the tired - mommy, the I want something right now - mommy, the I never get anything I want - mommy, the that's not what I wanted - mommy, the you did it wrong - mommy, the I wanted to do it myself - mommy, the I'm so angry with you right now - mommy, the I don't want to go to daycare - mommy, the I don't want to go home from daycare - mommy, the I don't want to go to sleep - mommy. 

It's tiring. But then again when you hear the Mommy, I missed you today and I Love you mommy, it's all okay again.