A Day in the Life...with a TWO-YEAR OLD

Today was one of those days that makes you contemplate your significance as a parent.

The day began with a rousing round of game show-like enthusiasm with "How many ways can I knock a baby over?" (I'll take "Baby Torture" for a thousand Alex...) Followed by baking banana muffins with mom...(and when she takes them out of the oven and turns her back, the TWO-YEAR OLD will bite the tops off a dozen.) These two entertaining activities are followed by a lively carnival-like game known as 'Whack-a-Ben', fun for TWO-YEAR OLD, not so fun for nine-month-old Ben.

Once we have all recovered from these simple games of giggles and grins, (or terror and tears, depending on which side you're on), and TWO-YEAR OLD is settled for a 'time-out' in his room to contemplate the universe...you realize the silence is eerily reminiscent of the calm in the eye of a hurricane. With dread you put down the battered infant on your lap (for which you are rewarded with instant ear-splitting screams of terror that the torture is about to resume), and go to find the TWO-YEAR OLD...sitting on the change table. The first thing you notice, is the odor. Dried, dessicated fish bits. MMMMmmm. Just wanted to feed the fish mom...so says the TWO-YEAR OLD with at least a half a cup of fish bit food all over the change table. The odor is unpleasant at best. Thankfully you have intervened right before the fishy-feast began.

Fine. Thank goodness for stock in the Hoover hand-vac company. The fish food now has bits of fuzz to add to it's nutritional value and interest. Lucky fish. Gourmet meals now.

The day progresses, unbelievably slowly, towards its inevitable end. During that time the TWO-YEAR OLD has pushed his chair over to the kitchen, opened a bag of pretzels, and enticed the crawling infant out onto the back porch for a sampling of salty death-sticks. The infant, covered in rock salt and rubbing his eyes, is both delighted and horrified by the new experience. Thank goodness for the hand-vac...again. Bye-bye pretzels, whereas fuzz is fine for the fish, it's not so fun in the pretzels.

Speaking of eating...it brings us to dinner time. With both children crying for food you try to prepare dinner and assure them that they will not starve before it's ready. Once it is ready, you are confronted by the stubborn will of your 9 month old who will no longer allow you to feed him. He is on a hunger strike. Give him the spoon, or give him death. You relent. You regret it. You hose off the high chair in the backyard afterwards, and hose off the infant in the tub too. There will be far more baths around here from now on. Your kitchen floor will never know such ups and downs again.

These activities are followed by the standard...dump the toy boxes...all of them. Empty the laundry baskets...stand on the chair and spit-wash your infant brother's hair...eat only chicken off your plate for dinner, play 'bulls eye' with your broccoli...and knock over dad's full glass of soda pop in the living room with your big yellow happy face ball. (Yes, that IS an outside toy.) Fight about the potty...relent, sit on the potty with the bubble-gun...and when mom runs out to pick up the crying baby who has fallen over from walking along the coffee table (again), build a pile of bubbles a foot and a half deep on the rug.

Your nine-month old helps himself to a nutritious dessert of MOSS from your artificial plant out on the porch, and your TWO-YEAR OLD bounces all his plastic toys off the baby's head. All is well in toddler-land. It's hard to contemplate the arrival of the next baby in just a few short weeks...the thought is staggering and the baby leaps in devilish anticipation as I slowly stare with glassy-eyed indifference at the toys strewn about the room.

Bedtime is in one minute...mom will then have a long bath, read a book and go to bed. I'm leaving the baby monitor off.