The Terribles...

I'd like to say that age two gets a bad rep, that there's so much fun and enlightenment that comes with this age bla, bla, bla.

But seriously, a lot of the time it sucks. I know we're still early in the twos so I'm hoping it gets easier. This is a typical morning:

Me: "Collin would you like some yogurt?"
Collin: "No!"
Me: "Okay, how about a granola bar?"
Collin: "Yogurt!"
(Happily gulps down yogurt thank God).
Collin: "Chocolate milk, chocolate milk?"
Me: "No chocolate milk, you can have milk or water."
Collin: "Chocolate milk, chocolate milk."
Me: "Here's some milk."
Collin: "No!" Throws himself to the ground and screams for a while, then picks up the milk and drinks it.
Collin: "O's?"
Me: "Here you go." Hands him cheerios.
Collin: Pours O's on the floor. "Fishies!"
Me: "Is it too early for wine?"




And this sort of scenario repeats itself with lunches and snacks. I realize he's a mini teenager, that he's just expressing his independence. Still it's hard not to lose it sometimes and even harder to remind myself it's a phase. He used to eat anything and happily sit with us at dinner time but now I don't even know why I bother making him anything, it usually ends up on the floor. Snacks are consumed all day long so I know he's not starving.

The tantrums aren't just centered around food though, they take place around TV time (Elmo = crack), getting ready for school in the morning, getting into the car, out of the car, etc.

He's an angel at school, with the grandparents and babysitters, which I know is a good thing. Still it'd be nice if he uh pretended we were not his parents or something once in a while.

Then there is that whole reason we don't eat our young...he's so damn charming and cute. He asks me for "o-fly and skimo kisses" every night. He helps dad build with his tools. He puts his arms around my neck in a big hug. He loves to count (up to 11), he imitates animal sounds, he loves firetrucks and is obsessed with pointing out shapes.





So I'll try to throw my rationale out the window and stop trying to analyze why he's having tantrums. As my mom says, two year olds are basically just big balls of emotion.

And hope to God people who say age three is harder than two are wrong.

A break from the mundane

Monday was typical. It was around 5pm. I was writing a grocery list. We just found out Collin had an ear infection and he was resting in his room. Mike was on his way to the pharmacy to pick up Collin's medicine. It was pretty gray and miserable, one of those days I wanted to move far away from Oregon to some place where 65 degrees was considered cold. Just as I'm debating our meal plan for the week, there's a giant crash and the house shakes. Out the window a massive Douglas Fir limb lay across our porch and Mike's work car. Another tree crashes down over the power line. My immediate response was to run upstairs in a panic to check on Collin. He sat in bed with a confused look.

There's a knock at the door and the neighbor, a retired fire fighter asks if we're all right. I'm obviously in bit of shock. Our steps are completely blocked by tree branches and debris. The neighbor managed to climb over Mike's wrecked car and make his way up here. He offers to call 9-1-1 and shortly after the fire crew shows up which is all pretty amusing to Collin. He's all smiles and mesmerized by the lights. Oh to be two.





The fire guys clear the debris and branches off our stairs with chainsaws so we have a path out of the house. I hold my hands over Collin's ears while he continues to be entranced.









Because the power line is strangling a tree our electricity obviously disconnects to make it even more fun. At this point, I've gotten a hold of Mike in a shriek as he tries to calm me. "Don't worry Lyssy," he said with a good amount of cheer in his voice. "You guys are safe, it's not my car, it's the city's and it's the neighbor's tree so their insurance will cover it."

The gawkers are out in force with their cell phone cameras and the news crew is on its way. I do not want to be on the news. Why? Because anytime they interview someone on TV, that person looks a) cracked out, or b) stupid. I preferred not to be quoted as "Uh yeah I was just sitting here and the tree came down. It sure did take me by surprise." Dumb stair at camera.

Thankfully Mike pulled up and ends up telling the news guys not to film us because he's a cop, etc. so on the news that night a stunned looking neighbor we've never met gives her story of our house with pictures of our sad porch and stairs.

Mary Ann comes over to pick up Collin for the night while we try to take care of this mess. Friends in the neighborhood offer us a place to sleep and dinner for the night. We end up eating a delicious meal, drinking wine and sleeping in a comfy guest room. Not so shabby. Meanwhile Collin gets to hang out with his grandparents for the night.

The bummer of the night (besides the whole tree falling on our house) is we find out it's considered an "act of God" hence the neighbor is not responsible and it falls on us (thank God for insurance!!) The next day we get in touch with our agent and start detailing everything that needs to get done. After that things happen pretty fast. The arborist and his crew come and clear away the tree in a matter of minutes. A contractor is at the house building a new rail to be within code and checking out our porch and roof for possible replacing. The car is towed, the windshield completely shattered. Mike's boss asks him if he can drive it to work and Mike laughed and sent him a picture. Needless to say he'll get a new car.

That night after having dinner with Jon and Mary Ann (and are so grateful they spent a whole day with our cranky toddler) we head home to our house which supposedly will have power restored. Instead we find a note from Pacific Power saying the electrician's work needs to be inspected by the City before they can turn our power back on. It's cold. I'm in disbelief and Collin hears a lot of words he shouldn't repeat. I put him to bed in several layers of blankets and Mike calls the electrician. Apparently there were some communication issues and the letter he sent went to the wrong power utility. Luckily he comes back to our house 20 minutes later and restores the power for us. The next day he says Pacific Power will come by and do a permanent reconnect. Do I have any idea what this means? Nope but I'm just happy we have power.

By Wednesday things were finally normal. Power is restored for good. Our Internet is back and we're waiting for our estimate tomorrow. Once we get that hopefully we can get things fixed as soon as possible. We're looking at the upside...it'll be a chance for some remodeling and refinishing on the outside of our house! Meanwhile we would really like to compel the neighbor to cut down the rest of his tree. It's leaning against his house and according to the arborist, it's damaged and rotting and it will fall down. It's only a matter of time. Only this time it'd go straight across the street into the neighbor's roof.

You can bet when we move, I'll be looking carefully at the surrounding trees. We know it could have been much worse and are grateful to friends and family for stepping up and helping us out! I now welcome the mundane back.

Birthday party abbreviated

Our planned birthday celebration for Collin today ended up not exactly as planned after Collin (sorry too much information to follow) had several diarrhea diapers and a 102 degree fever. Mike made his delicious smoked ribs and wings which is way too much for our little family and other family members already planned to bring side dishes, and I slaved away at my first birthday cake so dammit we would still have some kind of party!



Instead of having our sit down dinner and birthday bash both sets of grandparents came over with gifts and took the food to go. Collin ended up doing better than we expected so everyone hung out for a bit and he got to blow out the candles with Mike's help. He ate a few bites of his cake but wasn't interested in food. We probably could have had our sit down dinner after all as planned but you just never know what a sick kid will be like. Spikes in fever? Projectile vomiting? Surprises like that keep parents from getting bored!












He had a bath and an early bedtime and I canceled our plans to go to an Easter egg hunt tomorrow organized by the mom's group I belong to. I was looking forward to watching Collin hunt for eggs but the crappy weather combined with Collin being around a bunch of other kids didn't sound like a good idea. Mike and I might organize our own Easter egg hunt tomorrow by dying some eggs with Collin and hiding them around the house.

Of course Collin has no idea today was a birthday party or that tomorrow's Easter. It's all just another exciting day in the world to him.

Hopefully he'll be better soon and we can check another illness off our list.

Happy Bithday Collin!

Collin is two! And yes he can proudly hold up two fingers and proclaim this.

What does this age mean so far?

It's part sweet, part aggravation. The best are the questions asking me for a kiss or hug, the coherent sentences, the huge smiles and the independence, well this is both good and bad--he refuses to sit in his booster seat lately and longs after the big kids on the playground trying to jump high on the monkey-bars or go for the tallest slide. He uses a fork and spoon like a pro (most of the time). He can take his coat and shoes off, throws his dishes in the sink and sleeps in a big boy bed.

The hard parts are the flailing screaming tantrums because he's frustrated or God forbid you gave him the wrong snack. Or you put a cap on his Elmo watching. Or maybe he's just tired. Or teething. Or it just feels good to scream. Who knows. He's still torturing Hurley our poor cat and then looks shocked when Hurley finally scratches him.

Food wise he's hit or miss. For whatever reason he usually passes on pizza and toast with peanut butter or cheese which he used to love (although quesadillas are all good), pasta is a hit, as are beans, yogurt, anything fruit (especially "bluebons") and turkey. And now he eats cereal with milk--the kind I like, (the healthy Kashi stuff with soy milk), somehow that just makes me smile. This is combined with asking for "bacon" and loving spam, sausages and barbecue (obviously his father's son). He has been forgoing the veggies lately which he used to enjoy down so who knows. Bottom line we're not worried about Collin starving. Oh and Annie's fruit bunnies might as well be crack. Once I introduced those, he eagerly points to the cabinet several times a day with giddy chants of "buddies, buddies?"

Blue remains his best friend and our portable DVD player is a lifesaver (as are the Elmo movies he watches). Those 25 minutes can save my sanity and allow me to whip up dinner or grab the laundry. Rotting brain be damned.

Collin may be our future engineer. He likes to examine things and figure out how they work (he gets under the ride-on cars like a mechanic), he knows how to open doors, outsmarted the baby gate latch and is starting to figure out zippers.

He also loves "dodos" (the photo album) and points to "Papa, Nona, Mama, Dada, Uncle and baby" I don't think he's quite made the connection the baby = Collin. Toy wise his favorites are his choo choos, balls, his tool set (just like dad) and toy cars. He also loves looking at books and will occasionally have fun with blocks. Dancing is also a hit especially if it involves mom or dad lifting him in the air and spinning him around. He's definitely an energy ball and late this month will hopefully channel that into peewee soccer!

At Purple Moon he plays with his friends, does lots of cool art projects and for the most part is pretty sweet. He'll be moving out of the toddler classroom and into preschool in the fall!

For his birthday he brought cookies to school and I surprised him when I picked him up with a balloon bouquet, singing Elmo balloon included. Collin couldn't figure out where the singing came from but had a huge grin on his face. We went for dinner and beers at Hopworks Brewery (okay he had milk). Despite not eating until nearly 8pm, he was a trooper and happily played, ran around and enjoyed some spaghetti, French fries and a special birthday ice cream sundae! Not a healthy food day to say the least but birthdays are all about hedonism even when you're two, right?!


All in all he's a fun, dramatic, independent, stubborn and happy tot. A year ago he was barely walking and now he's blasting through the world.

Slow down Collin, I can't chase you forever.

At birth:


On his first birthday:



And today:

An almost two-year old!

I've been a bad mommy blogger lately. Figured we were due for some updates.

Collin acts like a typical toddler. He has his bad side: flailing, all out temper tantrums on the floor, hitting and throwing, but the sweetness reigns. Those baby toothed smiles, the two word phrases, (favorites: "Hug momma?") make it hard to stay mad at him for long. He definitely knows how to push limits. I can see why they say toddlers are little teenagers. Absolutely no regard for safety, immortality is a given. He's the kid that will step to the line and put his foot over it just to taunt you.

I'm trying to empathize more, understand the power toddlers want to exhibit when everything else in their world is pretty much powerless. But it almost makes me lose it when he tortures poor Hurley the cat. Luckily the cat is very forgiving.

Collin talks all the time and is due for another sedated hearing test though we want to find out if it's really necessary at this time. I hate the sight of the mask over his face to put him under. Considering he has other hearing evaluations that will tell us how he's responding to sound, it doesn't seem like something we need to rush to do. He repeats practically everything and is at the typical level of communication for his age. It is important to continue to evaluate him and make sure he doesn't lose any hearing in the good ear.

And now for some pictures:

New Kitty on the Block

I started craving a cat a few weeks ago. If you asked me if I'd end up with another pet after we said goodbye to our beloved dog and our (horribly mean) cats I would've laughed. However, I was convinced there are friendly felines out there. I grew up with the sweetest tabby ever. Our two tortoiseshells proved to be near evil and after attempting to claw Collin and annoying us to no end we gave them up for adoption.

A week ago, Mike gave in to my craving and informed me he bought a littler box and cat food (props for good husband!) That weekend we went to the Humane Society with Collin and looked through the Plexiglas windows at the mewing, mostly sleeping, cats. There were a few that seemed a little too wild. A few that had just a few lives left and then the cutest of the bunch, the kittens. I was a little nervous of them around Collin. He definitely hasn't grasped "gentle" yet. One of the volunteers told us she had a sweet male kitten. He was about 5 months old and a little groggy recovering from surgery.

We agreed to spend some time with him and she brought us a soft gray-blue bundle of fur named Hurley. And he was oh so sweet. With white socks markings. We decided to take the gamble and bring him home. Collin was very excited. His chants interchanged between, "Hurey, "Kitty," and "Cat."

The first few days were a little iffy. Hurley refused to come out from under the couch (except to eat and to use the litter-box thankfully). He was terrified and trembled whenever we approached him. I was convinced he hated us. About three days later he finally let me pet him. And then slowly opened up to Mike. And now he'll even hang out with all of us in the same room. Collin loves to chase Hurley around and try to feed him his food. Hurley mostly ignores Collin, or runs for freedom into the basement. But occasionally he'll let Collin pet him.







He most definitely likes being around his people and is a talker. He will happily let you give him a belly rub and loves resting his chin on my arm. It's nice to have a companion as I work (although it can be irritating when he decides to attack the computer screen or walk on the keyboard).



I hope Collin will grow up with warm memories of Hurley, just like I have with my beloved cat, Moppet. RIP old friend.

and how could I forget...

"Clock!" Minus the "L." Makes for amusing looks that's for sure