I miss "Ya-Ya"

For a long time, Simon exclusively referred to me as "Ya-Ya." Nobody is totally sure where that came from, but I loved it. It stuck with him until he was a little over two if I remember correctly (but we've now established that my memory is just left of perfect, so who really knows). Anyways, he eventually started throwing a Mommy or a Mama or a MawMaw my way, and eventually Ya-Ya became a distant memory. Then yesterday all those other adorable names for me seemed to find their graves too.

I got "Is this your scarf, Theresa?" and a "Thanks, Mom" all in one day. Is he trying to kill me?!

Luckily this morning, his usual singsong of "Moooooommmmyyyy, where aaaarrrrrre you?" rang through my ears. I really need to record that somehow, because like Ya-Ya, I'm going to miss it one day.

Did you know...?

Did you know that iguanas eat strawberries then poop out the seeds so more of the delicious fruit can grow?

I saw this on Go, Diego, Go!, Simon's show du jour. The iguana is whining that he has to "go" and Diego flies with him through the jungle (vine to vine, Tarzan style) to get to the strawberry fields before the iguana loses control of his bowels. They make it to the fields and the iguana goes up and down the rows effortlessly squeezing out the seeds in perfect little fecal piles while a cheering section is going wild for him.

Simon, I endure awful TV shows for you. Dora repeats herself over and over and over and over and wears a shirt that is too small (why?). Max and Ruby are bunny children that live in a 2 story home by themselves. Bubble Guppies are mermaids (?) who are trying to teach something I've yet to identify. Umizoomi has songs that I cant. get. out. of. my. head. But being the bad mom that I am, I let you continue to watch them and love how they soothe you when you are waking up in the morning or after a nap. TV really can be a mom's best friend (but you didn't hear it from me).

{Oh and if you are wondering, I consulted google and could find no evidence that iguanas help strawberry farmers in anyway outside of Diego's Abuelito's farm. They are still safe to eat.}

Big Daddy

A good friend always says that Simon reminds her of the kid from the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy because he's always dressed like a goof. For example, when we left the house the other day he was wearing his regular clothes, a suede cowboy hat, a bright green coat and a tattered pink skirt inside out (not pictured). I just roll with it and actually find it very comical. Here is a sampling of pictures I caught in the last month or two. There are many (MANY) more, but you get the idea :)

Lock 'Em Up

I know it sounds crazy, but we lock Simon in his room at night.

No, he is not a prisoner in our home. No, we don't put a dirty bowl of old soup through an opening at the bottom at mealtimes. And no, we don't have a pooping pot in there either (I know you were wondering).

We look at it just like he's in a crib. When a child is in a crib, they are locked in. SAFE. I want to go to bed knowing that he is safe and sound in there and I don't want him coming out of his room all the time when he's supposed to be enjoying slumber. The way we lock him in is by putting a child safety door handle lock on the inside; when it's not there he gets drunk with power.

The lock was off for a day or so as a trial, and on night 2 he noticed. An hour after he went to sleep he came downstairs where B and I were watching TV. He was laughing hysterically and yelled, "I scored!" Who could get mad at that?! After giving us each a hug he went back upstairs and put himself to bed and I thought, "when did he get big enough to put himself to bed?" He's not. He was back down in 10 seconds laughing like a crazy person again.

This is when I had to lay down the law. I told him if he left his room one more time the lock was going back on. Next thing I know he is opening the door and then went to his bed. I went in with the lock to reattach it and he proved he was listening:

"I didn't leave the room, I just opened the door," he said with a mocking tone and a grin.

Hmm. He's right. But I'm bigger. On went the lock :)

(This is from his first night at our new house in November 2010...wasn't ready for the big boy bed quite yet.)

A special bonding moment

Last night, Simon started crying around 11pm that he wanted his mommy. As his mommy, I could tell that he was mid-nightmare. So I crawled into his bed, picked him up and held him there whispering that mommy was there and waiting it out.

But wait! What was happening? Why was it warm? Why was it wet? Was he peeing on me?!

Yup.

For the first time since being out of diapers (about a year now) he had a nighttime accident. It just so happened that I was holding him on my lap at the time so I got to feel like I peed my pants too.



(This was from a while before he was actually potty trained.)

Because I want to remember it all...

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a patchy memory at best. My friends will talk about things that happened in college and high school and I can't help but give them a blank stare half the time (hell, I don't even remember my little sister's first 6 years of life). I like to think it's because I was too busy living in the moment to lock anything into the old memory bank, but let's face it, the old memory bank just has a couple of holes in it. Hopefully those holes aren't indicating a bigger problem and I'm really just a good old fashioned ditz.

Anyways, it occurred to me about 20 minutes ago that I have a bad memory and I am not doing NEARLY enough to document these precious years with my son. I am not great with taking photos every day and I don't always write down the funny stories or the milestones. I don't think you have to do these things to be a great mom, but I want to remember it all (hence my title...clever huh?). I'm about to have a panic attack that his first 3 years have gone by and I'm not going to remember any of it....well, better late than never.

So here goes nothing. A blog. About me. About my family. Mostly about that little guy napping upstairs. My one and only Simon.