I don't think I've written about this before, but it is always on my mind. I feel so guilty about the fact that Tyler and Gavin spend at least 10 hours every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at Kindercare. I love Kindercare, but I hate how many hours they are there. A better balance would be if they were there for a few hours each day to gain socio-developmental skills and then spend the remainder of their days at home with me. But our reality is that I enjoy working, the kids enjoy Kindercare, and we need the money so this works for our family for now. But, I still feel extremely guilty. Tyler does a good job of rubbing the guilt in. Often after I've picked him up from an action-packed day at school, he refers to me as Ms. Mama. That used to bother me a lot but I've gotten used to it and am just glad he doesn't call his teachers Mama the way I've heard of other kids doing.

But last night, he called me Robin, the name of his teacher. "What are you doing Robin?" he asked. I calmly replied "I'm cooking dinner and my name is Mama, not Robin." After a couple minutes, he walked up to me and Shawn in the kitchen and said "Hey, Robin, what are you doing?" Well, apparently Shawn feels the same sense of guilt I do because this really rubbed him the wrong way. Shawn grabbed Tyler by the arms and told him not to call Mama Robin again as that is not nice. While I totally appreciate Dada being the bad guy and standing up for me here, I can't imagine how Shawn will react when Tyler calls me Mama Dumb Dumb or some worse bad word.

I have discovered a fabulous - and healthy - way to keep a toddler busy for a long time. It's not TV but it distracts his attention the same way a big purple dinosaur on TV does. It's an apple! The bigger the better here; I've been using Fujis. Tyler takes such teeny tiny bites and has this need to eat the entire thing, right down to the core. It keeps him busy for a good 45 minutes. This means Gavin can play by himself without getting pushed or his arm pulled or his toys taken away. This means I can get some peace and quiet from Tyler's usually non-stop barrage of questions, and by barrage, I refer to his new thing of asking the same exact question that I have just answered, over and over:
Tyler: Is today a school day?
Me: Yes. Today is Monday which means it is a school day.
Tyler: Is today a school day?
Me: Yes!
Tyler: Mama, is today a school day?
Me: Yes Tyler.
Tyler: IS TODAY (breath) A (breath) SCHOOL (breath) DAY?
Me: No.
Tyler: Is today a school day?

This gives new meaning to the old cliche "an apple a day..."

Tyler can read! I can't believe it either but he really reads, word for word. I think he must be a genius. He only prefers to read two of his two hundred books. I'm signing him up for kindergarten next week.

Signed,
A little too excited mom who is in denial that he's just got his favorite books memorized.

Last night, during a rare quiet moment at dinner, Tyler said "So, Mama, are you coming to my birthday party?" Shawn and I busted out laughing so hard I had a hard time swallowing my dinner. First off, you don't expect a two-year old to feel the need to fill the void of a silent moment with random thoughts outloud. Not to mention that he's got a long wait if he's already taking polls for who is coming to his birthday. The mature way he started this question really caught us off guard. Finally, the fact that he was dead serious and acted insulted with our immature reaction to such an honest question, telling us "You not funny, Dada. You not funny, Mama." Maybe he is a misunderstood genius. Nah, he's just Tyler, focused on his birthday because he loves cake and singing the happy birthday song.