Monsters Don't Wear Clothes

I just asked Tyler why he was running around the house naked. He told me he's pretending to be a monster and on Monsters Inc., the blue monster with the claws that come out of his hands doesn't wear any clothes.

Look at That Guy

Tyler's reaching that lovely age where he's noticing differences among people, and doesn't see anything wrong with pointing them out. At a restaurant, Tyler yelled "Hey mom, look at that farmer" when an elderly man wearing a straw hat walked by. Lucky for me, the man didn't put two and two together on that one. At the grocery store last week, Tyler yelled "Hey he looks like a pirate," and at first, I was so distracted with groceries, Gavin, etc. that I wasn't even going to acknowledge what Tyler said. But right when he said it, this man started laughing really loudly so I turned around to see a big man wearing overalls and a red bandana thing on his head cracking up. I was relieved that he had a sense of humor about it, and laughed too when he told me it's been one of 'those days' where hes been called lots of names, but pirate wasn't one of them until now. I'm guessing that guy won't ever wear that outfit again. Whenever someone in a wheelchair goes by us, I brace myself for the loud question and start to prepare a politically correct response that won't offend, set off, or confuse anyone. I remember when I was with Michael and he asked me why that man only had one leg...as a 16 year old, I just about died when the man came up and explained to my brother that was a rude question. But so far it hasn't happened with Tyler, and with any luck, maybe it won't, because he's too busy noticing the farmers and pirates in the world.

Trust Me

One of my biggest frustrations in life is when I know I am right but am in the company of folks who don't believe me. Apparently Tyler has inherited this character flaw from me. These days, he can often be heard saying "Trust me," which is so funny to hear come out of a four year old's mouth. But the other night, Tyler demonstrated just how important it is to him that we believe him. Something was definitely wrong that night because he woke up for the third time in two hours, and these days, he rarely wakes up once. But this night, he was sobbing and yelling "I have a cold." He didn't feel feverish and he was not demonstrating any symptoms of a cold. I suggested that he didn't seem to have a cold but perhaps he was feeling cold so I slipped a pair of socks on his feet, tucked him back into bed and forbade him from getting out of bed again.

On his fourth wake up, he stood along side my bed repeating that he had a cold. We discussed things briefly, namely things about how very tired I was and how I did not want him coming into my bedroom anymore because I was asleep. Funny how quickly a sleep deprived person adapts to uninterrupted sleep. I was not handling all the wakeups well. I got out of bed and walked to my restroom, telling him to wait for me. Two steps away and I heard an outburst of coughing, crying, and stuff flying. I spin around to see his dinner all over my bed. Why did I let him eat that second ear of corn on the cob?? Why does corn come out the same way it goes in?? The next wave of puking began so I grabbed Tyler to get him into the bathroom. He was crying, coughing and screaming at the top of his lungs as he spit out vomit "I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK!" Yes, yes you did little boy. Next time let's try to puke in the toilet instead of all over my bed at 3 a.m.

P.S., that episode was it; no fever, no other symptoms. We chalked it up to overeating the delicious dinner (BBQ chicken, corn & mashed potatoes), which he ate seconds of everything.