My life has been taken over by Thomas the Tank Engine. Jack has found the love of his life and it is a blue steam engine. Jack eats, breathes and sleeps Thomas the Tank Engine, and due to our close proximity, I now do, too. The first thing out of Jack's mouth every morning is "Choo-Choo, Mommy," and it is apparently now a requirement that I kiss Thomas, Percy and Stanley along with my son at bedtime. He has a meltdown every day when I drop him off at daycare not because I am leaving, but because he had to leave his choo-choos in the car.
So, today while suffering under almost intolerably boring and painfully nerdy videos of model trains (to which Jack was glued), I was relieved to find the following video as it was the only one that Jack and I both enjoyed.
My coworkers spent the day at my home today for a team-building retreat. And, while most of you may be rolling your eyes and throwing up a little bit due to images of corny, awkward, Office-esque team building games, it was actually a very lovely, heartfelt experience. Seriously, you really wish you worked at my office. The women (and one man) that I call my coworkers are the most loving, compassionate, funny, inspiring, diverse, and authentic people that I could ever dream of working with. Could you imagine working with a bunch of other therapists all day and feeling BAD? Heck no.
Anywho, during the lunch break we busted out the karaoke machine and I took some video, which I am very tempted to post, but I want to stay working where I am working. What I will post, however, is what I stumbled upon when I left Jack alone for two minutes:
Jack loves to look at pictures of himself. Often times, when I need him to be occupied, I will play a slideshow of pictures of him and he loves it. In fact, he goes ape shit. He thinks it's hilarious. He points at the computer screen and says, "Is Shat! Shat!" Oh, and he calls himself Shat. Which I love.
Shat and I were in my bathroom today doing the usual try-to-get-dressed- and-put-on-makeup-before-Jack-gets-bored-and-totally-unravels tango when I hear him say it. "Oh, shit." Now, I've heard him say it before but it's never been very clear. In the past when I've heard him say it, I just assumed that I was imagining things. I mean, Jack's entire catalogue of spoken words is only four words strong. No way there's a four-letter word in there. However, this time there was no denying that Shat was saying shit. He had dropped the bag of Q-tips (again, by the way. I've picked these mother fuckers up so many times that I am beginning to recognize them individually) and then let the words fly, like a pro. No horseying around. No baby talk. Just a good, solid, "Oh shit."
And since I don't have him swearing on video yet, you'll have to settle for this video of him "chatting" on the toy cell phone. My favorite part: the random bursts of laughter throughout his "conversation." God, he's so cute.
This precious little baby will some day be on American Idol and this will be the "flashback" video they show before she gets on stage and blows the entire nation away. I want to eat her, she's so cute.
The first place I went to was so hot and the air so stuck that I felt like I had walked into my second grade classroom, but decorated like a Persian woman's home and with the spicy sweet smell of chicken curry hanging like cigarette smoke. I was trying to be open-minded, overshooting my "I'm not prejudice" bounds by going to Azizah's home, the first name on the daycare provider list for my area. I was ashamed at my first instinct to skip over her and move on to Melissa Jones, and over corrected by immediately imagining Azizah and I becoming best friends after she teaches me to belly dance and I drag her out to a karaoke bar. There was also some rich fantasy of how Jack would grow up in this fertile soil of multicultural boundlessness, all worldly and appreciative, and someday decide to become the President of Earth, the One who embraces all. Turns out that her house was just too damn stuffy. That, and I didn't like the way the kids at her house all had such vacant eyes, like they had been ignored all day and fed melaril for lunch.
The second place I went to I was greeted by a woman with a mullet wearing her keys on an "I love Jesus" lanyard around her neck and a tattoo on her right forearm that was so fuzzy and faded that it must have predated me. She opened the door for me to reveal a whole slew of children in her living room, several of which were crying, one that was jumping on the couch and another that was sitting two inches away from an episode of Spongebob on TV. There was a general feeling of anarchy and lawlessness that was confirmed when I watched one boy whack another boy with a nerf bat and nothing was done about it. Okeeeee....
The third one I went to I didn't even make it in the door. They had their garage door open and what appeared to be about 75 years worth of hoarding old scraps of furniture, clothing, and newspapers crammed inside. Sending my child to be raised by someone with OCD, I am not.
Choosing who is going to raise my child for me while I am at work is freaky shit. I mean, this is who is going to be standing in for me from the hours of 8am to 5pm. Are they going to hold him when he bumps his head? Are they going to teach him that he doesn't deserve to be hit by another child with a nerf bat by placing that child into time out? Are they going to kiss his nose before he takes his nap and tickle him when he wants to wrestle? How do mothers do this?
And as if I don't have enough to worry about, now I have to be leery of squirrels:
Many of you have been requesting- nay, begging me to do a sultry, seductive web-cam show for all of my loyal readers, and while I totally understand your desire for this I am going to have to decline, once and for all. Let me apologize, in advance, for letting you all down. And in order to squelch all attempts to convince me otherwise, I am going to give you the reasons why I cannot perform a show for you, my beloved reader. I hope this puts all future requests at bay.
#1. I want to be seen as a respectable blogger. #2. Postpartum breasts. #3. I have to protect my son's dignity. #4. I haven't "groomed" in a while. #5. I didn't want to compete with this guy. #6. And lastly, this is what happened the last time I put on a show. I'm still in negotiations with workman's comp...
I always hesitate before sending videos I found on youtube to my friends because inevitably they've seen it twenty times already and then I'm that friend who sends outdated, overplayed video links to their inbox. So, with that risk fully understood, I am posting Drunk History.
My life has been taken over by Thomas the Tank Engine. Jack has found the love of his life and it is a blue steam engine. Jack eats, breathes and sleeps Thomas the Tank Engine, and due to our close proximity, I now do, too. The first thing out of Jack's mouth every morning is "Choo-Choo, Mommy," and it is apparently now a requirement that I kiss Thomas, Percy and Stanley along with my son at bedtime. He has a meltdown every day when I drop him off at daycare not because I am leaving, but because he had to leave his choo-choos in the car.
