More like, what didn’t he do today. He:

-climbed up on the computer chair, got the keyboard off the back of the desk, put it down on the floor, got back up presumably, got my strawberry shake off the back of the desk, and poured it all over the keyboard. Now we have a new keyboard.

-opened up a LOCKER that was shut and full of CD’s, pulled the CD cases out, opened them up, took the CD’s out, and put them in various places all over the house.

-squeezed between the shelves and the chest of drawers in the bedroom on top of the VCR and stuck his little arm behind the chest of drawers to unplug the TV. He also stuck part of his french toast stick in the VCR slot.

-climbed up onto our bed, then onto the bookcases behind our bed and pulled the stuffed animals off the top shelves.

-opened the drawer under the stove for the pots and pans and pulled them all out, including the glass lids.

-opened the closet door and took all the hangers off the lowest rack of clothes, then took the hangers all over the house.

-pulled all the cushions off the couch, found the remote, turned the TV on, turned the volume up, and changed the channel…. and kept pressing those same buttons because he liked what they did.

Where you press different parts of it and it names them and sings songs?? Mine is possessed!! It talks in the middle of the night, it is sitting in the middle of the floor right now, nothing else touching it, singing songs and giggling and saying “blue ear”, “hug me”, etc. It doesn’t matter how many times I press the foot to turn it off either, short of taking the batteries out, I just want it to shut up!! Lil Duck loves it tho, so I can’t take the batteries out. Now it’s saying “I love you” over and over. Maybe it has an invisible bear friend???

I always said I wasn’t going to be one of THOSE mothers – you know, the ones with toys all over the house, no semblance of adult life left – the ones you scorn when you go over there to babysit….. well….. I am. Every room and closet in my house has the little duck’s items in it. No matter how much I clean, more items continue to be strewn around my house.

Today, I took a shower with a million little rubber ducks, then toweled off while reading the little one a book that was left on the bathroom floor. I think it just adds interest to my house – hey, without that book, we’d be stuck reading shampoo bottles, right?? It’s easier to embrace the craziness that comes with these toys than to stress about returning them to their rightful place (and now, who is to say that isn’t on my bathroom floor?)

How to contain such items?? Well, I do cycle them out – there are two giant boxes full of toys packed away in his closet, which we go thru about once a month. This leads to great baby delight, as he thinks he found “new” toys. I also have containers for the toys everywhere (I love Target’s containers, meant for hauling ice to picnics – bright colors, sturdy enough to hold a baby, and nice wooden handles). That way if I need to clean up in a hurry (and who doesn’t), I can throw everything in the containers and shove them on the bottom shelf of my overloaded bookcases.

You know though, if my house was clean and there were no little feet running around strewing toys everywhere, it would be a clean but boring place to be, and I wouldn’t trade my mountain of toys for anything.

Ok, why is it that dressing or undressing him or even lying him down on his back to change his diaper involves bloodcurdling screams, shaking, shrieking, balling up of fists, and rage for 20 minutes thereafter?? Ugh, you’d think he wouldn’t want to run around naked in 60 degree weather, or that he’d want to get out of a wet, soggy, poopy, stinky, etc diaper??

The couch has lived through several moves, the baby days, and even a Koolaid baptism. However, in the past few months it has endured much abuse from my budding artist, who thinks that markers should be used to color on everything BUT paper.

Today, however, the final straw occured. You see, being the lazy parents that we are, we gave him a sippy and sent him on his way, while we continued to sleep. However, the child proceeded to turn on the TV and sit on the couch to watch his shows. This wouldn’t have been a problem if he hadn’t also overflowed his diaper. Now my couch is not only stained but smelly.

Despite the warning labels that give dire predictions about what will happen if we remove the covers (but go figure, there are zippers on said covers), we removed the cover with great effort and put it in the washer. As soon as it is dry, I’ll let you know if I can get it back on, and if it is still smelly and stained. In the meantime, if you come to visit, don’t sit on my couch.

At least the little one thinks that the bare couch is a new toy, and is jumping gleefully on it.

Stating the obvious?? It seems that way, but I really think that it is easy to forget this simple fact. It is so easy to live life in a fog of sleeplessness, doing mundane chores and playing endless baby games over and over, forgetting about the hopes and dreams that you had as a person not that long ago. How to break out of that fog?

My main problem of late: distraction. It is very hard to have a deep thought or idea while the little one is demanding my full attention and I’m trying to juggle four things at once. If I do manage to have a quiet moment and clear my head, I am fast asleep from sheer exhaustion within seconds.

So this is my goal for this week, to realize some personal goals. This is inspired by Steve Pavlina’s blog where he speaks of time being worth a certain amount. I feel that as of late my time has been worth next to nothing, which is hardly fair, being a college-educated, smart indivdual who did have lots of hopes and dreams for the future before the surprise that was the baby. I’m going to eliminate as many distractions as I can (realizing that clutter in my house is a huge distraction, and something as simple as dressing the baby fully in the morning can really help with this as well), make sure I am well-rested so that sleepiness doesn’t distract from my productivity, and attempt to do something productive outside the realm of cleaning the house and raising the baby.

I am not saying that it is not a worthy goal to care for a house and a family, only that doing that all of the time can lead to feelings of being trapped and a lack of self-fulfillment. I must add that in realizing these goals, I am not going to neglect either the house or the family. I think a lot of things around here can be managed in a much quicker fashion than I usually do them, and therefore I can save a lot of time that was previously spent on cleaning.

I’ll keep you posted on how this is going throughout the week.

The baby is in so much trouble. Let’s start with the bedroom. I didn’t even know he got in there, but he apparently (while I thought he was playing nicely in his own room) climbed the bookcases….. dumped out all my sour patch kids all around the pillows, in the sheets, under the bed, around the books, etc.

Then he emptied all the books off the bookcases, turned on the radio and the DVD player, shredded a box of kleenex, and here is the best part – must have climbed to the very top of the bookcases because he had pulled down and disassembled my lava lamp – and I couldn’t find the glass part with the lava/oil in it anywhere. So I’m tearing everything apart hoping he didn’t break it, finally find it in another room (amazingly still in one piece, that’ll never come out of carpet), find the bulb in still another room, put it up away from him.

Go to find him and he has ripped several pages out of DH’s brand new strategy guide for his game, which he got down off the top of the TV which is on a stand/shelves/etc. He also dumped the new box of Teddy Grahams all over, disassembled the pantry shelves, and poured rice all over the floor again. Not to mention all the toys, shoes, etc all over.

I guess he figured he wasn’t being bad enough, I put him in his room to play and guess what – he locks himself in. Not only does he lock himself in tho, which wouldn’t be too bad, but he also pulls off his side of the doorknob. So now, I can’t unlock it or get him out. So I unscrew the other side, peek in at him thru the hole, still can’t get in…. I’d just do the credit card thing but there is trim over the edge of the door (what were they thinking ).

I finally wedge a flat screwdriver thru there enough that I can pop the lock – of course a few dents in the trim/door/frame, but yeah. Of course now I’m going to flip the doorknob and I can’t get the screws to go back in…. I’m thinking it’s about time for DH to do something around here, so I’m saving it just for him when he gets home .

The funny thing is, just LAST Saturday my parents and I were playing in his room with him and he locked the door, no biggie because we were in there with him, but they said something about it, and I said “ah, no problem, there is a hole in the other side, I’ll just pop it if he does” figuring he won’t do it for a long time yet…..