Mother's Little Helper

Wanted: Toddler size body armour with well-padded helmet

Whoever up or out there in charge of life, the universe and everything, I want to personally thank you for all I've been blessed with and smack the stuffing out of you for having such a wickedly sick sense of humour.

Wednesday afternoon, we were all making our way, our usual careful way, up the stairs for naptime. The kids are very good with stairs in both directions, and maybe that's why my guard went down.

They both started out evenly just ahead of me, but Erin rounded the corner at the top and took the lead. We have a gate installed at the top of the stairs, mostly to keep the cat out of the bedrooms and I had to unlatch that to get Erin up to the top floor so she wouldn't be precariously perched on a narrow piece of floor. I opened the gate, and made sure Erin was safely balanced on the floor and turned my attention to Ty.

As I was on my way down the two steps to get behind him, he tried to climb up to the next step and missed. He sat down, his first instinct when gravity exerts an unequal force on his frame, and planted his bum on the stair beneath him. That started a horrific chain of events that involved him falling backward and head first down the stairs, catching his shoulder on a step that flipped his entire body over his head onto his belly and the sommersault finally ended with him on his back on the bottom landing.

Meanwhile, I'm just a step behind him with 2 Buzz Lightyears in my hands - which get tossed I-don't-care-where and I so badly want this tumble to end, but I know if I intervene at the wrong time, I could hurt him worse than the stairs.

Finally he stops and I'm beside him on the bottom landing, carefully, methodically, quickly looking for anything out of place. Is he conscious? Is he breathing? Is he....

And he wails, "Kiss it betterrrrrrrr!"

A couple hundred kisses and a big hug from mommy made it all better. Ty and Buzz Lightyear were reunited and we went back up the stairs for that naptime. Except this time, I carried Ty.

Up in bed, I told Erin that Ty had a big owie. She climbs over into Ty's bed and kisses him on the head and as she gently rubs his chest, asks, "All better, buddy?"

This morning, I was admiring the little bit of rug rash on Ty's neck - the worst of injuries sustained from his battle with gravity. I am just starting to entertain the notion that maybe the experience will teach him to be a little more careful when Ty highdives off the sofa, to the floor (onto his head, of course) and crashes into a pile of hard plastic toys. He barely whimpers as he shows me where I need to plant a kiss on his forehead. Then he gives me a big smile, jumps up and races back to the couch for more.

It's been said that fate protects fools and little children. Kids are seemingly indestructible by design. Myself on the other hand, well... let's just say I have a new appreciation for the Rolling Stones...

"running for the shelter of her mother's little helper..."

Two years

"I'm still wild but not lost from the thing that I've chosen to be"

Wow - the kids are two! I know I've been pleasantly distracted by the endless stream of changes and developments in our lives and I apologize for the lack of photos to share with everybody. It just seems that when I finally get the time to upload a batch of photos, I have a hundred or so more to download off the camera.

Ty and Erin had their 2 year checkup last week. Ty weighed in at 26lbs and Erin has overtaken her brother at 26lbs, 7oz. I've abandoned all hope of getting Ty to eat what I cook for Erik and I. While Erin will eat anything she can catch with a fork or spoon, Ty prefers pizza and a homemade vegetable conglomeration of squash, carrots and potato spiced with cinnamon. I often hear of parents hiding veggies in their children's pasta. I have to hide pasta in my son's vegetables, as futile as that would be because he consistently finds the offending noodles and ejects them, clean.  Every. Last. One.

Both are talking up a storm. Erin is quite the chatterbox and a budding macaw. Needless to say, any and all words of an unsuitable nature are carefully avoided - not always successfully. Ty on the other hand doesn't have Erin's vocabulary, but I was relieved to discover after reading the milestones in the Toddler Years Handbook that Ty's vocabulary includes at least 50 words - evidently the minimum for a child of two. I'm sure nobody but Erik and I care, but here they are...

apple, again, arm, banana, blue, bye, call, dada, down, dessert, eight, eye, fan, feet, fish, five, fork, four, grapes, green, hair, hello, help, hide, home, knee, knife, mama, milk, more, night, nine, nose, oatmeal, off
okay, on, one, onion, orange, purple, red, run, seven, shoe, six, so, ten, three, two, up, yellow

There are more than this list and I hear new words every day.

They're into size 4 diapers, size 7 shoes and balls of all sizes. Erin loves to help me make banana muffins and spinning in circles until she's too dizzy to stand. Ty loves playing the piano and building tall towers with lego.

They are learning how to be gentle with the cat and Riley has been extremely patient with both of them. An astounding feat considering he was never fond of anything less than 4 feet tall.

Two years.

"Because you thrill me, silence me, still me. Prove things I'd never believe"

Two years ago, I was so unprepared for this journey. Two years later, I can't fathom the passage of time that has brought us to this point. Whenever we can share a snuggle or a passing hug, I instinctually call them both "baby". Erin will now stop and look me in the eye as she claims, "I'm not a baby. I'm a big girl."

In two more years, I'll be registering them for school...

Thank you for calling Tide

A few days ago, I'm doing laundry and come to a load of kids' clothes, blankets and such. So I load up the washing machine and run the water and get my bottle of TideFree to add. Except the bottle is empty. No worries, though because I have a brand new bottle. Just have to unscrew the cap.

But the cap doesn't unscrew. It's been hermetically sealed by forces unknown to the common everyday domestic engineer and I lack the necessary strength to separate cap from container. So I, of course, fall back on plan B - the resource of women everywhere who, for generations have asked hubby to get the lid off.

But, Erik also lacks the necessary strength to separate cap from container so while man-with-a-plan goes searching for implements of destruction, I decide to call Tide for the combination of required skills to open my bottle of detergent.

Being a large corporation, Tide has one of those fandangled answering systems to properly route your call to the proper department. While I'm waiting for the option "If you can't seem to get into your detergent, press #" to come up, I'm trying to wriggle a butter knife (because sharp objects and I have this ongoing bloodthirsty relationship) between the cap and container.

"If you would like more information on our products, press 1"

I'm sure I can get this knife in here...

"If you would like to know where to purchase Tide products, press 4"

Just a little bit more, I think I'm making progress...

Too much pressure and not enough counterforce results in said butter knife skipping across my middle and ring finger ... ouch ... blood everywhere.

"If this is a medical emergency, press 9"

Well... It is now!

Um, yeah, hi... I seem to have amputated part of my hand trying to open this bottle of TideFree. Do you want to call the ambulance or should I?

Erik emerges with the proper implements of destruction to separate the cap from container and pours the contents into the empty bottle while I'm upstairs bandaging my wounds. The laundry process was resumed and in 4-6 weeks, I'll get a coupon in the mail.

Thank you for calling Tide.