BONUS BLOG!!!

I don’t usually post twice in one week but something happened to me today that I had to share.

Scott was up per usual with the Mud Puddle and got him dressed, fed and ready to go.
The Mud Puddle and I dropped Scott off at the train station today b/c we are headed into the city this evening to meet him and one car is more than enough in Boston.

So on the way to the train station the Mud Puddle says he has to go to the bathroom. My first priority is getting Scott to the station as the Commuter Rail schedule is less patient than a four year old bladder.

On the way back up the highway I decide to stop at Target to return something and hit the bathroom (two birds, one stone and one less thing I have to do at lunch, I may actually get to chew my food today!). We return the item and head for the loo.

I glance over as he is pulling down his pants and his underwear looks baggy.
I think nothing of it and go back to my mental check list of things to do today, and watch check, foot tapping routine while he does his business.

As he is pulling up his underwear I notice he has on not one but TWO pairs of underwear. The outside pair is pulled up while the inside pair is hanging down around his knees and bunched up in the middle.
I recognize the outside pair as the new pair I had pulled out this morning and the inside pair as the ones he had worn yesterday. So I have him get undressed and take off yesterday’s underwear.

Now this causes me to pause, what the heck am I supposed to do with a dirty pair of 4t skivvies? Do I throw them away or stuff them in my pocket (this reminded me of Grey’s Anatomy and the Lost and Found but I digress)?
There was really only one solution, so as I sit here at my desk at work, there is a pair of dirty toddler underwear in my purse. Next to the lipstick and the cell phone sits a neatly folded (of course!) pair of dirty Mud Puddle drawers.

This is my life people, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried....

Reading, Writing, and Long Division

The Mud Puddle is officially a Pre-K-er this year. Which is both thrilling and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Heartbreaking because you know what comes after Pre-K? KINDERGARTEN! and you blink and he will be 10, and you blink again and he will be taking his SATS and applying to college and I will be OLD. I am tired and sad just thinking about it.

It is thrilling b/c they have changed the curriculum at daycare so they have a much more structured program for the Pre-K-ers. They focus on a letter each week and talk about the things that are important to four year olds: themselves (that convo could go on 24/7 for six months), their families, animals and future careers (so far the Mud Puddle has decided he wants to be a policeman, a fireman, a teacher, a pilot, and the guy who drives the garbage truck).

He really seems to be thriving in the class and gets closer and closer to reading on his own (not just regurgitating memorized words in a book) every day.

If I think he talks a lot now (which I do) I shudder at how much his motor mouth will be running when he opens up the gift of literacy and starts reading everything to me. (You couldn’t see it but I just rolled my eyes and said a prayer for the little sanity I have left).

Scott and I find ourselves (more so me as I am the official Team Guillemette Worrywart) about what to do with him in regards to kindergarten. Here in the great state of New Hampshire kindergarten is not mandated and not all cities have to provide it.
Luckily the one we live in does, but do we go private or public?
With all the talking he does about God (and more often than not referring to God as a ‘she’ – which I did not have anything to do with, honest) I am leaning toward sending him to Catholic school (my hope is that he will go to the Catholic high school at least) so do I:
1. Set him on that parochial school path at age five? I figure if you are going to be given God props left and right and asking me theological questions, I should involve an expert or two so he doesn’t turn out to be a heathen (like me – part Protestant, part Buddhist, mostly making it up as I go along).
Or
2. Wait until he is ready for high school and a. hope he gets in (you need to have decent grades) and b that some of friends go there?
These are the things that keep me up at night!!

In case you were worried that all this growed up Mud Puddle talk means that he speaks in an articulate, faux-British accent – guess again.
Ladies and Gentleman, the latest addition to the Mud Puddle Lexicon:

Pirates of the Taliban – that would be the movie Pirates of the Caribbean to you and me.

Never Say Never

The Mud Puddle has a new favorite word, much to my dismay – Never. Except he doesn’t just say it like that. He yells it out in an arm pumping, rally cry of “NEVERRRR!!”
If you remember the movie “Braveheart” and William Wallace’s (as portrayed by Mel Gibson) historic battle cry of “Freedom” you will get the idea.

I can not figure out where it came from or why it has become his signature word but there it is. And really, it has become quite annoying.
First off, I am not a ‘never’ kind of person. Anytime I have used it in a serious situation it has come back and promptly bit me in the behind.
Secondly, he is FOUR. He shouldn’t be ‘never’ to anything, he should be open to new ideas and adventures. Usually he yells it when it comes to putting on pajamas, picking up his toys or going to bed – so I can see why he would want to use it, I just don’t have to like it.

And gosh darn it if he hasn’t figured out how to SPELL it. The kid is dodgy at best in writing out an “s” but when I was spelling N-E-V-E-R to Scott one night he repeated it in his shout it out way and started whooping it up around the living room.

This is just one example in how his four year old self is constantly pushing my buttons. He has wiggled right under my last nerve and pushes it every chance he gets.
I just hope “Never” is gone before it finally snaps.

Go Shorty! It's Your Birthday!

So today is the Mud Puddle’s birthday – the big F-O-U-R. He had me up and out of bed early this morning as he was told he could open one of his presents (he picked the biggest one of course) from his father and I.
There are certain details about the days (weeks really) leading up and including the actual day of his birth that Scott and I reminisce about every year (and I am guessing we will still even on his 40th birthday). I will share a few in honor of the occasion:

I went 11 days over my due date - honest to God, the LONGEST 11 days I have ever LIVED. I am not an impatient person by nature (I heard that!), but lordy that was a long time. And it was made worse by all the phone calls asking ‘have you had that baby yet?’.
Which led to the strict enforcement of my personal rule of not calling pregnant women around their due date and harassing them. So if you are pregnant (or plan to be) and I go into communications black out around your due date, I still love you, I am doing you a favor – trust me.

I almost had him on Friday the 13th – his name would have been Jason (those bad horror movies) instead of Joshua had that happened. They had decided he was too big to fit down the rabbit hole (estimate going in was 11 pounds) so my doctor decided to perform a C-section but they were booked on Friday so we went in on Saturday. Fine by me, I am a superstitious freak so the 14th was a much better day for me to bring a life into the world.

The night before I had him “Smoky and The Bandit” was on tv and I didn’t watch it – this would lead anyone who knows me really well to deduce that I was probably in labor. Anytime I am not smack in the middle of the couch singing the words to “keep on trucking” and mouthing along with Jackie Gleason then something is really REALLY wrong with me. In this case – early stages of labor.

Scott almost missed me going into the operating room – he and my family had gone to get something to eat (knowing me well and leaving me alone for a minute – I am a girl who needs her space) when they decided right that second they had to wheel me in. The nurse was having KITTENS that he had left. They were paging his butt all over the hospital and I was calling his cell, and nothing. They were just about to give up on him when he showed up. Can you imagine the life of torture he would have endured at my hand if he had missed THAT.

When Joshua heard Scott’s voice for the first time he stopped crying – he wailed his pink little head off until Scott went over and said hello to him. Then he stopped and realized this was a familiar voice! At last! Someone he knew.

At approximately a half an hour into life he had already thrown me my own dirty look. The first time of many I assure you.

The second he was born is the greatest moment of my life and all the writers in all of time could never put into words the joy and unconditional love I felt in that moment and still do four years on.

What have you learned young lady?

The blog is nearly a year old. Good gravy Miss Daisy that is a lot of musings from me! (I mean for those of you who have to read this drivel, I certainly have lots more to say – consider yourself warned).

I thought in light of this most auspicious (or not) occasion I would recap what I have learned (and sometimes shared with you) over the past year:

The first thing is that when I complained some months back about ‘why’ I didn’t even know what annoying was. I was a fool, a FOOL I tell you, to even think about whining about it now that I have truly experienced its full and awesome power.
I get asked about 20 times a day ‘why’ something is what it is or why we do what we do, and with the frequency of the questions comes a grating on my nerves that only fingernails on a chalkboard can begin to describe (remember when Nancy Kerrigan got whacked in the knee and they played the footage of her screaming “WHY? WHY?” over and over in that whiny, high pitched voice – that is what it translates into in my head when the Mud Puddle does it).

I have learned that I am capable of being a better mom than I am but am at times too tired or annoyed to bother to go for the Mommy Gold. I TRY and make every ‘teachable moment’ a quality one but sometimes I am just not up to explaining the ins and outs of God and his many attributes. This makes me a bad mother, but an honest one – the first step to resolving any character flaw is to admit you have one (wait, no, that is the first step in AA, forget I said anything).


I have learned that the terrible twos are a freaking cake walk compared to the Frustrating Fours. In the past month he has pushed the boundaries and my buttons more than ever before. And what did that get him for his efforts? Drastically reduced tv privileges and an earlier bedtime. That outta teach him (who am I kidding?)

I have learned that an orange hunting hat that cost 99 cents can be a fashion accessory to any outfit if it is cold enough.

I have learned that you may be potty trained but peeing standing up is more about height than bladder control (to anyone who has witnessed a toddler half an inch too short trying to straddle the bowl knows exactly what I am talking about). And that leaving the seat up is something genetic in the male of the species and you have to be trained NOT to do it.

I have learned that if you go swimming you don’t need to take a bath that day (ok, maybe I haven’t ‘learned’ it per se but I certainly follow it as a rule).

I have learned that if you drink any liquid half an hour or less prior to bedtime there is an 87% chance you will pee the bed.

I have learned that four years into this roller coaster ride I still love the Mud Puddle more today than I did yesterday, the laughter still outweighs the anger, and my proudest name is Mommy.