Money Makes the World Go 'Round

The Mud Puddle has discovered the power of the all might dollar at the ripe old age of 4. For the most part I have kept the chatter about money to a minimum. When he tries to open or eat something in a store prior to checking out I explain to him that you have to pay for it first – that it belongs to the store until we pay for it and it becomes ours.

I remember a trip to the Disney Store where I jokingly told him to pay for something himself and he patted down his pockets like he was looking for his cash stash.

This week he got a Halloween card with a dollar in it. He then wanted to carry it around with him. Well that is as good as throwing it in the trash in my estimation so I put the kibosh on that. I then showed him his ‘secret’ money (the place where I keep all the money he has been given and have been too lazy/busy to open a savings account for him).
He then wanted to ‘hold’ it all. Umm, no. We put the dollar in with the rest of his money and told him he didn’t really NEED any money since Daddy and I pay for everything.

I gave him a quarter to hold figuring he couldn’t do too much damage with that – unless of course he swallowed it (which I did once with a dime imitating something I saw on Zoom – which did quite the number on my intestinal track for two days at least) which I didn’t think he would. He doesn’t eat things that he shouldn’t (touch wood).

He then notices the piggy bank in the kitchen (there used to be two but Scott broke mine and somehow the money from it got put in his – yes I am suspicious and will remind him of it until he is 80) and wanted to put the quarter in it. Great. Good place for a quarter.

So this morning on the way out to car (5 minutes late per usual. Which to me means five minutes late should probably just be ‘on time’) he finds a penny and wants to put it in his piggy bank. I decide that this is probably a good idea b/c even though it will make us later it also means the penny won’t be in his pocket headed to daycare.

I love the fact that he wants to ‘save’ the penny, I am hopeful that I can raise him to be fiscally responsible but not a tightwad. There is a fine line or so I am told – I don’t think I have ever been accused of being either one.

Daddy's Boy

I have believed since the Mud Puddle was born that I was the most important person in his life. I was the ‘go to’ person when he was hurt or needed something (that is, when my parents are not around) but lately there has been a shift in our house, one that I had been warned about from other mothers of boys, and I am out and Scott is in (Say “Auf Wiedersehen” to me – if you are a Project Runway fan) in the Mud Puddle’s Favorite Parent Guide.

Every morning the Mud Puddle asks if Scott is going to take him to day care and every day except Friday and Monday he sighs and rolls his eyes at the “Mommy is taking you” response.
Joshua follows Scott around when he gets home from work, I am ‘good enough’ to hang out with until Scott busts through the door, and then it is all about Daddy.

Scott sometimes runs at night (as opposed to the god awful hour of 5:30 a.m.) on the treadmill downstairs. Usually there is a parade that follows him down between the Mud Puddle and the dogs.
The Mud Puddle will do “his exercises” (which consist of touching his toes and pretending to do sit ups – toddler abs are not fully developed, I wish I could use that excuse!) while Scott is on the treadmill and when they are both done they come upstairs. One night I was crying I was laughing so hard at the ‘me and my shadow’ routine they had going:
Scott comes up and grabs some water, the Mud Puddle grabs some juice. Both slug it down.
Scott is huffing and puffing trying to catch his breath, the Mud Puddle does likewise in a very faux, dramatic fashion.
Scott removes his shirt because he is hot, the Mud Puddle declares “I am hot too!” and whips off his shirt. Scott states he is going to take a shower, the Mud Puddle wipes his sweat free brow and says “Me too!”.
Now, the Mud Puddle is strictly a bath kind of guy. I don’t know how old you are when you make the switch to a shower but I am guessing it isn’t four. But he had to do everything Scott had done.
No wonder Scott runs so early in the morning, it is probably the only way he can exercise without help. I on the other hand get to sit lonely on the couch (oh who am I kidding? I get to watch all my shows while they are downstairs) while they do their guy things.

The friend who told me about the abrupt switch of favorites never told me if it lasts forever or not, I am going to assume (hope) that someday it will switch back or at least even out because I do miss being his favorite a little bit.

Pocket Full of Sunshine

The Mud Puddle has discovered the joy and wonder of having pockets in your pants. He has taken to stuffing his hands down in them and hunching his back when he is just standing around. It doesn’t look at that comfortable to me, but it has become his pose of choice.

He especially likes to carry things around in his pockets. I am sure any day I will get a bill from daycare for playground rocks because he has picked up, put in his pocket, and brought home every single stinking rock they have.
Every time I do laundry (I am not a pocket checker, they should just be grateful I keep them in clean clothes) I must pull out six or seven from the washing machine after I do a load – all sparkly clean and headed straight for the trash. That is in addition to the one or two dirty ones I am handed every afternoon when I pick him up.
I should try and rig a pair of those prison pants where they stand around and let the rocks and dirt from their escape hole fall out around the bottom of their feet and I could put the rocks BACK in the playground.
He always has a ‘present’ for me at the end of the day and it is usually a pocket rock or acorn or piece of string. And he will do random, surprise spot checks to make sure I keep them so I can’t throw them away until after he goes to bed. Believe me, I am all for keeping mementos of his childhood but his baby book is buckling at the seams as it is and I would need a landfill to house all the crap he gives me.

Yesterday morning the Mud Puddle comes into his room where I am getting him a pair of socks and he says to me “I have NOTHING in my pocket”. Without even having to turn around I knew clearly that he did have SOMETHING in his pocket – he is smart but still four. So I ask what it was and he shows me a Matchbox truck. And he wants to take it to daycare. Now, the daycare rule (which I agree with and follow to a “T”) is no toys other than a stuffed animal (lovey) unless it is "Show and Tell Day" – which is Friday not Wednesday.

So I say to him, “I am going to act like I didn’t see that and if you take it to school in your pocket I won’t know about it.” Trying to conspire with a four-year-old to sneak contraband into daycare is laughable. He showed me the truck three times on the way out to the car, four times in the car (I didn’t turn around but he would say ‘I am showing you my truck’ so I would know what he was doing in the backseat. He gets that I can’t turn around when I am driving so he keeps a running color commentary for me “I am showing you ten”, “I am negging Ellie”. You get the idea). We get to daycare and he shows it to the Director, and two of his friends. As I was leaving he showed it to his teacher who was less than impressed.

OCD, Yeah you know me!

The Mud Puddle is nothing if not his mother’s son. When he becomes fixated with something (“stuck in his craw” as my Aunt Gladys might say) it is all he can think about, refer to, and discuss much to the detriment of my sanity (such as it is). He becomes obsessed, and while not full blown OCD as a victim of a slight version myself I can see the pattern forming.
Some recent examples:

His hair – I bought him a brush as the Disney store. More b/c he had used it on his hair than I actually thought he needed a brush. That is one of those items that once you use it you can’t put it back IMO.
So I bought it for him. And then he was brushing his hair every few minutes. He had to have it in his pocket and handy the rest of the day.
He would wet down his hair and brush it forward – he called this “SnipIts’ because that is what they do when they cut his hair (at a place called SnipIts). I had a momentary freak out on this one b/c I couldn’t see him when he said it, and I figured he had pulled a Fudge from “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” on me and given himself a home haircut. Thanks goodness he only meant putting water on his hair.
The next morning he got up and wanted to brush his hair but couldn’t find it. This led to me tearing around the house looking for an Incredibles hairbrush (with attached mirror dontcha know) while he ‘looked’ for it in his room whilst playing with his toys. MMHMMM. Right. I finally found it but vowed if he is going to become obsessed with something and then lose it - he is on his own.

Going someplace special – We took him to his first Red Sox game last week and invited one of his friends from school and his parents. We didn’t mention this to the Mud Puddle b/c it was the third baseball game we had tried to go to and the first two were canceled due to illness and rain respectively.
So when we got to daycare three days before the game and his friend comes running over yelling “WE ARE GOING TO SEE BASEBALL! WE ARE GOING TO THE RED SOX!” I inwardly groaned.
All I heard about for the next three days was the Red Sox and going to the game and what he was going to do at the game (he couldn’t quite grasp why he couldn’t play on the field and kept asking where the Red Sox sleep since that is their home).

Then this week he figured out my conversation between my dad on the phone and Scott on the couch that my dad would pick him up on Thursday. I TRIED to keep it generic and coded but he saw through it and has pranced around all week talking about Grampy coming to get him in the Big Black Truck. (which apparently is his and he lets Grampy borrow it – who knew he could drive??) I went so far as to try and control the chatter (HA! It is like hitting my head against a brick wall but I am sure I can bust through someday) by letting him cross off each day on the calendar and putting a monkey sticker (it was handy) on the day Grampy was going to pick him up. All this did was turn the chit, chit chatter from Grampy and the black truck to “MONKEY DAY” ( the sticker was a bad idea apparently). How many times was I asked “Is it Monkey Day yet?” ? I estimate somewhere between 300 and 400 times, more than enough to send me right into Crazytown.

The sad part is, at 34, I am just as bad – I have just learned to internalize my obsessions a little better, but they are still there.