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As a mom, there are many things I knew I would say – I love you, How cute!, Night-night!

There are also some that I NEVER knew I’d say.  Sometimes I even surprise myself.  Here are just a few…

1.  We don’t drink the bath water.

2.  Eww…You have stinky feet.

3.  Come here and let me smell your butt. (my personal favorite)

4.   Patrick went pee pee on the potty!  Patrick went pee-pee on the potty! (in sing-song style)

5.  We don’t lick rocks.

6.  No, we don’t put a whole roll of toilet paper in the potty.

7. Please. please….sleep for four hours.  Just give me four hours and I promise I’ll feed you.  Please! (when he was an infant)

8.  Did he poop today?  (Who knew I’d be obsessed with another person’s bowels?)

9.  Are you SURE you don’t like broccoli?

10.  Mommy needs a time out!

I know all of you mothers have your own to add to the list!

Patrick and I ended up at Barnes and Noble yesterday after our shopping “extravaganza” at Target.  It kills me that all of those cheaply enticing dollar items smack you in the face as soon as you walk in – though I did resist the cute pastel colored metal pails and thousands of sticker packs this time!  Aren’t you proud of me?

Anyway, I thought we’d take a little walk around Birdcage since it wasn’t raining (and I could sure use the exercise!) and we ended up at Barnes and Noble.  Did YOU know that Barnes and Noble had a train table?  Well, they do!  And Patrick loved it!  He played for a long, long time.  I browsed through the books surrounding the train table area….reminiscing about Ramona Quimby and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and longingly looking at the shelves and shelves of new books, just as I had as an eight year old.  Ahhh…those were the days.

I  looked through the Valentine’s Sale shelf also.  And ended up with two books to give Patrick next year for Valentine’s Day- one was a Berenstain Bears book.  Again, a favorite from childhood. That’s if I can remember where I put them a year from now.

The best part of all is that my son, my beautiful, wonderful son, left the train table with only one small peep of distress.  He was, of course, forewarned.  We all know that if you in order to have any chance of avoiding a separation meltdown, the child must be warned ahead of time.  He complained for a second, “Choo choo truck?” (He calls a train a choo choo truck. Isn’t that the cutest?) and then I knelt down and said calmly, “I know it’s hard to leave the trains.  But we will come back another day to play.  It’s time to go home now.”

And he took my hand and we walked to the cashier with the promise that he could give the cashier the money when the time came.   Whew!  Meltdown avoided.  A bookstore, with all of it’s library quietness, is not the place to be the mom with a cross child throwing a tantrum.  Thank you, Patrick!

p.s.  To my amazing sisters who loved Ramona as much as I – did you notice my two Ramona-isms?

Patrick hates when his nose runs.  (I am so happy…it is so gross when a kids have snot running across their faces! My mom has some super disgusting stories about frozen boogers…ick!)

Anyway, here is our after nap conversation today:

Patrick: Nose! Nose!

Mom:  Oh, you need your nose wiped.  Hold on, I’ll get a tissue. (Mom runs to to get a tissue and then gently wipes the nose.)

Mom:  Better?

Patrick:  More Nose! (Mom wipes again – this time with a bit more force!)

Mom:  How’s that?

Patrick: Good job!  Thank you, Mama! (which sounds more like…Oooojahh, tank you, Mama!)

I can now add “Expert Nose Wiper” to my list of credentials….

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my sister!  Aside from the fact that we are related and I HAVE to love her, I really do!

She is so much more computer literate than I.  And she just took the time out of her busy day to show me how to “embed” the youtube videos.  Very cool!  And from there, I taught myself how to make my photos bigger so it’s easier for you all to see how cute my son really is (not that you couldn’t before…now it’s just easier…hee hee)

Thanks ERP!  I love you!

Some things are just too cute to wait for the “right” filming conditions. So this one, taken with my cell phone, is a little dark. Patrick has written his first original song – “Ode to Butt Paste” For those of you not in “the know”, Butt Paste is diaper rash cream.  This is one of those videos that you can use to cheer yourself up on a grouchy day. Wishing you many giggles!

It seems like just yesterday that we were playing at the park sans jackets, feeling the warmth of the morning sun on our winter bodies.  Oh wait a minute.  It WAS yesterday! Today it is raining.  Again.

But yesterday it was beautiful, beautiful.  Patrick and I went to Maddox Park for a change of scenery.  It’s off of Cottage.  We’ve been there once before.  All Patrick wanted to do last time was swing.  They have these sand “diggers” that Patrick really liked this time.   He was really into the sand.  He dug holes with his hands, rolled around on his tummy.  Again, he was bathing himself in sand.

Digging in the sand!

Gotta love boys!  Needless to say, we took quite a bit of sand home with us!

They also have this cute bus to drive.  It has three seats.  So Patrick “drove”, and I rode.  We went to the store and bought vegetables (MY imagination at work, not his – the mere thought of the word “vegetable” is enough to make him throw a fit)

Today, we were stuck inside…again.  But Patrick reacquainted himself with his Viewfinder.  Remember those?  We spent forever looking at those silly little slides.  I wonder if my mom saved ours from childhood….hmmmmm…..

Patrick has been talking about “Nick” for a few months now.  We have asked him, time and again, “Who is Nick?  Where is Nick?  How do you know Nick?”  Since he’s not in daycare, all of his social interactions are witnessed by me or his dad.  We have no friends named Nick.  We were puzzled.

My husband has teased that Nick is “the boyfriend that comes around when I’m at work”.  Patrick vehemetly denied this.  (Come on, really…like I have the time!)

We’ve wondered if Nick was an imaginary friend.  Since Patrick is an only child at this point, maybe he was looking for a friend?  My younger sister had imaginary friends.  We spent years trying to avoid sitting on “A” or including him at dinner.

The last, and favoritest (is that a word?) idea:  Nick was a special spirit that hung around our house sometimes.  Like a guardian angel or something.  Maybe Nick was the one who mysteriously started the ceiling fan or moved the car keys from the place where I KNOW I left them!  And it must have been Nick who hid my Macy’s giftcard in the couch for months before I found it.

So, I decided that Nick must be a ghost that only Patrick could see.  So we accepted this fact and welcomed Nick into our family.   Every time Patrick said, “Nick!”  I just said, “Hi, Nick” to the empty room.  When the ceiling fan kicked on, I said, “Nick! It’s cold in here!  We don’t need the fan on right now, but thanks anyway!”

Well, the other day, Patrick and his dad were playing instruments in the living room.  Dad was on the guitar, Patrick played the drums.  At first, Patrick was hitting drum with his hands.  They were really rocking out, nodding their heads in rhythm with the expert knowledge of true musicians.

After a few minutes, he must have realized that he could make a louder sound using the drum sticks.  So, he looked up and said, “Nick!”   Now, Patrick LOVES drumming.  He drums everyday.  He is always looking for his drumsticks.  Nick….ahhhhh…it occurred to me at that very moment who Nick REALLY was!

Nick?  “Did you hear what he just said?” I asked my rock star husband.  “What?” he asked.   “Patrick said, “Nick!” I think Nick means STICK!”.  So, it looks like maybe Patrick has just looking for a drumstick all this time.  He still says, “Nick!” on occasion, but now I know where to direct him.

I must say, I am a bit disappointed that Nick is only a drumstick.  I  miss the idea of Nick the friendly ghost, the one who I could always blame for the misplaced keys.  And it was kind of fun to think that Patrick, in his childhood innocence, could see a figure from “the other side”.

Oh well…

I still have one question though, if it’s not Nick, then who has been turning on our ceiling fan?

I admit, I get most of my news from Yahoo.  As soon as you open the browser, there are always five featured stories as well as many other unrelated tidbits on local, global, and national topics.  A quick way to keep abreast of current events.

Yes, sometimes it is dumb news, like who’s getting kicked off of American Idol.  Other times, like today, it offers you a link to an interesting article on….food additives.

The link below, from Yahoo Health, gives a “quick and dirty” guide to all things yucky.   Yes, at first there is a grieving period when you learn that some of your favorite treats are loaded with artificial junk, but really, the fresh and homemade stuff is so much better!

Be aware. Eat mindfully.  Your body will thank you.

Yahoo Health Article on Food Additives

Okay so, it’s been raining for a century.  Well, about a week, but it sure feels like a century with a two year old at home.

We’ve read books, made forts, done art projects, jumped on and off of the couch cushions, played instruments, and watched more TV than I ever thought I’d ever allow.

We’ve played blocks, puzzles, and games.  We’ve chased each other around the house.  We’ve taken baths, “cleaned” the house, and watched the clothes tumble in the new washing machine.

We’ve said, “Bibbers!  You!  Babbick!” again and again. Translation: “Pictures!  You!  Patrick”  This literally  means, “Mom, I want to watch the videos that you took of me on your cell phone over and over and over again!”

We’ve (during those small breaks in the rain) splashed in puddles, played in the mud, overly drenched our pants so that they got too heavy and fell down around our ankles, played with chalk on the porch, cried that we wanted to go outside, cried because we wanted to go inside, and cried because we wanted to take our wet, slimy, muddy ball inside and mom said, “No!”

We’ve gotten a bit frightened because the wind was soooo loud, watched with amazement as the trees swayed back and forth, snuggled close to our mom for a nap, and given many, many sweet kisses.

Afterthought:  I started writing this to share my frustrations of being stuck inside with a two year old, but as I was writing, I realized that as stressful as it is sometimes it’s lots of fun too!

I buy our peanut butter at Trader Joe’s.  Usually creamy unsalted, but every once in a great while I’ll throw the crunchy kind in the cart.  But ALWAYS organic.  Why would I want to have peanuts laced in pesticides ground into a paste that I give to my son for lunch?  Icky.

On Friday, in lieu of the recent salmonella infused bird poop peanut butter fed to the masses, I decided to ask where our local Trader Joe’s peanut butter comes from.  This is not my first inquiry as to where a product originates.  (Yes, I have become THAT customer).

My first major question to a TJ’s staff member other than, “How come you stopped carrying spiced chai tea?”  had to do with mushrooms.  I had recently been grocery shopping at Bel Air and noticed that the “Monterey” musrooms were “Imported from China”.  WHAT?!  After attending a workshop on nutrition and learning that produce that is imported from anywhere outside the United States is radiated to make sure it doesn’t have any nasty stuff on it that will infect our country.  Yep.  Zapped by radiation.  So how much nutients could be left from something that is give the same treatment as cancer?  And we are eating it.

So, my mushroom question was simple.  “Where are the mushrooms grown?”  Not missing a beat, the young lady working in the produce department looked at the label and said, “Monrovia.”  Now, if you look at just about any TJ’s label, it says, “Dist. & Sold Exclusively by Trader Joe’s,  Monrovia, CA 91016.”  So….that tells me nothing.  It doesn’t mean that it the product is GROWN there, it just means that it is DISTRIBUTED from there.

I told this to the girl, explaining that I wanted to know where the mushrooms were grown.  With an exasperated tone in her voice she said, “Does it matter?” OF COURSE it matters or I wouldn’t have asked!  Anyway, she went to the back to ask her manager who told her that if it doesn’t say, then the produce is grown in the USA, mostly from the central valley.  Okay.  That’s what I wanted to know.  More recently I have seen the labels changing- almost everything says “Grown in _______” or “Product of _______”. It makes my shopping so much easier.

So back to the peanut butter.  First, when I asked the checker about where the peanut butter came from, he was much better at customer service than the girl in the produce aisle.  He told me that he didn’t know, but that he would FIND OUT and he started asking others on his team.

I left the store with one of the guys taking my name and phone number, promising a phone call after he talked with the Trader Joe’s peanut butter buyer.  I  was called that day with the following information:  Virtually all peanuts are grown in Georgia, but the TJ’s peanut butter comes from a processing plant in Illinois.

So, where does YOUR peanut butter come from?

P.S.  I really do like Trader Joe’s. And…my beautiful sister just sent me the link to this video – what timing! Enjoy!