They Hear EVERYTHING!!

How many of us as parents go around telling cute little anecdotal stories about our kids? I would venture to guess pretty much all of us. I am no exception. I find my son absolutely hilarious and one of the most charming boys on the face of the earth. I understand that there are probably few people around who agree with me on that (as they most likely have a little boy or girl in their lives that they feel the same way about), and as such I do my best to not bore the internets and my loyal readers with ridiculous Boy stories all the time.

But those of you who know me in person? HA! Well, even if you think my child is not nearly as cute as I believe him to be, I am sure you have been forced to sit through one of my many stories proving just this point. Yesterday was no exception. I will give you a brief rundown of the story I told just to make my point...

Saturday night. Boy goes down for bed at usual 8:00pm bedtime. Mommy goes to check on him over an hour later. Mommy finds Boy hiding under large blanket playing and yelling, "Hide! Hide!" when he hears Mommy approaching. (Okay enough with the third person thing...) I pulled back his blanket to get him re-situated on his two pillows (has a cold, needs drainage etc) and find that he has taken off his jammies and is laying in only his diaper. His comments and actions were HILARIOUS, but you'll just have to trust me on this because I am NOT repeating the story again. As I have mentioned before, The Boy is a great sleeper and we don't usually struggle with issues or playing that keeps him from sleeping well. So this was unexpected, and frankly, quite funny.

So not only did I call my mother that night after it happened to tell her about it, but I also told The Ex (and her new girlfriend, whom I had breakfast with on Sunday...another post), my best friend on the phone later, and a group of my mom's friends that we went out to dinner with on Sunday night. Oh, and I also told my step mom on the phone on Sunday morning. Again, I told this story because I like everyone to know exactly how amusing my son is. And everyone agreed. Great story...kid's totally amusing...blah blah blah.

I forgot one very vital thing: Every time I told this story (with the exception of the first phone call to my mom that night), The Boy was with me. He was listening to me tell everyone of his hysterical actions. You know what's going to happen now, don't you? Because I didn't. I am just that dense.

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Fast forward to Sunday night when I put The Boy to bed. I knew he wasn't going to go right to sleep because he was all amped up with people at his house (I allow my step dad to use my house to throw his little Superbowl party since my mother is FAR too anal retentive to allow him the use of their house). So in preparation for that I didn't even let him have his big blanket OR a toy (I know, ogre mother extraordinaire) knowing that I would be going back in a while later to finalize the sleeping process.

I went back in about an hour later to check on him and...shock of all shocks...he was naked. And playing "hide" under the small baby blanket that I had allowed him to have. His jammies were in a pile at the foot of his crib. And this time? This time his diaper had come off too.

It was about at this point that I realized what the hell I had done. You could have smacked me with a 2 x 4 to get me to realize it...but...well...DUH!! I had spent the entire day talking about how funny he was by doing what he had done the previous night. It only stands to reason that perhaps he might decide to repeat that action in the hopes of keeping his title as the funniest child alive.

My bad. Crap. But this time? See this time there was no diaper. And while at that particular time, he had not peed in his bed, there was the distinct possibility of this happening. And this Mommy was NOT into the concept of changing sheets and mattress pads at this point on a Sunday evening. Then guess what he did? I hesitate to even type this because it goes against how very cute I have deemed him to be above. But he turned so he was facing away from me, bent over and put his little rump in my direction and...HE FARTED AT ME! Okay, totally NOT cute. Not cute because this small child does not necessarily understand the difference between farting and pooping. And while I was lucky, next time it could have been accompanied with a large turd streaming at me. So I realized that I needed to nip this behavior in the bud.

But...at the same time there are these evil thoughts lurking in the back of my head that this is totally my fault. How can I get upset at The Boy for doing something that I told everyone about? And in telling the story I made it crystal clear that I found his actions amusing. What he obviously doesn't get is that the story was amusing simply because it was a one time thing. There would be nothing amusing about it if done on a nightly basis. He doesn't get that. He's three. His entire goal in life is to make people laugh and smile and think he's cute. He was simply doing that. So I had to curb said behavior but also didn't want to get all crazy because, really, this is MY bad, not his.

So I simply kept my face very firm and didn't smile at all. I expressed to him that while Mommy might have said this was funny earlier, that it really wasn't very funny at all. And that taking off our jammies AND our diaper was not okay. I got him dressed quickly, took out his baby blanket, and told him very firmly that he was to go to sleep and NOT take off his jammies again. His look expressed to me that he didn't understand that the joke was really over. So I reaffirmed with, "If you take your jammies off again you will be IN BIG TROUBLE." "Okay Mommy," he sang happily. Realizing quickly that this threat had absolutely NO follow through whatsoever, I changed it to, "If you take off your jammies again I am going to take away your Binky and Lambie."

Well, he paused a minute like, "Crap. She can't really be serious..." And then smiled and said "Okay Mommy, I go seep now. Goodnight." all said with his little mischievous grin.

So I walked back out to the living room and picked up the video monitor. He did not even wait until I sat down before he started trying to wrangle out of his jammies. The little shit! It took him almost 10 minutes to get out of them, but he did. He sat there in his diaper (and nothing else in the crib) and then started working on his diaper to get it off. God Damned Him!! I really didn't want to have to take this any further because, like I said, my fault not his. But really, if I didn't stop this now, I envisioned having to duct tape him into his jammies and diaper every night going forward. So I did what I had to do. Because we all know the number one rule of parenting is follow through.

I went back into his room, walked straight in and grabbed his Binky out of his mouth, and his Lambie up from off his pillow, looked him in the eye and said, "I told you if you took off your jammies again you lost Binky and Lambie. Goodnight." And I turned and walked out of the room. Well it took about a nano second for the crying to start. In fact he didn't really even cry. It's as if he thought, Holy shit. She actually did it. I better use my words here because I have GOT TO CONVINCE HER of the injustice of this... He just started yelling, "Pees Mommy. Come back. I putta my jammie back on," "I needa my Yambie..." "COME BACK Mommy..." "Pees..." It was really sort of hard for me to hear. I went into my room and took off my makeup and made sure to note the time that I left his room (9:39pm in case you're wondering) and watched the clock. I made him sit in there for 5 minutes. At the end of 5 minutes I went in. Poor thing was desperately trying to get his jammies back on himself and was all red faced and teary. I picked him up out of his crib and told him I loved him. I told him that I was sorry that Mommy had said that it was funny to take off jammies at nighttime because it really wasn't. I told him that sleeping without a diaper was very dirty and that he didn't want to have to sleep in pee pee all night. I told him that I took Binky and Lambie because he had blatantly not listened to me. He held on to my neck for dear life and just kept begging for me to put his jammmies back on. I did and then I told him that I would give him back Binky and Lambie if he would lay down, close his eyes and go to sleep. But that if he decided to take off his jammies again, he would not have Binky or Lambie for the ENTIRE NIGHT. This time he got it.

I gave him back his Binky and Lambie and hugged him for an extra few minutes. I told him again how much I loved him and that I loved that he is a funny kid but that he has to be funny while still following the rules. I tucked him under his big blanket, sang him his sunshine song, and kissed him goodnight.

The little boy did not move an INCH. He went right to sleep in the very position that I layed him down. He slept straight through the night and I made sure to give him extra loves this morning when he got up because I think he needed it. I think he was still a little traumatized by the events of the previous night.

All of this because I couldn't keep my damn mouth shut. I had to go and tell everyone what a funny, cute kid I had and look what happened as a result. I forget sometimes that my little boy is sharp as a tack and that he hears literally EVERYTHING I say. Even if he isn't responding, he is listening. Lesson learned...