Sorry!

Troy passed gas one day, and I told him that doing that was not polite in nice society. If he had to do that, then he should at least say, “Sorry!” Now, he says, “Sorry!” quite often, and I’m not always sure if he’s actually passing gas. If he is, then he passes gas more than anyone I’ve ever known, including my father, which is quite a feat indeed. Today, we were standing in my office, looking out the window and watching the lady across the street clean her flowerbed. I accidentally audibly passed gas; and Troy turned to look at me and smiled. Then, we both said, “Sorry!” simultaneously. It’s one of those father / son bonding moments.

DISCLAIMER: After reading this, my wife insisted that I clarify that my passing wind was a rare and unusual occurrence. I do not audibly pass gas in the company of others, since that would make me uncouth and uncivilized. This is all a complete fabrication, but if it makes her feel better, then so be it.

Revolution!

I picked Troy up from daycare again today. But I realized on the way that I had been in such a hurry to get out of the house that I forgot to get him a snack. So, I stopped at a gas station on the way and bought a bag of M&Ms and a bottle of water, figuring that he’d appreciate the treat. I gave him the bag when I strapped him into the car seat, and his face lit up. I had gone from world’s worst father to world’s best father in the blink of an eye!

After I got settled into my seat, I turned to see melted chocolate smeared all around his mouth. I asked, “Can I have one?” And he said, “No!” I tried to reason with him. “You have a whole bag. You won’t even give me one?” But he wasn’t having it. He pulled the bag away from me and said, “Mmm, uhhh. No, they’re mine!” So, I tried begging. “I just want one. You’ll still have a whole bag. Pleeeeeaaaasseeee?” “No!” Losing my patience, I resorted to strong arm tactics. “You do know that I can just take them from you, right?” And this is when he surprised me and made my blood run cold. He looked me straight in the eye, and he said, “Try it, little man, and I will end you! Myyyyyyyyy chocolate!”

Needless to say that he ate that entire bag by himself.

Chocolatier

My wife has ruined our son. I got to pick him up from daycare today, since she’s down with pink eye. The moment I strapped him into the car seat, he asked, “Chocolate?” Suddenly feeling inadequate for bringing him cheddar bunnies instead, I tried to explain that I was new to this whole picking him up thing. Luckily, he was forgiving and accepted my meager offering instead. But the gauntlet has been dropped, and I don’t think I’ll get a pass the next time.

Opa!

Troy has started saying, “Opa!” as his default exclamation. He says it when something doesn’t go as he expects. He says it when he knocks something on the floor. He says it when he gets a booboo. It’s hilarious to hear him sound like a mini Greek. I've been trying to get him to hold up his hand, shrug, and say, "What are you going to do?" But I guess my wife...the love of Troy's life...has won yet again in the battle of the favorite parent. She says, "Opa!" so he says, "Opa!"

Three Days with Troy

Troy got another bacterial conjunctivitis in both his eyes, which meant we couldn’t take him to daycare for three days. Which also meant that he stayed home with me while my wife went to work. Even though it would be easy to see this as an inconvenience, I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with him. It reminded me of when we used to do that during the start of the pandemic. I cherished my three days with Troy, and I was sad when it was time for him to go back to daycare.

It's not easy trying to think up ways to entertain an antsy two-year old, but he seemed to enjoy spending time with me too. And when you're forced to use your imagination, well, then you can come up with all kinds of things to do! A laundry basket becomes a spaceship. A scrap of paper becomes a masterpiece. A ride in the stroller becomes an adventure into a world where animals talk and trees come alive. In the end, it's not really about what you're doing, but who you're doing it with.

Terrible Twos

Troy has grown quite emotional lately.  He'll cry for no reason at all, and I mean full-on tantrum cry.  Like today, for example, he was trying to get from one part of his fort to another, and I told him he had to sit down first and scoot over the edge.  He burst into tears.  

He also cries if he doesn't get his way.  He used to rise to the challenge and try harder, now he just gives up immediately and starts crying.  We were upstairs the other day, running around and playing with his ball.  I was playing keep-away to help improve his speed and agility.  I guess I took it too far, because he started crying to his mama that I was being mean.

We all knew this was coming, and all of the experts that I have researched have said that you just need to reassure them that these feelings are okay.  They are struggling with all of these new things, and they don't always know how to express themselves.  But I'm not going to lie, I have not had the patience to deal with this.  Maybe it's just bad timing, since I'm having a bad time at work, so my stress level is already on the ragged edge.  Maybe I just need to retrain my logical mind that none of this will make sense, but I need to help him through it anyway.  I feel like this is going to be the hardest stage yet.

Lizards, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails

Tonight, while I was playing with Troy in the backyard, we disturbed a small lizard. Troy got so excited and was telling him, “hello.” The lizard responded by turning from brown to green, which Troy also thought was cool. He wanted to be friends and play with the lizard, but the lizard was not interested in being manhandled by a giant, so he skittered to the safety of the playground. Troy tried to crawl between the boards and see him, but we stopped him from getting too close. He sat there talking to the lizard, while the lizard hid in terror. It’s neat to see Troy so enamored with nature.

FaceTime

I was relaxing on the couch, while my wife tried to sleep off a headache, and Troy was running around the room with his new “crocodile.” He kept asking to go outside, so I asked him to bring me my phone off the kitchen counter, so I could check the weather. He ran over, reached his little hand over the edge of the counter, grabbed the phone, and brought it to me. I was impressed, as I always am, that he understood and responded correctly.

After I was done checking the weather, I laid my phone on the couch. Troy picked it up, put it up to his ear like he was making a call, and said, “hello.” Finding nobody on the other end of the line, he started punching buttons trying to make the phone call someone. So, I helped him, and we called my stepmother.

When she picked up, Troy jumped right in and started talking to her. I think she was caught by surprise that it was Troy instead of me, but she transitioned quickly and started talking back to him. I had to translate some of the things he was saying, “the crocodile has teeth,” “mama is sleeping,” and things like that. But she caught on, and was able to engage him.

After a few minutes, I suggested a FaceTime so he could actually see her. Once the video came up, he was even more engaged. My father even came on camera too, and the two of them were asking Troy about his crocodile and his day. He was showing them the crocodile’s chomping action and its tail, and they were eating it up. It was great to see them have a chance to talk to him, and him actually sitting still long enough to enjoy it too.

They asked if we needed anything, and I said, “No, Troy just wanted to make a call, so we called them.” They loved it.

The Crocodile

Troy is now officially tall enough and strong enough to open doors. He can reach up, grip the knob, and turn it. He found out that I had kept a few more dinosaur toys in the closet of the spare room, rather than giving them to him on his birthday. My intent was to pull one out every once in a while as he got bored of the ones he had.

I had given him a very large dinosaur that looked very much like a crocodile, and he was content to spend the rest of the day chomping his jaws closed and saying, “oh-dile.” I didn’t realize that he had followed me into the spare room and watched me get the dinosaur. And this afternoon, I found him standing in the closet, pointing up at the shelf where the dinosaurs were, and saying, “Dino.”

He had opened the door to the spare room and opened the door to the closet. I shooed him out, closed both doors again, and he immediately turned around to head back in. I saw him open both doors with ease. So, I guess now if I want to keep him out of places, I’m either going to have to lock the doors, or I’m going to have to invest in those plastic things that go around the knobs. I’m just afraid that my wife and I won’t be able to operate the plastic things either!

My first thought was that this is going to make hiding his Christmas gifts more difficult. I had just closed the door to that room, while they were “in processing.” Now, I’m going to have to be more creative.

The Spork

Tonight, I was having a heated argument with a two-year old at dinner over whether the spoon he was holding was in fact a fork or a spoon. He was screaming at me that it was a fork, and I was adamantly screaming back that it was a spoon. Back and forth we went, while my wife looked on, thinking both of us had lost our minds. I think Troy was waiting for me to back down like everyone else does, but he wasn’t going to convince me otherwise. And just because he said it was so didn’t make it so. So, I found myself in a standoff, until he unexpectedly started laughing at the stubborn look on my face. Which made me start laughing. And then we both forgot why we were arguing.

Baker's Dozen

Tonight, my wife came home early, so we could have a cookie baking night with Troy. We wanted to do something fun with Troy that he could get into, and well, having cookies to eat afterward doesn’t hurt either! My wife insisted on making them from scratch, because apparently that’s the only way to make good cookies. So, while she gathered ingredients, I stirred melting chocolate, and Troy ate chocolate chips.

When she started mixing the ingredients in the mixer, Troy stood on a stool by the counter, watching the mixer going round and round and occasionally sticking his rubber “flipper” spoon thingy in the edge of the bowl. We poured the melted chocolate into the mixer, and Troy took the wooden spoon that my wife used to scrape the bowl and started to meticulously lick every inch of it clean, getting chocolate all over his face in the process.

We had intended to use our dinosaur cookie cutters, but unfortunately we picked the wrong kind of cookies, so it didn’t work. We were making what I can only describe as brownie cookies, so they were too soft and gooey to allow the cookie cutter to come out cleanly. I guess that means we’ll just have to try again! So sad...not!

Fort Troy

Having seen how much Troy enjoys going to the park and playing on the playground, we decided to get one of our own. We did our research to find one age appropriate and that had a lot of the things he enjoyed doing. Unfortunately, we didn’t research the dimensions well enough, and the thing ended up being a monster. But I’m getting ahead in the story.

It arrived on Wednesday in five boxes, weighing 160-200 pounds a piece. The delivery guys wouldn’t take it to the backyard for me, so I had to ask CC to come over to help me. As we started unboxing it, we figured out that this was going to take a while to set up. We worked for a few hours Wednesday, and a few more on Friday. I worked at it alone all day Saturday, and here we are again on Sunday.

It’s very nice and they gave us a detailed 211-step instruction manual to follow. What they didn’t give us was enough screws and bolts to finish the job. So, here I sit with a half finished play set, waiting for the rest of the parts to arrive.

When it’s complete, it will have a 10-foot tall central tower, a 6-foot smaller tower, with a rope bridge connecting them. On the other side there’s a swing set. And a circular hammock swing underneath the central tower. The smaller tower also has a blue slide. The whole thing is made of cedar, so it smells wonderful.

Troy is dying looking at it through the window, but not actually being able to play on it. I feel bad for him, but it’s going to be another two or so weeks before I get the remaining parts. I may have to appease him and figure out a workaround in the meantime.