out of the mouth of Miles.

Sometimes having a two year old feels like sitting in a dark room listening to nails on a chalkboard all day. But sometimes it's like riding a unicorn across a shimmering rainbow.

Here are some sparkling unicorn stories for your reading pleasure:

I will preface this first story by saying that I hate TV. Who am I kidding? I love it. But I'm a little obsessive about not letting Miles or Atticus have any screen time because I'm paranoid to-the-max that they will become addicted/get ADHD and never enjoy the more fun and active aspects of childhood. In the limited time that we allow Miles to watch TV (and by TV, I mean Netflix, because we can't afford to pay for any real channels) he has quickly discovered a few favorite shows. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is one, with Pokemon being a close second. Let me just tell you, it was absolutely adorable when he started saying "Gotta catch a-ball! Pokemon!" Now he requests that I play the theme song and the "Peek-a-choo rap" everytime we get in the car. We've listened to the theme so many times I have it memorized. Who am I kidding, I've known the words for years! Ha. But now Miles and I have fun doing this:

Me- "I wanna be the very best, like no one ever..." (pause and point to Miles)
Miles- "WAS!"
Me- "To catch them is my real test, to train them is my..."
Miles- "CAUSE!"
Me- "I will travel across the land, searching far and..."
Miles- "WIDE!"
Me- "Teach Pokemon to understand, the power that's..."
Miles- "Inside!"
....With a grand and dramatic: "Pokemon, gotta catchaball!!"

Of course he knows the words to most of the song, so it's adorable to hear him just sing it to himself all day, too.

Funny story #2. Adventures at Walmart.
So, one of Miles and I's favorite things to do together is go shopping. One delightful evening at Walmart, we kept hearing some little kid cry in another aisle. Miles kept commenting about the kid crying, so I would say, "Oh, somebody's not happy..." This repeated itself several times with various crybabies throughout the store. "Aw, somebody's not happy, darn it..." Towards the end of our shopping trip, I'm grabbing some Cheerios from the shelf when Miles says (full of concern) "Somebody's not happy, darn it..." A-damn-dorable!

He insisted on riding in this disease-infested thing.

For awhile after Atticus was born, Miles decided to take upon himself the role of booger police. Not only was he into picking his own nose, but he became obsessed with doing inspections on everyone's noses to make sure there were no boogers present. Good thing he mostly kept that funny little quirk in the family.

"Please don't."
Sadly, I don't remember the adorable anecdote that went along with this newly discovered phrase. All I can say is that what was once adorable (hey, he even used his manners!) quickly has morphed into an annoying screech repeated multiple times a day: "I don't!!!" which is short for "I don't want to!"

Do your babies hate tummy time as much as mine do? When Atticus was still pretty small, we started putting him on his stomach for at least a few minutes a day for tummy time. We'd coo and talk to him: "There you go, exercise your muscles!" We'd have Miles get involved too and help by telling baby to exercise his muscles and demonstrating just how to accomplish the task. Talk about having your own personal trainer. Anywho. Miles has various little Winnie the Pooh plastic figurines that he lines up and plays with on the shelf below our TV stand. One day he's playing with Christopher Robin who is laying face down on the TV stand. When I ask him what he's doing, he replies, "He's exercising his muscles!" This was much like the time we caught him breastfeeding Charlie Brown.

With one of his best friends.

Speaking of exercise...
If you read my earlier post, you know about my obsession with Hypnobabies and the power of positive affirmations. My doula sent me a free track of positive affirmations that she created which focus on parenting. One day, Miles and I are eating lunch, while I have the track playing on my phone in the background. The following affirmation is read: "I love to exercise..." Miles instantly goes, "No, I don't like that one." That's my boy! Healthy habits from the start...

The Eavesdropper.
Miles tends to listen in on every conversation between Brett and I. Sometimes it's hilarious the things he will repeat back that he hears us say. Other times it's not so funny (i.e. when Brett taught him to say, "You're pissing me off!" to his trucks). Ok, I'll admit, that's pretty funny too. One day Brett and I are having a conversation and Brett asks, "Do you think our kids are going to be the nerdy kids, or the cool kids when they get older?" Immediately Miles chimes in: "Cool kids!"

Mr. Sassypants.
On top of my amazing good looks, Miles has also inherited my sass-a-fras spirit. We were up visiting Brett's grandparents at their cabin one weekend, and Miles was having the time of his life. He was enjoying his time in the spotlight as grandpa and grandma made him the absolute center of attention. Grandma and I are talking to him and I say something to him. He looks at me and says, "No, I don't want to talk to you." Thanks a lot, kid!

Keepin' it real at the Cabin.

Sometimes getting out of the house with two kids is a fiasco. It's a little bit easier when Brett and I are able to work together at it (I can't ever imagine trying to take both of them somewhere by myself...). On one such occasion, Brett joins me in our room and says, "Ok, I got the kids all ready to go." To which an ever-present-eavesdropping-Miles states, "I'm not a kid, I'm just Miles!"

Sharing is Caring.
I have a lot of old toys and stuff from my childhood. One day I show Miles some little such doo-dad and let him play around with it. He tells me, "It's not yours anymore, it's mine. You can't have it." I reply back, "I don't want it, it's yours now, I gave it to you." A look of utter joy crosses his face as he says, excitedly, "It's my birthday?!"

Making Friends with the Flies.
One of the annoying things about St. George in the summer is the bugs. The flies are out like nobody's business, and they somehow make their way into our house in frenzies. One day, Miles is sitting at the kitchen table finishing his dinner, when we notice him talking to one such fly that keeps landing near his food. "Hi bug. Come back! Come talk to me!" I guess it's kind of like that saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em"!

Miles with another creepy-crawly friend.

Another one of Miles's silly quirks is that he loves freckles. I have a huge freckle on my stomach that was especially pronounced while I was pregnant. He always wanted to lift my shirt to see my freckle (I'll leave his adorable mispronunciation of the word to your imagination). Luckily he also has a tiny one on his own tummy that I can re-direct him to when we are in public and he randomly wants to do a freckle check. One day he had me rolling on the floor when he made the observation "Mom, you have freckles in your mouth!" Yup, hopefully you don't get as many cavities as me, kid. They aren't pretty.

The other night, Miles had a hard time going to sleep for some reason. Usually he's pretty easy going at bedtime and easily lays down to read stories to his many friends. This night, he cried and was upset in his bed for a few minutes before we hear him say to himself, "I'm happy! I'm not sad anymore. I'm happy again." The way he narrates his life is too freaking cute sometimes.

What's happening?!
Miles is a very curious and inquisitive kid. One of his favorite questions as of late is, "what happened?" anytime he hears or sees something. It got a little chilly while we were up at Pinevalley for a family reunion last weekend so I went to put on Miles's hoodie. I could not for the life of me get his zipper up, so of course he demands to know (sounding very concerned), "What's happening?!"

Well there you have it. Out of the mouth of Miles.

 

Stay tuned for further musings.