Hoops

Coming to you from the bathroom again today. It's tubby-time-at-naptime again as yesterday's attempt to let the big boy play quietly in his room resulted in him riding the rocking chair like rocking-surfboard and banging it (unbelievably loudly) into the wall.

Epic fail.

Sitting here, on the toilet, typing away, has got me thinking about all the strange things I do in order to survive the day with my beloved three year old. I behave a bit like a trained circus animal, jumping through a series of increasingly elaborate hoops in order to get even simplest tasks accomplished.

In order to brush his teeth - I sing the numbers 1 through 30 to a crazy little tune I made up, with a somewhat southern twang. Recently, the he has begun requesting that I skip certain numbers in the sequence - so here I am: holding him loosely in a head-lock, brushing his teeth quickly, vigorously, and thoroughly while singing and remembering which numbers in the sequence have been banned today.

"Mama will not say fwee, ee-web-en, and twenty-fwee."

Then there's the questions. It is impossible to get the big boy to do anything without first getting his opinion on how the task will be accomplished.

For example, any time an article of clothing is added to, or removed from, the big boy's body - a series of questions must be asked. "Time to get dressed, shall we do it in here or in the bathroom? Do you want to undo the zipper? Pants or socks first? Which foot first?  Which arm first?"

When cutting his finger and toe nails, I ask "Now which one?" twenty times in a row.

It takes fourteen questions to get from PJ's to fully dressed.

As for leaving the house, the series goes like this, "Time to get in the car, what do you want to bring with you? Do you want to open the door? Who goes first? Do you want to open the car door? Do you want to climb in or want me to lift you in?"

And on. And on. And on.

I follow him around all day sounding a bit like a bizarre drill-sergeant/tabloid-news-reporter/highly-motivated-concierge, peppering him with an endless stream of questions.

Now let's discuss the rules of engagement.

And then of course, there's all that time we spend standing around in the freezing cold playing outside together.
The rules of playing hockey with him are simple:
* Hold the stick with two hands (i.e. no cell phone usage during game time).
* Chase him around.
* Attempt to steal the puck, but do not, under any circumstances, actually touch the puck.
* When he scores a goal, hoist your stick into the air in celebration, but do not cheer, or say, "Goal!"
* That is all.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some limbering up to do before the next round of hoop jumping.