They Call Me Tater…

It’s a pretty sad affair when your toddler can make you want to die of shame.  Case in point…I’ve been nursing a rather large zit on my chin for a few days.  Zits never go unnoticed by Tater…not much goes unnoticed by Tater.  In fact, I’m pretty sure he notices every time I pluck my eyebrows.

Anyways, I had just gotten Tater out of the bath, we sang “Sunshine” and I proceeded to dry him off.  I was sitting, he was standing so we were pretty much face to face.  He looked at my chin and said:

“You have a pencil?”

“Yes, I have a PIM-PLE.”

“Does it hurt you?”

“Physically, not really.  Emotionally, I just know my latest crush was going to ask me out today and now he won’t because I have this enormous deformity that is chewing off half of my face.”

“What?”

“No, no it doesn’t hurt me.”

Then, he takes my chin in both his hands, levels his eyes to the “pencil”, shakes his head in disgust and whispers:

“Oh My Goodness!”

I totally felt like I was back in high school and the cool girls were laughing and pointing at my blemish because you know, pretty girls always make fun of others due to the fact that they have such low self-esteem.  It must be bitch to be so pretty, so rich, so popular.  I literally had to bite my tongue to keep from saying to Tater what I SO wanted to say to those stuck up snots in high school:

“OH YEAH?!?  Well, I’ve got the biggest tits in school…so suck it sideways, bee-yotch!”

This post is to redeem myself from the last one in case the internet thinks I am one of those parents who believe that the even the smallest signs of intelligence makes their child a genius beyond compare.

Sometime last year, Tater developed an interesting personality quirk which made him drag the top of his head along the floor until he got a terrible rugburn.  We never have been able to figure out why he did this (and still does, though much less often, and now we always offer him broken glass to chew on as a distraction so he doesn’t get the rugburn).  It was funny the first few times in that “look at how weird our child is” kind of way but then came last summer. 

Last summer we decided to forgo barbershop bills and shave Tater’s head at home.  He loved it, we shaved Daddy’s head then Tater’s head, and Mommy cleaned up the hair.  Fun for the whole family!  Tater has an incredibly cute bald head, at least he does by “mommy-standards” but the first time he did his rugburn trick, it stuck out like a sore thumb. 

He never seemed to mind the rugburn which leads me to think all that vodka we give him to chase down the broken glass may be affecting his intelligence after all.  Not so much with the common sense on this one.

I’ve always believed that there is a big difference between “street smarts” (common sense) and “book smarts” (4.0 GPAs) and I think that finding just the right mixture of both is what provides for true intelligence.  I know several people, and one in particular, who are extremely book smart, like doing-trigonometry-for-fun book smart, but they don’t have the sense to look both ways before crossing the street.

I’m confident that Tater will get the book smarts from his schooling and Dick and I will help him as much as possible, but it will be solely our responsibility to help him with the street smarts.  I fully intend to let him suffer the consequences of all of his actions, and make mistakes over and over again because I truly believe this is the only way to learn the street smarts.

Last night, Tater showed a very practical side of himself, forcing the whimsical pie-in-the-sky stuff aside, and for a two-year-old…what a feat!  Case in point:

Scene: Mommy and Tater snuggling on the couch and I looked over to see an eyelash in the corner of his eye.

Me:  Hold still, bubba.  You lost an eyelash and Mommy needs to get it before it gets into your eyeball. 

Tater:  Okay, Mom (unconditional trust aside, I HATE it when he refers to me as just “mom”)

Me:  Got it.  Now blow on the eyelash and make a wish.  You can wish for anything you want, anything at all!!

Tater: *blows hard*

Me: What did you wish for?

Tater:  A eyemash.

Me:  You wished for an eyelash?  Why?

Tater:  Because I lost one so I need anuder one.

He could have wished for cookies or a new ball or a never-ending showing of Backyardigans or even a BMW.  But, not my son.  Nope, my level-headed toddler simply wished for an eyemash to replace the one he lost.

In tribute to Aidan’s many new milestones, I thought I would announce Tater’s first successful unassisted potty!!  Today, he ran towards the bathroom announcing, “I need to go pee!”  I quickly followed, removed his jeans and Pull-Up, and he got on the potty.

After about five minutes of singing songs and turning on the faucet…he peed! 

We consider this his first real success because all of the other successes have consisted of us putting him on the toilet at scheduled times and inevitably, we’d get one of those times right.  We tried this method months ago after reading about it in some potty training propaganda.  I am now absolutely convinced that this is one of the most assinine methods of potty training ever.  How does my putting him on the potty every half-hour and hoping something escapes train HIM exactly?  It doesn’t.  It trains me.  And I’m somewhat certain that proper pottying is a skill I already possess.

Congratulations, Tater…we are looking forward to many more successes! 

I finally got Tater singing on camera!  The sound is terribly annoying on this video because Tater is using his terribly annoying microphone with its own amp.  There’s also a guitar.  This was a present from Daddy.  A present that Mommy was none too thrilled about.  But I digress.

Though you may not be able to tell, he is singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and You Are My Sunshine.  The latter is the song we sing every night when he gets out of the bath.  I wrap him up in his towel like a little caterpillar, sit on his bedroom floor and rock him back and forth.  He lays his head on my shoulder and we sing.  The video is inherently better than those after-bath sessions and if it weren’t for the age limit, I would so send it to Randy, Paula and Simon.

Last night I filled out “valentimes” for all of Tater’s friends at daycare.  They are having a Valentine Party today, complete with enough sugar to keep them high for days!  Dick is volunteering at this little shindig as a Parent Helper.  Better him than me!

In an effort to avoid the wrath, here is a brand new shiny video!  You may think it’s ridiculous that we get enough pleasure out of watching Tater react when given lemon and lime juices to actually video tape it…but it’s the little things people.  The little things that keep you going when you want nothing more than to join your two-year-old on the floor during his latest tantrum!

By the by, as you will see…the lemon and lime juices are administered upon HIS request.  This is not some newfangled approach to behavior modification in toddlers.  In other words, don’t try this at home unless, of course, a specific request has been made!

Scene:  Tater and Daddy dropping off money to Papa for the car he sold us (which was a friggin’ steal!).

Tater:  “Here’s yo’ cash, Papa!” (whilst flinging an envelope of Benjamins at him)

Papa:  “Well, thank you Tater.”

Tater:  “No problem.”

Any day now he’s going to demand that we take him to have THUG LIFE tatooed in Old English lettering across his stomach.

I’ve been wanting to put this picture on this site for a while now but since I don’t have photo editing software and it wasn’t uploaded to my mom’s Flickr account, it was way too huge.  I finally broke down and got my own Flickr account and here it be.

Tater absolutely loves his Auntie Frenfro, and I absolutely love to hear Tater say Auntie Frenfro.  And, since Auntie Frenfro doubles as my sister and best friend, she also doubles as Tater’s favorite auntie and godmother.  Ever since I became a mommy (‘member two-and-a-half-years-ago with all the vagina stretching?  All for naught, mind you!), I have harbored a quiet desperation to live and be privvy to my child’s life for as long as possible.  And, though nothing could ease the pain of being without your child (whether you’re dead or alive), it is unbelievably comforting knowing that someone you trust wholeheartedly (read that:  she would totally help me hide the bodies!) is willing to care for your child, whenever, wherever, however.

Apologies for the slightly morbid turn this post has taken…but it had to be said.