My neighbors are at it again with the fireworks. Tonight it just sounds like they're taking the big strings of Black Cats and setting them off. I don't mind it for me, but if it wakes J up and he can't/won't go back to sleep, after the round I had getting him to sleep tonight, I'll go out there and kick whoever's responsible.
J started falling asleep sometime between 6 and 7, when we were eating dinner. We sit on the sofa and eat with TV trays (my mother would slap me, I know, but with it being just the two of us, I'm not standing on ceremony - he knows how to eat at a table like a big boy), and at one point he actually lay down on the sofa with a piece of pizza in his hand, took a bite of it, and started falling asleep with pizza in his mouth! LOL So we had bath and bed a little early. It took him 45 minutes to fall asleep - I turned the light out at 8:15, and even though he was so tired he could barely stand, he didn't give out until 9:00. At one point I heard him making strange noises - went in to find him halfway over the side of the bed headfirst, trying to grab something off the floor. At another point he wanted dry underpants, and when he lay down in the floor to change, he wanted to *sleep* in the floor. I scooped him up, put him back in bed, and stayed there and rubbed his back until he was snoring. Sweet baby boy, I do love him so.
And he just made my day this morning. We were just playing and having breakfast, and he came up to me and said, "Mama, you're my best friend." I could have just cried. I know the day will come where he thinks I'm dumb as a box of burnt sand, and he won't want to be seen in public with me, much less admit he ever thought I was his best friend. But that meant more to me to hear him say that than all the money in the world. It's moments like that that really make being a mother worth all the hard work.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we had a little power struggle this evening before dinner. I was in the kitchen fixing dinner. Just as it was ready, I came into the living room to find that J had taken all my bookmarks out of their little box on the end table and strewn them across the floor. !!!! He got all excited seeing that I had a plate of pizza in my hand, and wanted to eat. I told him we didn't throw mama's things in the floor, and as soon as he helped me pick up the bookmarks, we'd eat. I got screaming and tears and "I don't wanna pick them up, you pick them up by yourself!" Oh, no. He was trying his best to get to that pizza, and finally I set it on the one cabinet he can't quite reach yet, and repeated that as soon as the bookmarks were picked up, we'd eat. I told him I didn't make the mess, and I wasn't going to clean it up, that he needed to learn to pick up after himself. He howled and carried on for about five minutes, and then he picked up the bookmarks. And we sat down and ate, and he was just as happy as could be - you'd never know he had that big ol' fit. I was proud of myself - sometimes it's hard to stand firm, especially when you're faced with a thermonuclear meltdown. But I did, and he did what I asked. I need the strength to do this every day - some days are better than others, that's for sure.
OK, I'm going to go take a bubble bath. Everything from the waist down hurts, I guess from my fall on Saturday. I thought it was just my knee I'd whacked out, but it all hurts. I'm one big ache. So I'm off to percolate in hot bubbly water with a good book.
And tomorrow it's back to work....
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