Texas waited until almost two to become obsessed with putting tiny objects in his mouth. Of course this coincides almost perfectly with our decision to cover a portion of the outside yard area with pea gravel. You can see where this is going…right? At this point I am assuming that his growing weight is no longer caused by his growth cycle itself but by the innumerable quantity of tiny pebbles he has consumed that no doubt just sit in his toddler-sized intestinal tract.

Recently while watching my tiny charge cram yet another rock in his mouth I thought it would be a good idea – seeing how interested he has recently become in bugs – to point out that bugs poo-poo on the rocks. It has worked like magic! Each time I see him moving his arm towards his mouth with a dusty little rock squeezed into his grubby paw I just remind him of the bug poo-poo and he quickly tosses it on the floor and makes a dramatically disgusted face. Sometimes, for effect, I add ‘bugs have to potty too buddy’ with a super concerned look on my face – as if taking to heart the injustice of bugs just pooping all over our patio willy-nilly.

I am actually quite proud of myself for thinking outside the box on this one….now if only I could come up with something so clever to address wanting to sleep in shoes and socks every night.

It is April and anyone who lives in the Lone Star State realizes that summer will officially begin VERY soon (at least from a temperature standpoint). I am mentally preparing myself for the hours spent in the 100 degree weather with my tiny charge red-faced and sweaty charging  into the great beyond chasing bugs or jumping cars over the outside fire pit. I am not sure quite how I am going to adjust to the idea of actually spending any amount of time outside between the months of May and September – I usually spend those months darting frantically from indoor locations to my car in hopes of avoiding the blistering heat at any cost. But this weekend I picked up a lady bug and placed it on my arm (I usually squeal when bugs touch me) last weekend I reached down and petted a june bug and I find myself wiping toddler mucus and the like on my jeans in the absence of other options so I guess times they are a changing and my life long relationship with the great indoors might be as well.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting my tiny charge knows that he is not afraid of much and has basically never met a stranger (although he is skeptical of people with wrinkles oddly)…..so, I was alerted yesterday when picking him up at school that for the SECOND time in the last year he started crying and flipping out when it was time for school photos?!

I am befuddled by this development – one time was a fluke – a strange day – needed more banana morning – slept too long at nap time….but TWO times is a pattern.

So when I dropped him off this morning the ‘photo man’ was there and I was able to go with him to get his pictures….weirdest thing – the kid who blows kisses to everyone each day on the way out of school and home in the car – got clingy, whiny, pitiful? I don’t get it. It eventually took me basically squatting on one knee while keeping Texas from grabbing me and knocking me down all while playing a game of catch with the photographer who was hurling a stuffed Barney the dinosaur at me to get a few shots.

Obviously these photos are going to be dooseys…..I will share when they arrive in approximately 2-3 weeks.

Honestly, it has been almost 2-years now…how long can I keep milking this?

We spent this last weekend at Texas’ Godfather’s ranch…1,000 acres, UV rays in the 8,942 range, bugs the size of Utah….a free-for-all of Cheetos eating and orange fingerprints everywhere. You can imagine a fun time was had by all. During this visit Texas introduced himself to his first live june bug – this introduction went kind of like this…

Bug -bug- bug-bug-bug- (bending down now and talking louder) – HEY BUG – HEY BUG – bug-bug-bug….

After a solid 15 minutes of this – four adults were also crowded around what must have now been a deaf june bug staring at it – touching it- talking to it…….this is the joy of spending time with a toddler – if someone would have told me three years ago that I would be passing my Saturday afternoons examining (let alone touching) june bugs and having the time of my life I would have laughed in their face……but alas…..

With a name like ‘Texas’ it is not hard to find his name pretty much everywhere I turn in the Lone Star State – upside of my naming choice it turns out. He has been here for 22 months and my home is filled with Don’t mess with Texas shot glasses, playing cards, bibs, magnets, etc (thanks Uncle Russell)….we have a tiny stuffed army of horses, armadillos and longhorn bulls all over his playroom and a plethora of cowboy hats and boots varying from newborn to 2T in size.

He is called Little T, Tejas and Tex all interchangeable depending on the crowd. I named him Texas because it seemed like a great name for a supreme court justice or judge on a federal appeals court and his father gave him the middle name Knievel because he wanted him to be a dare devil…in retrospect…and after watching him riding on his motorized-toddler-sized-four-wheeler while standing on the seat with one leg I have quit mentioning the Knievel part in hopes that my name will prevail. Technically he has two middle names his first middle name is Elliott followed by Knievel and as luck would have it, insurance cards, bills, etc all drop the second last name so hopefully in the end Texas Elliott will triumph and go on to make the world a better place through high court rulings and decisive and far-reaching actions

So this morning while we were all getting dressed the boys were watching Shaka Zulu on Z’s phone and dancing around the bathroom with their imaginary spears singing..

Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom Shaka! Shaka!

To my utter delight my tiny charge was singing along but changed the words to…

Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom Daddy!  Mommy! ……it was probably the cutest thing he has done this week.

So, some parents are Oilily parents, others devoted  only to Janie and Jack, some lean towards Children’s Place, others would never stray from Pumpkin Patch but me, I am a devoted Gymboree mom. I stray occasionally to Naajtie Baby and the occasions side track to ‘Peek, aren’t you curious’ for their awesome t-shirts but I always end up back in the fold of the super coordinated Gymboree. Where else can you consistently find matching shoes, socks, and hats for every outfit you purchase? Where else can I match my son’s 18-24 month maroon and navy blue plaid rocker pants and matching shoes with this season’s 2T maroon dinosaur line? Shopping in Gymboree for me is like finding the elusive answers to all the parenting questions that haunt me…..I may not know how to estimate the appropriate number of minutes for an age-specific timeout but I do know that I can always find a matching pair of shoes to coordinate my son’s attire for any occasion and that is priceless.

If nothing else, he couture is the outward confirmation that I am not totally screwing this parenting thing up!

So last night marked the official beginning to what we hope is the end of life as we know it. The end of a life littered with tiny rubber pacifiers under foot, in our bed, stuffed in shoes, hidden behind couch cushions. Now, I have been consulting anyone and any book that might give me some pointers on how to wean my tiny charge from his rubber addiction and after listening and reading everything I could find the final verdict was what my sister so lovingly called the Barbarian solution. We cut the tips of all the pacifiers off so that they are still there they just don’t seem as appealing.

Admittedly, we were not brave enough to chop them all….we left one sacred in-case-of-emergency pacifier intact and actually gave it to him at bedtime last night.

The reaction thus far (between throwing himself on the floor and sobbing) has been fairly good. We explained that this is how they make them now and that we know it might be kind of weird. By the end of the night he was picking them up checking for the hole in the tip and throwing them down when he found it with a look of disgust.

Oh well, we might be barbarians but another suggestion was soaking them in vinegar….you be the judge.

Parenthood could be described similar to seeing a 3-hour epic movie in 2 second chunks over several year’s. I realized this recently when I put it together that my tiny charge was all of a sudden stringing words together. Normally, my brother T just spews out single words – sometimes proclamations full of emotions and other times just a non-stop string of labels.

This morning while getting ready for work and school he lugged a giant tractor into the bathroom and mumbled “Big Truck”…in my normal sing-song Texas voice I said ‘that’s right buddy – it’s a big truck’ and then it hit me…it was a big truck! He get’s it and he said them together! Little victories…..