Month 18

Dear Jack,

Nine days ago (just to provide an example of the friedness of your mother's brain- I had to use a calculator to help me figure that number out and I still do not feel confident that it is correct) you turned 18 months old. Just yesterday as I was getting ready for work, you joined me in the bathroom and proceeded to retrieve yourself a q-tip from underneath the sink. If you hadnt started to use is to clean your cheek, I would have believed you were much older than half way into your second year of life. FYI- when you start using them to clean your ears, people generally do not appreciate when you put them back into the q-tip box. And, you do not have to save them, that is why they put 400 in a box.

In other news, you are becoming quite defiant and bully-like. If it werent for the fact that another little one were on the way, I would probably still think yesterday when you waltzed into daycare, stole a toy from a little girl, and then punched her in the face when she wanted it back was kind of ridiculously funny- BUT not funny at all, not at all. I just hope we do not have to put your little brother and sister in their own enclosment so they can save their first black eye for a bar fight when they are 27. I guess this is normal behavior, especially since you have to present yourself as tough against the older kids at daycare. Your father and I are just having a hard time trying to decide how to discipline you. Do you smack back -CHILD SERVICES-, do a time out, sit down and ask you to talk about your feelings? When do we know when it time to use a certain method? For example, when can we start making you sit at the table until you at least attempt to eat what I made for dinner- and NO you cannot have goldfish and pretzels again, eat it or fall asleep not eating it. I know you understand A LOT, you prove that time and time again by your actions and words, but how much does that understanding take you when it comes to right and wrong and all of that other Jazz? It's as if I feel like if I do make you stop throwing your food on the floor when you do not want it then that means one day you will sell crack to kids on the street and live under a bridge in boulder, colorado while you eat thrown away chinese food out of a dumpster. I just do not want to do too much or not enough. I feel like when I finally figure out how to handle the stage you are in, you have already moved to the next. I am an anxious person naturally, and so my approach to motherhood is- of course- no different. I am impatient with myself, and I feel like because some things do not come as naturally as I had always imagined they should then that makes me below par as a mom. I want so badly for you to grow-up and when asked about your mother your first response not to be "oh her" and then you roll your eyes and begin to go off in a tangent in your mind about all of the ways I failed you. Just rememeber though, if you ever do, don't forget to remember all of the sponge bob I let you watch and radio stations I flipped through in the car until you bobbed your head in excitement.

Love,
Mommy