Sprite's Keeper

Sunny Days Keeping the Clouds Away

Eight o'clock this morning, I eagerly took a call,

And got the news of ending rains, clear skies ahead after all.

John had taken an offer from a reputable firm,

To continue in his IT position in a permanent kind of term.

Spelling the end of our drama, our trauma, our angst,

Breaking the wall of uncertainty that we'd been pinned against.

Now, I feel whole again, the weight is off my chest,

The stormy weather is calming down and we're catching up on rest.

We can pick back up again, with nothing going into hock,

And save this site from certain doom (I was getting writer's block).

So, Internet, on behalf of John, I'm offering our thanks,

And promise I'll be back to writing about Sprite's hijanks. ( jinks. Yeah, um, I meant that..)

It's Just the Voice Inside My Head

Have you ever paused and listened?

Truly listened?

Sh.

Do you hear it?

Do you have any flipping clue what I'm talking about? (I really hope not. I'd be worried about both of us.)

Everyone has a voice inside their head.

Okay, okay. Let's not start with the "Ooh, Jen is proving she's certifiable! Exhibit B here, folks!" (We already established that back in January.) (Man, you're behind.)

Just try this little experiment and see what I mean.

(DISCLAIMER! **** Please do not attempt any Sprite's Keeper experiments while driving, sleeping, operating heavy machinery, watching children, watching paint dry, using a hairdryer, using anything with a plug, or thinking.) (Did that cover everything? Um, let's call it a Blanket Disclaimer.)

Go on about your day today. Do what you normally do. Then, just pause and listen. Listen to the voice inside your head. The one with the running commentary. Your lips don't need to be moving. Your mind does. And if your mind doesn't move, you're probably not reading this anyway, so... yeah.

Moving on!

You're probably still a little mystified about this inner voice stuff and wondering if they should cut off my Internet service, so I will be generous and provide you with examples as to what I mean:

Example 1: Jane is at the mall. Jane is walking along, window shopping and meandering from kiosk to kiosk as she samples gelato and hand cream. Her inner voice is talking to her the entire time, although she seemingly acts unaware of it. "Oh, that dress is nice. I wonder if they have it in a size 12. Do people believe me when I tell them I'm a size 8? I like those shoes. Not the woman wearing them though. Acting like she's all that. What laid eggs in her cereal this morning? Did she just sneer at me? Bitch." Jane's inner voice is a fashionista.

Jane's face has not shown any emotion as these thoughts came to mind. She probably isn't even cognizant of it.

If that didn't do it for you, here's another example with some added testosterone for you men-folk:

Example 2: Joe is driving along in traffic. Joe's practical sedan is cut off by a diesel truck hauling ass from the next lane over, which then speeds off leaving Joe puttering in his exhaust fumes at the recommended speed limit. His inner voice is a little peeved. "Stupid jerk. Just because he's driving a big truck, he thinks he owns the road. Heh heh, just wait until he gets to the gas pumps.. I really hope there's a cop ahead with his radar on. A nice ticket would get him good and pissed. Well, look at that, Mr. Big Ass Truck with an even bigger carbon footprint, stopping at the same light as the rest of us peons. Nice to see you again! Did wasting 2 gallons of gas to punch the pedal pay off for ya?" Joe's inner voice holds grudges.

All right, enough examples for you? So, go on about it. Report back if you hear anything interesting. And if anyone's inner voice is a fortune teller, email me. Lotto is coming up soon and Mama needs a new therapist.

(You were thinking it.)

Pregnant Pause A.K.A. Math on a Sunday?

Consider this picture taken at my sister's-in-law baby shower a couple of weekends ago:

3/5 of the women in this picture are pregnant. That equals 60%. More than half!

So, who's pregnant besides the obvious choice in the bottom row?

(No, I'm not one of them.)

(You can relax now, John.)

(For now.)

Airee Accusations

Ahem. Good morning, everyone. My name is Harrison, affectionately known as Harry, although the kid refers to me as "Airee." I let it slide. For now.

I have been living with Sprite since my owners brought her home a little more than a year and a half ago. Since then, Blue and I have been subjected to torture on a regular basis at the hands of this pint sized, pinching, hitting, biting, toy stealing toddler, who on a daily basis continues to charm my owners into thinking she's some sort of miniature Einstein.

I can no longer sit quietly and allow this to happen. The kid is getting way too much credit for being a kid. Just look at this display of completely normal toddler behavior and the copious amounts of digital film wasted on her.

There she is, just sitting in her high chair, trying to snap the restraints into place and then take them out. That's it. She spent a good hour doing this, crying when they tried to take her out of the chair, and getting her way when they relented and allowed her to disobey their authority until bedtime.

My owners grabbed the camera and proceeded to get several angles of her snapping and unsnapping the restraint.

Snapping..

Unsnapping..

Wait! Don't forget the look of concentration!

There's more, but I'm starting to bore MYSELF here.

Oh, and get this! They're high fiving her for teaching herself how to escape the very restraints put there for her own safety! They might as well show her where they store the matches!

That's right. Clap on about your little accomplishments. You go on thinking you're all that and a bag of Milk Bones. I'd like to see you catch a ball thrown 50 yards.

Is it all about cute? Is that what she thinks is making her so popular? Well, look at that. See? I can do cute.

Is this what my life is going to be? A side dish forced to live quietly in her main entree shadow? I used to be the star. Yeah, Blue's there too, but I'm the brains in this operation and this diaper wearing diva has stolen all my attention, affection, and accolades, not to mention my space on the bed.

I am using this blog to call attention to this mis-use of praise and manipulation of attention and expose her for what she really is:

A toddler.

Thank you. Have a good day.

Oh, um, can you let me out really quick? I gotta go.

...............................................................................

Blue: What'd I miss?

Every Potty has a Pooper..

"Poopy?"

I look up from my place of repose on Sprite's bedroom floor and focus on her. "Did you go poopy?"

Sprite is standing next to her Tickle Me Elmo, which is face down on the floor twitching as it tries to right itself. She is grabbing at her tushy as she watches me. "Poopy."

I move over to her and take a sniff for the tell-tale whiff. Nothing. "Do you need to go potty?"

She nods.

Could it be? Could she finally baptize the potty? "Well, let's go," I say, getting to my feet and leading the way to her potty and possibly the way to a diaper free child. (Long way to go, I know, but let me dream.)

We walk into the guest bathroom where her potty chair has been sitting, a little neglected for a couple of months. She has had a passing interest in it if only to activate the sounds by sitting on it and then running off.

I get down onto the floor and Sprite stands next to me as she stares at the potty.

"Potty," she comments, pointing to the little throne.

"Potty," I affirm, as I pull at the tabs on her diaper and take the absorbent barrier away.

Sprite is now naked from the waist down. She stands, facing the potty chair. She looks almost as if she's psyching herself up to do it. To be a big girl. To sit on the potty and get a sticker.

Then, before I can do anything, she pees on the bathroom rug. As she's facing the potty. A foot away from the potty.

My only reaction? I laugh. I laugh hard.

Sprite continues to stand there watching me lose it and John walks in and assesses the situation.

"Come on, sweetie," he croons, picking up the wet toddler. "Let's take a bath while Mommy pulls herself together." He looks over at me. "How can you laugh at her? You're not teaching her self confidence by laughing at her attempts to learn."

I keep laughing, way beyond redemption. "I'm sorry," I gasp.

He walks off with Sprite, leaving me and the wet rug behind.

He's right. How am I going to be a positive role model when I find humor in everything she does?

I need to clean up my act. But first, I need to clean up the rug.

(Next time, I'll make sure to seat her as soon as the air hits her tushy.)

Hot Enough For Ya?

Yesterday morning, sitting in Sprite's classroom, I passed the time chatting with her teachers while Sprite had the place to herself, moving around the shelves and pulling toys at random.

She passed the area where baby dolls of various colors and sizes were arranged and took them out one by one. She lined them up on the floor near me and patted them on the back with enthusiastic thumps as she said "nite-nite" to each one of them. Pretty typical Sprite behavior. It was what she did next that floored me.

She brought each baby doll from its resting position on the floor to the nearby oven in the play kitchen and opened the oven door, shoving them into the unit and closing the door immediately after.

"Sprite, what are you doing?" one of the teachers asked.

"Hot", Sprite answered, as if this explained everything.

The teachers looked at me. I looked at them. We were all thinking the same thing. Should we worry?

Sprite went about her task of opening the oven door to shove the baby dolls in one by one, making sure to close the door, at one point, kicking it up with her foot. (I looked a little guilty over this as I do the same thing with the oven door and dishwasher door all the time. I'll admit, she got that from me.) (But the oven and doll cooking? Look elsewhere!)

I think I'm going to have to work hard to make my surprise look natural when Sprite comes home from school one day in the future wondering why she's being cast as the wicked witch in Hanzel and Gretel.

At least she can draw her character from past experiences..

Any News?

Not yet.

(Was that worth linking to me?)

(Sorry for the tease.)

John and the Sprite

Okay, so I finally figured out why people have been asking me if I bequeathed Sprite her nickname based on "Johnny and the Sprites". My blank stare in response to this question before recently was enough reply for me since I thought people were referencing a 50's doo-wop group and I'm all, "Dude, I'm in my thirties? My early thirties? Do you think I would know about that? Or are you hinting at something else?"

Now, I get it. (Or, now I get the Disney Channel.) We got a dvd of the show and watched it a bit. Hm. Yeah. Um. How long has this show been on the air? And did the director never watch "Fraggle Rock"? Now, there was a good puppet show with plots which tackled actual issues. And poor Sprocket never got Doc's attention in time to see the mysterious Fraggles. (Bring back the Fraggles!) (By lucky coincidence, they are back! On sale now! Check your local stores or Internet for the box sets! Collect all three! ) (No, I'm not getting paid for that plug..... Should I be?)

Back on subject here. John and Sprite have become an inseperable duo lately, although I think it's kind of one-sided. Sprite wants all Daddy, all the time.

Where I used to be the negatively charged ion to her positive electron zeroing in on my leg, John has now developed a force field far greater than I could achieve and his rising star status has soared.

She has become a little clingy though. Just a few mornings ago, she woke up on the wrong side of the crib and wanted only Daddy. John went to free her from her bed and change her, the entire time with her moaning and whining and being generally sucky. When he placed her on the floor so she could make the walk on her perfectly capable toddler legs to the kitchen, she fretted and raised her arms. "Up!" she whined, her eyes brimming in warning of the tirade to come lest he not follow her commands.

John, smarter than I give him credit for, promptly picked her up and brought her to the kitchen where he deposited her on the floor again so he could make her breakfast.

"Ehhhhhhh", she moaned, raising her arms again. "Up!"

"Honey, I have to get your food ready." John turned from her again, his excuse more than valid.

"Up!" she demanded, louder. John chose to ignore her and proceeded to open cabinets and the fridge in order to put something in her belly.

I heard all of this while I was getting dressed for work (Total tangent here: It seems like every morning I wake up, I look at the alarm and dare myself to spend one more minute in bed than the day before, ignoring the fact that the day is beginning with or without me. This is making me late and I go to bed that night telling myself I will not let this happen again, and then the next morning, the devil on my shoulder is at it again. All right, tangent over.) and, instead of asking if he needed help, that's a no brainer, I asked him if he got the coffee started already. (Yeah, I can be mean. And selfish. But, come on, COFFEE!)

I came out of our room in time to see John standing at the counter, Sprite sitting on the counter in front of him with her hands clamped on his arms, a bowl consisting of pieces of pancake and banana slices sitting beside her, and John picking the pieces up one by one and feeding them to his sullen looking daughter, whose only way of conveying signs of life was to open her mouth to accept the next piece of food. (There should have been some sort of punctuation in there, but you get it, right?)

Her perfectly capable toddler arms looked to be in working order, but, strangely, were not moving. I zipped around the kitchen, making my lunch and getting her things together (and my COFFEE!) and kept looking back at my VERY patient husband and Sprite's VERY patient servant father who dutifully fed his daughter by hand until I called an end to it and made her use her perfectly capable toddler brain to find her way out to the car so we could leave for school.

John followed us out and lifted Sprite into her car seat, the entire time promising what a great day she would have at daycare, as I started the car and looked back at the two of them in their own little world.

It clicked with me right then. He enjoys this. He likes the fact that she's demanding him all the time. I gave him the perfect chance to ditch us at the garage door, but he totally followed us out, soaking up as much of her attention as he could get before I had a chance to put the car into reverse.

I could consider if he's trying to regain some credit from when I was Sprite's favorite person and Daddy was forever being dismissed.

So, the tides have turned. And just in time for John's birthday too.

Happy birthday, honey. Money's tight right now, so I gave you something money could never buy. Your daughter's idolatry.

I got me a little something too. I got me a break.

And don't even think about re-gifting on my birthday, I want a new purse.

Is There a Ding In The Doppler?

You know that saying "No news is good news?"

The person who said it obviously wasn't searching for a job.

(Yup, that means nothing new to report here.)

(Um, Internet? If I could ask you for a cyber-favor, could you lift your cyber-feet the next time you pass a cyber-train track and make a huge cyber-wish on behalf of John for some good news on the job front?)

(If I told you it was his birthday tomorrow, would that cyber-sway you?)

(Many cyber-thanks!)

Blessed are the ignorant..

Dear couple with the baby we saw at Fireshouse Subs on Sunday,

Hi. We're the family who was sitting at the table next to yours. Ma'am, I saw you looking over at our table with a mixture of pity and apprehension. I know. I can admit it. We looked a little pathetic, didn't we?

Mom and Dad shoveling food in faster than we could swallow while trying to convince the cranky toddler to try a couple of bites and throwing pieces of sandwich from one tray to another, playing a sort of mealtime hopscotch. And while we're doing this, we're arguing with each other over whether or not to give the tot a sip of soda while the tot, obviously strung out on preservatives and all sorts of bad food, is reaching for the forbidden soda and whining for it. And then Mom snarls at Dad to go get the girl a "cookie, dammit!" Sorry sight, right?

I heard you telling your parents (at least I assume they are your parents considering you called them Mom and Dad, but I could be mistaken) about the great lengths you had gone to find the organic Cheerios you were feeding your son and how, since he is beginning to chew harder foods, you are being careful to read the ingredients on every product you bring into your home. 

I saw you give the boy, who is probably about 10 months right now, a toy to play with and he occupied himself with it quietly, giving you all a chance to enjoy a leisurely meal while the toddler (and bad influence) at the table next to you was building a complicated looking structure with her pieces of bread and meat and then going all Godzilla on it with one swipe of her hand. (If I could compare the two tables, I'd say your table had the perfect weather with sunny skies while our table was experiencing hurricane warnings with a high chance of scattering debris.)

It's okay. I'm not taking it personally, because I know something you don't. You will be us. Soon.

Your day will come. When your son begins to walk, and talk, and decides he's not on the same page with the decisions you've been making, your day will be here.

You will have that day when your perfectly clean child decides to take the entire plate of food and hold it over his head, showering sodden bits of bread and lettuce all over his pristine curls.

You will have that day when you are throwing food from one parent's tray to the other because your obedient son all of the sudden decides he only wants food from Daddy's tray and even though Mommy is the one supplying the food, you will do everything you can to make sure it looks like the food is in fact coming from Daddy's side of the table to avoid the tantrum that he will initiate anyway when he catches you in the act with the turkey arcing through the air.

Your day is on the horizon when your golden child, always contentedly sipping from his sippy cup filled with exactly one part nursery water and one part 100% apple juice, will look up and realize his entire life is now hinging on one sip from the soda you are enjoying yourself, and you will be forced to have a battle of wills with yourself and your husband over whether or not you should give in and let him have a sip, thinking on one hand that you may be providing the gateway junk which will in turn pave the way for more bad food to be allowed entrance into his unsullied temple and then the other hand will slap at you with "It's just a sip. It will shut him up." And you will cave.

You will wonder where your good eater's appetite has gone as you make quick calculations in your head over how much turkey and bread and lettuce made it into his mouth versus the floor and whether or not a cookie, while not a substantial source of vitamins and protein, will hopefully fill him up and then order your hapless husband to get the freaking kid a cookie, the same husband who is tired by now of playing hoagie hockey and defending his own meal from marauding tiny hands, and he will look up blankly at your request making you repeat the demand with a "dammit!" and the child, upon hearing the word "cookie", will cry for the cookie while not taking the time to understand that the timespan between hearing the word "cookie" and the cookie's actual appearance is not instantaneous and the volume level will rise until not even the appearance of the sweet merciful tantrum ending cookie will calm him down.

Yes, mark my words. You will be here.

So, no, I'm not taking your pitying looks to heart. Every dog has its day and every toddler has his tantrum. And yours will have his.

In the meantime, soak up all his cuteness and obedience for this is his way of letting you rest up before the real fun begins.

Cheers,

The mom at the next table