Friday, June 24, 2011

Reminisci-topia

I love reminiscing.

Reminisci-topia is a land I visit often. It is a land where I get to go back to a simpler time, where all the everyday stresses of my life disappear into sweet memories of blissful joy and contentment.

Not that I don't have joy and contentment now, mind you. I have peed by myself twice today, which makes this a pretty darn good day. I'm just taking about the joy and contentment that does not involve finding a naked two-year-old splashing in a wagon filled with the nastiest water I have seen in a long time.

Drew (AKA Mr. Crazy) is nearing two and a half years old. I am amazed that he has not been seriously injured in a freak accident involving a blowtorch, a Popsicle, and the roof of our house he has not been hospitalized more than twice. He calls himself Baby Jack Jack, and the name fits him to a T.

When Emma was not quite two and a half, I was very pregnant with the twins and on bed rest. For the first few weeks, we were on our own each day, and she would sit with me for hours, painting our nails and letting them dry while watching a Veggie Tales movie. She could change the DVD in the DVD player on her own, she could get a snack from the fridge, and if along the way, she started to touch something she shouldn't, a simple "please don't touch that" would stop her immediately and she would never go back to it again. She did not throw a single fit or tantrum till she was three and a half, and that was over a shot at the doctor's office.

Back then, I could lay on the couch all day, and my two year old had a great time taking care of herself and me.

Ahhh... Reminisci-topia, what a glorious place.

Yesterday, Drew tried to remove the pin from the hinge on the front door. I don't know what he was planning on doing once he removed the door, but he was well on his way to doing so when I discovered what he was up to. And then I stopped him, and based on the freak-out that soon followed, I apparently ended his plan to take over the world.

Grant gave himself a black eye by waking into the fridge. Because when you are four, the giant black thing in the kitchen is invisible. It must have jumped out and grabbed him. Yeah, that's it.

Ben has started this new thing where his legs break every so often. It seems to be strangely linked to the times that we ask him to clean up or do other such chores. He will be able to stand, but when he tries to walk to put something away, his legs will walk, but only in place and he cannot move forward. I don't know what the actual medical definition for this is, but when I was growing up we called it pseudomonocosis.

Pseudo: The prefix pseudo- is used to mark something as false, fraudulent, or pretending to be something it is not.

Mono: anything single, one.

Cosis: A suffix for a disease.

Pseudomonocosis: One fake disease.

So I visit the land of Reminisci-topia often. Back when we only had one child, and thought we were broke because although we ate lunch out every day, we could only eat dinner out once a week or so. A place where a box of Cheerios would last a week instead of a day and a half. A land where it was quiet at nap time, and our only child wouldn't get out of her big-girl bed unless we told her it was OK.

And today, as I hear the screaming sounds of three little boys playing in Drew's crib, I think back to the easier times with only one child, and I am sincerely glad those times are just a memory.

Because with all the chaos, the noise, the confusion, the never ending pile of laundry and the always empty cupboards, I wouldn't have it any other way.

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