It's sad my kid has better manners than most of the general public during the holidays

* Nixon and I had to go to the post office today (I know, I know!) to send off a couple orders I'd gotten in my etsy shop. We went to the smaller one, closest to the house because I foolishly thought it'd have a shorter line.
   It did not.
   We waited for almost half an hour, but Nixon was really good. He played with the display toys they've got out (the post office is inside a local gift shoppe) and stayed close enough that I could see him and he could hear me. He was really good, a little resistance before we left but nothing horrible. Especially considering he's not a big fan of lines of people.

* And speaking of lines of people....I took Nixon this evening to go shopping for Mac's Christmas gifts. Nixon decided he wanted to go to Target and look for Mac's gifts.
   It took us nearly 20 minutes to find a parking spot.
   The store was stupid crowded, people were incredibly rude, and Nixon? Nixon was his happy "excuse me" self as we passed by someone. He even pointed out a shattered glass ornament to me, and in turn I flagged down an employee so it could be cleaned up before someone cut themselves on it.
   At the checkout, Nixon helped the lady in line behind us. One of her smaller items almost fell off the belt, Nixon noticed it, caught it and put it back safely. She thanked him and Nixon said "It's what's right, right mommy?" Then he goes on to talk to her about the crayon maker she had in her cart! "You can make crayon cars with that!", he told her very excitedly! She was so sweet and nice to him.
    As we were walking out, another woman bumped into Nixon and Nixon said "Oh I'm sorry, I bumped you", even though she bumped him. She rolled her eyes at him! Nixon said, as we kept walking, "She should have said something to me, right mommy?". I explained that there are a lot of people in the store and some people don't realize they bumped someone or don't remember to use their manners.
    None-the-less I did nothing but thank him for using his manners as well as he did and I encouraged him to keep using them!

* Highlight of my day? I taught Nixon the words to the Jingle Bells, the Batman version! He loved it!!

* Nixon got to pick a game, as a reward of sorts for his good behavior at school this week. He chose a new Lego'esque version of Battleship.
   We played it tonight, Nixon was on my side and Mac was on his own side. Once Nixon got the hang of it (and he stopped trying to give away the coordinates of our ships) he had fun!

Family game night
Dec 14th
day 348

November 14th.....day 320

 Sorry for the lack of posts. I was going to post one last night, but Nixon has another cold and came downstairs asking for me to come to bed and snuggle him. He doesn't sleep well when he's congested and he wakes up scared when he can't breath. He took his medicine before bed, but was still super congested. All he really wanted was to see me next to him when he woke up scared. 
  I couldn't deny him that. 

  As for school, he had a great week! He earned two index cards of stickers in class and he was one of the few kids NOT sitting on the ledge in Time Out when I picked him up Friday. He's also started belting out totally random songs to the tune of Jingle Bells! Even though I don't like all the christmasy things going on before Thanksgiving, I'll let this one go because he is adorable when he makes up songs!

* Nixon came into my bedroom and asked me when I was getting up. I set the alarm on my phone and handed it to him. I said "When my alarm song plays you can wake me up." It was set for 10 minutes from when he asked.
   He's in his room and I can hear him talking to my phone "Why aren't you going off?" and "This is taking forever!" and finally, as he slams his bedroom door and stomps into my room "You didn't even set the alarm, right! It's never going off!"
   I laughed, told him I did set the alarm, showed him the time it was set for even...and then got out of bed.

* Nixon's birthday is in 4 days. His very quaint (re:small) party, is in 2 days. While he's in school Monday, I'll decorate. In the afternoon a couple of our good friends will come over and we'll all take Nixon to Build-A-Bear for his birthday gift. Then he gets to pick dinner and we'll have his pink frosted with silver sugar glitter on top. At his wonderful, My Little Pony themed party.

* I spent this morning inadvertently explaining drag queens to Nixon this morning. He asked me about my bra and then said "I'm too small to wear one." So I explained boys don't wear bras. Then I amended that statement and said "Some boys like to play dress-up and they wear bras, dresses, wigs, high heels..the works. They are beautiful too!"
   It wasn't the most elegant explanation, but for a nearly 5-year old it was easy to understand.  

Music, teaching him to lose and awesome shopping experience today!

* Today I had some shopping to do to get ready for Nixon's very first field trip tomorrow. Since Nixon was home with me today, I took him with me. I had my lists, Nixon knew where we were going and our game plan was set.
   We hit the first store and Nixon was awesome. Went to the second store and Nixon was so much better than the first! He helped me chose fruits, asked for broccoli, and even showed me (but didn't ask for) cupcakes he'd like for his birthday to take to school.

* In the car on the way to our shopping adventures, I had my iPod hooked up. We were listening to Miley Cyrus' newest album, and Nixon suddenly says "Momma, can you turn it off for a second?"
   I do and he says, "I wanted to tell you, I really like the music! It makes me want to dance!".
   After Miley, Nixon and I were both in the car singing to songs from My Little Pony. We started with Winter Wrap-up and kept singing together song, after song.
   It's the first time Nixon has really sang in the car and honestly, I love that he let me sing with him.

* Finally, Nixon asked me to buy him a tic-tac-toe game. It's winter themed, but it made him happy and he was super awesome, so I bought it.
   We came home and he wanted me to play it with him. I taught him a very important lesson: Pay attention to your moves. After losing several games, deciding to switch from 'X' to 'O' because he thought that was why he was losing and finally he started listening. He stopped just thinking about HIS next move and started looking for MY next move. He may not have beaten me, but he did stop me and we had more than a couple games end with no winner. He learned that having no winner was sometimes better than having a winner. It meant he was keeping up with me and planning his moves.
   He really liked that he stopped me from winning.

Good day and songs too!

* Nixon had a wonderful day at school. It started with him getting dressed and asking to wear his striped tie to school. When I left he was showing it off to his teacher!
   When I picked him up, he was a little against leaving, but he showed me his sticker card...full of stickers from his teacher for good behavior! I was so proud of him, I bought him the Happy Meal he asked for when we left.

* Nixon was sitting on the floor, coloring in one of his books. He was singing to himself the "Chuggington" theme song just cute as could be.

Theme of the day seems to have ended up being: Music.

* While he was eating breakfast, I had some music playing. Nixon was getting up and dancing instead of eating and it was getting closer and closer to time to leave for school. Mac told Nixon he needed to sit down and finish eating. Nixon says "But I need to finish dancing first!", the only thing missing was jazz hands!

* Today Nixon had a great day at school! He got a hug from both his teachers, lots of praise and a special sticker before he left for the day! Mac and I were 2 happy parents when we picked him up, that's for sure.

* And then this happened:

* Finally, while helping me get the recycling together for pickup tomorrow morning, Nixon and I were listening to some music. First up? Matchbox Twenty "She's so Mean". I loved hearing him sing the chorus with me. It was awesome! Because he's liking music I like and because he's singing along to songs.
   The next song was Pink's "True Love". This song we sang and danced together!

It was a low-key day but that means no tantrums and no time outs, so I can totally dig it. Also, Nixon is learning that purposely using incorrect grammar drives me nuts!

* Nixon was so cute today. He drew a stick figure on the window with glass markers, he also drew a heart, a tree, a sun and a bush. He named the stick figure Nixon.

* Nixon made a video today: It's my sister's birthday, so we made a video of Nixon singing "Happy Birthday" with me for her. He sang a verse and then I sang, when it was his turn to sing again, he said "No, I don't want to do it" and stopped singing the song. He did say "I love you" which was good enough for me.

* New phrase in the house "Nixon no understand". This is coming from Nixon. I corrected him, so he was saying it correctly "I don't understand". He would say it correctly and then he would say it incorrectly because he knew it'd bother me.


(no pictures of Nixon tonight....my camera battery is dead)

Oh no, son, that is not going to fly today...or any day.

* Today, Nixon woke up and crawled into bed with me, telling me "Mommy, I needs the blanket on me, my feet are cold!" he then puts his iceburg-like feet on my legs! So rude! I roll him away from me, get his feet wrapped up in a blanket and burrow back into my own blanket cocoon.

* Later in the day, Nixon was getting pissed playing his Angry Birds game. He started yelling and was told to calm down. He looked at me and said "NO! I won't calm down!", so I told him he needed to go to his room for talking back to me. We're not tolerating it anymore affective yesterday because of his behavior at school. He says "No" again. I got up, picked him up, carried him to his bedroom and told him why he was in there. I set the timer and told him he needed to stay in the room until I came up to get him.
   He stayed. He and I talked about why he was in his room, and he came downstairs and apologized for talking back.

* I heard Nixon singing and looked to see what he was singing. My little cutie was singing "Twinkle, twinkle little star" to Arwen. When I told him that was very sweet, he said "I walked by and scared her awake, so I was singing her back to sleep...but you moved and now I'll never get her back to sleep!" haha

* Finally, we've got new magnetic clips. Nixon was looking for BeBe and I asked where he might be. Nixon says "On the fridge, hanging in the dungeon.". Oooookay.
   Sure enough, Nixon had hung BeBe by the ears using the clips and put the clips on the fridge! That's so freaking awesome I can't even find the space to be slightly worried that my son is hanging his beloved bear by the ears in a dungeon.

Today, Nixon has decided my random outbursts into songs are hilarious and he is demanding MORE! I love this kid, he's so good for my "fragile" ego.

* The sky tonight was looking very foreboding.

Very much like a storm was rolling in, so I said as much as Nixon was heading upstairs for his bath. I burst out singing a totally appropriate song, for the moment, Garbage's "I'm only happy when it Rains"
me: I'm only happy when it rains,
    I'm only happy when it's complicated...
Nixon: *as he's dashing up the stairs* As long as there's no thunder with it.
me: That was awesome!! He totally sang that on tune and it rhymed! Nixon you rock, kid!
Nixon: Yeah, I do. Now fill my bath with water!

* Everyone knows the "On top of Spaghetti" song, right? Well, tonight was the first night I sang the song for Nixon. Upon finishing the "....rolled out the door.", Nixon says to me "And then what happened?". I asked him what he thought happened and he said he didn't know because I should know and tell him.

BeBe is always nearby.... <3

The day Nixon grew up and approached Mac....like a man!

* You know what's adorable? Listening to your child hum classical music for no reason at all. I don't care what people say about Little Einsteins, Nixon picked up the music they play and he enjoys humming it. Today he was playing with his play dough and humming Beethoven! Awesome, right?  The best part is he was completely ignoring Mac and I being in the room with him and he was just totally all about the humming while he worked.

* If you've been around men for any period of time at all, you've undoubtedly seen the "man hug". Nixon "man hugged" Mac today! Mac called Nixon over, after Nixon did something pretty darned cute, for a hug. Nixon leaned in for the hug, then turned leaving space between Mac's chest and Nixon's upper body.
   I was cracking up! "Holy crap, did you just get "man hugged" by our 4-year old?!"
Mac says "Yep, I'm pretty sure that is exactly what just happened."
I asked Nixon for a hug, and I get a full-on hug and kiss. Yep, it's just Mac! haha

Sleeping, goofy, singing child...much better than the punkass I had in his body this morning.

* Sometimes, you just need to tell your kid to "go the F*^# to sleep, you obviously need the sleep". Today was that day.

   It started with Nixon coming over to me, with his water bottle, and saying "It's empty, this is not right!". I looked right at him and said "Excuse me?", to his credit he quickly changed his tune "May I have more flavor water please?". I told him I'd be happy to get him water, but he needed to apologize first, because his first way of asking for water was rude and very disrespectful to me. He said "I'm not sorry!" and stormed to the stairs. He immediately came back over to me, I'm expecting an apology from my sweet and loving baby boy, instead I get: "I said do it now!"
    Nope, sorry son, it's time for you to go lie down because you have obviously just lost your damned mind!

   We got upstairs and I snuggled with him. I told him I still love him, I'll always love him, but he can't be rude and demanding to me like that. It's just not okay. Sometimes we just need to rest and reset our mood.
   He and I napped together in the spare bedroom, because Mac was still sleeping for the day in our bed. When he woke up....whole new mood!

* Nixon is making up silly songs. He made one up tonight about Daddy.

morning Mommy, I'm going to yell in your face about a rabbit but I'll make up for it later by treating you like a Queen! Gets me every time!

* It's been well established that Nixon has no respect for my personal space, correct? He has even less respect for it when I'm sleeping. As he proved, once again, this morning.
   I was sleeping in the spare bedroom, because I had issues sleeping last night in our bedroom at the front of the house. The spare bedroom looks over the backyard. Nixon comes running into the bedroom, jumps onto the bed, gets mouth-to-face close to me and yells "Mommy, get up and look! Peter rabbit is visiting again. You have to say hi to him! MOMMMMY LOOK RIGHT NOW!!!"
   The bunny, aka Peter Rabbit, was in the backyard down below us and I can assure you he could not careless if I say hello to him or not.

* Nixon was randomly singing this morning, a bunch of Phineas and Ferb songs. Guess what I learned? Phineas and Ferb are to blame for Nixon's "bowchicabowwwow", they say it in one of their songs, just not like Nixon sings it.
   But seriously, Disney?!? This was okay?? I'll let it go, because it's kind of awesome...but really?!?

* I have to share this: Nixon brought me a pudding cup (or as he calls it "putting"), holds it out hand up, head bowed and says "Your Majesty, may I please have this putting please?"                          

He got his "putting" cup!

A rude awakening indeed

* Nixon woke me up crying real tears and saying his leg was broken! Talk about jolting me out of a sound sleep! I snuggled him while I found out what happened: he was playing under the bed with Amber and managed to bump his head and then bumped his knee when he was crawling out from under the bed.
  I woke Mac up so he could snuggle with Nixon while I grabbed his Iron Man ice pack. He calmed down about 10 minutes later and I was up for the day. *sigh* The life of a mom.

* I love how Nixon asks for his "Baby song" every night. I adore that he sings it with me now. He told Mac tonight that he's a big boy, even though he loves his baby song.

He may like having his toes painted, but he's a boy for sure! (his pose says it all)

* Nixon got up this morning and the first words out of my mouth were "Where is your dad?" haha I stayed up until almost 4am last night because I got so into a book, I ended up finishing it. I had forgotten Mac had to stay late for training. Nixon says to me, as he's looking out of my bedroom window to the parking spaces, "I don't know but the blue car isn't here and the sun is up!"

* I adore Nixon's love for pedicures! Tonight he asked me to repaint his toes. He loved me removing his old polish ("It tickles!") and he sat still (mostly) for the polishing. The best part was his total man pose while his feet were drying:

* There's one thing that melts my heart and it is when Nixon sings the song I've sung to him since he was a baby, with me. He's started doing that with me and I absolutely love him for it. It's amazing that he now sings the words I've made up for him just because he loves those words.

* Conversation with a sleeping Nixon:
Nixon: NO! Mommy said my nails are still wet.
me: what?
Nixon: my toes are wet from the shower but mommy painted them. HOw did mommy paint my toes?
me: Mommy's got magic powers that lets her paint your nails.
Nixon: Yeah.
Nixon: *reaching for me* I love you Mommy!
me: I love you too baby.
Nixon: Mommy?
me: Yeah.
Nixon: How did you come in here?
me: I used the door.
Nixon: There's a door?!?! I'm in the shower and there's a door!
me: Oh baby! I adore you.
Nixon: Good night mommy. I need my sleep. I'm going to be bigger than daddy someday.
he never opened his eyes during that entire conversation, but he knew exactly where I was and reached exactly for me. 

Nixon explains my voice loss....and it's hilarious!

* I admit defeat today. Day 2 without a voice. Nixon and I were not dealing with it well at all. I'm frustrated because I want to play with my baby boy, and make him laugh, but I'm unable to. He's pissed off because he feels like I'm ignoring him even when I'm looking right at him!

* He woke up at 630am today. That's never an okay wake-up time. I sent him back to his room, because I had been awake until after 330am with insomnia (because losing my voice isn't enough, my body has to make it impossible for me to fall asleep too), and he was okay with that, eventually coming back in and watching cartoons in our bed until 930am when I got out of bed...and realized I still had no voice.

* Nixon has a theory on my loss of voice. He says an ant crawled up my leg, into my mouth and stole my voice because they thought it was food. The other one I heard was, I broke my throat bone and hurt my voice. I don't know which one is funnier but they both are pretty damned original explanations for what I'm dealing with.
   Sadly, Nixon also thinks I'm mean because I am unable to sing him his bedtime songs. Although he did sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" to me, but not at bedtime. He sang it to me after dinner, but it's the thought that counts.

A quiet child is a scheming child!

* Mac and I woke up around 830am and realized, we don't hear Nixon. At first we thought he was still sleeping. Oh how wrong we were. He had snuck into the spare bedroom, closed the door behind him and was quietly playing with the large basket of toys that had been in that closet for months! He saw the basket before he went to bed last night, but really didn't say much about it. Which leads me to think he plotted the pre-dawn, bedroom break-in before falling asleep last night! That little sneak!
He was super quiet about it too.
Tonight, before he went to bed (after he slyly asked to sleep in the spare bedroom), we explained that those toys are going to be given to kids who don't have a lot of toys. We're going to let him keep a few, but the massive majority of them are getting donated in the very, very near future.

* This is my son:
We went to our storage units this morning and Mac sorted through some crap looking for paperwork while also reorganizing and marking the boxes more clearly with the contents of what's inside each one. Nixon had a chair to sit in, his PSP to watch, food to eat and should've been really content. And he totally was, as he was accumulating random crap from the boxes Mac was going through! He gathered a small Snoopy & Woodstock figure, some Garbage Pail Kids cards, a Joker & Batman goodie bag and a plush Stitch stocking. (I was singing "da-na-na-na Joker" instead of Batman, so Nixon started copying me, right down to the "pfftttt Batman" line I added. What can I say? I'm a classy mom!)

Missing peenie!!

* Nixon spent over half an hour singing Old McDonald had a Farm tonight. Mostly the "ee, io, ee, io, eo" part. Very loudly, while sometimes lying next to Amber on the floor and singing it to her. She must love him because she keeps coming back for more.

* Today Nixon asked me to do something that I used to do all the time for him: paint his toenails! Tonight he is sporting lovely red and purple piggies with matching fingernails. Best of all? It means he sat in one place for 25 whole minutes letting his toes dry!

* As a mom, I get no privacy. Tonight Nixon walked into the bathroom and asked me what I was doing.
me: I'm peeing.
Nixon: From your butt?
me: No, Nixon. I don't pee from my butt.
Nixon: You pee from you missing peenie!
me: *look at him blankly* laugh
Nixon: You pee from your missing peenie! Because you have no peenie!
me: That's enough Nixon, get out of the bathroom please.
Nixon: *leaves the bathroom still yelling* MISSING PEENIE!!
Well, he's not totally wrong, I am missing a penis.

"whoop, whoop sucha lady"- Nixon

* Nixon loves to sing PSY's song "Gungam Style", but he makes up his own words. Instead of "sexy lady" he says "whoop whoop sucha lady". I'm not complaining about that because it really is better than my 4-year old singing "sexy lady" all day. It's just random when he decides, out of nowhere, to start singing it and hasn't even heard the song recently. Makes me wonder what goes on in his head!

* Nixon says he's afraid of the dark. He has a nightlight in his room, but he tells me tonight "it's not bright enough". So I offer to put his aquarium moving picture light in his room, and he says okay...but leave the nightlight too, for BeBe. So now Nixon and BeBe are afraid of the dark and they both need their own nightlights??

Beautiful, bittersweet bedtime

* Mac and I were snuggled on the sofa together when Nixon came over and sniffed Mac. He says "Pee-you, you smell stinky!" than laughs and runs away. I tell Mac, "He wasn't talking to me" and Mac says "Our kid's kind of a dick."
Maybe, but if you stink then you stink..Nixon might just be a little too blunt and honest.

* Nixon wanted to make a video for one of his cousin's, who was celebrating her first birthday today. He did and it was adorable! I love this singing phase he's suddenly in!

* Nixon wanted me to read him a new story tonight. So I started reading his first ever chapter book The Case of the Elevator and the Duck. I was going to stop after 3 chapters, but Nixon asked me to keep reading. So I kept reading until I noticed Nixon had fallen asleep. I can't ever remember my parents reading to me, let alone me falling asleep to the sound of their voice while they read to me, so this was especially bittersweet to me.

"I need back-up please Mommy"

* Nixon says some really off-the-wall things, but tonight's phrase kind of took the cake! While getting undressed for his shower, he had a hard time getting his arm out of his shirt. Instead of just asking for help he says "I need back-up Mommy". I look at him and he says "I need back-up, it's like help but I need it now!"

* Nixon sang "Twinkle, Twinkle little star" at bedtime for Mac and I tonight. He doesn't get all the words right, but he sounds adorable and I love hearing him sing!

crazy, cute and funny?!? Yep, he's all mine! 

The dark side is strong with this one

discovered is a better term*

* Well, Nixon managed to ruin a noon-er for Mac and I today. Used his ninja skills to walk into the bedroom when we had just checked on him and he was SNORING!!

* Later this afternoon, Nixon was playing with his Lego's and built his own tie-fighter. While he was building it, he was doing the super deep, inside a can Darth Vader breathing the whole time! It was awesome!  When we asked him what he was doing, he said he was being the "dark guy" and making a "tie-fighter to fly". He's so amazingly ours!

He's so crazy, awesome I'm glad he's all mine!