Learning curves

I’m having a hard time getting going this morning, partly because I’m back to not sleeping well, (my norm) and partly because I am still in complete shock over the American Idol results last night. I admit it-I am obsessed with that show. I can not believe Carly got voted off and not Jason. I really wonder about the brain activity involved with the American voters…not that I am taking the trouble to vote or anything, but still, I have a right to complain. :)

Noah, feeling much better I suppose, has had a bit of a mischievous streak in him the last day or so so I am searching for ways to get him out the house today. Some things I’ve discovered recently about being the mom of an 18-month old:

1. It was unwise and unrealistic of me to think that just because I had made it this far without dealing with stranger anxiety from Noah I was safe. All those months when my friends’ 6-month olds, 8-month olds, 1-year olds, etc would cry and scream when out of mom’s sight I secretly sat back and thought how lucky I was that MY child wasn’t like that. Well, forget that. It has happened…big time separation anxiety. I can’t get 6 inches out of his sight without him screaming and putting on the most pitiful show. It is heartbreaking. I used to be able to drop him off at Mom’s Morning Out or The Church Nursery knowing that while all the other kiddos were in there crying he was perfectly content, but no more. The other day he was pulling on my pants leg so hard, trying to crawl up my legs begging me not to leave him, that he very nearly pulled my pants off. Now this could get embarrassing. It is certainly getting annoying.

2. It is unwise to now let an 18-month old run around the house with nothing on but a shirt and a clean diaper. Pants are no longer optional. Those Velcro diaper tabs have finally gotten the best of his curiosity and “off with the diaper!” it goes. (and then you step in a “lovely” mystery puddle on the kitchen floor before discovering said diaper is now off). Another thing one doesn’t want to learn about the hard way. Oh well.

3. Things that make absolutely no sense to me make perfect sense to a toddler, such as why he will no longer eat a PB&J sandwich (which he loved up until this week) unless it is in bite sized pieces served to him on a spoon. Or why we can spend months and months trying to teach him to wave and say "bye bye" to people and he has refused to do it but then yesterday I caught him dropping a bunch of crackers through the slats in the airvent on the kitchen floor and then waving at them shouting "Byeeee-Byeeee" Huh?

I’m sure I will be adding many, many more things to this list in the months to come. Such a learning curve.