Mom Moment #345

I’d like to call this one: “Don’t you dare take those shoes off!”

I feel like the dad on Finding Nemo: “Don’t you dare move one fin!” “If you touch that boat-” It’s starting already.

I clearly have my hands full of toddler right now. And I blame it all on the convertible car seat:

This expensive acquisition has been a pain in more way than one. First, Amazon failed me for the first time. Anyone who knows me knows that I preach the awesome glory of Amazon like I own majority share in the company. So when we finally decided that Lucas had outgrown his infant car seat I didn’t hesitate to purchase the new one from Amazon. No. That’s a total lie. Have you seen the price tag on these?! All in the name of safety and 6 years of aesthetics.

I digress.

It’s like the purchase of his toddler car seat was the bitch slap that my brain needed to realize that my baby wasn’t a baby anymore. He’s a walking, screaming, toddler.

If only it was that easy.

The car seat came and I immediately tore open the box with the enthusiasm that was once reserved for packages from Coach. I’m tracking the package online for 2 days, running home to wait for the UPS guy, and the wind was taken out of my sail when I opened the box to find this:

I know that you should be careful when purchasing things online, but I feel like this seat may be missing a little something. It takes an extra week of returning and repurchasing before I finally get one that is usable. And once I install it, my little baby became a little boy:

He loved it. looooooooved it. He’s squealing, screaming, smiling, giggling, loving every second of being in the car. He stares out the window at other cars, and looks in the mirror and chats away to me in my rear view mirror. He’s in 11-month-old heaven. In his mind, life couldn’t be better than this car seat.

This triggered an overdrive movement to rid my house of baby bottles for the next few years. Round ’em up, we’re packing those suckers away. Goodbye nipples. I won’t miss you dish washing baskets, and if I never have to see another Avent bottle in my life it will be too soon. Well, Lucas had other plans. It’s like he knew that a sippy cup would make my life easier. So he was completely against it.

Again, I blame the car seat. When he got the car seat, he apparently decided that only this one kind of hybrid sippy cup/bottle was okay and he took to it like an ant at a picnic.

I have washed this sippy cup approximately 6,000 times in the last 4 days. True story.

…And then we went bottle cold-turkey. Pack that shit up, I’m done. D-O-N-E. Mark my words (except don’t, I’m a total softy when it comes to him). And while I’m at it, pack up everything nursing related! Those old clothes in the closet? Let’s throw those in the basement while we’re at it. Has he used this toy lately? ….I think you get the idea. I went hormonal mom on my house and packed bins and bins and vacuum seal bags upon vacuum seal bags away. And then for flare, I took the ptouch labeler to them all.

It was sad, I’m not going to lie. And then I hit the maternity and nursing clothes and got a good laugh out of my thought process: I’m sitting here looking at a wardrobe of fat clothes and all I can remember is them being too small for me. And that is why baby number two isn’t on the horizon: because I still remember baby number one. Until I can erase the memory of outgrowing maternity clothes with my stretch marks while hurling into the toilet in 120 degree heat, baby number two is a pipe dream. And I’m not going to lie: Those memories being refreshed in my mind made packing away his jumperoo and baby clothes about 600 times easier.

And then I hit that damn car seat. i just stopped and stared for a solid 5 minutes at his infant car seat. He’s never going to sit in that again. What happened to my baby?! He’s busy destroying the other room under dad’s supervision. But still. My baby wasn’t capable of walking up to a bookshelf to pull all of the DVD’s off of the shelf. My toddler, however, totally is.

You know what else my toddler is in the mood for? Chasing my fur baby behind the couch where she used to hide.

We’re playing nicely. I swear.

Which leads me to this week’s mom moment: Don’t you dare take those shoes off!

It’s pretty self explanatory. I’m in the car alone with my little man when I hear the swift tear of velcro followed by a giggle. This forces me to turn down my jamming to Kelly Clarkson, do my best to supress a laugh, and say in my best mom voice “Don’t you dare take those shoes off!” *rip* “Luuuuuuuucas!!” *rip* “Keep your shoes on!!” *rip* “(under breath) Damn it (ugh! There’s another 50 cents to the swear jar). If you take those shoes off, I have no alternatives except… to put them back on when we park this car at the grocery store.” And then I laugh at the absurdity of this whole thing. Mentally, I’m grinning at the fact that my little boy is learning how to take his shoes off while the practical side of me is adding an extra 10 minutes onto every car ride for the next 17 years.