Well, it's day three of being home with the boys. Eric is back to work, and we miss our Daddy-O being home, but we're finding ways to have fun. Yesterday, Logan and I built his very first fort in the living room. I remember my brother and I made some monster forts in our days, complete with fan-powered wind tunnels and several rooms, so the one I engineered in our living room was rather unimpressive by comparison. Still, it suited a toddler just fine. Knowing how sensitive our boy is to spookiness, I decided to keep it light by using the cloud patterned sheets we had in the linen closet. Auden was taking his morning nap, so I put him to bed while Logan and I tried out his hiding place.
He climbed in, wide-eyed and full of giggles. Of course, he said there were dinosaurs roaming outside, so we had to be quiet. I decided we should draw some of the dinosaurs he saw--some pretty interesting pictures were created, including the dinosaur's claws. Of course, I should have predicted what would be the result of this make-believe adventure. Logan woke up around 3AM today, crying over a nightmare about dinosaurs. Though he has scary dreams, at least he's starting to realize they're not real. As I was putting him back to bed and trying to reassure him everything was OK, he said, "Scary dreams aren't real."
Ok, I know childproofing is important, and I think Eric and I have done a decent job of it. At least I did until today. I was in our room getting dressed this morning, after having changed Auden, and Logan was in the living room playing quietly. The "quietly" should have tipped me off. Pretty soon, Logan comes in proudly wielding a Sharpee marker and says, "Mommy, I did it!" "Did what?" was all I could manage to say as I speed walked to the living room. Turns out "it" was a massive Sharpee scribble project all over our couch cushion. "Logan, WHY did you think this was a good idea?!" He starts crying. I give him a time-out, and for once he doesn't get up the second I put him there. In fact, he doesn't get up at all for the entire 2 minutes--an unbelievable feat these days. I used the 2 minutes of time like a champ, thinking to myself, "Ok, it's permanent marker, but it's still fresh, so maybe I have a chance of getting it out." I started with Simple Green's carpet and upholstery cleaner, and that made a small dent. So, I dialed it up and used Simple Green's multipurpose cleaner. Amazingly, that did the trick. I swear, I worship at the altar of Simple Green cleaning products. Oh, and I went through all the drawers and removed any pens, markers, and sharp stuff I could find and put them out of reach. Guess I should have really done that before...
I was pretty proud of myself for staying so calm after Logan's outpouring of artistic expression. Maybe my reaction was due to the fact that I know our couch is dying a slow death. When we bought it, we certainly weren't thinking "Kids." First, it's a single, solid color: tan; second, it's that suede-esque microfiber stuff, which cleans up nicely, true, but they don't tell you that it also shows every single water mark or whatever else so that it's constantly looking...I don't know, like a toddler spends a lot of time on it. Ah well.
Tonight, we put Logan in his big-boy bed. He went to sleep not without some tears and protests, but fall asleep he did. We got an assist by the fact that he missed his nap today, thanks to the noisy tree-trimming crew (we like to call them the "tree munchers") that was trimming up the trees on our parkway. Of course, they have to do it while my son is trying to take a nap. Couldn't they schedule around that or something? Geez. I guess I can feel better about it knowing we are now less likely to have a tree limb come through our living room windows during our next big storm. I know I'll sleep better tonight knowing that.
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