Maybe you noticed that my blog was out of commission for the past couple months. Our server died, and it took a while for Matt to get everything set up again. Now I’m back, just in time to make more New Year’s resolutions about writing more often. I don’t happen to have anything witty or interesting thing to say right at the moment, but stay tuned. I’ll catch up in the next few days.

Yesterday I cleaned out our junk-laden garage. Don’t get me wrong. There’s still plenty of junk in there, but I took out the obvious never-going-to-need-it-again garbage like broken lamps and torn dog beds. Normally I would need weeks to build up enough motivation to tackle such a project, but this was totally spur of the moment. Why, you ask? Because of an uninvited guest(s).

See, when we remodeled our kitchen two years ago, I bagged up some food that I planned to donate. As usual, I procrastinated about dropping it off, and it ended up getting shoved into the garage with other kitchen paraphernalia to get it out of the way. Turns out, that food did get eaten after all. Yesterday after I dropped Falco off at preschool, I went into the garage to find an air pump for Matt’s birthday balloons and instead found empty, gnawed boxes of pasta and oatmeal and popcorn and the like. I started moving things, finding more rodent evidence, moving more things, until I had cleared out almost everything.

I actually saw the mouse three times during the cleaning process. (Let’s just say it’s one mouse and not a colony like in Ratatouille. Maybe two mice, a childless couple, would be OK.) I gave several warnings letting know the vagrant know that he was not welcome and should find a new home before the poison showed up. I got rid of every scrap of food and bedding and any other thing that would make the place hospitable for the little bugger, convinced that he would leave once the free food had run out.

This afternoon, Falco is getting ready for his nap and starts looking out his bedroom window into the garage window, saying he saw something. He goes on to say that he saw a mouse walking around. Then I remembered that I left the one remaining food source, grass seed, on top of the shelf under the window. After Falco is tucked in I go out to the garage, clap my hands to let Squeaky know I’m there, and the mouse walks out from under the grass seed and looks at me before running away! I leave to throw away the bags of seed, come back in to check for anything else I forgot, and when I glance over that little son of a gun is just sitting there looking at me. I tell him that I can see him and he gets out of sight, but not in much of a hurry.

He’s probably so fat from all the Pasta Roni that he can’t run. Or maybe he thinks we’re intentionally feeding him and he’s our pet. I’m not sure what to do at this point. Now that I’ve looked him in the eyes twice, I feel bad to try to kill him. I guess I could use a live trap and go release him miles from here, or I can just hope he leaves on his own now that all the food is gone. I don’t even want the pets I have; I certainly don’t need stray mice adopting me.

The good news is, I found the air pump.

Falco just finished his first week of preschool, and he adores it so far. From the minute we got there on the first day, he dove right in like he was at an amusement park. He isn’t upset when I leave, so it’s easy to kiss him goodbye and be on my way on my days off. (I drop him off three mornings and stay one morning each work because I’m a working parent.) The hardest part is getting him to leave when I pick him up.

I’m a little sad that he’s going to be three years old and is growing up so fast, but we were both ready for this. He has way too much energy to be contained, and there he can run and play and do art projects and get filthy for a few hours while I get a break a few mornings a week. It’s great that we chose a co-op because I’m still up in his business enough to make the separation easier (on me).

Oh, and did I mention that he gets filthy there? There is a huge playground/sand area, usually a painting project, and always a water table. Mix those with a child who constantly runs from one activity to the next, and you get wet clothes dragging in the dirt, sandy paint in hair, etc. I’m not one who’s fond of outdoors or getting dirty, but Falco is so happy that I don’t mind having to strip him at the door before he can come inside after school. I’ll leave you with this photo of his wet, sandy socks from his first day.

Falco and I were at the playground today, and a cop walked by. (The police station is just up the street.) Falco said, “Look, there’s a policeman! Hi, Policeman!” He stopped to talk to Falco for a minute and asked if he was going to be there playing for a while. He said that he was going to go get some stickers and would be back in 10 minutes. Falco waited. Falco talked about the policeman coming back. Falco talked about what the sticker would look like. Falco never saw that cop again. We waited for close to 40 minutes and finally left. It’s best he learns early that 5-0 are not to be trusted.

Today, Falco and I went with a crew of friends to the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA. It was my brilliant idea, and we were both pretty excited about it. The hour-long drive went well, and Falco was giddy when we got out of the car and he saw the enormous jelly bean out front. That was probably the happiest moment we had there.

We got inside, and it was a huge place with high ceilings and a million kinds of candy dispensers and loads of people and color everywhere. What started as a fun, exciting adventure quickly turned into an overstimulating, over-crowded hellscape for my child. After a half hour of waiting for the tour to start, he had deteriorated into a hitting, whining, squirming mess. I thought we just needed to get the tour (and fun) started to get the good times rolling, but he was well past the point of no return by the time we got our paper hats and made it upstairs for the tour.

By the time the (lame) tour started, he had already struck pretty much every adult and child in our party and would not stop whining about wanting a beverage and why was it taking so long and when could we go home, etc. About 10 minutes in (about an hour after arrival), I finally carried him out of there like a sack of potatoes and sat in the car with a crying kid until we both calmed down.

After our cronies made it out with free jelly beans in hand, we went to Westfield Mall and ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A, which made it all worth it. Falco had pulled himself together by lunchtime, and good times were had by all. (I need to go email Mr. Chick-Fil-A right now and beg for a San Francisco location.)

Moral of the story: If your kid gets frustrated and overstimulated and mean in crowded indoor spaces, don’t take him to busy factory tours. Also, Chick-Fil-A makes delicious chicken sandwiches.

I’m ecstatic to report that my worries about Falco being done with naps were unfounded. I think he skipped his naps on three nonconsecutive days, and now he’s back to sleeping for a solid 2-3 hours every afternoon. As my sister recently said, naps are like sweet little gifts (for which I am very grateful).

It’s not that I don’t enjoy his company, but he moves and talks constantly, which wears me out. Of course I relish hearing him talk, but he’s not just talking; he’s asking. Asking me to hand him things, asking to do everything his way, asking the same questions over and over, asking questions with obvious answers. When the incessant asking is combined with whining, by lunchtime I’m nearly over the edge.

He’s sleeping now, and I am rejuvenating and looking forward to seeing him again when he wakes up. Then he can squirm and jump and run and talk and ask and whine for a couple more hours until bedtime.

At the museum today, I grabbed Falco to put his shoes on, except it wasn’t Falco. I saw where he was playing, went to get his shoes, then picked up a child from the last place I spotted him while looking elsewhere. I realized I was holding a too-small kid who was already wearing shoes just as his dad started to say, “Hey, wait!” I thought it was hilarious, and hopefully the dad didn’t panic for a moment at the thought of having to fight off a kidnapper. If Falco could stay in one spot for 30 seconds, this never would have happened.

It was just called to my attention that, in an effort to reduce the unmanageable amount of comment spam I receive, I have scared away my actual readers from commenting. I thought by requiring commenters to create an account, I would only hear from live people, but it has backfired. Spam is still getting through, and live people don’t want to create an account.

I have turned off this futile and annoying “feature,” and now you can comment away, anonymously if you must. I will write more. You will comment more. Discussions will happen. It’s going to be awesome.

xoxo,

Andi

I mentioned that we were thinking about getting a Prius after renting one on our trip to Mississippi. (When I say we were thinking about it, I mean I was thinking about it and Matt was going along with it. He never drives and doesn’t care much about what kind of car we have.) That idea led me to research other small hatchback options, and I decided that getting a new car was a good idea.

Unfortunately, getting a new car means going to car dealerships. I thought the car salesman stereotype was a joke until I pulled into the first dealership. Desperate-looking dudes were swarming the lot, and one guy pounced on me when I hadn’t even gotten Falco out of the car yet. Luckily, I had already emailed someone about a car, so I had someone to ask for. Saying I was there to see the Internet Sales Manager was like holding up a cross to vampires; the regular sales guys backed off and pointed me to the man I needed to see.

To make a long (boring) story short, I considered the 5-door Yaris and almost bought one, but the color I wanted was sold out everywhere. I drove a Scion xD and didn’t like it. Just when I was about to think there was no perfect car for me, I read about the Kia Soul.

Small, quirky, unique, cute colors, roomy interior, great warranty and reviews, light-up speakers. I drove it. I loved it. I bought it!

I’ve had it for about two weeks now, and having a new car makes me feel like I won the lottery or something. My favorite feature is the built-in bluetooth hands-free setup for my phone, followed closely by the speakers that flash red in rhythm with the music. It is also just so, so new. It’s really comfy inside, and it holds plenty of junk. Here I have a stroller behind the four bags of groceries.

Best of all, I have yet to see another one on the road! I’m not sure how long that will last, but for now I can enjoy feeling special driving around in my Soul.

It’s 2:00 in the afternoon, the time I’m usually maxing and relaxing (well, really working) while Falco naps. But right now, he is groaning, “Mommy, I’m awake!” after being in his room for the past hour NOT napping. If this was an isolated incident, I would think it was just an off day. The trouble is, this happened Monday too. That day I thought it was just because I tried to put him to bed too early, but today it was solid nap time. What if he’s on his way to giving up his afternoon nap? What a nightmare. I’M NOT READY FOR THAT!

I hope this week is just weird for some reason, and he will magically get back on track ASAP. How could he suddenly go from taking 3-hour naps daily to no naps? Not only do I need to work while he naps, I need a break from my charming, demanding child. If he does stop napping, he’s going to have to have quiet time or TV time or something that translates into “leave Mommy alone time.” I don’t have the mental capacity to entertain him for 12 solid hours a day.

Good news: He’ll be in bed by 6:45 today.