The gators are coming! The gators are coming!

Due to a stressful night, I only slept about 4 hours last night. This scared the bejezzus out of me. Watching a 3-1/2 year old on 4 hours of sleep is a recipe for disaster. I knew that I would suck at work today, but I was determined to make the best of it.

Luckily, I'm damn creative. We built a fort under the pool table, which required less effort than building it with the couch and coffee table as support. After entering the fort and getting comfortable, T left the fort and announced, "It's a beautiful day! It's snowing!"

Sensing an impending fake snow battle, or something equally physically demanding, I quickly jumped in with, "Okay! We've got to guard the World's Biggest Snowball!" I read him correctly, and he was immediately under the table with me again, pretending to be a mounty like Pablo and Tyrone in "The Snow Fort". (It's really cool that he can reenact a plotline from something we haven't even seen in awhile. )

"We got to protect that snowball from GATORS!" he proclaimed.

"From gators?" I asked, thoroughly confused. I mean, he had been talking about crocodiles earlier, so I don't know, maybe this is his new thing?

"Yes, GATORS! Those gators are gonna get that SNOWBALL! The gators are coming!"

"Ohhh! Raiders? The raiders are going to try to get the snowball?"

"Yes, raiders! They're coming right now!"

Lucky for that snowball, T and I are both very adept at offering protection from both gators and raiders. We run a full-service operation around here.

Back again

It's been awhile, and boy, does it show in Thomas' growth and development! He's just such a PERSON now! I know, I know, that's what they do. It just kills me to see a fully-functioning 3-1/2 year old mind, knowing that we can fall into a long discussion at any moment.

I'm still loving my job. I was expecting the THREE attitude, so it's not too terribly bad. And he's a good kid, most of the time.

Mainly, I'm posting here today to figure out if I want to start writing regularly again. I've been keeping all my great stories and posting them elsewhere, and I think I'm getting tired of mixing kid stuff with non-kid stuff. I realized I have a perfect outlet in Nice to Nanny, and I think I need to start utilizing it.

decision

I think that, for now, Nice to Nanny is going to be a weekday-only blog. It seems like too much trouble to come up with entertaining things when I write everyday...I end up putting in things that I'm not crazy about, just to have a post. Anyway, NaBloPoMo is over, so I'm going to cut way back on the posting...start focusing on quality, not quantity.

But, because I did finish for the month, I'm going to exercise my bragging rights. Ha! I did it! Woohoo! Or, because it might be more appropriate for the badge image, hoo hoo!

the plot thickens

So Thomas' cousin Cody is going to be a big brother. The ultrasound on Wednesday indicated it's going to be a little girl, so Mommy has been talking to him about Cody's new baby sister. It's very exciting. Fast forward to this morning...

When Mommy goes to the laundry room, Thomas notices a bag full of baby stuff that Mommy has started collecting to give her sister. Thomas points at the bag and says, "That's for my baby sister!"

"No, Thomas, that's for Cody's baby sister." she reminds him.

"No, that's for my baby sister!"

Oh dear. As if the pressure wasn't already on, now he's already talking about his own baby sister as if it's a given fact. All day long, he told me about his sister. He doesn't understand that only Cody will be getting the baby sister. This should be fun.

only child?

Thomas is sad because his cousin doesn't live with him. I think it's making Mommy rethink the whole only-child thing. We shall see.

bored

I'm not sure what to do with Nice to Nanny anymore. I thought it was an awesome idea in the beginning, but that was when I just wanted to vent, give advice, and generally be cool. It's a lot harder with a great job. A weird complaint, right?

See, I'm torn, because a big part of me wants to share the blog with my boss. I know she would enjoy reading more stories from our days, and I could probably get permission to use pictures, and the whole thing would be a lot more interesting. I do have a video of him that she told me to put on YouTube, but it's a crappy cell phone video. An awesome, hilarious video, but very low quality.

On the other hand, if my boss knows about the site, I can't ever rant about the job on here. Not that I've ever had reason to, but I never like having a choice taken away from me. So I don't know what I'm going to do. For now, I'm just trying to finish out November. We'll see what happens after that.

hard to resist

I went shopping with my mom today. We stopped by the Gymboree outlet and oh my, was it hard not to go crazy. A lot of the shirts that I fell in love with last time, at the other Gymboree outlet store, were in clearance at this store. I could have easily bought Thomas a new wardrobe. Luckily, there were so many things that I wanted to buy that I walked out without buying anything. "It's hard," I told my mom, "because he's not really mine." She reminded me that they're always a little bit mine, but I said it wasn't the same. She knew. She's watched me with too many familes, and too many kids, over the years, not to understand.

As we walked out into the mall, I said, "Stores like that are just one more reason to wait many more years before having one of my own. I want to be able to afford to buy all the cute stuff when I fall in love with it." She told me that's what grandparents are for. Uh oh. I've never gotten any pressure to have kids from them before, but I fear it's coming soon...

good to be back

We were a bit worried about this morning. After 4 days with Mommy and Daddy, all of us expected Thomas to have a bit of a fit when they went to work. He is two, after all, and prone to separation anxiety fits from time to time. They can be heartbreaking, and we all knew a big one was coming this morning.

Luckily, I spotted a new Backyardigans DVD at the library on Saturday!

Oh yes, Mr. Thomas may have started out a bit clingy, but when I mentioned that new movie during breakfast, he was eager to drag me to his room to watch it. Then he told Mommy good-bye, gave her a kiss, and hardly looked back.

Thank you, creators of The Backyardigans. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.