Currently, I’m grabbing this one minute to type a note, say hello.

Hello!

Am waiting for a guy. The guy who is going to show up and help me (hopefully) unravel the mess that is the unexpectedly and stunningly over-priced chicken coop I don’t like, installed and un-occupied in our backyard. It’s been dramatic around here on that front.

There was also an oh-no-you-didn’t fight with Jonah’s previous preschool over whether or not we owed them the deposit for September.

Seems one crisis or the other is going to land me in small claims court. Or not.

Tra la la.

What are the good things? Hmmm. The chickens are still with us. They’re growing nicely and producing small but rich and delicious eggs on a semi-irregular basis.

Jonah is amazing in both his continually growing verbal capacity, and his continually growing tantrum capacity. I’ll try to think of an example for you of each and actually write about it and stuff. Sometime. I hope.

But not true to the intention of the book, I had yet to employ Jonah as sous chef, until today.

It took some convincing this morning to get him on board with the idea of cooking with me. Did I mention that he’s 2 years old?

The recipe was for a peaches and cream cobbler. Due to our outrageous overabundance of greengage plums, I decided to go with them as a substitute.

I washed and cut the plums into pieces, and then set Jonah up with a chair to stand on, the bowl of pieces, and the pan. He thoughtfully, carefully, moved the pieces from bowl to destination. I took pictures.

Next we mixed up the filling stuff together: brown sugar, corn starch, etc. Which he scooped into the pan, and then proceeded to massage into the plums for quiet, focused, contemplative, ages. When I called to Scott to come see (and take pictures) Jonah said, “Daddy, I’m working.”

Next came the sweet creamy layer, and then the batter layer on top. Kind of like an upside-down cake. Jonah performed excellent measuring, pouring, and stirring duties.

And then he demanded, “Want to taste it on my tongue.”

Now, I know we’re not supposed to eat raw dough made with eggs. But is it better at least if the eggs are from our own chickens? I grew up licking bowls of all kinds of batter. I couldn’t deny my son this simple pleasure.

After the cobbler went into the oven, he continued to stand there and lick the bowl clean, one fingerful at a time…

…the entire time the cobbler was in the oven (and I was doing the rest of the dishes).

And here’s the result:

We have often spelled “JONAH” in the past. Tonight, he asked me to spell “TRAIN.”

So, I ask him for each letter, which he finds in the clusters on the fridge and we place them in the proper order. We talk about what each letter’s sound is, et cetera.

As it happens, another group of letters clustered in a corner accidentally spells “FART.” So I point that out. And Jonah thinks that is HILARIOUS. In a fit of excitement, he runs at the fridge, pushes all the letters around until they fall on the floor, runs around in a circle, and comes back.

And then we spell it again.

Funny.

I have found the 2-1/2-year-old-boy funny bone.

So then we spell “POOp.” I mean, how could we not?

And “pee.”

Hi – lair – eeeee – yusssssss.

Oh, yes. We also spelled “Thomas,” and “Murdoch.”

He’s still into stickers. There aren’t any more “tries” without “dos” so the whole sticker-for-trying thing is over. He just gets one at each potty. Every time. (Unless he forgets to ask for it.) And sticks it on his shirt, till it falls off. And gets lost — and later, many stickers later — found with great delight, and lost again. It’s like Easter all over our house, or a treasure hunt.

There’s a piece of paper taped to the door where the old chart used to be. Part of Chart 2.0 that Scott had started while discussing with Jonah that we hadn’t decided what prize the chart was for. So there’s no lines. Just a blank piece of paper. Every once in a while, Jonah puts a sticker on it. Once the piece of paper is full, he may make some kind of demand. I’ll cross that trestle when I get to it.

Meantime, we’re happy with his progress. He is quite alarmed and unhappy when he has accidents, so for now we’re not penalizing (no pun intended) him for them. Sooner or later, if need be, we’ll introduce the idea of pulling off a day or succession of days with no accidents, and then introduce a new chart and prize then.

He’s pleased with his progress, too. We still often get a little dance after a good potty. And he often likes to point out his successes: “Mommy, I knew I needed to go potty and I did it BY MYSELF!”

An aspect of Jonah’s personality to be grateful for: as much as he adores getting the stickers, and sticking them all over himself and the house, he seems to care not a whit when they crumple up, disappear, accumulate dirt and sand, fly away. Okay, he does, a whit. But it’s a short whit. If we had to keep track of and care for all of these little graven images of the holy Thomas clan, I’d be in serious trouble.

Did I mention we’d bought a book of 700 stickers to help us on this journey?

We’ve been pottying like mad for about a week and a half and so far it’s been mostly pretty great. Some days he’s maybe 50/50 on scores and accidents, some days he scores more often.

But we are already in trouble for our rookie “chart” efforts. I should have read a book or something first.

In the spirit of making potty training more fun and enduring, we put up a chart with 30 squares which he gets to fill in for each try – whether a success or not. (He rarely sits without payoff, so that’s not really the issue.)

Rather, the problem is that it took him only a few days to fill the chart and win his beloved “wind-up Lady” and while we were hoping to somehow up the ante on the next chart, like filling in squares on days when he doesn’t have an accident, we’re not sure we can change the rules on him that quickly. Basically, the kid takes himself to the pot several times a day, obliges our requests to do the same several other times, fights us hard on occasion, and forgets to go while absorbed in play a few times a day.

My goal for the chart was to get him excited about going, to experience a record of his progress, and to experience achieving a goal.

The bites-me-in-the-*ss part is that one hour after getting Lady, he announced that for his next chart he would like a “wind-up Thomas.”

You totally saw that one coming, right?

That would mean we’ll be buying a $25 toy about every four days.

So we have some work to do to get control of this one. Suggestions welcome.

+ + +

Leaving the old preschool has been mostly good. Jonah appears to be flourishing with the new temporary nanny. She calls herself the “granny nanny” and she comes with her bucket of bubbles and paints and stickers and seemingly endless energy for playing trains, building Lego towers, and digging in the sandbox, all while engaging him constantly in a light but intellectually-stimulating banter.

Next week will be interesting because he’ll have one day with GN, and one day with our former nanny-share; the awesomely energetic, adorable, not-long-out-of-college nanny whom Jonah adores and the 1-1/2 year old toddler whom he used to hug all the time when they were together.

I hope he likes being with each of them, and that it isn’t confusing or anything. We’d already committed to the nanny share for the summer as I was desperately trying to get one full day of care so I could get work done. And there weren’t openings for adding a day, though that may change. We’ll see.

I went to his school yesterday (without him) to pick up his stuff – extra diapers, changes of clothes. I chatted with his main teacher who suggested we check out parent co-op schools and agreed that waiting another year might be a good idea. And then I ran into one of the part-time teachers – the person whom I will probably miss the most, and who LOVED Jonah. She was aghast about our leaving – the woman who would sing to Jonah when he wouldn’t nap, and teach him Spanish. She said if we ever wanted to come back and try again, to please do.

I barely made it out the gate before I started crying. Our experience there was such a mixed bag. Maybe I can just be grateful for the fact that there were people there who did love him, and that he did have some good experiences, and while it’s hard to leave those parts behind, finding another situation where he’ll consistently get the attention he needs, where his non-napping won’t be an issue, and where I’ll get the communication that I need, will ultimately be better for both of us.

There’s also the chance we might not start school this fall. Did I already blog about the fact that my kid is YOUNG? Apparently I was blinded by his rather blinding verbal abilities and didn’t think through the fact that the rest of him might not be ready for preschool. Even though it was a toddler program we’d put him in (at 2 years, 2 months!) and even though he could pretty much do everything listed on the report card they gave me yesterday before he even started there, he’s still emotionally young.

Now that the State of California might be making the choice for me, it’s likely we have three years before he’ll start kindergarten. I’d been against the idea of “redshirting” because to me it just sounded like privileged people trying to get an edge on everyone else. But now I think, what’s the rush? I also hear that school is much harder on kindergarteners than it used to be due to the no-child-left-behind bill. More sitting, less play. He might be more able to deal with that at almost-6 rather than almost-5.

All that to say, if I don’t feel 100% totally excited and comfortable about the next situation, we’re not jumping into anything.

So, I did it. Got the courage up to break ties with our current preschool. Thank you everyone for your support on this. I sent them an email on Saturday – I know, not the most direct approach. But for those who read the long explanation of why the situation wasn’t working, I think you understand.

My epiphany was this: Tell them that our family’s needs and the school’s program are not a match, and tell them we’ll miss them.

So that’s what I did.

I figured they’d get the email immediately because I know they run the school off their iPhones.

They did not email back, or call. All weekend. Or Monday. But I felt released after I hit send.

This morning I called to let them know he wouldn’t be coming in. I asked his teacher if she knew about the email. Yes, she did.

Can I ask why? – she said.

I told her that we felt the program wasn’t a match. And she AGREED!

(Somebody scrape me up off the floor. I am completely blown away.)

She says, Yeah, his art teacher and I talked about it. He needs a place where he can get more one-on-one attention. He’s all about himself. The other kids are more about the group. The fact that he’s still crying at transitions after all this time isn’t a good sign. Yeah.

(OH MAH GAWD.)

(Yes, it would have been nice if we could have had a meeting to talk about what was happening and stuff. Like I’d tried to do. Oh well.)

So I said thank you and I was so happy to hear that they understood and were seeing some of the same things I saw, and that we were going to try a different environment for him; that we were sad to be leaving; that I’ll come by on Friday to get his stuff and say goodbye.

PHEW!!!!!

Now, to pick the next environment…

It’s like a butterfly landed on your nose, only better because it’s the Emily sticker you got for your third potty success of the day.

(Alternate title of this post: In Which Thomas the Tank Engine And His Friends Assist Us with a Major Milestone.)

Yesterday, he went the whole day without a diaper. And only one accident, in the morning. Thanks in part to my friend Meg who met us midday at the toy store and suggested we buy a book of Thomas stickers to help the process along, Jonah has now earned about 15 stickers in two days, most of them for successes, and a few for really great tries.

The part that’s blowing my mind is how excited he is about it. He literally ran around in circles pretending to be an airplane/helicopter – an act that seemed related.

He also hasn’t thrown a tantrum in two days. Except when I dropped him off at preschool this morning.

The part that’s funny is how much we didn’t plan it. Certainly, we’ve been laying groundwork with our part-time EC efforts and his daily potty sits as part of our bedtime routine since he was around a year old. But I figured we’d missed the window – that mythical intersection of willingness, capacity, and trainability that I imagine (or read in some EC mom blog) exists at 18 months.

Jonah had pronounced to me not long ago that he much preferred diapers, and that potty training was for “Big Boys.” Then he said, “I’m not a baby, and I’m not a Big Boy. I’m just a Boy.”

I wasn’t exactly stressing about it yet, but I was kind of starting to wonder how and when we might pull this off.

So, this is how it happened:

We ran out of diapers.

See, we use these ridiculous hippie diapers. So hippie, even most hippies don’t know about them. They’re called Tushies and they’re made entirely from cotton and wood pulp, no “Super Absorbant Polymer.” Basically like having your kid swaddled in a wad of paper towels only ever so slightly more aerodynamic.

(Given all the hoopla recently about the evils of Pampers Dry Max – touted as environmentally friendly due to the decrease in use of cotton and pulp but reported to cause horrifying rashes possibly due to increased volume of SAP and other chemical processing, I feel both further vindicated for avoiding SAP and the like, and environmentally offensive for the volume of trash our diapering choice has produced.)

We order them off of Diapers.com (hey – go there, buy something, and use my code, and we’ll both get a discount: JULI6612) which offers free next day shipping and usually saves us in these situations, except when we discover that we’re out at 11 o’clock at night. Which happened Wednesday night.

We had ONE diaper left.

“Here’s the plan,” I said to Scott. “In the morning, we just keep him nakey-butt until it’s time to leave for music class. And then, after class, I’ll go to Rockridge Kids (the only store in the East Bay that stocks these ridiculous things) and buy a pack to get us through till Friday,” paying 1.5 x the cost of ordering them online. But hey, that’s the tax for not paying attention to the depletion of our stash.

So the next morning, Jonah is irritated about not getting into a diaper immediately, but he eventually goes along with it. And then, something happens.

I put a pair of elastic-waist stripey jersey pants on him without a diaper. And he likes it.

Before we leave for class, I suggest that he could get those pants off by himself and try peeing in the potty. (We rarely ever dress him in pants that are this easy to remove.)

He takes the pants off. I ask if he wants to go in his little potty, or on the big potty. He chooses little, backs himself up to the thing (do your kids do this? start out about a foot away and scootch backwards with one arm reached out behind, searching for the top of it to lower himself down?).

It works. He’s delighted!

I ask him if he would like to go to music class with no diaper and he says yes.

I pack two bags. One has the big potty ring in it, the other has four pairs of soft, elastic waist pants and shorts (thank you grandma Marcia for the recent adds to this category), extra t-shirts (you never know), and extra socks (think gravity, people). I also put him in his (waterproof/washable) Crocs shoes.

And off we go. We do a potty try before class. Nothing. We don’t do one right after class because he says he doesn’t have to go. And then he’s playing in the garden outside of class and he pauses and I hear him say “Uh oh…”

So we do a costume change and a somewhat gratuitous potty try and then it’s off to RK to buy the emergency diaper pack – or so I thought.

He starts at the train table. We go on to read some train books. There’s two he really likes. One shaped like James, the other like Thomas, both with plastic wheels attached.

I don’t really ask him if he needs to go potty. I just coerce him to sit. I read him a potty book conveniently located on the bookshelf right outside the bathroom, changing the main character’s name to “Jonah.”

And… nothing! But I buy him the Thomas-shaped Thomas book as a potty celebration gift anyway, and promise him the James later if he can make it all the way to the end of the day without a poop accident (the one thing I’m dreading).

After this, we meet Meg for lunch and she accompanies us back to the toy store for another potty try. (I’m going back there again only in order to use their potty-ring-adaptor thingy because I’d left mine in the car.)

While he’s so disposed, she BRILLIANTLY scans the book section for ones that contain THOMAS AND FRIENDS STICKERS.

Honestly, I can’t remember if we started the bribe before he did the deed or after, but success came at the perfect time. And thus the doling of the stickers began. (I also surreptitiously bought the James book and had it wrapped in hopes of being able to present it to him soon-ish, if not that night.)

He scores a Bill sticker for the toy store success, a Murdoch to celebrate perfect poopage in the grocery store lavatory – in which I crouched in a squat next to him in the tiny stall and read the stories that accompany the stickers in order to get him to sit longer.

At home, he does the solo routine with the pants, the backing up… and then the high five and the Emily sticker.

That night, at bedtime, he gets his James book.

This morning, he seemed game to go diaper-free to preschool but we decided not to expect that of them and talked him back into his packaging.

As soon as I picked him up though, he asked to go potty, and asked for a sticker.

We went from preschool to the zoo. I took him out of his diaper, loaded up my various supply bags, and crossed my fingers. As a precaution, when we rode the train, I had him sit beside me rather than on my lap, as I hadn’t brought spare clothes for myself.

He rocked it. Or rather, we rocked it, since sometimes (possibly motivated by the desire for more and more stickers) he asked to go, and other times, I just put him.

We were at the zoo with a friend (Hi Talia!) who told me about the next level – making a chart with stickers for each no-accident day in order to score bigger ticket Thomas items. Hmmm…

I am in a dilemma about preschool. I think we may be changing to a new one. This situation is so fraught with thoughts, it’s hard to write about it. It’s hard to not write about it. I can’t remember who has this URL. Are you a preschool friend/teacher/administrator reading this? Great. If A, call me. If B or C, can we please make an appointment to talk?

My preschool isn’t great (gross understatement) when it comes to parent-school communication and I’m wondering if we might be happier somewhere else. I’m also not so sure Montessori was such a good choice for us. Maybe Jonah needs more attention. Maybe I need more attention.

And due to several miscommunications back when we started regarding what would happen if Jonah was determined to be unable to nap or lay quietly on his mat during naptime, his current school is unable to keep him past 1 p.m. until he’s 4, and even then he has to be able to lie on a mat and listen to music quietly for about 45 minutes each day.

Not so much.

I’m sad to leave our current situation because on the whole, teachers are nice, the grounds and facilities are beautiful, the parents and kids are great.

But I think both Jonah and I are too loud, too needy, and too unruly for the school – even though it’s hardly a STRICT Montessori environment (I’ve seen those, one in particular I like to think of as a cross between Yale and a battleship, with mini-potties).

I liken our current situation to being in a relationship with someone who is not emotionally available. When I was in those situations (over and over, ad nauseum) I would often feel like a crazy person, like I was too much. And I would act… unbalanced, calling too much, whining. And I was often TOLD I was crazy. Which didn’t help. But one day I got it. With the right person (Hi, Honey!) I’m not too much. I even ACT less crazy when I feel I’m being heard and met.

So there. I kind of want to break up with my preschool.

And I’m scared that another situation won’t be better. Just different.

I’m scared we’ll regret it. I’m scared Jonah will be upset. Though he’s never seemed to truly love going to this one. Hard to gauge a 2-1/2 year old on that.

Gah!

And to extend the relationship metaphor, am I just doing a grass-is-always greener thing?

What if everything is okay where he is? What if everything is okay either way?

What if you want to trust your gut but your gut is sending mixed messages?

Alrighty, now you know what’s up.

Discuss…

It started innocently enough with a seeming affinity to train tables at the play spaces and toy stores.

We could have gone Brio. Thought briefly about the Brio; Brio would have been cheaper. But didn’t. Not particularly tempted by the Nuchi or the Melissa and Doug.

And then there was this one day when we were at a used toy store in Alameda, and they had a bunch of used Thomas series engines and such, plus gallon ziplock bags full of used track. And we just went for it. Two bags of track and five cars: Rusty, Salty, Cement Mixer, Handcar, and of course, Thomas. Oddly, this Thomas doesn’t have stripes on it. A detail that becomes slightly relevant later in this accounting of our Thomas-infused lives.

Soon after, Leila gave us a hand-me-down Push-and-Go Thomas.

And then there was the discovery of the Thomas ride-on toy at the park.

And then Laura gave us an oval track set with another Thomas (this one has stripes) and a Baggage Car, and Kevin, a crane with a magnet “hook” that Jonah discovered works great for rescuing trains that have been in an accident.

And then we started getting books. First a board book, Go Train Go, then a GIANT board book of poems, Railway Rhymes. And we began learning about the characters and their mythologies. I have to admit, this is where I started to get hooked. The illustrations and rhymes work for me.

More recently, I caved and bought one of the photo-book style Thomas books (the “pictureback” series). I had been avoiding them. I am not a fan. The writing is terrible. They barely make sense. Whoever was hired to try to translate the TV show into book form was not adept. But Jonah loves them. So we have since checked out four more from the library.

But the truly fateful day was when Jonah got Hiro. Because Hiro was the first brand new engine in its own small package, inside of which Jonah discovered… A CATALOG.

If anyone is wondering if toy collecting might be genetic, check out Scott’s hobby website that he founded in 1998 and get back to me on that.

So Jonah studied the catalog day and night and learned all the names and started making lists of which trains he wanted. And the fun thing about a 2-year-old who makes lists is you can please him so easily. So we got high off of that feeling for a bit. We ordered Molly, and the Aquarium Cars off eBay. (He just said to me yesterday, “The Uh-KWAyerR-Ee-ummm cars came in a MA-YULL packet,” a.k.a Priority Mail envelope.)

We went to a birthday party at a play space where they had a train table and he became besotted with Mavis. So Mavis, we bought.

And somewhere in there Nana and Pop Pop came to visit and brought “Easter Thomas” which came with a peeping carload of eggs and chicks. (And then there were three wooden Thomases, and one Push-Go.)

By this time, everywhere Jonah goes, he has to have train cars in his hands. Molly got to go on a few car rides but then Thomas-without-the-stripes (he is careful to differentiate) and Mavis became the away team for a good solid week or so.

Until he fell in love with Billy at Rockridge Kids. So in love that he talked about “him” frequently. “We SHOULD GO to RAW-KK-ridge KIDZ and PLAY wiff BIL-LEEyuh.” On one occasion, he left the store with the sample-not-for-sale Billy in his hands and I didn’t notice until halfway through lunch. (We took it back.)

And then Nana and Pop Pop came to visit again. And by the end of three days, Billy, the Musical Caboose, and “wind-up” (a.k.a. Battery Operated) James had joined the party. Now, the away team is comprised of the four engines, if we let him carry them all: James, Billy, Mavis, and Thomas.

After the grandparents’ visit, Jonah continually suggested that we “go downstairs” and “check the white bag” to see if there are more trains in it. Since one came out of it every day his grandparents were here. It’s a magic bag.

The trains aren’t just for going around the track (which dominated our dining room floor until just a few days ago when in a fit of genius parenting/toy management Scott turned a small round coffee table in Jonah’s room into a train table — and dining room sounds innocuous until you realize that we have to walk through the dining room in order to get to the majority of the rooms in our house).

They also dine with us. Jonah will assign plate mates. I usually get Molly, and Scott gets Hiro. The others (from the away team – see above) watch Jonah eat. Or he puts one train engine on each chair, and pushes all the chairs together side by side, leaving nowhere for us to sit.

Of course he likes to bring the trains onto mommy and daddy’s bed, too. He lines them up near the pillows and tucks them in under the covers and they all pretend to nap.

In addition to the ongoing catalog reading and reportage, Jonah’s clocking inventory at various stores and friends’ houses. He knows Billy is on the train table at RK, that Mighty Mac is en table at The Ark on Fourth Street. He reminisces about Mavis being at Play Cafe. He tells me every time he sees one in a shop that Zenn has Stanley. He remembers that he fought with Flann over who got to play with Hank. He is well aware that Schuyler has a wind-up Thomas AND a wind-up Lady.

Jonah wants more wind-up trains. We’ve told him he can’t have them until his birthday.

He asks to call Nana. He tells her, “I’m getting wind-up Percy and wind-up Lady for my birthday, in November. It’s May, now.”

Yesterday, Scott and Jonah went to Toys R Us because we need a sandbox with a cover on it. This is the chickens’ fault. Their profligate pooping has made Jonah’s play-digging in our yard hazardous.

Of course there’s a Thomas display at the store. Thomas of the gods. Thomas on retail steroids.

Because certain particular items are on sale and the boy seems to like them so much, Scott decides Jonah can have two miniature trains which make peep-peep noises when you press a button: Thomas and Percy.

As they are walking to the parking lot, Scott is thinking to himself that perhaps for the same amount of money he should have just gotten the one wind-up Percy. Only he says this to himself out loud, while buckling Jonah into his car seat (Scott has a tendency to mutter). Jonah hears and a negotiation ensues which involves going back into TRU, returning the two little trains and getting the beloved wind-up Percy.

He loves his new Percy. But in the late afternoon, it dawns on him that he BRIEFLY owned two smaller trains and now he NEEDS them. He cries about this with Scott, calms down, and then cries again to me when I walk in. We keep trying to explain that he made a choice, but it’s no use. He’s desolate.

He still loves his new Percy. He sleeps with it. And this morning he’s desolate again. He demands to go outside. Puts his shoes on himself (MILESTONE!) – on the wrong feet but no matter. We start down the front stairs. I’m thinking maybe he wants to look for snails. But no. He wants to check the car and see if his tiny trains are in there. He wants to get in the car and go back to the store. Tears again.

But here’s the thing. And this finally sinks us. He has a temperature of 103 and a croupy cough.

How could we not?

So, after a morning of ibuprofen, juice, and multiple viewings of Thomas videos on YouTube (yes, we still try to keep him away from TV/videos, but he’s almost 3 – which was our end date for avoiding such media – and the rules don’t apply when he’s sick – and I actually like those weird little videos, especially the season Ringo Starr narrates)…

We bundle him into the car and drive back to TRU. And now he has a tiny Thomas (and then there were five). We’re hiding the tiny Percy in the hopes that it might be a good Potty Training celebration gift, if we ever get to THAT milestone. Which might require the purchase of Thomas underwear?

Also got him a Thomas and Friends toothbrush today, which led to an extended happy tooth brushing session before bedtime. (No, this was not the one that plays the Thomas theme for two minutes in order to get them to brush that long. I’d rather he have gingivitis than have to hear that song on repeat for two minutes straight even one night, much less every night. Even just typing this has the earworm wiggling through my brain – they’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight, shunting trucks and hauling freight…).

Is it bad to let your toddler eat an entire half-pound?

He held the bag in his stroller as we shopped, popping them in his mouth and pronouncing them “good” (guut!). And then he demanded a banana, which I peeled and he didn’t eat but tucked on the other side of him in the stroller except for when he brandished it at me and ordered me to take a bite, and then a portobello mushroom, because he likes to hold a mushroom whenever the opportunity presents itself, and especially a BIG mushroom. Which was surprisingly not as big as the giant zucchini muffin the size of his head, the possession of which led to him handing over all other food items in order to focus on the one.

We had stopped at the store just to get celery to take up to the Little Farm and feed to the goats but one thing leads to another.

At the farm we fed the cows and the goats and for some reason the big black sheep were Baa-aa-ing extra loud, in a manner that one might interpret as hostile and as soon as we got close to them, and they let a few rip, Jonah completely freaked out. He screamed with a level of terror I’d never heard before. Not a pleasant experience.

Not to mention — how could I forget? — the screaming that was sandwiched between coming home from preschool to “show daddy” his clay snowman sculptures that he’d made and leaving again to go to the Farm.

When I’d picked him up, he was very excited to show them to daddy so I thought, why not? Stop home, grab a bite to eat for myself, have a little daddy interlude and then hit the road again so daddy could go back to his work-at-home work. Yes, well. Taking Jonah away from daddy again? Let’s just say the loudest sheep on earth, with his own dolby surround sound system, could not have out bleat-ed my kid, screaming and writhing on the sidewalk, which is where we landed at one point during his temper tornado. Because you really can’t just throw him in the car seat and buckle the buckles when he’s in that state, if you know what I mean (and I know some of you do). There was one point where he was bawling, face down on the floor of the car, and hiccuping, telling me he “needed a daddy hug.”

(And it goes without saying that this is midday, with no nap.)

This would all be really awful and pathetic, and I would be really evil, a wicked mom-witch, if it weren’t for the fact that eventually he actually calmed down, and did let me put him in the seat, without force; and daddy’s name didn’t come up again. What got us there, frankly, I can’t remember. I tried very hard to not offer ice cream as a bribe (that works, and I need to save it for true emergencies; this was only like def-con 4). I think I’d convinced him that we could go to a toy store to look at trains (you know you’re waiting for me to get to that Thomas post).

En route to toy store, we discussed several options and therein settled on the idea of Little Farm, goats, celery. When I mentioned that we would have to stop at the store to get the celery, he suggested that he could get “something hwheeet (sweet) like a cupp-cake with frost-ting onn it.” I told him I thought that was too sweet but that he could have a muffin. “I want my OWN muffin,” he said, to which I agreed, thus concluding the negotiation.

He also reported to me as we drove, “Mommy and Jonah had a fight on the sidewalk.” Why yes, we did. (I’m told kids process difficult things out loud like this.)

Little Farm, aside from the scary sheep, was delightful. I had hoped that the long drive there would knock him into napland; no such luck. However, the weather was warm (rare! and good because in the melee, I’d forgotten to bring him a jacket), the rabbits were accessible for petting through the cage wire, the cows were sociable, the goats much less scary than the sheep. At the interpretive center, they brought out a turtle, but Jonah was more interested in climbing on the wooden mountain lion statue.

The grapes came back into play when I needed a bribe to get him to leave the Little Farm. Back in his car seat, I gave him the whole bag, which he happily consumed nearly half of, and then marveled at the “Christmas tree” branches that remained.

And then, when we were almost home, he told me a story that went something like this (I wish I’d had a tape recorder!):

“There was a boy and he had a lot of grapes. His mommy take-ed them away from him. This made me mad. The boy screamed. His mommy throwed the grapes in the trash can.”

And then Jonah said to me, “What happened next?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

A few moments passed. He continued:

“The boy take-ed the grapes out of the trash can and ate them all up.”

(In that moment I was much too proud of his improvisational story telling abilities to notice how I’d been cast as the villain. Oh dear.)