Scooby Dooby Doo, please go away.

My 3 year old son has had the Scooby Doo theme song lodged in his head for a week.  It’s his favorite show, he always wants to watch it…in the morning, at lunch, before bed.  All. The . Time.  And just this past week he started singing the song, only he doesn’t know all the words, and he has a speech impediment.  He can’t say his R’s very well, can’t make the ‘Sh’ or ‘V’ sound, and he doesn’t do well with the ‘S’ sound before another consonant.  So, he goes around the house singing,

It’s that, over and over again, all day long.  He sings it at home, he sings it at the grocery store, he sings it at Target.  He sings it loudly down the aisles.  He sings it to other peoples faces as they try to figure out what in the world he’s talking about.  I got to the point today at the store where I had to muster up all the manners I had inside of me to politely tell him he had to stop or I would give him away.  It started out so precious, but there’s only so much repetitive preciousness one woman can take before she cracks.

Maybe I got so annoyed because I didn’t sleep well last night.  My 2 1/2 month old daughter has a bad cold, which means she’s not sleeping very well at night, which means I’m not sleeping very well at night.  I was up and down, every 30 minutes, the whole night.  So I basically just took a series of short naps all night.  And my son has started this new thing where he just realized that he has the power to come out of his room after we tuck him in and close his door, and he is abusing the hell out of it.  We’ll say our good nights and walk down the stairs, sit down on the couch and look up to find him staring at us.

And we go through the tucking in again until he does it again, and again, and again until we start to threaten him.  You tell that kid you’ll take one of his cars away and you can get him to stop doing anything.  (Maybe I should try that with the Scooby Doo song…)  I remember back when he didn’t think he was allowed to come out of his bed at all.  He would stay in there, bladder about to burst…(sometimes it did) and we had to bribe him with presents to get him to come out.  (It sounded like such a good idea at the time.) He has always stopped by about 11 pm, but last night he began a new thing that I can only hope will be a one time occurrence…

We had a bad storm and tornado scare last night after the kids were asleep, and hail was pounding against our windows, the wind was howling, and I was a nervous wreck.  What’s funny is that I wasn’t necessarily nervous about our house being blown away, I was nervous about the loud storm noises waking up my kids.  When I finally fell asleep after checking up on them 90 times, the getting up every 30 minutes started with my daughter.  And in between those getting ups I had with my daughter, my son would show up in our room and I had to re-tuck him in.  That’s the first time he’s done this in the middle of the night so I don’t know what was wrong.  I think he thought it was morning-time because he just was not getting the message that he needed to go back to sleep. I would finally fall back asleep from being in the baby’s room and hear a little whisper calling out my name.  (Actually it was Daddy he was calling, but Daddy is a very heavy sleeper).  One time I literally ran into him in the hallway when I was on my way to her room.  I don’t know if he was en route or just standing there, in the middle of the hallway.  But we ran right smack into one another.  I can’t remember exactly, because I was half asleep-walking, but I think I ended up threatening to take his black Range Rover away.  I never heard from him again.

But eventually my daughter ended up on my pillow, pressed up against my neck at about 5:30.  And as much as part of me loves having her in there with me so I can smell her and snuggle with her, the other very tired part of me wants her in her own bed so I won’t be a monster the next morning.  She sucks on her pacifier all night and sounds like Maggie Simpson, so it’s a tough thing to sleep next to.  But both kids slept in this morning, and I got to drink the first half of my coffee on my own, which never happens.  Then the baby slept all day during our errands, and even after we got home, for a total of 4 1/2 hours, so I was able to tuck my son in for his nap without having to hold or nurse her.  And he’s still asleep.  It’s been great, actually.  A very smooth day.  I suppose it was my trade-off for not getting to sleep alone last night.

That’s what this whole parenting thing is, really.  It’s just a series of trade-offs.  You start to realize, after you’ve been a parent for a few years that you don’t get a lot of convenient moments, but you’ll get a small bone thrown to you every so often that reminds you it’s totally worth it.

*Quick, Easy, Fake, But Very Delicious Key Lime Pie
(for one of those inconvenient days…)
In a large bowl, combine…
-1 7 ounce can of frozen limeade, thawed
-1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
Then fold in…
-1 12 ounce container of Cool Whip, thawed.
(I like to add in the zest from 1 lime, and sometimes its juice if I have it.  It’s not necessary, but it makes it taste fresher.)

Mound the filling into your prepared graham cracker crust in a pie shell or 8x8in square dish (I like to use half graham crackers and half salted pretzels for my crust).  And chill for several hours until set.