C is for Cupcake!

Alright. I know I am a little, well, anal. I know that I like things done a certain way. When I ordered a Cookie Monster cupcake cake from Shop Rite last week, I was expecting it, well, quite frankly, to look like Cookie Monster.

I am not an artist. Cake decorating is not on my dossier. This is why I trust professionals, but in this case, the money spent could have been better utilized on a plastic cookie monster to put on top of a Duncan Hines.

I don't know why I'm so upset about this, considering that said cupcake cake was demolished by a group of 2 year-olds who could have cared less about the aesthetics of the cake. (They also could have cared less about the goodie bags they got, too. And by the way, the three parents who have still left theirs in your kids' cubbies had better take them by tomorrow or the relationship is over.)

So Nicholas is now two. This is hard for me to get my head around, although very much a reality. He's talking, he's reading story books, he's even (thank you Lord!) showing some interest in using the potty. It's hard for me to remember that three years ago, I was heartbroken that God hadn't sent Jason and me a second child, a companion for Owen. Had I known then that I would be running after two and tending after another one in three years, I would have done a lot less crying.

I'd like to think that God sent me Nicholas to show me how to love uniquely. The day he was born, I just couldn't believe that he didn't look like Owen at all, and from then on, I have had to warn myself not to compare the two. There's no comparing. I could not have two more different children. When I tell Owen it's time to go, he loiters, he hems and haws, he says, "later." Nicholas is running for his shoes. Owen finally started to walk at 15 months, after much anxiety on my part that he would take forever. When Nicholas took step after step after step shortly after his tenth month, I could appreciate all too late how Owen's "delay" was a blessing.
Shortly after Nicholas started to walk, he learned to run, and he's been running ever since, everywhere. Two weeks ago, he ran into the office of the Kindercare director and closed the door behind him, locking himself in. I had taken my eye off of him for just one second, and that's all it took. Luckily, the door had a glass pane in it, where I could try my best to keep Nicholas as entertained as possible, thus preventing him from doing too much damage to her desk or computer. By the time the director had found her spare key, Nicholas wanted out and opened the door from the inside. This is the story of Nicholas' life. He's in the fast lane, and he's going to be staying there for quite some time, so I have to shift gears. Our home is locked down like Fort Knox, and still, he finds a way to vault himself over baby gates, climb out of Pack and Plays, splash in the toilets, throw trucks down the stairs, catapult off of couch cushions and wreak havoc in general.

There is only one solution (outside of lots of love) for little Nicki, and that is having a LOT of options for him. Lots to do, lots to play with, lots to keep him engaged. If not, he will be in trouble for sure. I now eye a buffet table not for its options but for its dangers. I push back the trays, I cover the coffee cups, I make sure that anything with nuts is out of the range of grasp (he's not allergic, but they are choking hazards and he's not supposed to eat them yet). Yet even in spite of all this, I had to take him a few weeks ago to an emergency walk-in center to have his foot examined for a coffee burn. Even though I told everyone to keep their coffee cups out of the way, even though I specifically asked for the Boxes o' Joe to be set out of the way of little hands, I can't bubble wrap my kids forever. Nicholas got his hands on the first "open" cup of coffee he saw, and he burned his foot something terrible. And I didn't even realize it until it was way too late. I thought he was crying because the coffee had gotten on his jeans, which I had stripped off. It didn't even occur to me that his brown shoe, had pooled up with very hot coffee, and by the time I had discovered the awful blister, I felt awful.
His foot is almost healed up now, though there will be a visible scar from the burn. I don't understand why anyone thinks that letting kids get burned will teach them something. That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. It teaches them that burns hurt. It teaches them that bandages have to get changed. If anyone thinks that my 2 year-old has had an "A-ha" moment about the hotness of Dunkin Donuts coffee, rest assured you are mistaken. He'd do it again in a flash. Because that's Nicholas.