My 4 year old pimp

My son just turned four and he is really cute - as all four year old boys are. However he has a skill that I'm not sure many kids his age have mastered yet - picking up women. 

I was getting him from school one day a few months back and his teacher was cracking up. She explained she had a doozie of a story for me. She wasn't lying.

Apparently she was sitting next to Zach at lunch and he was quietly munching on his PB&J sandwich. All of a sudden he turned to her and said "heeeey girrrrl" (I wish my computer could talk to you so you could hear the perfect R&B sweet slow talk he did it in.)  The teacher, not knowing if she had heard him correctly said, "excuse me Zachary what did you just say?" 

Zachary, "I said, heeeey girrrrrl.  That is what my daddy told me I should say to the ladies."

After I hung up with my divorce attorney I fell all over myself apologizing to her that my son was trying to pick her up.  Thank God for her being her because she thought it was hilarious and actually had to excuse herself from the table to bust out laughing in the hallway.  She then proceeded to tell all the other teachers about it and now as they pass one another in the halls they all shout out "heeey girrrrl". 
Nice legacy for the Gedmans to leave behind at our little Christian preschool.

Fast forward to a few days ago when my husband (ok, I didn't kick him out after that incident but believe me he is walking on thin ice here) and Zachy went to Best Buy.  A sales girl came up to them and started discussing whatever item they were there to purchase.  At a lull in the conversation she bent down to Zach and said "Hi cutie, what's your name?"

His response? "I'm Zach", then lazily points his thumb at my husband and said "this is Dan." 

She ate that up and Dan was pretty sure at that point he could have taken her behind the refrigerator section and had his way with her.  He said Zach is the best wing man he's ever had. Nice.

Can't wait to see what he is like at 16.

Karma hit me again

I don't get it. Is my blog possessed or something? Every time I write something semi-negative, it comes back to bite me. Or maybe my husband has something to do with it because the two times I have done these semi-negative blogs they have been about him. Interesting...

Let me explain:

I sat down yesterday and wrote a snarky blog entry about how funny it was how my children act around their father but not around me. I hadn't posted it yet because it needed some editing but it went something like this:

So I had to go out of town again for work. Sadly I had to leave on my little guy's 2nd birthday. We had a small celebration (will celebrate big next weekend) and being so young he barely noticed I was leaving on his big day. It killed me to have to leave on his birthday but apparently not as much as it killed my husband. HeHe.

I think the rest of Sunday went just fine, it was apparently Monday morning when all hell broke loose. Monday was the first day of our daughter's week long day-camp. Having dealt with situations like this a million times, I know how to handle these things. You must begin to talk up the new adventure the evening before and discuss all the friends she will make and how she will do all sorts of arts and crafts projects and how she will get to run around a park, blah, blah, blah. The more you talk about it, the more she gets used to the idea of doing something new. I'm guessing dad didn't do those things or the "episode" she had at camp would not have occurred.

From the account I heard from my husband, they got to the park and didn't know where to go. After 4 attempts of trying to dump her off with the wrong camp counselors, she was in tears. Finally he found the correct place but there was no way she was going at this point. She screamed and cried and refused to go. The camp is from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM and apparently the first half hour of her time was spent red faced and chasing dad back to his car just to be promptly returned to the counselors and so on and so forth. Finally he was able to free her death grip from his legs and left to a meeting at the zoo for which he was now thirty minutes late.

My mother-in-law had thrown her back out and so last minute there was no one to watch our son for the day therefore my husband had to take our bonkers 2 year old with him to film some stuff at the zoo. Apparently the little guy had lots of fun for the first twenty minutes but then he saw the carousel and it was all over. He wanted to ride that thing more than anything in his 2 year old little world. Unfortunately it just wasn't something my husband had time for since he was there working and so a fit of colossal proportions ensued. Complete with kicking, hitting and screaming on the ground, face in dirt. I find this really amusing because I was just telling my mother the other day that neither of my children had ever done that. Well I guess I can still say that they have never done that to me. Hehe. I'm horrible.

Again, easy solution to that problem. Take snacks with you. It is a joke in our family that Z-man can be talked out of anything for "a food" -that is what he calls all food. It could be the biggest fit you've ever seen with blood curdling screams and all and you just say "Z do you want a food?" Next silence, a smile, "yes, yes" - tantrum over.

I get back in town that evening and took my daughter to camp the next morning. We talked about all the fun things she would do when she got there and upon arrival she jumped out of the car and ran to hug her counselors. She couldn't have been more excited to be at camp and barely acknowledged me as I waved goodbye.

A couple of hours later I returned to pick up a smiling child with art projects galore in hand. When I asked her how her day was she told me it was "top notch." See, that is how you drop a child off at camp. Not rocket science. Seriously - Men!

I didn't even post that blog, so I'm not sure how karma figured it out but once again, just like with the LandCruiser, I'm being punished for saying not so nice things that involve my husband.

So here we are a day later. Drop off at camp didn't start out all that great. My daughter took a major spill running up the steps, there was some blood and serious rage that the camp's band aids do not have Scooby Doo on them. After searching every square inch of the park for a water fountain to refill the water bottle that she dumped out on her fall, I was out the door leaving my sobbing child with her counselors. Okay not quite as successful as the day before's drop off but I was still out of there in 15 minutes - a full 15 minutes quicker than my husband got out.

I did a couple of errands and walked back into my house to the phone ringing.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Angela from camp. E broke her butterfly hair clip about 35 minutes ago and has not stopped crying since. She wants you to come get her."

I asked to talk to E and in between sobs I heard something about a windy dentist, blue butterfly clip and mean tennis shoes. Later I found out that she was upset because the wind blew the butterfly clip the dentist had given her out of her hair and a child stepped on it in with his tennis shoes but he didn't mean to.

My child was inconsolable. No matter how many times I told her I could buy her a new blue butterfly clip and that it was okay, she was not going to budge. This child of ours is a sweetheart but boy is she stubborn. I had no choice but to go and get her. I know how she gets and I could not let her ruin everyone else's fun at camp. So long to my couple of hours of getting things done around the house.

So you see, there seems to be a pattern here as each time I say bad things about something related to my husband on this blog, karma kicks me in the tush for it. Maybe I will learn a lesson from this, but really what in the world would I write about if I couldn't make fun of him?

Skipping Town

When my husband leaves town he stuffs a bag full of clothes I picked out for him and walks out the door after a quick kiss good-bye. I have to travel for work every so often and getting out that door just isn't quite as simple.

It usually starts out about five days ahead of time. Do laundry. Every iota of it so in the event that our 4 year old decides she needs to wear her tutu on top of her favorite pair of jeans coupled with just the right shade of pink top, it will be ready for her. Or so my 2 year old has enough clean pajamas to endure whatever it is that he does to them during breakfast. Clean the house. God forbid the person who is going to watch the children while I am gone see a dust bunny. Plan carpools. Boy, this is a rough one. Since both of my children are still in car seats it is like conducting an orchestra to try and figure out who has enough space in their car to get one or two of my children somewhere. Plan meals. I married my husband in large part because he is a fabulous cook and I am not. However, my husband works very hard and has no time to cook and he pays no attention to nutritional value whatsoever. Everyone says the kids won’t starve if they eat gummy bears and Cheez Its every meal for two days but really, am I going to take that chance? I don’t think so.

After six pages of type written instruction to their father and grandparents and explaining to my daughter that she might need to show daddy where we keep some things like toothpaste, I sulk out the door knowing doom is inevitable. About thirty minutes into the flight I start to relax and begin reading parenting magazines but all the while I am making notes of the things I completely forgot to tell my husband and will email him as soon as this plane lands. Yes, email; you have to get these things in writing.

After that email sends, I really begin to think things are going to be okay and I actually start to enjoy my time away. Although it is work, I do have a few moments here and there in my hotel room where I can watch what I want on TV, paint my nails and call a friend to chat.

Flying back home, I am a bit nervous about what is in store for me. I know my house will be a disaster, no question on that one. My husband is so sweet, he always tells me the night before I come home how he and the kids are cleaning up for me. I gotta be honest I don’t think I have ever walked in and thought wow our house looks so sparkly! I think he cleans kind of like the kids do. “Let’s put away this game, but wait let’s work on this puzzle first” and “okay all shoes go in the bin by the door, but let’s put our shoes on and run around outside for a minute”, “please bring all dishes to the sink; oh let’s have a snack” and so on.

All was going well for awhile and after several successful trips coming home to children that were still breathing, I started to comfortably slack a bit on my leaving town preparations. A trip recently made me rethink that decision. I tell you, you let your guard down for one second…

I had to leave for about five days. Each evening I spoke to the kids and blew many kisses over the phone so I knew they were still alive and accounted for. I was thrilled to see them when they picked me up at the airport. My daughter was fast asleep in her car seat when I went to kiss her but my sweet boy was wide-awake and so excited to see me. I ran around to his side of the car and he smiled that minimal tooth grin of his. Horror!

“Um Dan, what’s wrong with Zachy’s teeth?” I squealed.

“I don’t know. What’s wrong with Zachy’s teeth?” he asks me.

“Well part of them are missing.” I answered flatly.

This black space was as glaring to me as if my eyelid was being held open and a flashlight was touching my eyeball. Dan had not even noticed this major infraction on my baby in the five days I had been gone. The poor kid had two chipped teeth!

Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming Dan for the incident in which this occurred because he was at work all day and most likely was not there for the spill that resulted in marring my precious little guy’s perfect smile, however I am floored that he did not even notice it. Obviously I have no choice but to go back to the six pages on instructions before my next departure but with one addition, item #338, please check all body parts daily for accuracy.