You know why the age of 2-3 is great?  It’s because it’s the age when kids… or toddlers, if you prefer… start to figure things out.  Cute things, like that on their birthday they get presents, or that if they move a stool to the counter they can climb up to reach the candy they saw from across the room.  It’s the age when they start to reason with you, even if the reasoning is not always clear.

Unfortunately, this is also the age when kids learn they can make up excuses that may get them out of trouble, because now they know what trouble is, and that they don’t want to be in it.

Alex and I are learning this the hard way when it comes to E.  E is quite a character at times, which I have written about before (like when he pointed out my white socks to a room full of people).  E is also no stranger to long-winded explanations for why he did something that, in retrospect, he wishes he hadn’t done (like when he destroyed our 1,500-piece puzzle because he wanted to help clean up the living room).

Lately, E has developed a habit of smacking people.  He especially likes to go for the face.  We don’t know where he learned this, and we’re trying hard to teach him that hitting is not OK.

This past weekend, we went out to lunch with my family.  My dad, grandma, brother, and sister were all there.  So was one of my sister’s friends.  E knows all these people very well, and loves them all, so he was having a great time at lunch.  He even got to have a big plate of french fries all to himself.  Lunch was going well.

And then it happened.  For no reason at all, E turned to me (I was sitting next to him) and whacked me in the face.  Hard.

Time stood still.  My grandma was horrified.  My dad was watching to see how Alex and I were going to handle it.  I think my brother and sister may have been torn between horrified and amused.  E shrank away from me and then bee-lined for under the table (his most-favorite hiding spot ever).  Alex got him out and then took him for a walk, as close to a time-out as possible at a restaurant.  When he came back, E apologized to me and gave me a hug – the little guy definitely felt bad.  That’s when Alex told us all WHY E had smacked me.

“He says he did it because you took one of his french fries.”

Now, I had been nowhere NEAR E’s french fries.  Not that this is a good reason to hit someone anyway, but it was a blatant lie!  Everyone at the table backed me up on that, because Alex actually BELIEVED E!!  So not only is he capable of thinking up plausible excuses, he’s also capable of GETTING HIS FATHER TO BELIEVE THEM!!

I’ve said it before.  We are in so much trouble.

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© 2010, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

To see the previous 7 Days in my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies series, click here.

Day 8’s cookie is the only one for which I really have no recipe to share with you.  I have a good reason (I think): I had planned to let E help make these cookies, because they are Gingerbread Men.  I figured it would be less mess, with fewer chances for a disaster, if I used cookie mix from a bag and only had to add an egg, butter, and water with E.

It went pretty well.  I used the Betty Crocker gingerbread cookie mix, which is as easy as they come.  E and I followed the directions on the bag, and then rolled the cookie dough out on the table:

Then it was time to shape the gingerbread men… women… people…

Now it was time to decorate.  I was worried that icing might be messier than a 2-year-old can handle, so we just used holiday-colored sprinkles.  E was doing a great job, until he realized the sprinkles were edible, “like on ice cream.”  Then it became one for the cookies, five for E.  I didn’t see this coming!  I don’t remember trying to eat the sprinkle decorations when I was little and helping my mom!

At any rate, the cookies came out looking fine, and they tasted good.  E was very proud that he got to tell people he made the “men cookies.”

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© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

She doesn’t know it, but my friend Tiffany is a prophet.

Last week she told me there was no way the puzzle Alex and I are working on would survive the weekend.  Today I am here to tell you, she was 100% right.

…. Maybe I need to pause here and tell you what the heck I’m talking about.

Two weeks ago, Alex and I decided we needed something to do TOGETHER.  So we went to Toys ‘R’ Us and bought a 1500 piece puzzle that depicts a European riverside town.  We both love puzzles, so we thought this was a fantastic idea.

***I will pause here for you all to laugh at our dorkiness.***

We’d been working on the puzzle for a solid week when I realized E was going to be at our house for the Thanksgiving holiday and all that weekend.  He is here most weekends, but we had acquired said puzzle on a weekend when he happened to be with his mom.  So I mentioned to Tiffany in passing: I have no idea how we are going to protect this puzzle from a two-year-old.  Her response was: “Yeah, that puzzle is toast.”

I didn’t agree with her.  I was sure that between Alex and I, we could keep E from destroying our puzzle.  E, himself, loves puzzles, after all.  Surely we could just explain to him that this was our puzzle and he should not play with it.  Right?  RIGHT??!!??  For two days, I was right.  E would walk over to our puzzle and explain to us, “Daddy – ‘Stina’s puzzle, not E’s puzzle.”  He also felt it necessary to show us the “missing” pieces, where we had not yet put everything together.  It was downright cute.  He put his truck puzzle together right next to ours, just so he could be included in the puzzle extravaganza!

Then Friday came.  E was in a particularly… evil toddler-y mood.  I was cleaning while Alex took care of some things at work.  And that’s when it happened.  E walked over to the puzzle while I was washing the kitchen floor, looked at me, smiled angelically, then proceeded to completely destroy the puzzle Alex and I had spent the last week putting together.  Here’s the best part: he gave me a REASON why he tore the whole thing apart.  See, after he did it, he knew he was going to be in trouble.  So he hid.  After he was done hiding, he came over to me and I asked him why he broke the puzzle.  It was at that point that he told me he was trying to put it on the floor because I was cleaning – he was trying to HELP.

You can go ahead and say it.  We are totally screwed.  This kid is already thinking up excuses for why he did something bad and HE IS TWO.

E was pretty embarrassed about breaking up the puzzle.  He told Alex he was sorry, and then he got all shy when I told him to tell my father and my sister about what he did the next day.  But the fact remains: Tiffany was dead-on balls accurate.  Our puzzle was toast.  I took a few pictures of it tonight, when Alex and I began the re-construction process.  By the time I thought to get the camera, we had put some of it back together, so when you look at these pictures keep in mind: E broke apart the WHOLE THING.  All the pieces you see were at one time ASSEMBLED.  The pieces you see in the pictures were all broken apart by E.

Poor puzzle.

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© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I spent a good portion of my childhood being pretty pissed off at Cinderella’s wicked stepmother.  I was convinced that this story meant all stepmothers must be wicked, and so whenever I heard about someone in my class in school having a stepmother, I always felt sorry for them.  Yes, I was probably no more than eight years old, but I think this mind-set is something all stepmothers have to contend with – that there is no way they could be nice or sweet, or anything other than wicked to their stepchild(ren).  So you can imagine my consternation, and complete internal meltdown, when I realized that marrying my fiancé, the love of my life, would also mean BECOMING A STEPMOTHER, myself.

Yeah, that wasn’t the greatest day.

Then I thought, I actually have it much better than a lot of stepmothers out there.  My future stepson was under two when I met him.  I have been in his life for pretty much as long as he will be able to remember.  So, maybe, just maybe, he won’t have the “you’re not my real mom” moments that you hear horror stories about.  I know I might be kidding myself on that one, but I have hope.

That said, the one thing that annoys me about being a stepmom, or a stepmom-to-be, has nothing to do with how I will be perceived by my stepchild.  What annoys me to no end is how I am being perceived by other parents.  Or, excuse me, other BIOLOGICAL parents.  It seems that to them, a stepmother has no idea about being a parent, or a mother, and is basically the second-class citizen of parents.  They fart in my general direction.

Well, who made them the kings and queens of parenthood, the supreme rulers of a land that is always uncharted territory if it’s your first time there?

While it is true that I did not carry my future stepson in my uterus for nine months and then push him out of regions that just should not have to stretch that much, ever, it is completely FALSE that I do not look at him as my own child, or care about him LESS because I didn’t give him life.  I change his diapers, comfort him when he gets upset or scared, make him meals, and make sure he is as comfortable as possible.  I give him baths.  I play his games and teach him to color and how to put puzzles together.  I kiss his boo-boos so that they get better.  My whole life and lifestyle change the moment my fiancé walks through the door with him every weekend.  Was this hard at first?  Yes.  Would I give any part of my new life up?  No way.

So it really grates on my last nerve when people act as though I could not possibly know anything about my (future) stepson.  Someone wants to know what size clothes he wears?  I’m OBVIOUSLY the wrong person to ask.  Someone wants to know if he’s allergic to foods, or medications?  Better get your fiancé on the phone, because clearly you are not qualified to know the answer to that question.  And GOD FORBID a parenting issue comes up.  My opinion is basically null and void, because EVERYONE must know better than I do, because after all, I have never had a child of my own.

It’s little wonder there are whole support networks now for stepmothers!  It’s hard enough to learn to be married and make that work, and then have a child immediately in the picture, and an ex, without also having the rest of the world telling you at every turn that you are basically not GOOD enough to be a parent yet.  This whole experience has given me so much more respect for the women I used to consider evil and wicked – the way they treated those kids as if they were their own is AMAZING, not evil.  The fairy tale really paints a nasty picture… although, I have thought fairy tales are designed to give women inaccurate world-views for some time now.

Here’s my point: stepmoms have it really tough already.  We’re blending two families.  We’re dealing with ex-WIVES, not ex-girlfriends.  Ex-wives don’t ever go away when a child is involved.  And believe it or not, we knew exactly what we were getting into before we made the commitment.  It annoys me when people try to say I didn’t know what I was getting into!  This is not me just playing my tiny violin.  But, it would be nice if instead of looking at us like we’re not quite as good as a REAL mom, people would look at us like moms, regardless of the biological link.

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© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

There is one aspect of my life I have been hesitant to mention here: the man I am marrying next spring has a toddler.  I will refer to him as ‘E.’  I typically won’t talk about him because for various reasons I’m not sure if it’s appropriate.  However, I’m going to declare a moratorium on that policy for this post, because… well… you will see!

You’ve got to love kids.  Especially toddlers.  They are great for loads of reasons.  Like getting grown-ups to remember to be excited about candy and the ice cream man.  And forcing you to be calm even when they have thrown up all over your brand-new couch – followed by peeing all over it (yes that has happened).  And, the #1 reason kids are great… they make sure everyone in the room knows when you’ve made a fashion faux pas.

‘E’ did the latter to me this past Friday afternoon.  It was Alex’s birthday this month, so we brought ‘E’ to his work “birthdays in October” cake party.  I was feeling a bit lazy that morning, so when I put on my dark blue jeans and brown clogs, I didn’t care that I also put on off-white dress socks.  Yes, I know you’re not supposed to wear white socks with dark pants and dark shoes.  I just had no real care factor for it that morning – and I also presumed (wrongly) that no one was looking.

So we are sitting at the cake party.  ‘E’ decided there were simply too many people there for his taste, and spent the whole party sitting under the table where the cake was being cut.  I sat in a chair near him to allow Alex to socialize without having to worry about ‘E.’  Did I mention that ‘E’ has a tiny bit of OCD going on?  No?  Well, he does.  It’s really entertaining to watch.  Everything has to be in a straight line, all the time.  Lights have to be turned on and off.  Doors have to be CLOSED.  (Have I also mentioned that I adore this kid??!!)  And, apparently, white socks are NOT supposed to be seen.

I had my legs crossed and to one side of the table.  This made my jeans-leg come up a tiny bit – just enough to expose my white sock.  ‘E’ noticed the offending sock and tried to pull my jeans over it, so all you’d see was the brown shoe.  But of course, as soon as he let go of my pants, they popped back up and the sock was once again exposed.  After this happened three or four times, ‘E’ started to get mad at my jeans and making a fuss, which of course drew attention to my foot.  That my sock was the source of ‘E’s consternation was cause for great amusement amongst the part-goers, to say the least.

So now all Alex’s co-workers know that sometimes I wear white socks.  I guess it could be worse.  ‘E’ could have outed my age, or my bra size. You’ve got to love kids.

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© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.