I read on another blog (I think it may have been Incoherent Ramblings of a Punk in Suburbia, but I’m not positive) that two-year olds may be terrible, but three-year olds are assholes. It’s true. Peanut is generally a sweet, affectionate child, but man, he often has a rotten attitude.

We’re apparently revisiting the time of tantrums. He’s honed his tantruming into a fine art. We visited Dinosaur World a couple of weeks ago. I knew I was in for trouble when he started dozing on the way there. He’d close his eyes, head bob, and pop his eyes open and ask “Arewethereyetarewethereyet?” This went on until indeed, we were there. We stayed and played for a couple of hours. He held my hand near the scary T. rex model. He dug in the boneyard sand. He loved the scary, designed-for-older kids playground and needed minimal spotting from me to make sure he didn’t fall off any of the 5+ foot-high equipment. I gave him several warnings that departure time was looming, gave him a final “last time” on one of the rickety climbing things, then told him it was time to go. Ohmygod. He screamed. He balled his fists and went rigid. And screamed even louder. I had to carry/drag his little banshee ass outta there. He cried and yelled for another 20 minutes of the ride home until he finally succumbed to sleep.

We had a repeat over using the potty a couple mornings ago and again that night over brushing his teeth/putting on jammies.

I’ve also been called “crusty booger” and “You crack…crack of BUTT” (OK, the phrasing on that was hilarious).

When my tired, acid-refluxy, hormonal pregnant ass is ready to sell him to the Gypsies, he says: “I need to give you another hug and kiss. And kiss my baby.” Twice.

I get a phone call at work. I hear:

“Tell Mommy what you told me.”

“I (muffled) Daddy (muffled).”

“Say it again, please.”

“I oooo Daddy ace.”

“Huh?”

“He said he’s going to poot in Daddy’s face.”

“Yeah. I gonna poot in Daddy’s face.”

“Oh.” Giggle, giggle.

Apparently the two of them were sword “fighting” and Peanut pointed his finger at Hubby and said “I gonna poot in your face.”

Later in bed, Peanut made good on his threat.

We spent a lovely 3-day weekend camping at a beachside state park. The campground was in a beautiful wooded area. The temperatures were cool and comfortable which kept the bugs to a minimum. Peanut loved the campground’s playground. Even a big face-plant onto the playground mulch, which resulted in several scratches, didn’t keep him down for long. He loved digging in the beach sand and looking for stars at night. We met several other folks with campers similar to ours and had fun hanging out with them.

Peanut also informed us of a new term: fire bees. Fire bees are the glowing things (sparks) that fly up out of a campfire. Too cute.

We managed a quick trip to visit Mom (only an hour from the park). We picked up some pajamas for her on our way (because the 2 sets she went to the hospital with are long gone). Then we took her into town for a pair of flip flops. She has a nasty infection between two toes and doesn’t think it’s getting any better. She’s on antibiotics and an ointment. I spoke with the doctor and ward nurse who think it’s slowly healing.

I’m really pissed about her clothes disappearing. Apparently she didn’t receive all the stuff we brought a couple weeks ago for her birthday, so I wrote up a list describing in detail everything we brought. I understand that other patients steal and that things get lost in the laundry, but we’ve sent her somewhere around 20 pairs of socks and underwear and multiple outfits. The nurses hold any candy we send and she either doesn’t get any or the bags are mysteriously half-empty when she does get some. I've mentioned the lost items a few times to the social worker and a nurse and always get the same answer: it happens, label everything. I know, and I do. The problem, though, is that for a patient who has mental issues (which sometimes express as paranoia) not feeling secure about your things makes your frame of mind even worse. Mom's stuff disappearing stresses her out - a lot. She has little control over her days and she clings to what little control and privacy she does have. I may try to address this with the hospital administration once she's released, but I really don't want to go there while she's still in. I doubt it will matter anyway, but at least I'll feel like I've done something. I also want to make them aware that some of the staff are rough with patients, especially the older, less mobile ones. Again, it's something I'd prefer to do once she's out.

As I’ve mentioned before, I loathe W@l-M@rt. They discriminate when advancing employees into managerial positions, put small local competition out of business, block employees from unionizing (often by dissolving departments), and sell cheap crap. The Selzach family shops there as a last resort when we can’t find an item elsewhere or when we have a late night emergency and it’s the only place open. I also don’t like much of their clientele. Their reek of cigarettes and beer says it all.

We recently picked up a few items at our neighborhood retail hell. I noticed a little girl picking candy from the display at the back of our lane’s cash register and thought little of it. The cashier noticed that the girl had opened a pack of gum, put it back, then joined her mother in the next lane over. So the cashier pulled the gum out and handed it to the mom telling her that she had to pay for it since it was opened. As soon as our cashier went back to scanning our stuff, the mom slipped the gum back into the display. So the cashier again told her she needed to pay for it and received dirty, glares from the mom. She gave up and totaled our purchase.

WTF? If you ignore your kids and they break or damage something, you’re responsible for it, period. And when you get busted for being a sneak, don’t get a ‘tude with the person doing their job. Discipline your child, while you’re at it…or better yet, pay attention to what your kid and her sticky fingers are doing.

My infrequent and shoddy blogging has become even more infrequent. I do the vast majority of writing during lunch breaks. We've had several new people join the lab, so my once private office is now shared by several coworkers. Privacy no more.

We have a great group of people in the lab...except one. She's condescending and rude to those she deems "below" her on the pecking order. She has a PhD, which does give some superiority, but she's a post-doc: a temporary employee. Post-doc positions are transitional: a job for a post-graduate before they move on to a permanent position, usually as faculty or in industry. So, she's more highly educated than the rest of us schlubs (except the new-new post-doc, and his arrival definitely ruffled some feathers), but two of us apparently have more experience in our research area than she does. It makes for interesting dynamics.

She leaves me alone, I think because I'm the senior person in the lab and work on an unrelated project (although I have helped on various parts of her project over the years and am pretty familiar with the applied stuff. Not so much on the molecular work.) But she's rude and sometimes downright nasty to two of the other employees. I don't know if I should step in. I supervise their time, but their work is delegated to them by our big boss and the post-doc. Some I'm a supervisor-light. I've debated bringing all this up with the big boss, but I'm not sure if it's my place. I'm also pretty sure post-doc has taken several days off without reporting the time (OK, I know she didn't report the time and doubt she made it up over weekends, but can't prove it) and don't know if I should address this with the big boss, too. If it was any other employee I'd confront them and then give the boss a heads-up. Since she's not under my supervision, I don't want to be the lab rat (haha, get it?) Big boss is a fairly stress-out and busy guy, so I don't want to add bullshit to his responsibilities.

She's been here for over a half year and has little to show for it. I think the big boss has figured that out and is leaning on her to produce data for an upcoming meeting and paper. Bottom line is I think she doesn't have as much knowledge as she claims to and covers by doling out her work to the other employees and by being absolutely disorganized. Sigh.

I've been feeling Bean moving for about 4 weeks now. The movements have become more definite in the past couple of weeks. I love feeling the little bumps and nudges.

Every now and then Peanut decides to talk to the baby. He'll say "Baby!" to my tummy, then go on his merry way.

Peanut's big news: he's mostly potty trained! He's been wearing undies all day for 2 weeks with surprisingly few accidents. We did put him in a pull-up for the long trip to visit Mom, but he used the potty anyway. He's good about telling us when he needs to go. I ask every now and then if he needs the potty, but the answer is always a no.