M&M's and Eskimo Kisses

Stupidly, but necessarily, I have begun the process of giving Finn more freedom in his little life. That means that the gates enclosing him in the kitchen and family room area are no longer in force during all of his waking hours. This is hard to do and hard to remember to do – I think we’ve had a gate in operation at all times since late 2002. Mike is even struggling with it; constantly picking Finn’s pudgy little bod up and placing him behind the bars again. You can only imagine the protests in the form of an inhumanely high pitched scream. There is nothing like it. “Force of habit,” Mike grumbles and releases the gate and the kid once more into the great unknown.

Anyway, Finn and Riley were upstairs playing this morning while I took care of a few things. After five or ten minutes had passed and the unbearable silence became too much, I went upstairs looking for him. Riley was, of course, engulfed in Barbie world as she usually is – she plays so beautifully by herself sometimes. And there was Finn, holding two brand new, but now empty tubes of M&M chap stick that Riley just received for her birthday. His mouth was full; his face painted with the stuff and it was jammed into every crease of his hands and fingernails. Not to mention that the chocolate-colored goo was also ground into Riley’s carpet in several places. I swear the combination of disbelief and frustration he conjures up in me is something I’ve never felt before.

It was okay. I washed his hands and face and scrubbed Riley’s carpeting (I hate the first stains on new carpeting!) The bummer was that it was 11:10 and we had to fly out the door to get Logan from school. I buckled him into his seat quickly, all the while growing more and more nauseated by the super-sicko-sweet smell of the chap stick all over his shirt. By the time I reached the school, I had the windows open to make it more tolerable and Logan immediately complained about it when she entered the car. It was horrible! I stripped him the second I walked in and we all felt much better.

An hour later, we had a little neighbor girl over for a play date. She walked in our front door and announced, “It stinks in here!” Nice. I hope this is an isolated event.

No there is never a dull moment with this little man around. Later this afternoon, he discovered, with utter joy, Eskimo kisses, which he proceeded to plant on me for five straight minutes. He was belly laughing and giggling like he’d never seen or done anything so wonderful. All I could think was, “Neither have I.”