so very ornery

Jasper's a boy.

And he's 2.

And he's oh, so ornery.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want it any other way; for what fun would life be if Jasper was meek and mild and afraid to interact with his world??

He's a very sweet, tender-hearted little boy who loves to show affection to others, plays hard with his tractors and cars, love suckers more than life itself, and always wants to be in the same room as his parents.

I love this boy more than life itself and he's such a joy to our family.

But he's so ornery.

Let me give you a glimpse into one of my days last week:

It started out as a wonderful, stay-at-home day where Jasper and I did nothing but play together. It was truly wonderful. Then things started going south... quickly. We went outside to throw away some trash and on our way back inside, I noticed that Jasper's mouth was full. That's never good. Asking him to "open wide", I see that he had picked all of my beautiful, purple Petunias from my flower pots and stuffed in his mouth. At about that time, he decided they didn't taste good, so he spit them out and started rubbing his tongue up and down on my shorts to get the taste out. Splendid. Thanks, babe.

That's nothing big, though. It's all part of having a 2 year old and normally the Petunia incident wouldn't even make a blip on my radar. Several minutes later, though, I was off doing something highly irresponsible like brushing my teeth or something and I hear, "LOOK MOMMA!!! Baber made a train!!!!" in my naivety, I thought he actually made a train. With his trains.

I wander out to the kitchen to find that Jasper had found an opened can of pineapple chunks in the fridge. He decided this was amazing. He had also pulled out all the fridge drawers and many random food items, strewn them around the floor, sprinkled the pineapple juice all over all the items, left the fridge door wide open, and made a "train" out of the chunks all across my newly mopped kitchen floor. I remember saying something like, "wow, Jasper!!! That's so creative! But remember, don't open the fridge door without aski...." as I was in the middle of my very diplomatic answer, Jasper had discovered a puddle of pineapple juice and started jumping vigorously in the puddle. Ok, the time for diplomacy is over.

I scoop him up, take him to the tubby for he was an ever-lovin' sticky mess, gave him a tubby, and gave him strict instructions not to come to the kitchen for 10 minutes while I cleaned up his train. I told him he could play in his room or the hall or the bathroom, or the office.

What on earth was I thinking?

I go back to the kitchen and start washing off all our sticky, sticky food. I race downstairs and get a bucket of soapy lysol water and start mopping the floor on my hands and knees (2nd time in 12 hours). I hear the toilet flush. I didn't think much of it.

I hear it flush again. This time, I take notice. Jasper had been unusually quiet.

I convince myself that it's no big deal.

It flushes a 3rd time.

In the midst of mopping up puddles of pineapple juice, I leap to my feet, attempt to race to the bathroom, and I hear it flush a 4th time.

This is not good.

I rush into the bathroom to find that Jasper had stuffed as much "stuff" and trash and Walmart sacks down the toilet hole as he possibly could, was dripping wet with toilet water, was flushing the toilet vigorously, and was overflowing the bathroom.

"Stop!!!"

I spend the next 20 minutes unclogging the toilet, by hand, as the pineapple-juice-puddles on my kitchen floor continued to solidify. Jasper continues to dance about while splashing toilet water everywhere, completely oblivious, and I say to myself, over and over, "Love is patient, love is kind... love is patient, love is kind..."

He gets another tubby. The 2nd in 20 minutes.

I sit Jasper down and tell him pretty sternly that nothing is allowed to go into the toilet except toilet paper. "Do you understand?" "Des, momma."

I tell him to stay still, that I'm going to run the dripping wet bag of toilet trash out to the outdoor trash can, and I'll be back in a minute.

I'm gone no more than 8 seconds.

I come back. To find that Jasper had unrolled most of a roll of toilet paper and was stuffing it into the toilet.

I shoulda seen that coming.

I tell Jasper that we have a new rule. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is allowed in the toilet. Period.

I sit Jasper in his bed and tell him not to move so I can finish mopping up my now solidified pineapple-juice-puddles. I (finally) get my kitchen floor mopped.

I pop back into Jasper's room, he amazingly hadn't wrecked anything in the 3 minutes I dared to be gone. We cuddle, read a few books, sing Happy Birthday, and head out to the kitchen for lunch.

We both needed a pick-me-up at this point, so I got him a special treat- a sippy cup of sweet tea- to enjoy while I made our sandwiches. Jasper's happily playin' with his cars, I'm making the sandwiches, and when I turn around to tell him lunch is ready, I find that he had filled ALL of his little Matchbox cars and trucks with his sweet tea because "dey were dirsty, momma".

Deep breath. deep breath.

I'm trying to find the good... "He's just being creative.."

As I'm taking my deep breaths, Jasper starts "driving" his sweet tea cars and trucks all around the kitchen and living room, getting the biggest kick out of the "sweet tea trains" he was making.

Ok, back into bed, little boy, while I mop the kitchen floor. For the 3rd time. In 13 hours.

And it wasn't even lunch time.

We (finally) eat lunch.

We go out to the garden to pick tomatoes for supper that night. We come inside. I put the bowl of tomatoes in the sink and tell Jasper that I'll be back in a minute, that i'm going downstairs to get the crockpot.

I was gone no more than 12 seconds. Literally.

I come up to the kitchen to find Jasper smashing all the tomatoes down the drain. Into the garbage disposal. Smashing them with a super human strength and reducing my gorgeous, freshly-picked roma tomatoes to a heaping pile of garbage disposal mush.

Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out.

Our afternoon continued in much the same manner, with an awesome thunderstorm waking Jasper up a mere 40 minutes into his nap, scary the living daylights outta him, and officially making this the longest afternoon known to man.

When Andrew called to tell me he was stuck in a traffic jam and would be half an hour late, I replied, "you are so, so lucky."

Andrew finally got home, we sat down to dinner, Jasper defiantly said "no" in response to one of Andrew's commands. Andrew took him into his room to lovingly discipline him and it was about this time that my dinner didn't sit well in my stomach and I vomited it all up. On the kitchen floor.

Jasper's crying. My infinitely patient husband has been home 10 minutes and already his patience with Jasper is wearing thin, I'm throwing up. My kitchen floor is an ever-loving mess.

And it was at about this point that I decided to drag my weary bones upstairs, crawl under my bed, curl up in a fetal position, and never, ever come out again.

But remember, cherish these days. They go by so quickly.