Declarations of a King: Chocolate & Church

It's been awhile. I keep thinking, "Hey! It's nap time! Why not blog?" Then I sit and stare blankly at the computer suddenly devoid of any thought.

Life lately has been sweet, blissful chaos. Rowan is bonkers. When people tell you the two's are terrible, don't even believe for a second you're child is going to wait until two before becoming a daily tantrum throwing toddler. It's probably going to hit around 13 months. Or it won't because you have an angel child that sits happily on your lap for an hour of church while mine throws books at your sweet child's head. This last Sunday was almost my breaking point. Within five minutes of being at church, Rowan had ripped the bow of his friend's head, chucked a book at the pew in front of us, slapped a kid in the face who was borrowing some of his crayons, and pulled out a good chunk of hair that I had actually bothered to wash AND curl. On our way to teach my Sunday school class, Rowan spotted a boy crying in the hallway. He ran up to him and was about to give him what I thought was a tender hug. Instead he pushed the little boy.

I proceeded to the bathroom and let my once-a-week makeup run while I questioned what I was doing wrong as a parent to have such a wild child.

While crying, Rowan ran into the other stall and brought a giant wad of toilet paper to me. He placed it on my lap and looked expectantly at me with those gorgeous blue-green orbs of his. After a few seconds, he stood on tip-toe and started to dab my tears.

This is what parenting young children (or at least, my young child) is like in a nutshell. They spend 1-hour making you question if both of you will make it alive to the next hour, then they do one minute of something so heart-wrenchingly sweet that you become convinced your child is the most perfect thing ever created and forget all 60 minutes of previous terror.

Right now Rowan is napping peacefully upstairs and I am pretty certain he is going to grow up to be one of the kindest, brightest, most handsome people to ever live. I will still believe that somewhere inside of me even when he is laying on the grocery store floor screaming because I won't buy him the ten packs of Rolo's he keeps snatching.

Here are some of Rowboat's current favorites:

* Sword fighting. He loves to bash this slightly deflated balloon of ours right now and it's pretty entertaining to watch him slay it.

* The little girl I nanny. He adores her like no one else. I simply have to say her name and he starts giggling.

* Basketball. Football. Soccer. Tennis. Baseball. All sports involving balls. He is so obsessed. The other day at the gym a little league basketball team was playing. As soon as he saw them, he grabbed a ball of the rack and ran excitedly onto the court to join the game. He was so incredibly distraught when we took him off the court that he cried without stopping for ten minutes. I wish they had leagues for younger kids because nothing would thrill this kid more than playing any sport at all.

* Outside. This one is always going to be a fav. The other day his hands turned blue and I tried to drag him inside to warm those poor chubby hands of his. He wasn't going anywhere. We luckily found some mittens for him the other day and my mom bought him a snowsuit and boots for the upcoming Toledo freeze.

* Cottage Cheese - he grabs it out of the fridge almost every morning for breakfast

* Chocolate. The family I nanny for has a little boy in elementary school who has a big stash of Halloween candy in his closet still. Rowan discovered it the other day and can think of nothing else when we are there. Finding him the first time was hysterical. He had somehow managed to open the bedroom door when I wasn't looking and I couldn't find him anywhere. I heard faint rustling coming from the little boy's room. When I peeked into the closet, Rowan screeched, grabbed a handful of chocolate and dove around me out the door trailing wrappers.

* Saying "MEN!" at the end of prayers. He will sometimes initiate prayers spontaneously throughout the day simply for the pleasure of saying Amen at the end.