{"id":2669,"date":"2009-08-11T07:19:06","date_gmt":"2009-08-11T12:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=2669"},"modified":"2009-08-12T07:29:50","modified_gmt":"2009-08-12T12:29:50","slug":"we-called-him-lucas-sawyer-but-his-real-name-is-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2009\/08\/11\/we-called-him-lucas-sawyer-but-his-real-name-is-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"We called him Lucas Sawyer, but his real name is Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he word chaos <\/em>keeps creeping into my life lately.<\/p>\n

A friend recently asked me if the jump from two kids to three was really that much of a change. After I finished snickering, I replied, “You know how with two kids, life can have these intensely chaotic peaks, with streches of peace and calm in the middle? Yeah. Three is just all chaos, all the time. No peaceful stretches. Just. Chaos.”<\/p>\n

And then my dad has taken up a new pet phrase. He says, “I don’t do chaos.” Interestingly, he seems to have adopted this pet phrase after spending a good portion of his summer with a house full of grandchildren. Coincidence? <\/p>\n

Life with three kids is busy, true, but the chaos comes almost exclusively thanks to Lucas, my just-turned-18-months-old perpertual chaos machine.<\/p>\n

I love the toddler phase, I really do. No parenting phase is so peppered with daily <\/s> hourly delight, with instant gratification, with a deep and overwhelming exasperation. My jaw drops open in wonder regularly, and I am in awe of his capacity for learning, for comprehension, for love, for anger, for curiousity, for stubbornness. He is a living ball of excesses, and leaves in his wake a path of chaos and destruction that has very nearly broken our parenting spirit.<\/p>\n

\"83:365<\/a><\/p>\n

My boy finds mischief the way hogs find truffles — he’s biologically drawn to it. He has a radar that senses unlatched gates and cupboards, and a magnetic attraction to everything that’s inappropriate for a toddler to have. The latter includes choking hazards like Lego and peanuts and grommets, inedible consumables like shampoo and Wii remotes, and garden-variety trouble like pets’ water bowls, potting soil and permanent markers…. and that only covers the michief he found before breakfast the other day.<\/p>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

I imagine he keeps a daily tally sheet in his head. “Okay, so far today I’m up seven exasperating actions to five adorable ones. I better step up the cuteness, or they’re going to leave me at the curb with the trash. Hmmm, what have I got in the arsenal for today? Oh, I know, I’ll run up and throw my arms around her knees while yelling a gleeful ‘Mummmmeeeeeeeee!’ That’ll buy me at least three more transgressions before dinner.”<\/p>\n

Living with a toddler is all about extremes. Or maybe it’s just this toddler. I’m so tired and wired and sheerly wiped out that I can’t remember last Tuesday, let alone going through this twice before. Or maybe the toddler phase is like childbirth: we’re biologically and psychologically hardwired to forget the trauma almost as soon as it passes, to ensure the continuing perpetuation of the species?<\/p>\n

I can handle the relentless mischief, and I can handle the constant repetition. (“Lucas, no. Ah ah ah. Mommy said no. Lucas, NO. Lucas! I! Said! NOOOOO!” Lather rinse and repeat about 16 times every hour.) I can handle the tantrums, both his and mine. I can handle the need to anticipate, to intervene, to redirect, to substitute, to divert, and to mollify on a near-constant basis. I can even handle his new favourite game, “Let’s drop stuff like cheerios and Bob the Builder and things I found between the couch cushions into Mommy’s coffee and see if she notices!”<\/p>\n

(Although that last one takes a Herculean amount of adorable-ness to counteract, I must admit. Lucky for him, he’s up to the task.)<\/p>\n

What I can’t handle? The screech. He’s entered that whining, screeching phase that makes me want to stick knitting needles in my ears. He screeches when he’s vexed. He screeches when he wants something. He screeches because it’s been forty or even fifty seconds since the last time he screeched. <\/p>\n

I can handle the chaos. Truth be told, there’s a twisted part of me that might actually like the chaos. The screeching? May well be the thing that finally separates me from my tenous hold on my sanity.<\/p>\n

It’s just a phase, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word chaos keeps creeping into my life lately. A friend recently asked me if the jump from two kids to three was really that much of a change. After I finished snickering, I replied, “You know how with two kids, life can have these intensely chaotic peaks, with streches of peace and calm in … Continue reading “We called him Lucas Sawyer, but his real name is Chaos”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lucas","category-toddler-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2669"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2674,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions\/2674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}