A long night.

My two year old refuses to sleep. We let him stay up a half hour past bedtime. We put him to bed and tuck him in. Ten minutes later he's laying at the edge of the hallway staring at us in the living room. Send him back to bed... and again... and again.  An hour and a half after our initial attempt at bedtime he lets me know he's pooped his diaper and needs a new one. An hour after that I find he's snuck into another room to play on the tablet Beeba and Papa got him for Christmas.  (The fact that my two year old got a tablet before I did could be the topic of a separate blog post sometime.) Back to bed and lock the tablet away. 11:30 at night he's up again, telling me his room is scary.

Behold the dreaded FireMonkey

!

"Your bedroom is scary?"
"Uh-huh"
"Why is your bedroom scary?"
"Fire-Monkey is scary, dada."
It took me a moment to remember that "Fire-Monkey" is his name for the humidifier in his room. Okay, perhaps a monkey with steam billowing from the top of his skull watching over you as you slumber might be unsettling, maybe. I go and show him how to turn the humidifier on and off, ask him if he wants it off tonight, and we leave him vaporless, pile blankies on the boy... again, wish him good night... again, and go back to hacking away at the interwebs for about another hour. I'm wrapping up and have heard not a yip from my son since we extinguished his monkey, I briefly considered that mayhap our issues had been resolved and he had drifted off to slumberland following my last intervention. Alas, as I headed to the restroom for my bedtime preparations, I realized things were amiss. The boy's bedroom door was ajar. I peeked in to find him absent from his "big-boy-bed." He wasn't playing in the bathroom, hadn't padfooted past me into the livingroom or guest room. There has been times where he as attempted to sneak into my wife's and my bedroom to sleep on the floor next to our bed, so I check there next... and the little cuss didn't settle for the floor...

No. He hauled his little ass up into our bed and nestled down into my spot! If I wake him, we might just go all night without any sleep! Well, at least he's unlikely to crap the bed since he just let loose a couple hours ago. I go pass out in the arm-chair in the corner. Toddlers are Assholes, but adorable assholes.

As cute as my kids are, and as biased as I am, the Cutest Toddler of the Day award would have to have been given to the 3 year old who's conversation with his father I overheard in a public restroom today.
"Gee Willikers!"
"Really? 'Gee Willikers'?"
"It means 'Wahoo!'"
"Wahoo?"
"Uh-huh, 'Gee Willikers' means 'Wahoo' in Spanish."
Aaaand I try to stifle a chuckle.

That was while I was on a 15 minute break at work... you want to know what no one needs to hear the moment they return to their department after a brief break like mine? "Oh thank Jesus you're back!" Yeah, I was nearly ready to about-face as soon as that left the mouth of my co-worker. Turns out he was just less than half competent and I could clean up his mess in about 60 seconds. It's not his fault he was incompetent, he hasn't been trained to work in my department, but they botched the break schedule and they needed a warm body to stand in for me, and Jordan got the short straw.