A few minor things I dread during my day as a Stay-at-Home Mom

1.  Checking Lewis's diaper before leaving the house.  If it's poopy I'm probably in for a battle.  I have not yet found a reliable distraction/incentive for him to lay still while I change him so I am often wrestling with an extremely strong toddler while deftly avoiding getting poop on my hands, his socks and any nearby surfaces.

2.  "Mama, make your truck talk."  In fact, this is a running, inside-joke for me and Ben.  I hate it when Art asks me to make my truck talk.  What am I supposed to make it say!?!?  To make it worse, lately he's been saying, "Make your truck talk A LOT."

3.  Meal time.  Unless it's hot dogs.  Lewis is fine.  He eats anything and everything.  Art, on the other hand, is getting more and more restrictive about which foods are acceptable.  The family rule is that he can have something else if he doesn't like a dish that's new, but if it's something we've had before (with success) there will be no other options.  So putting the food out is rather stressful.  Will I have two children happily munching or will I have one child munching and one child pleading and possibly melting down wanting something else, something else, something else!  And then an increasingly hungry, cranky kid as time passes and he still hasn't gotten something else.  

5.  "Mama, I wanna play with [insert long-gone toy or any toy that is NOT in plain sight here]"  Art's memory is like a steel trap.  He forgets NOTHING.  Months after his battery powered chainsaw had "bit the dust" (ha!) he out-of-the-blue asked for it and could not be consoled, reasoned or ignored about it.  He wanted that toy and could not accept it's absence.  Dude is persistent!  It'll come in handy one day.  I know it will.