Life’s a zoo

Milo is on an art strike

I almost gave Milo the finger the other day. I’m not proud. He was driving me crazy the whole day and I was trying to talk on the phone and I’d just about had it. In recent days I have broken down in tears on a few occasions because I am at such a parenting loss. He whines, he yells, he says mean stuff, he’s too rough with his brother. I would even say that he was acting like a belligerent drunk trapped in the bossy of a three year old. I’ve mentioned before that Milo is a persistent kid. This is mostly a good trait except when he’s trying on bad behaviors. He’s been practicing spitting when he didn’t like what he was being asked to do. I told him he would have to have a three minute time out in his room if he continued. What did he do? He looked at me and spit just to see if I would follow through. I did. He was shocked. He did it again, I followed through, more shock. It really sucks when your kid doesn’t like you. That’s a really hard place to be but I’m ok with that as long as he knows in his heart that its my job to protect him and teach him.

Day eighty-nine

And just when I was about to Google boarding school for preschoolers, we had the best day we’ve had in a long, long time. He slept in his own bed until the Toots and the Maytalls CD came on on the alarm clock in his room. There was no whining in the morning, there was no yelling, there was no walking away when it was time to get in the car, and he was gentle to his brother. He even accepted that we couldn’t find some tiny toy and said, “it’s ok, it’ll turn up.”  I love that boy. We made the day a special day and spent five hours at the zoo (maybe 3 more hours than I would have preferred), but hey, today was a great day.

Day ninety (why not a little hot pink?)

Day ninety-one

Day ninety-two

So now he’s sitting in the tub with every single bath toy he owns and I’m sitting on the toilet with the seat down trying to touch up the really poorly lit pictures I took of the last 30 days of work (there’s no hope, I’ll have to shoot them again) and we’re just relaxed. I have a tendency to make everyone around me crazy and tense when I feel out of control and that is the way I had been feeling, like I couldn’t help Milo and that I already ruined him and that nobody likes my kid or me (thanks stranger at the museum who said, “boy, he’s a handful”).

is this really my second baby orangutan reference?

One of the orangutans at the zoo just had a baby and after about fifteen minutes of a crowd staring through the glass, oohing and ahhing over her and the baby, she took a big white sheet and covered herself and the baby to nurse and nap. Oh how I can relate…These are the times when Jon gives me the proverbial smacking of the face and tells me to stop and that I’m fine and Milo’s fine. I have to remind myself that no one likes being watched all of the time and it can make any of us feel caged. Milo is the kind of kid who feels everything super intensely the kind of kid with a huge heart who just cried himself to sleep because the capybara at the zoo died. Love that boy.

Our first trade! Milo got some sweet kids napkins and a place mat.

On a lighter note…Come stare at me and my artwork at Kanon Collective on 7^th and Santa Fe tomorrow night. I’ll be there after 7ish. Also, check out Slice on 44^th and Tennyson. Our work is still up for First Friday.  Now’s your chance to snag a Milo monster before the under five set scoops them all up. And..if you’re up on Tennyson, stop by the Oriental Theater and check out some new paintings by Chris Smolik.