Cold days, long nights.

It was a bone cold, dreary day today. Eliot and I got out of the house once this morning for a play date at a friend's house, where he acted so abominably, I was embarrassed. He wasn't terrible, terrible, but he was rude. Embarrassingly rude. And of course, none of my empty threats garnered any response. I've really got to step up the discipline. I'm not good at putting my foot down; part of the problem is that he's so damn cute all the time, and part of the problem is that I'm a notorious pushover anyway. Gah! Lately, he has been calling me "Mr. Butt," an admittedly semi-funny, but most disrespectful moniker that irritates me to no end. I keep telling him, "People don't call their mommies, 'butts!' We don't do that; it's rude." He pouts and says, "Sorry, Mommy. I will try my best. I will try my best, but sometimes I just have to say Mr. Butt."

"Fine. Then sometimes, I just have to put you in time out."

Sigh. And then he hugs me and kisses my face and says, "I love you, Mommy. You're my favorite best friend."

See why I lose every time?

Steven hasn't been around much lately; with the shifts he works, he sleeps late, leaves during Eliot's nap, and comes home late, so Eliot hasn't even really seen him for a few days. Tonight he asked me when Steven would be home, and I said it would be "late, after the sunshine goes to sleep and after you and I go to sleep too." Eliot thought about that, and replied, "Okay. So he's kind of like Santa Claus, huh?" LOL.

Today I started reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to Eliot. I realize he's pretty young for it, but I've been making up longer and longer stories to tell to him at bedtime and he always begs for "more, more, more," so I thought maybe we would try working on a chapter or so of a longer book each night before bed. We pitched his igloo tent in his bedroom this afternoon and crawled in and read the first chapter, just as a test run. He seemed interested, though I know a lot of the description went over his head. After reading a few paragraphs, I stop and explain what's happening with the plot and what some of the words mean that he hasn't heard before (like "cyclone"). I couldn't tell if he was all that into it this afternoon, since after we finished the first chapter, he wanted to read Mickey Mouse instead, but then as I was putting him to bed tonight he specifically requested "that book we were reading in the tent, with the little girl and her dog." So we went through the second chapter, where the house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East and Dorothy makes the acquaintance of the Munchkins and the good Witch of the North. She's given the silver shoes (not the ruby red slippers of the film version), and is told to seek out the Wizard of Oz, who may be able to help her return home. So that's where we left off this evening. We'll see if he wants to continue tomorrow. It might get too creepy for him; I'm not sure.

And now that the son of "Mr. Butt" is tucked snugly into bed, clutching his stuffed Pluto dog and a Halloween eyeball ring, it is time for me to get back to work. My classes resume on Monday, and (since it isn't yet late Sunday night, ha ha) I haven't quite finished putting my syllabi together.

I'll probably be having dreams tonight of the Wizard of Oz as Moliere's Tartuffe and Dorothy as Dorine...