Chugga chugga chugga

I'm getting my kneecap gnawed on by a couple of silly baby teeth - it tickles so much & then suddenly it hurts when he chomps down but I can't turn him away. Silly boy, silly mama. He can now take actual steps when he's holding on to things like the couch, the bed, his parents, the incredibly flimsy clothes drying rack that has only fell onto him once & the surf board, which also fell but somehow managed to avoid hitting him even when it smacked the ground right next to him then bounced right over him & chopping directly on the other side of him. I thought he was going to be guillotined by that darn surfboard. It has been moved to a safer location. He's also reaching up on his tippy toes so he can knock things down from the 3rd level of shelves on our stupid IKEA bookshelf. We have yet to figure out what we're going to do about this because my current plan of moving everything up & back just looks silly. This child is really getting in the way of my grand remodelling plans, which aren't getting off the ground at all anyway.

I am in the process of getting the three gorgeous posters that Marcel got me for Christmas framed. They are awesome & I love them & I love him for realizing that I would love them!! They are going to look fantastic on the walls if I can figure out where to put them. They're farmers market posters so the kitchen would be nice - too bad there's about 3 inches of kitchen wall space so no go. Our ever so helpful landlord already have heavy duty nails/picture hanging hardware in the walls that we're supposed to use but they're higher on the wall than I care for them to be - I either need bigger artwork or just deal with having my stuff high up on the wall. It's that kind of little stuff that makes me want to scream.

Back to the subject of our darling son, we are at our wit's end over his bedtime issues. It took us ... wait for it ... almost 3 1/2 hours to get him to sleep last night!! There was much cursing then a panic of "He's going to sense we're stressed and that will keep him up longer! Nooooo..." He was sleepy so it wasn't a matter of us trying to force a wide awake boy to do something he didn't need to do - he kept dropping off or getting very close to it then his eyes would pop back open. We rocked, we breastfed (well, one of us did), we walked him around, we dimmed lights, turned lights off, closed windows, patted his booty, rubbed his face, fluffed his hair, sang to him, told stories. Hmmmm ... I would probably force myself to stay awake too if I was enjoying that kind of treatment now that I think about it.

I can't get the theme song for one of those stupid kid shows out of my head! It's called Chuggington and it's about little trains learning how to be proper trains - they, of course, are called TRAINees. How effing cute, right? Anyway, the theme song is basically just kids singing "CHUGGINGTON - chugga chugga chugga chugga - CHUGGINGTON." It's tattooed on my brain now. Marcel always gets Timmy stuck in his nogging "TIMMY, it's TIMMY. A little lamb with a lot to learn. It's TIMMY." The emphases are all theirs, I assure you.

Okay, Whiny Briony (aka Ben) is making unhappy noises and taking a swipe at picture frames so I'm off to rescue the decorations. I'm counting down the days until Ilse (aka Aunty Izzy) arrives to suffer through, I mean enjoy, this with us! Then it's The Handsome Couple!