Those Monkeys Just Aren't Bumping Their Heads Hard Enough

Today you get to meet one of my new dear friends. "New" because we just met 6 weeks ago. "Dear" because we clicked right away and have talked on the phone/ e-mailed around 182 times since then.

Mary writes the blog Giving Up On Perfect and also writes for (in)courage, Blissfully Domestic and instructions for babysitters. She has a daughter who shares the exact same birthday as Henry, so we speak the same toddler language.

She is lovely, witty and fun and you will love her like I do! I'm so sure of it that I am giving her my blog today. And she has given me hers.

To catch up on me and my DMV experience, hop over there. But first, read below and leave Mary a comment. Let's give her a nice Rydell High welcome, friends {and not a hickey from Kenickie, kay?}.

Photo by lopolis

You don’t know me, so I feel like I should offer a disclaimer right now: no monkeys were harmed in the writing of this blog post.
There. Got that out of the way. No need to alert PETA after all.

But here’s the thing: those five little monkeys that keep jumping on the bed? They need to stop. They need to get off. They need to sit quietly and read books. They need time out.

Whatever they need, I need to not hear about them for a good long while.

“What’s with the monkey animosity?” you ask.

Well, let me just tell you. Last weekend, my husband and I had the grand plan of packing ourselves, our almost-two-year-old daughter, a diaper bag, a backpack, two suitcases and enough snacks and toys for a week into the car and drive for four hours.

Looking back, though I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with our college friends and watching our kids play together, this may not have been the most brilliant idea we’ve ever had.

And we’ve had some whoppers of ideas, let me tell you.

I remember, back when my sweet, innocent little pumpkin was just months old. I remember how she’d sit quietly in her car seat, entranced by the whir of the road or entertained by whatever music I played on the radio. Sometimes she got restless, but it was nothing a small toy or rousing rendition of Jesus Loves Me couldn’t cure.

And then she turned one. [Please read that in your most melodramatic voice ever.]

With her first birthday, along came hair and one nap a day and finger foods and talking and how to put it? Oh yeah: attitude.

Actually, that didn’t show up until around 18 months, but you get the picture.

So about that time, car rides started getting dicey. Sometimes trips in the car were no problem at all, but other times, it was a nightmare getting from point A to point B.

Saturday’s four-hour drive was one of those other times. It started out well, because I caved like a good mom and let her play with my cell phone. It was locked, of course, but that brilliant child of mine figured out the exact button-pushing combo to dial my emergency contacts. Those contacts, of course, are my husband – who knows to just let those calls go to voice mail, so he gets a cute babbling message – and my mother – who had to call Grandpa over to the phone so they could take turns saying, “Hi, baby. Give the phone to Mommy. We love you! What’s your name? Awww! Please give the phone to Mommy now.”

The kicker is that I don’t always realize right away that this is happening (because, yes, it has happened a time or twenty before). So I thought she was just having a good time playing by herself.

Uh, no.

Over the next four hours, we went from the Oopsy Game (You know the one, right? The one where she begs us to contort our bodies in order to retrieve her favorite toys from the backseat and hand them over – only to have her drop them into the canyon between the car seat and the door? Yep, that one.) to the Cheerio Game (That would be when Mommy and Daddy breathe a sigh of relief, thinking her silence is an indication of contentment and good behavior, only to realize it was just a result of intense concentration on dumping Cheerio crumbs all over herself and the car.) to pouring all the water from her sippy cup onto her pants to chanting her new favorite phrase over and over (That would be “poopy poo.”).

My husband thought perhaps things would work out better if I sat in the back seat with her. Sure, I said, rolling my eyes as any good wife would do. And it worked for about 2.4 minutes, until that sweet little pumpkin decided she needed to climb out of her car seat’s harness.

[Please insert the heaviest sigh you can imagine right here. But whatever you do, don’t imagine me shrieking at my sweet little baby and threatening to have Daddy “pull this car over.” Because I would never do that.]

Despite this excitement, we finally arrived, in one piece and with some sanity intact.

But when we climbed into the car on Monday to head home, you better believe I gave in immediately and played her favorite song. And played it again. And sang it. And sang it again. And – well, you know.

Five little monkeys jumpin’ on the bed. One fell off and bumped his head. Mama called the doctor, and the doctor said, “No more monkeys jumpin’ on the bed!”

Is it any wonder I’m ready for those monkeys to take a hike? Or that my daughter has added “jumpin’” to her vocabulary?

I suppose it could be worse. She could’ve started singing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall . . .