Kids say the darndest...

Last Monday David came home from a tough day at work in a less than perky mood. That's okay, we all have those days.

Unfortunately, it was also the day that Nathan managed to crawl into the storage area and find David's monopod to play with. A monopod is a single leg tripod used to steady a camera or a heavy telephoto lens. Anyway, I mentioned to David, "You should take that from Nate before it gets broken."

David did take it, but instead showed Nate how to release the leg segments to make them expand or collapse. The next thing I knew, I heard Nate say, "Uh oh" as he held up pieces of the release and leg. It wasn't really his fault that it came apart. And I had warned David just minutes earlier. But still.

David proceeded to struggle to get the monopod leg reassembled. It should have been simple, but the leg kept collapsing on itself and the latch refused to reattach. So he continued to struggle. Getting increasingly red-faced. Muttering under his breath. The muttering became louder, his face redder and a stifled, "F..." came out under his breath. I could tell he really wanted to swear. Loudly. It was kind of funny to watch. Except that Nate was hovering around and you could tell that the more red-faced David became, the more worried and upset Nate became.

I explained to Nate, "It's okay. Accidents happen. Daddy is just frustrated trying to fix it."

Nate replied with a touch of wonder in his voice, "Daddy frustrated?" At this point, he loves learning new words.

Then Nate, standing about one foot from David's face, asked, "You frustrated, Dad? Dad? You frustrated, Dad? Daddy, you frustrated? You frustrated, Dad?"

David, now purple with steam clouds escaping his ears, did the worst thing possible and didn't answer Nate, so the barrage continued unabated while I rolled on the floor laughing.

Finally I took pity on David and took Nate into the bathroom to start his bedtime routine.

* * * * *

The following afternoon, Nate was yanking my chain about all sorts of issues. The sticking point came when he dumped all his crayons on the beige chair while I was nursing Jake. I knew the next step would be him threatening to colour the couch while I couldn't do anything about it.

"Nate, put the crayons back where they belong, in your room."

"No, don't wanna."

"Nate, put them away, please. Mommy asked you to."

"Nooooo. Don't waaaaanna."

A similar conversation ensued for about 3 minutes, with me getting more and more upset with my recalcitrant toddler.

"Nate, if you don't put those crayons away, Mommy will take them away forever," I threatened (or something similar).

A two minute silent staring contest ensued. Then Nate cracked a tiny smile and said, "You frustrated mom?"

Anyone want to rent a toddler for a while?