I am so SCATTERED! My mind is ALL OVER THE PLACE. My mental to-do list is about 5 seconds: if I don’t write something down immediately, it’s GONE FOREVER.

I blame Henry. I can’t believe the changes around here. Elizabeth, observing Henry for a few minutes this morning, exclaimed, “Isn’t he a bad baby!” Er, not that I’d say so. But when a child keeps trying to climb INTO and OUT OF his high chair; when a child can open baby gates; when a child can climb out of a play yard; when a child drags chairs so he can get to high places; when a child takes flying leaps toward unsuspecting parents; when a child CLIMBS A LAMP, FOR THE LOVE OF TARGET, things are getting kind of DIFFICULT.

I don’t think any of my previous children were this, um, ADEPT, or perhaps they WERE and I just didn’t write it down before the 5 seconds were up so I’ve forgotten. We never needed doorknob protectors before. No one ever opened a baby gate without being specifically taught to do so. No one stood on the sill of the bay window and took a flying leap toward me as I sat reading on the not-so-very-nearby recliner, alerted to the situation only by the sound of an older child saying, “No, Henry, don’t jump!”

Well. So. Where was I? It’s been more than 5 seconds since I started this post, so I’m sitting here looking confused and wondering what my original intent was before I started talking about how Henry will be lucky to have all his teeth and limbs as an adult, and so will I.

Oh, yes, I remember: I DID write it down, but then forgot I’d done so. Here it is. I was going to whine about how I had to cancel a get-together with a friend today because the weather promised one thing and delivered another, so now I’m sulky and at loose ends, wondering if I should eat ALL the leftover cake or just SOME of it.

But was that really all I was going to say? I can’t remember. ….AAAAAA, don’t jump, don’t jump! *twitch twitch*

I only have two seconds to write this, because a closed computer-room door separates me from a climbing, gate-breaking, button-pressing Henry, but YOU only have, like, an HOUR to enter Erin’s pay-it-forward contest!

Question: If you have kids in school, do you give the teachers an end-of-year gift? And if so, what do you give and what is the approximate value? I’ll put a poll over to the right to get an idea of general answers, but we’ll also discuss in the comment section.

This week Henry has shown that he is able to:

1) Climb out of his playpen
2) Open the bathroom door
3) Open the baby gate at the top of the stairs
4) Fall down the stairs

So. I had Henry’s 2-year portraits done at JCPenney.

First, let’s review Henry’s personality. He’s a sturdy, climbing, copying-older-siblings kind of guy; cheery and stubborn; tackling people, flinging things, getting into things; getting angry and yelling when thwarted; leaping onto people and saying “MMMMmmmmmm!” as he cuddles into their bruised bodies. THIS kind of thing:

Here is what I was expecting the portrait studio problem to be: overabundance of exuberance; getting into things; refusing to stand still; running around; being loud; playing games where he turns around suddenly just as the camera clicks.

Here is what the problem in fact WAS: clinging to Mother with all his claws; using his feet to climb higher; face crumpling; whimpering, “No, no, no. I not like it, camera. No, no want it, pictures.”

After a few minutes of this, a guy photographer came in and started doing silly stuff. Henry appreciated the effort but declined to get out of my arms—even if I sat right next to him. Finally I asked the girl photographer, “What do you…DO…in situations like these?” and she indicated the guy photographer and said, “I call HIM!” I said, “So we’ve already used our emergency option?” and she said, “Yes!” We both laughed and groaned a little.

Then I asked if we could just…take the picture with him on my lap. I mean, it would look weird with a “parts of Mommy” background rather than the nice white one she’d chosen, but at least we’d HAVE a picture. It’s not like we’re shooting a national ad campaign here: if the lighting is nice and the facial expression is characteristic, the background can be weird.

Well, so that’s what we did. And she got some really good pictures, too, especially considering the circumstances. She even got one of the two of us together in an “on purpose” way instead of in an “oops, part of Mommy got in that shot” way.

That’s just how he was. See how his knee is up? He’s CLIMBING me. And I’m all pretending I don’t care about my hair.

As he got more comfy, she had me lean back a teensy bit, and she went in from a side angle and zoomed way in:

This is the one I considered his “main” picture. It’s not entirely characteristic (he’s holding his mouth and chin oddly), and part of my arm is in the background, but it had the elements I was looking for in a photo: the child is holding still and looking not entirely unpleasant.

I got some of this one, too: it’s sad, but it’s cute.

Too sad: look at the downturned mouth corners and the Anxiety Eyebrows.

This one I love a LOT, because it looks JUST like him. But it looks “JUST like him” if he’s “JUST been told that everyone but him is going to visit the zoo, have a picnic, and get ice cream cones afterward.”

OMG I have HAD IT. NONE of my pens write nicely. I HATE the scratchy gel ones. I HATE the skippy ballpoints. I HATE any pen that doesn’t make a smooth, even, consistent line. The finepoint permanents are lovely but they lose their fine points too soon, and also they soak through thinner papers.

HELP ME. Tell me which pens to buy. I don’t even CARE anymore what they cost, if they will just WRITE NICELY.

Here is what I’m working on this week:

1. Serious potty-training. It is time, I really mean it, we are seriously doing this even if we completely soak every inch of the house in the process, I don’t care anymore about “child-led” because my children are apparently FOLLOWERS.

2. Looking for more Dinofours books for Elizabeth’s current obsession. I can get them used for 1 cent each on Amazon—but then it’s $3.99 shipping EACH, which seems…unreasonable, especially if I order them all from the same seller. I wish I could find more at our library book sale section: that’s where I got the few we have now, at 3/$1.

3. Experimenting with hot fudge sauce.

4. Doing laundry: our washer and dryer were out of commission for a week (we’re putting in a second bathroom! See also: potty training), so although I could use my parents’, we still have astonishing piles of dirty laundry. (See also: potty-training.)

5. Implementing new “If All Five of You Talk at the Same Time I Will Run Screaming Into the Sea” policy. I’ve always done a lot of correcting on this subject (“One at a time, please” and “Wait, Edward: someone else is talking”), but I am turning it up to 11. Because seriously: the sea is calling my name, and that makes SIX talking all at once.