jackson has begun to refer to his dad as “PAUL… OH PAUL… where’d you go PAUL DAD?”

this is most likely due to the number of times i yell “PAUL! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?” in the early evenings.

(answer: when he’s not at work, he’s usually in the bathroom.)

our evenings are hectic around here. i don’t know how smoothly your household runs, but once umm… 4 pm hits here, shit hits the fan and everyone needs to take a time-out, including the dog who licks his ghost nuts.

last night, jackson spent the vast majority of the evening in time-out. between the torturous 2.5 year old tantrums and incessant whining, i need a time-out from him and the only thing that shuts his precious little yap is to have a time-out.

he has a lot of learning to do when it comes to time-outs. i mean, he does it well, the actual time-out portion of it. he’s quiet and knows to sit and wait until i come over and explain to him that his precious little yap is causing my brain to ooze out of my ears and my eyes to roll back into my skull. but he must not be getting the concept entirely, or else he wouldn’t be given time-outs so often. right? or perhaps i do time-outs all wrong.

perhaps i do parenting all wrong.

i’m a fan of time-outs because for those 3 minutes that jackson sits, i can close my eyes. i don’t feel like i can do that during any other part of my day. no, i know i can’t do that at any other part of my day.

and don’t tell me to close my eyes and nap when he naps because i won’t. i prefer to watch BRAVO tv and eat a grilled cheese sandwich. i can’t do that with my eyes closed thankyouverymuch.

so, 4 pm hits and we’re about an hour + away from paul being home from work. i begin to plan dinner, sort through laundry, check email, feed the dog, check twitter, empty or load the dishwasher, check blogs, call my mom, make the bed if i hadn’t already done so, check email, and it’s usually at about 1/2 way through that scenario that jackson starts to melt.

so then we play. all of my attention turns to him. we do puzzles to keep him from whining. we color for the eleventy-ith-ish time. we have ticklefests that go on for only 6 minutes but feel like 60 minutes.

and then i look at the clock, see the BOLD 4:27 pm and yell out in angst, “PAUL! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?”

this cycle gets amplified with each passing day of the week. by let’s say… now, on a thursday, it’s at the all time suckige because it’s almost friday, i can taste the relief of a weekend coming, but i still have two days to go. jackson is tired from his week because now with him in preschool he’s AN ABSOLUTE NUTBAR FULL OF ENERGY THAT SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO MANIFEST ITSELF IN CHILDREN AS SMALL AS HE IS.

he’s irritable. i’m irritable. it’s only thursday.

(jackson totally has my crazy.)

and this is what had brought on the calling-one-parent-by-their-first-name-situation in our household.

there is a plus side to all of this, my friends… jackson has NO FREAKIN CLUE what my name is.

i may not have my sanity, but i have my name.

score one for mom.