Mr. PTT

I've been doing a lot of sighing lately. Not somber sighing. The kind of sighing that is a placeholder for screaming. The kind of sighing that forces you to bite your tongue, take a deep breath, and sometimes turn away.

This sighing came about with the new visitor in my home. I call him a visitor because I pray to Dear God, this is just a "visit" and he will soon go away. Far, far away. I will call him Mr. PTT -- Mr. Pre-Terrible-Twos. This friend, is not my child. He only likes to pop up every once in a while at the most inopportune times and say, Wazzzz up??!!! However, he and my child have seemed to hit it off lately. They're chummy. Even conspire against me.

Yesterday, Cub and I went to the bank. He loves the bank. We enter in all happy. He's holding my hand and walking, greets our usual Customer Service lady with a big, toddler, "Hi!". Then continues walking like he owns the place, dragging me along. Everything was all good. Then Mr. PTT showed up out of nowhere. Like, Blaaaahhhhhhhhhh! And my sweet child was gone. I was left holding this kicking, screaming, defiant person.

So I, sigh, and take a deep breath. Finish my transaction as quickly as possible and leave the bank.

Perhaps a little FroYo will bring back my Cubster. So we leave the bank and my child is back. Everybody happy. We've only had frozen yogurt one other time together. And it was just a taste. But since the shop is next to the bank, why not. We go in, help ourselves to the self-serve yumminess and sit down to eat a fruity yogurty snack. Cub takes a few bites, mmmm. Pleasantly sitting on mommy's lap then --- BLAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! Mr. PTT shows up again! Taking the spoon from me -- and he's STRONG -- and manages to splat the yogurt off the spoon all over my face and clothes. Nice. Then kicks out of my lap and wants to go monkey on me.

Once again, we leave and my Cub returns, happy camper and all. We go visit a dog grooming place, talk to the nice guy cutting the dog, meet some other kids, talk with their mom, talk to whoever else all this time and then get to our car. When I get inside to drive off, I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror and I had a quality drop of dried yogurt on my nose like Rudolf the Red Nosed Yogurt Fool! And could only sigh, embarrassed as can be that all those people were probably staring at my nose and never said a word.