Of course you encourage your child to be himself and feel good about it except sometimes you want to yell JUST STOP BEING SO...SO...YOU

There's this bizarro parental amnesia that happens to me every night while I'm asleep and every day while I'm at the office.

I wake up excited to see him. And I go home excited to see him. At the end of the workday, I can't wait to get home and see my boy. I can't wait to see his sweet little face, to kiss his chubby cheeks.

Somehow, in my mind, it's all more sparkles and puppies and rainbows than it actually is in real life. Because toddlers are opinionated and nay-saying and opposite-direction-running. And they will try your last nerve.

But I'll be damned if I don't fall asleep thinking how cute he is and hurry out of work all excited to swoop him up and give him a big kiss.

I met Betty and the boy in the park last night after work.

I arrived and my mom said that they'd lost his new hat. We successfully owned it for approximately four days. He likes to take it off and throw it out of the stroller. Nick had found it in Rock Creek the day before, but yesterday, no luck.

So, I don't know if you've ever tried to do anything systematic like search for a hat along a specific path with a toddler. If you have you know that it's kind of impossible in that you say, "Let's go this way!" And your toddler response by running the opposite direction.

When you run after him and pick him up, he might kick and scream, yelling, "Aaaambulance!"

Because of course, every siren to him is a potential ambulance, and ambulances are to be sought out. And if DC is full of anything, it's sirens.

Plus the shrieking of "Ambulance!" really means "PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN, WOMAN! I'M RUNNING AFTER SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT."

He punctuates it all with the flailing leg kickkickkick!

Our entire walk home was like this. Until we spotted the number code lock thing on the fence of an apartment building.

"Ooooh! What's that?"

"A lock."

"PHONE!"

"That's not a phone, honey. It's a lock."

"PHONE! Hello?" He proceeded to press numbers, repeating hello every few seconds.

This went on for a good 10 minutes. Until it was really really time to go home. At which point he tried to escape into the shrubbery, giggling gleefully.

Finally, kicking and screaming, I carried him home, up the steps, in the door. And left him with Betty, poor woman, while I went back to look for the hat.

As soon as I was out the door, I called Nick.

"Hello?"

I hissed at him through clenched teeth.

"I CANNOT STAND YOUR SON HE IS MAKING ME CRAZY AND I JUST CAN'T STAND HIM RIGHT NOW." (He's always HIS son when he's driving me crazy. Also, when I am very worked up punctuation seems superfluous.)

"I'm sorry, honey."

"I AM VERY TIRED AND HE MAKES ME TIRED AND ALL OF THIS IS MAKING ME EVEN MORE TIRED AND WHERE IS HIS FUCKING HAT?"

"What is he doing?"

"HE'S BEING HIMSELF."