I absolutely love, love, love this wonderfully illustrated children’s book: “I Love You Through and Through,” by Bernadette Rossetti Shustak.

It’s charming, cute and best of all my son loves it. The illustrations are just like the book cover, large, whimsical, colorful. Each page talks about something you love about your child,

“I love your happy side,

your sad side,

your silly side,

your mad side (which, admittedly, is sometimes hard to read!)

I love your fingers

and toes,

your ears

and nose.”

It goes on, each page with something else we love.

It’s the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day. Go out and buy it today so you can read it to your son or daughter on Feb. 14. You’ll both love it, through and through.

Related:
Product information about “I Love You Through and Through” from Amazon.com.

Scene #1: 10:00 a.m., driving down our street to run an errand, one of the neighborhood mothers was in her driveway picking up the morning paper. She is wearing a red flannel top and bottom pajama set that has tiny white reindeer all over it. On her feet she is wearing bright orange Crocs, and her curly blonde hair is not primped for the day. I do the neighborly wave through the window as we drive by and my son says,

“Clown.”

“Yes, sometimes mommies look like clowns,” I reply.

Scene #2: Later in the day, we are driving through town and see what appears to be a bunch of frat boys in the front yard of their house with a makeshift table set up, made from a door on saw horses. On top of this table are several pitchers of what surely is beer — they are all merrily drinking the amber-colored liquid from their clear plastic Solo cups.

“Drinks!” my son exclaims.

“Yes, son, those certainly are some drinks!”

I walk in the door at 6:10 p.m. after a late meeting at work and find my husband cooking breakfast for dinner. OK, I can dig it. Homemade waffles and some honey-smoked bacon. Smells great.

I retreat to the bedroom to change into my Superwoman clothes: i.e. jogging pants, $3 T-shirt from our vacation over three years ago and baby blue slippers. I start to play with my son in the living room while we wait for the remainder of breakfast, I mean dinner, to be ready when I remember that we’re out of syrup. Off to the store I go. I decide to take my son with me — his cuteness will be a great distraction from my outfit should I run into anyone I know.

We get to the store and he see the cookies. I have to pick him up so he can see the bakery lady dole out the cookies to the kids waiting in line. He knows the routine. What kid doesn’t know a free cookie when they see one? So, I pick him up and smell the wonderous poopy odor. I’m hoping the Dad waiting in line next to me can’t smell it. He probably thinks I’m a bad mom for taking my kid to the store with a poopy diaper. Nice. My choice is to go to the bathroom to change his diaper — wait, I didn’t bring a diaper bag! Gotta go with the flow, if you know what I mean.

After my son receives the cookie, we head off to the baking aisle where I grab the syrup, we zip through the check out line and hop back into the car. Once home, I realize the poopy diaper was a false alarm. The momentary anxiety of the poopy diaper, sans diaper bag, experience is just a wee part of my day, but it’s what moms deal with daily. We just suck up the smell and deal with it.

My son has become infatuated with “Thomas. Tank. Engine.” So, the other night (big parenting mistake coming, take note) after a house full of family left for the night, family we haven’t seen in over a year, family that is loving on my son, kissing, playing and hugging on him all night, after they left. After he was totally wound up. After all that, we thought it was a good idea to let him — enter bad parenting mistake — watch TV.

“Thomas the Tank Engine” was recorded (love TiVo) so I let him watch one episode. Against my better judgment. It is already way past his bedtime. He is already worked up. For some crazy reason I think TV will calm him down. Well, I am right on that. It does calm him down. Right up until the point when Mommy turns the TV off because Thomas went “nite-nite.”

Enter toddler meltdown.

My husband and I look at each other. “Don’t do it,” he says to me as I hold the remote. (background: **CRYING, CRYING, CRYING**) I think for a moment, the best one can think during all that crying. Of course the easy thing is to put “Thomas” back on. After all, it is a DVR, but he doesn’t know that. I explain that Thomas went nite-nite. That his Aunt, Uncle and cousins went nite-nite. That Mommy and Daddy WANT to go nite-nite.

No dice.

We decide the best thing is to hold our ground as parents and let him cry it out. This is why I hate “Thomas the Tank Engine” right now. If I had never heard of this show, I would have never let him watch it tonight. I would have read books, or played with his Little People, his cars … anything but let him watch 15 minutes of some show on TV. Lesson learned.

It takes about an hour (maybe longer) to get him to calm down, but he finally does after some major distractions and about three time outs. He is exhausted, we are exhausted.

Next time we watch “Thomas,” or any TV, it won’t be right before bed, that’s for sure.

So I know TV isn’t always a bad thing and I don’t hate “Thomas” because of it. We do use TV at times for entertainment and on occasion for parental relief, but tonight is an example of when I think we’re better off not watching and doing other things together as a family.

I found a good, quick read about tips for families with toddlers, “Simplifying Christmas for Toddlers.” I love the idea of simplicity and have been trying to add it to my life for several years now.

In the article, the author talks about how to take time to be a family. Christmas gets so overwhelming at times. Add a toddler to the mix and you can have chaos.

I love how the article ends:

Lower Your Own Stress Level

Toddlers have an innate ability to sense when the people they love are stressed. If you are feeling stressed through the holiday season due to over scheduling your time, your toddler is going to feel stressed as well. Help you toddler to have a peaceful Christmas by taking the time to take care of yourself.

Good advice for the moms out there who need a break from all we are trying to get done.