Your chicken or mine?

The road to blog silence is paved with good intentions.

First, the happy E updates: last Thursday, E got his second tooth, the other bottom front tooth, and then last Sunday, he rolled over for the first time! Hooray!

Unfortunately, the bad news is that all this fun and excitement has been followed by two consecutive nights of sleeping for less than two hours, despite hopeful doses of Tylenol, and we're not exactly sure why. We did, finally, figure out the cause of his stomach sickness from last post. Here's how it went down:

Last week I got a call from DHEC, the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control. Apparently, I hid my surprise at this development pretty darn well because the nurse said "oh, it sounds like you were expecting my call" after I greeted her cheery introduction with what I thought was a confused "yes?" And then things went like this:

Umm, no, in fact I wasn't expecting your call, but how can I help you?

Well, when we see results like these, we have to follow up with the family and investigate what might have happened.

Results like what? I have no idea why you're calling...

Oh! Oh...well, it turns out the little E has salmonella, so we're following up since we don't want an outbreak, and we'd like to find the cause if we can.

What?! Salmonella??

Why, yes, so let me see...do you have a turtle? an exotic pet?

No and no.

Does E go to day care?

No, he stays home with me.

What kind of formula do you use?

Parent's choice.

Have you had or been to a barbecue lately? Handled any raw meat? Cooked with any eggs?

Umm, yes, yes, and yes. Listen, do I need to be worried here? Does my son need antibiotics or quarantine or to be put in a bubble and taken away from me?!

Oh, no no no, in these cases we usually don't find the source but we like to try in any event. And if he's feeling better, he has probably just fought it off on his own. However, salmonella can "shed" into the feces for up to three months, so be extra careful with diaper changes and around other children and the elderly during that time, okeedokee? Great! Lovely to talk to you!

And then I curled into a ball of self recrimination!

Seven too many

The time we knew would come eventually arrived sooner than we thought: On Wednesday night, the husband came rushing into our room after taking Toddler J to play with the youth at church, as he does every Wednesday now. This was unusual since usually they go right in to the bath since they get home a little after J's normal bedtime. The husband carried J right past me into the bathroom, saying "everything's fine," which was my clue that, in fact, everything was NOT fine.

Turns out, J had walked onto the basketball court just as someone took his shot and then, during the scramble to get the rebound, said someone knocked J over onto the floor, which he hit hard with his chin, splitting it wide open. It just so happened that this someone was also a doctor (he was most apologetic), and he and the husband surveyed the damage and decided what was called for were some butterfly closures, which is what the husband was scrounging for in our bathroom. I, on the other hand, took one look at the quite deep cut and thought about A, struggling to put butterflies on an equally struggling toddler for a week; B, the bloody mess sure to follow after the butterflies inevitably came off at night if not more often; and C, unsightly scarring that was sure to ensue. At which point, I preempted the butterflies and sent them off to the pediatric emergency room.

They left at 8:30pm. They got back home close to 3:00am. It was a long stay that ended with seven stitches delivered under conscious sedation. In between, they watched Curious George and Thomas the Train and came home with some new board books and Crayola shaped band-aids. I'm sure the husband will share the harrowing details in an upcoming post, but J is fine now. He assured me from his drug-induced haze when he got home that "Nothing hurt," even though the evidence of three attempts to put in an IV in both hands and an arm led me to believe otherwise. Hopefully, the amenesiac effects of the drugs wiped away all the bad memories of the night, while Clorox got most of the blood out of his shirt.

Sure. It was only a matter of time. But two is so young for scars and scares this big!

Hodge podge

J sentence for the week, said while "helping" the husband put together a bookshelf while having a snack: "Come on, banana, let's go do some work."

And now, for some random tidbits....

J is obsessed with Easter, specifically Easter eggs. He was going on and on about making a blue egg today so I finally told him that during his nap I would call the Easter bunny and see if we could get some eggs out of season because J really doesn't like to wait for the eggs to boil and gets all traumatized during the process. So I just popped three eggs in water to hard boil them. I may have chosen to do three because that's all we had and I may have then added eggs to our shopping list, or I might have decided there was some numerical significance to the number three...nah, we all know the truth, right?

E is starting to resist being swaddled, which is all well and good for him, except that he wakes himself up when he is put down on his back unswaddled and can't stay on his stomach at night because, well, it's illegal, and so we are beginning to have swaddle wars when I put him to sleep at night. Love that! In other news, he's finding his thumb, which means we might get to retire the binks for everyone in the house, which would be fabulous!

J has been talking a lot about ladybugs lately, saying he's been seeing them in the house, and the husband mentioned that he thought J might be scared of them, so I spent a little while explaining how much we like ladybugs, how cute they are, etc., etc., etc. Then, this morning, he called me into the kitchen to see a ladybug, and I found him lying on the floor...a foot away from a two inch cockroach! "That is NOT a ladybug," I screamed as I grabbed our industrial strength flyswatter and demolished the roach. Then we had another talk about how cockroaches are not cute or cuddly or our friends and how we don't EVER touch them, particularly not the BIG ones. And then I went off to accept my parenting award!

And we've finally conquered our technical difficulties so we have new pictures of E (and J) in the web gallery. He smiles! He laughs! He giggles! He's cheeky! Go, look, enjoy mah baby!

I enjoy being a girl

Side Note: I've recently discovered I have all sorts of previously unrecognized readers out there, including the husband's grandmother/Baby J's great-grandmother (Hi, Grandma Van!). And, suddenly, I'm all self-conscious....does Grandma Van really want to hear about my bosom-induced swimsuit shopping travails?? It's almost enough to make me change my ways. Almost, but I'm too lazy! (Sorry, Grandmas Beth and Van!)

Moving on...should you have forgotten, I am raising a boy. Here are just some of the latest examples of J's boy antics:

Yesterday, I walked into the room and saw J sitting on the floor, staring delightedly at a new book. "Wonderful," I thought with pleasure, "he does like this one. What a good choice I made!" I was feeling quite self-congratulatory until I got closer...and saw the string of drool stretching from his mouth to the book. Indeed, in reality he was smiling in glee at having hocked his first loogie. What a treasure! (To give you some idea about my pleasure in that discovery, suffice it to say that in order to write this post, I had to look up how to spell both "hock" and "loogie," so foreign are these words to my vocabulary. Shudder!)

Later that same day, we went to the near-by park. Generally, we stick to the baby swings at this park, so as not to rumble with the older school-aged children who are having an after-school program at the community center there. This day, however, they weren't out playing, so J toddled over to the jungle gym, complete with stairs with multiple handrails (just for him) and three slides, all about four and a half feet tall. After rushing up the stairs, he was a bit confused about what to do next, until I sat him down on a slide and stood next to him as he slid down. He LOVED this and wanted to do it again, so, of course, he immediately tried to climb back up the slide in his plastic crocs, which resulted in his slipping and falling repeatedly. He was MOST put out that he couldn't get back up! Eventually, after I stopped laughing, I pointed him back in the direction of the stairs, and back up he went. Each time, I would point him to the stairs and then go and wait at the top of the slide to help him get situated, then meet him at the bottom. However, after three or four times down, he abruptly changed direction at the top and decided to go down another slide, far away from me, one we hadn't tried and one with twists. As I leapt over the intervening obstacles to get there in time, because WHO KNEW how fast this one was going to go, he also must have thought "Hey, going down on my bum is fun, but what if I just go down headfirst on my tummy?!" Just as I reached the bottom, his head hit my legs. Actually, I should say his smile hit my legs, because he was pleased as punch with himself. I, on the other hand, was a tad out of breath!

People have taken to calling J a "little bruiser," which isn't far from the truth. He walks like a little linebacker. He's also a bit of a daredevil: he has no fear, no inhibitions, and an uncanny ability to figure something out after having seen someone else do something similar once. A few days ago, I walked into the kitchen to find him halfway up our steel shelving unit. He's almost figured out how to climb out of his crib using a daring arial gymnastics move he invented after learning how to jump on his bed. Our dining room chairs now rest permanently on the dining room table when not in use, since he's learned to climb up on the table and launch himself off the side. He routinely attempts to jump out of, off of, or over anything or anyone that attempts to contain him. Sigh.....!

It's a masculine party around here, my friends!

Fever all through the night

Would that my title were ironic or obscure or, you know, anything but an apt description of last night's insanity. J got three vaccinations yesterday (due to the doctor's being out of chicken pox last time we went). He was very brave, not crying at all. Actually, that's not really accurate. With the first shot, he was shocked; with the second, hurt; and by the third shot, he was really, really angry. He practically growled at the nurse, wrenching his arm away from her so violently I almost dropped him when she was trying to put on the Band-Aids. He was most put out, but just with her, thankfully! (It's her job; I feel no guilt about being happy he associated all his bad feelings with her.)

As usual, they said he might have a fever later because of the tetanus and then again (a fever or a rash or something) 10-14 days later because of the polio or chicken pox or both. In the past, he has had a mild feverish reaction every time we get shots, so I dosed him with tylenol after we left the office, and we went on our (not so merry) way. That evening, I forgot to tell the husband to give him another dose before he put J down, but J seemed totally fine, so I didn't pursue it.

Big mistake. HUGE.

At 11 pm I woke up to hear a strange, frenzied, keening kind of crying. It was so odd, I went to check on J. I found him huddled on his haunches in the corner of the crib, rocking back and forth rapidly. When I picked him up, he felt like he was on fire. His temperature was at least 105 (I stopped measuring at that point and moved into prevention mode). We had some Tylenol, drank some water, took off some clothes, turned on a fan, and wet his head. Then we rocked and rocked and rocked and I prayed and prayed (because what else can you do? Take him back to the doctor who gave him the fever in the first place??). Finally, with a very awake baby in my lap, we got up.

And up we stayed for many hours. He didn't fall back into anything resembling sleep until almost 3 am, and even then he wouldn't let me leave his side, so we both crashed in the guest room. He slept fitfully while I passed in and out of consciousness but was mostly in, unfortunately, as I tried to keep us both from falling out of bed. At 6:30 am, he woke up again for good this time, so I took him into our bedroom, woke up the husband, explained he still had a temp and needed more medicine, and cried that I had to get some actual sleep before the husband went into work or we both weren't going to make it through the day. Thankfully, I got another solid hour and a half of sleep, and we survived today, barely, with an ongoing fever and a desperately unhappy baby who didn't know what he wanted from one minute to the next.

Right now, it's 7:20 pm on a Friday night, and I am about to get into bed. J is already in his, with still more Tylenol on board, and the husband is working late. I'm exhausted. I had a nightmare that J got chicken pox. I think I was hallucinating at one point this afternoon. Let's all be grateful the day is mercifully over....

Big cheese, make me

Recently, while on a shopping trip, J tried a sample of beefy cheesy mac, macaroni and cheese with ground beef. To say he loved it would be putting it much to mildly. He inhaled the stuff, one generous scoop of it, and was crying for more.

So, I decided I would make him some macaroni and cheese at home as a treat, and I picked up some Kraft because that's what you eat when you want mac and cheese fast, right? But when I made it I thought, "This stuff is edible?? It hardly should count as food! I can't believe I'm feeding this to my child!" I went ahead and gave it to him, regretting it every moment. And he loved it, as did the husband later on, but I felt too guilty to ever serve it again.

However, I dreaded learning how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch. Down here, in the south, making this particular dish is serious business. Women hide their family recipes in locked cabinets, guarding their particular combination of cheeses like state secrets. Making a batch can take half a day and the praises can be sung for a week after it's served. Intimidating, to say the least.

So it was with great trepidation that I embarked on a mission to find a recipe for homemade mac and cheese that wasn't going to make me cry in frustration and take a year to prepare. Fortunately, I found, get this, a three ingredient recipe: noodles, grated cheddar cheese, and butter! Huzzah. It's prepared on the stovetop and takes about 13 minutes from start to finish. Of course, I couldn't just stick with the recipe as written, so I added some cream cheese because, well, I had it on hand. I also added some chopped ham and frozen peas and carrots, all of J's favorite foods wrapped in one cheesy package. And it was a huge success, judging by the quantity he ate and the two-fisted shoveling into his mouth going on.

Now, when I make it again, I will change the recipe slightly. For example, I don't think one needs all that butter, so I will substitute milk. And the key is the sharpest cheddar I can find and more spices (or any, for that matter). J was fine with the medium cheddar, but the husband likes things a little more flavorful. The ham I'll probably keep; it was a tasty addition.

Next food update: strawberry freezer jam!

It's my birthday, too

Now, you see this face and you think "Ahh, cute...and needs a haircut." But really, this is the face of the birthday imp who has decided today that to celebrate his birth, he will

--truncate his first nap, resulting in a micro-mini, wholly unsatisfactory approximation of sleep.

--bite into an errant individual applesauce container, pierce through the foil for the first time, and suck out the contents like an efficient and giggling (and, presumably, well fed) monkey.

--demonstrate repeatedly that he can both suck off the floor if you don't get to him quickly enough AND blow bubbles and then spit them onto the floor in a puddle of frothy goodness (which he then sucked back up while I was trying to figure out what was going on).

--act like he's about to say "mama" while I'm changing his diaper, causing me to pause and encourage him to mouth the syllables, after which he looked deeply into my eyes, concentrated...and peed all over my shirt.

--follow up this display by saying "dada."

--throw up all over me and his new shirt before his second nap.

Happy Birthday!!

Rest your head on your pillow

I've been distracted this week, and a little disturbed, so I've studiously avoided blogging about this particular distraction. Also, I'm pretty sure this particular distraction proves once and for all, if there were any doubt, that I'm a bad mommy.

So, if you've been following, you've heard about J's Fall of Ear Infections. He either had two ear infections that never got cured or six or more infections one after the other starting in September and continuing until just before the holidays. In addition, he had sinusitis and a host of other symptoms from fever to chills to runny noses the likes of which I've never had to be that close to before.

And, he often couldn't breathe well. So he couldn't sleep well unless exhausted. Which meant that nights were relatively fine, but naps were nightmarish. So I started letting him sleep in his swing again. I mean, I didn't think it would work. All the books say that babies grow bored of their swings by 7 months or so. It was a desperation move, really, one very sad, sick day when we were both exhausted, and I was feeling like I had no other choice. And I put him in the swing and he conked right out and slept for 2 hours. And that afternoon, I did it again. And again. And again. And, before, we knew it, J was taking naps in his swing regularly. And that's the bad news.

But the good news was that he was taking regular, long, restorative naps for the first time in his life. He was waking up happy! He was in a great mood in between naps and going down without a whimper. We were both well rested and well adjusted and it was fabulous.

And such a bad idea. I know. I KNOW! So when the new year rolled around, and J was better, I decided to bite the bullet and retrain him to take naps. Again. And again and again and again.

And it's been awful. A half hour of crying and a half hour of sleep. Repeat two times a day since Monday, until yesterday afternoon when he'd fallen asleep in the car, and I couldn't subject him to the inevitable waking up that would come with the crib, so I put him in the swing again and he slept for an hour and a half.

And then today, I put the swing away, like a big girl. And I put him down for his morning nap and he cried for two minutes and went to sleep, like a big boy. And woke up 25 minutes later, cried a few times, and then put himself back to sleep, like a big boy. And slept for a total of an hour, the most this week. And I've played this game before, so I'm not thinking we've turned a corner or a had a breakthrough, but it makes this arduous week a teensy bit less awful. A teeny tiny teensy little bit.

And a happy new year!

Nothing momentous to report as the new year rolls in, just a few tidbits:

We celebrated with some friends last night, and after some yummy chicken taco soup and salad, there were many fireworks, set off by the husbands/dads. Baby J was fine for a while, if a little jumpy, but then melted down after one very, VERY loud offering that went off a little too close. Then it was a race against time, to see if, with much consoling and cuddling, he'd manage not to cry at every single firework display that followed and make it until the end of the show. He did, barely, but was not happy, by the end sitting there with a perma-pout that threatened to erupt into tears at any moment. It didn't help matters that it was freezing cold here last night, for the first time in ages, so he was wearing more clothes than he ever has and was wrapped in a fleece blanket besides. Baby J does not enjoy wearing socks since he so rarely has to and was particularly put out by the fact that we made him wear a hat. I stopped short of gloves, not wanting to fight that battle, too, and just insisted that he keep his hands in his pockets while I held him. AND, on top of all that, we kept him up a little past his bedtime! Bad parents!

J also played with a puppy yesterday, to his endless delight. We think he might have a word for dog, since he kept saying something very specific in reference to the little black miniature poodle. He liked the dog to be close enough to pet (or hit rather hard in his enthusiasm) but not close enough to get licked, which he did not enjoy. J also got nipped on the finger by Oreo, the puppy, who was also a wee bit too enthusiastic to see him, but after a few tears, J was ready to forgive and forget. In addition, J got to crawl around outside in the grass AND ride in a swing, so it was a happy day, if a terrifying evening.

As for me, today was triple coupons, so I went in the wee hours of the morning to stock up, this time on shampoo/conditioner, toothbrushes, cooking spray, sugar, and meatballs. Yes, meatballs, which I plan to use for Baby J's birthday or for the husband's sports fest, if he decides to have one. I was so early I had to wait for the official triples time to roll around, because even if you're a store that's open 24 hours, as this one is, your day apparently doesn't officially start until 7am. Slackers! Today we (Baby J and I) also got some sippy cups since we are soon making the move away from bottles and formula and toward milk and sippies. Once again, a whole new world of products to contend with. This time I read reviews online and consulted with friends before heading out to confront the bewildering options (showing I've grown at least I little during this whole "mom" thing). He uses take and toss sippy cups already for water, but I wanted something semi-insulated for milk and something new and FABULOUS to take the place of the bottles, which he will certainly miss. But it will be so great (for us) not to have to deal with formula when we go to England, and I KNOW they have whole milk there! We may keep a bottle for rocking to sleep purposes, but perhaps not, depending on how the great sippy transition proceeds. Da da da DUM!!

Let heav'n and nature sing

For those of you not following on Facebook, my neighbor came over yesterday evening and asked me if my husband had left me because she hadn't seen him around lately.

Now, this was a strange conversation on many levels, as I am sure you can imagine. First, she worked up to this by admiring the baby, asking whom he looked more like, which made me wonder if, in fact, she had ever seen my husband, because Baby J is the husband's blonder mini me. Second, she acted as if she didn't really believe my answer that he was at a conference, repeating several times her offer of "anything you need, I'm right across the street," which, while sweet, implied she thought I was just putting on a brave face in this terrible time. Third, I like how she assumed he had left me, not that I'd kicked him out or left him or anything, which feels like some sort of subtle commentary on...something. Fourth, she also noted while walking away "I know you don't care, but I pay attention to everything on this street," which also felt like some sort of cut, though I may just have thought that given that she'd just accused me of having been abandoned by the husband. In short, it was an odd exchange we had standing in my kitchen, her with her porch broom in hand, me holding Baby J and wondering what the heck was going on.

Happily, the husband did return later last night, saddle sore and road weary and done with motorcycle trips for a long while (huzzah!). And then, this evening, when he got home from work, he shaved!!! Let the choirs of angels rejoice. I was SO over that beard, grown ostensibly to look older while conducting hiring interviews at this conference. I feel like I not only have my husband back, I have my REAL husband back, not the grubby, bearded stranger he'd become.

And right now he's busy putting Baby J to bed. All is once more right with the world!!

Just you wait

Keeping it real on the home front, today we did all kinds of scintillating activities: we talked to Grandeur; we went to Walmart (picture frame, night light, noise machine, freezer jam pectin, memory card, etc.); we played toys; we sat outside reading the mail; we picked up our CSA veggies (more on those later); we thought about cleaning in preparation for guests; we waited for Daddy. You'd think there would be nothing more to say about these mundane incidents, but you would be oh so WRONG! Let's take them one by one, shall we?

Talking to Grandeur and Grandma Beth are two of Baby J's favorite activities. As soon as he hears the dialing noise on Skype, his face lights up and he starts trundling over from wherever he is in the room to clamber up my lap. His enthusiasm wanes throughout extended conversations, but anytime one of them starts singing or call him by name, he's back to lapping it up. Can you be spoiled virtually??

Walmart is the mother of all evils, yes yes yes, I know. My politics say no, but my pocketbook says yes. And I know that's hypocritical and contributory negligence and all that but, well, I live on a very small island and to get anywhere, really, takes ooodles of gas, a big expense even with falling prices, while Walmart is literally within walking distance of my house. In a sense, it IS my neighborhood store. I know, a sad state of affairs, but true!

Playing toys with J actually involves you being near him while he plays. If you build a block tower, for instance, he will instantly knock it down, or if you roll a car, he will go get it to roll himself. He wants an audience more than anything, so it's really not a lot of commitment on your part at times!

It got very cold here last night and today (in the 50s...brrrrrr!), but the sun was out and our driveway was nice and toasty so we sat out for a while after we got the mail. J wasn't sure what to make of all the dead leaves and living grass but he helpfully resisted putting it all in his mouth for a good five minutes, a record!

Once again, I am very far behind in talking about our weekly veggie tales, but let me just say that today we got eggplants, among other things, and I was pleasantly surprised because I had been planning on pizza for dinner and grilled eggplants are great on pizzas, as we discovered during the summer. Look how far I've come!

Our poor guest will be lucky if they get clean sheets, at this point. Sorry guys!

And all we do all day long, really, is wait for the husband to come home. J has become a daddy's boy and can think of nothing more fun than being held by the husband and getting to play with his work ID, which is conveniently attached to his collar by a stretchy cord that holds endless fascination for Baby J. Tonight they're on their own, as I have a church meeting, and they won't miss me a bit. Huzzah!

She's just my type

Oh, the joys of childproofing. Once again, we visited the local home improvement store, this time seeking bolts to, umm, bolt various shelves and shelving units to the wall so they don't come crashing down on our agile offspring. We needed drywall screws and some other things that apparently don't exist, so we had to punt and make something up, again. We figured out how to use something called strapping to secure the kitchen shelves, requiring still more drywall screws.

We also determined that our lovely, large, and looming Expedit bookcase from Ikea has to be raised up over the baseboard, some 6 inches, in order to be bolted securely to the wall. After discussing our options, we decided we would use 2x12x12 boards screwed together to raise the bookshelf safely. Soo, we had to get our 12 foot boards cut into 6 foot halves. Ever had to haul wood to get cut at a home improvement store? With a baby? Awesome! Baby J sat in the shopping cart calmly while we hauled the first board far away from him (though still within eye sight) but protested about the second and began to cry when we went to get the cart to haul it all away.

And then there was the saw. Loud and whining and not much liked by baby J. But it had to be done. Now we can make more of our house less of a hazard, our ultimate goal. And our fixes will not be tooo much of an eyesore, we hope. Because aesthetics are really not the main concern...but I kind of like the way things look, you know? So there's that!

In the meantime, we are teaching J how to tell by the tone of our voices that chewing on cords or grabbing the guitar or emptying the kitchen trash are not activities of which we approve. So far, he's taking this tone to mean he needs to giggle and start to scuttle away as quickly as possible. Not exactly what we had in mind...but it will do in a pinch!

What became of the monk?

Let's talk about squirrels.

Let's talk about the kamikaze squirrels who hurl themselves at our windows, get stuck on the screens, hang there twitching for a while, and then hurtle to the ground.

Let's talk about the squirrels who may or may not be living in our attic. I'm choosing to label them squirrels because we've seen no internal evidence of mice or rats and that prospect is just too creepy to address, anyway (that's my Room 101, people. Deal with it.). They are either living in the attic or very active at night running across the roof. I can't tell, but I only hear them then, when I'm feeding the baby, so I can't run outside and check to see if they are scampering above the roof or (hopefully not) below it.

Let's talk about the squirrels who caper around in our hazardous pine tree. It was clearly once hit by lightening, so half of the branches are missing, and it's very likely going to fall to the ground at some point. But the squirrels love it. And they like to rain the pine cones down on our roof suddenly...and loudly.

Let's talk about the squirrels who, despite their many antics, move too quickly for J to see them, thereby making me look silly every time I shout "Look at the squirrel" and he turns to see...nothing. And wonder why his mommy is crazy.

Knocking on heaven's door

This is turning out to be a busy week, hence the short or limited posts. Yesterday was spent prepping for the coming week, which entails two church functions, one service project, one wedding, and one birthday party in addition to the daily Bible study lessons and, you know, living.

For one of the church functions, tonight's, I'm doing both refreshments and a presentation. The former I remembered and have ready; the latter slipped my mind until this afternoon, so I fit in prepping what I was going to say as I was baking fruity oatmeal bars and making a curried chicken cheese ball (don't mess!). The cheese ball was a success, though I won't do more than taste, lactose depository that it is, but I'd had visions of my grandmother's cheese ball for some time, so I decided now was the day to make it. My mother helpfully provided the recipe, after my father wondered why in the world I wanted it. As I informed him, I have just a few untainted memories of my maternal grandmother, and most of those involve food that she made (her spinach fettucine is one of my greatest lactose laments), so we have to honor our sometimes dubious heritage where we can. The oatmeal bars were a new dish, though I messed up and doubled the recipe but only bought one can of cherry pie filling, which was definitely not enough. What to do? I improvised with some leftover strawberry freezer jam (berries, sugar, and pectin. What's not to love) and some frozen mixed berries, thawed, heated, and thickened with cornstarch. And the new and improved berry oatmeal bars are quite tasty, if I do say so myself (I had to try them. What if they were vile??). Once again, necessity and invention and all that.

Getting ready for tonight was complicated by the fact that J peeed on me not once, not twice, but THREE times today, the third time soaking the outfit I had just then put on for tonight. Granted, this kind of fountainworks hasn't happened for a long while now, so we were due, but each time he let loose today, he giggled uproariously right before, leading me to the terrible conclusion that he has learned to pee on command. And he thinks it's funny. Heaven help me!

Proud Mary keep on burning

I was thinking of writing a post listing all of the "toys" J plays with, but this this woman beat me to it, dang it. In fact, her list is cannily accurate, right down to letting J play with my camera mini-tripod and the husband's hospital ID with attached keys. J is also a fan of the tape measure and water bottles as well as paper of any kind, old credit cards (or the faux ones that come in the mail), a set of plastic baby bowls still in the packaging, any number of squeeze balls provided for us by various drug companies, pens (especially shiny ones), sippy cups, medicine bottles (of simethecone, which wouldn't hurt him even if he could get in), the plastic lids of baby food containers, our now unused landline phones, and, his all-time favorite, the tightening strap on his Britax car seat, which he has already sucked into within an inch of its life.

True story: At church one day, J and I were outside because he was in a mood, and we were joined by a childless couple of friends of ours. The woman produced a mini-football for him to play with (she always carries it around for just these times, which strikes me as insanely prepared and thoughtful of her), but J was having none of it. So, instead, I reached into the diaper bag and said "what else have we got in here for you?" and pulled out one of the ubiquitous and otherwise useless squeeze toys, a red one this time. "What is that?" asked the woman. "Oh, this?" I said, looking at it closely for the first time. "Oh, just a huge drop of blood, of course." If you try hard, you can imagine her horror!

Baby love, my baby love

Ever have one of these days?

The baby wakes up at 5am, bright eyed and bushy tailed and completely uninterested in sleep. Let the day begin!

Then he has a major dirty diaper blow out, ruining his pajamas. Yay, more laundry!

Then, somehow, during the change, you end up with poop on your boob! Perfect for fall!

Then, during breakfast, he practices his new-found talent: spitting. Projectile oatmeal!

Then the day proceeds and, during subsequent diaper changes, he pees on you. Twice!

Then, when you're showering to rinse off the pee, he has an utter melt-down. Naked dash to console!

Then, during lunch, he insists on practicing his favorite activity, "drinking" water. Chunky pear and oatmeal dribble!

Then the baby decides napping is fun and all, but it's more fun to whine. And whine and whine and whine!

Then he tries to practice crawling, remembering every two seconds he hates to be on his stomach and wailing instead. Rinse and repeat, again and again and again!

Then, during dinner, he refuses to eat altogether and screams at top volume instead. Dinner music minus the strings!

Then, by the time bedtime rolls around, you're so exhausted you don't care how many once in a lifetime Olympic records are being broken in the water cube, you just want to collapse. Michael Who?

Really? You too??

You're too late

Yesterday started out innocently enough: I taught, J played with the babysitter, I got home, we both had lunch, we went to the doctor's office. And then the day started to go off the rails, because at the 6 month check up, we get more shots. Lots of shots. And a hemoglobin finger stick, too, just for kicks and giggles (and to check for anemia). J passed the exam itself with flying colors: 90th percentiles all around! The doctor asked him if mommy was feeding him steak. HA HA. You don't think I'm not a teensy bit concerned he weighs 20 lbs 5 ounces at 6 months? Thanks for pouring salt in that particular wound, you lovely pediatrician you! But then came the shots, which he DID NOT LIKE, as evidenced by his much screaming, his total bewilderment at the nice nurses who just hurt him, and then his immediate succumbing to emotional trauma exhaustion as soon as I started the car. So I drove him around awhile to let him calm down, we ran some errands, went home to pick up the husband (who was home from work at 4pm on a weekday?!!), and had some barbecue because it's too hot to cook.

And we went home and played with J and waited for the home teachers to arrive, and things seemed to be back on track, though it was well past J's bedtime, but his schedule had been off all day so that was fine. After the guys had been there a half hour or so, J got more obviously tired so I took him in to put him to sleep. He drank his bottle, dozed off, and was ready to be put down. I lifted him up to burp him, and he woke up...and started screaming. And screaming and screaming and SCREAMING and then screaming some more. I tried rocking, singing, playing, walking, but nothing was working so I handed him over to the husband (home teachers still here for the whole show!) and after maybe two minutes, he came out and asked "where's the baby Tylenol?" and I thought, "DANG IT! Of course! Poor baby's in pain." Bad mommy strikes again. Or at least short-term memory mommy, who forgot that we had this same reaction at 2 months and only avoided it at 4 months because of a preemptive dose of meds. SOOO, we gave him the medicine, he calmed down very slowly, and I managed to put him in bed without touching his left thigh, which was apparently pretty painful since he winced when I just brushed it, even in the midst of relatively deep (read completely exhausted from SCREAMING for a half hour) sleep. In the middle of the night, I heard him sobbing softly in his sleep (a more pitiful sound does not exist), so I went in to give him a booster dose of baby T and a bottle, which he managed to take without waking up for more than a few seconds, so we averted another screaming jag, and he got to finish the night in (hopefully) less pain.

I know I've mentioned that I hate shots, but let me just reiterate that point. These ordeals will be the death of me! Fortunately, the next round isn't until he's a year old, far enough away that he'll forget all about today...and just at the time he'll be able to remember that round for a good, long time. Ooooh, can't wait!!

Vacation, all I ever wanted

We made it safely but exhaustedly home from our trip at last. And while I'm glad we went, our visit was filled with the usual kind of silly family dramas that happen in all families (or at least they happen in all of mine!), so it was a relief to get back to my own house. However, we were happy to see everyone and have Jacob meet his cousins and get pictures, professional and otherwise, with all of them. Copies of said pics to arrive soon in the gallery, so stay tuned....

Of course, one unfortunate side effect of our journey is that Jacob seems to have regressed on many fronts, most notably with regard to sleeping. He was already in a downward spiral before we left, but sleeping in new places under new circumstances apparently worsened his decline, regressing him to a state very much like his early infancy during which he could only sleep for very short periods and then only on someone else, usually me. Today he has been completely incapable of napping on his own even for his customary short cat naps and began screaming inconsolably in his sleep shortly after we put him down for the night. In short, near total regression. If I knew more about statistics, I'd make some sort of regression joke here to hammer this point home, but I don't, so let me just repeat: sleeping = bad. We have quite a bit of work ahead of us.

In addition, while he still recognizes his dad and his nanny, he doesn't quite trust them, especially when I'm around. All our time together appears to have converted him temporarily into a mama's boy, which development is not one I want to encourage. I need a break every once in a while, and none are on the horizon when he's like this.

Sigh. I need a vacation from my vacation. I need a vacation from my vacation's aftermath!