Zachary

Our honeymoon is over and it is back to Real Life. I have to go back to work tomorrow, and our little days of one on one cuddles come to an end. I will miss that so much.

You have grown SO much since we brought you home, a wee little (well, not SO little!) thing who never cried, just mewled like a cat when he was hungry, whose eyes we delighted in seeing open because it happened so rarely. Now you are really coming into your personality – you babble and talk happily all the time and the smiles and giggles are plentiful. You are such a happy little man. We prop you up in the corner of the couch and you hang out, watching your big brother’s shenanigans and occasionally getting sucked in my the mesmerizing twirl of the ceiling fan. You sleep wonderfully. I am trying not to get too cocky about that, since your brother was a great sleeper till I went back to work, too. We will see, but I’d appreciate it if you’d keep in mind that Mommy likes to sleep foe 6 or so hours in a row. She likes it a LOT.

You are going to your big brothers school, and the same ladies who watched him as a baby will have and love you. I know you will be well cared for, but I will worry and fret and think of you every second anyway.

I am going to miss you so much. Your leg chub, the little fat rolls under your baby chin, your gummy smile and laugh, your milky baby smell.

Buyer Beware

If, perchance, you have a GIANT FUCKING SNAKE, it would behoove you to warn prospective buyers that come to look at your house “Hey, just so you know, behind the door in bedroom number three there is a GIANT FUCKING SNAKE”. This way, you avoid the possibility that someone is going to have a massive coronary in the door way of bedroom number three, and possibly be devoured by the GIANT FUCKING SNAKE before you realize they never came back downstairs.
Just, you know, FYI.

Are kids psychic?

How do they know the ONE behavior that will drive you up the frigging wall.
I do a good job with most of the behavior stuff. I’d go so far as to say I am a really patient parent. I keep my cool, I stay calm, I’m not a shouter or a hitter or a name caller. I can address the behavior without targeting the child, I try and understand that most of these foibles are perfectly developmentally appropriate and respond accordingly. Hitting, throwing things, general defiance…………..I’m pretty much ok with those. I can redirect, I can take toys away, I can put him in timeout for egregious offenses. What can I not handle without going crosseyed and seeing RED?

Spitting. OhSweetBabyJesus, SPITTING. Not even spitting-spitting, just blowing raspberries spitting, but it make me absolutley bonkers. I’d rather he just haul off and smack me in the head, honestly. Because that I can at last handle calmly. Sometimes it’s innocent and he’s playing, and I can blow it off, even while secretly being totally grossed out. Because toddlers are, well, excessively MOIST, and while a grown up can stick his tongue out and blow relatively dryly, a toddler raspberry is as best a little like a summer rainshower. At worst, you feel like you are on the front row at a Gallagher show. Only it’s SPIT, the worlds most revolting substance. Even writing this, I am grossed out by the spit in my own mouth. I have not shared a beverage with another person (even my husband!) since middle school. I can’t even eat lollypops or hard candy or gum – it’s just swallowing flavored spit! EEWWWWW!!
So, with my saliva issues, it’s no wonder that when he spits aggressively, to show his displeasure or defiance, it takes every ounce of control in my body not to just come undone. Last night he was in a benign spitting mode, playing games, and while it was generally annoying it was not vindictive and I just bit my tongue, ducked and diverted, and was sorry nursing was preventing me from a nice big glass of merlot. Later, though, he was angry because it was bedtime and I crouched down on his level and was telling him “Sorry, but it’s time for books and then bed.” Little demon blew a big ol’ wet raspberry right in my face. I have never in his whole life even been tempted to spank or strike him, honestly. But there were a few fleeting seconds there where I could see myself smacking him, and I could see it feeling satisfying to be making him as unhappy as I was right in that moment. It would have been totally counterproductive, and it absolutely would have been out of line with my general parenting philosophy, but the vision was there. I suspect he saw it, too, as I found myself adopting the dead calm, flat voice I heard from my father as a child when I had *really* crossed the line.
“Books. Bed. NOW.”
He scrambled to bed with no further incident. But I know it’s a momentary reprieve. No toddler would ever give up such a sure way to get a rise out of a parent. Hell, I am 37 and I still have a few in my pocket in case my folks get out of line!

Like the Nestea plunge in your pants

So potty training was a dismal failure. Oh, well. I went out and bought some more Pull Ups. We usually get a combo pack at costco that has night time ones and daytime ones. The learning design kind that has a picture that fades when it gets wet. I went to Target this time, and saw the cool ones that get cold when they get wet instead. Fantastic!, I thought. He’ll be able to feel when he wets, and maybe that will help.

So I put one on him. An hour or so later I see him grabbing his, ahem, area and notice the design is different, so I ask if he peed. He says yes. I say “Oh, Drew, did it get all cold? Doesn’t that feel yucky?”

“Oh, no, Mama! I LIKE it! It feels niiiiiiiice.”

Crap. They shouldn’t sell those in Texas. Apparently, they just feel refreshing.

What does that even MEAN!?!?!?

From the “certified fitter” at the specialty nursing clothing store:

“Well, I don’t know what to try. That bra is the right size, but your breasts seem to be the wrong shape for it.”

 

Crap. I suppose I have to take her at her word. She’s a professional.

Florence Nightengale I am not.

Cliff has the flu.

I should point out that I have a sort of weird fear of sickness in the best of times. The word “paranoia” is probably appropriate. Thirty eight weeks pregnant is NOT the best of times, so that paranoia is kicking into overdrive.

My abject fear of sickness is something I have always had, and while having a child tempers it somewhat (Hello, daycare, festering swamp of Germiness!), it remains. I think it is partially just that, hey, duh, no one likes to be sick, but that fact coupled with some bizarre work ethic that means that I am incapable of slowing down until my body actually begins to crumple to the floor on it’s own accord means that I am doubly wary. In the three years since I have had the adorable germ fest we call our Drew, I have called in sick for ME being sick exactly three times. All involving grotesque stomach bugs that rendered me literally physically unable to move off of the bathroom floor. All the colds and sniffles and various other ailments I contracted courtesy of all the kids in his daycare preferring to chew on toys some other runny nosed kid had already chewed on? Miserable, for sure, but I was still trucking it up to work, keepin’ on keepin’ on. No leisurely afternoons on the couch watching reruns of Ellen and bad Lifetime movies for me.

So, poor Cliff. He is really sick. This is, for once, no man cold. But because of my girth and other circumstances – -like Drew’s asthma meaning I am doubly fearful HE will get the flu, my total lack of patience, the fact that I could go into labor at literally any second and then have to deal with thorny questions about exposing a newborn and the rest of the maternity ward to FluDaddy — he’s not getting much by way of tea and sympathy. Instead he gets conversations from across the room, nagging about whether or not he’s on top of his medicine and staying hydrated, and some crazy ass giant pregnant lady following him around with Lysol wipes, swabbing down everything he touches. Sometimes before he even puts it down. If we had Hazmat suits, I feel certain I would be employing them.

I am feeling very pressured. For the flu, it’s best if the Little Man stays put until at least after the weekend. But then we get into a weird place with Drew — he was going to stay at my sisters for the 3 or so days I am in the hospital, but she leaves town Thursday for a week. So if the baby doesn’t come by Monday-ish, then I am going to be hoping he stays put until she gets back and after Drew’s birthday, which is the 19th. Do you sense my controlfreaky side threatening to take over? Yeah, I do, too.

So, zen……………ZEN, dammit! Babies come when they come. Right?

What do those words mean?

The words I am referring to are “It’s just too sweet.”

Hmm? What? Come again?

It’s almost Easter. The most glorious candy holiday of the year. Why do I make this claim? Well………Peeps! Marshmallow Hiding Eggs! Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Eggs! Peeps! (worthy of a second mention!) Jelly Beans! Malted Milk Robins Eggs! Reeses Eggs (with a far superior chocolate to peanut butter ration than any other Reeses item)! Cadbury eggs? Thank you, Easter Bunny, Bawk, Bawk!

I say that there is NO better Calgon moment than sneaking away into a room without a begging child grasping your ankles to slowly savor a row of Pink Bunny Peeps that have been left on the counter to get stale for a few days. Chewy but not fluffy. Sweet, but with the ever so slight bitter aftertaste of red dye #40 (which is why, by the way, PINK is the best peep color, unless you are eating chicks, which have an inferior sugar to mallow ratio and can only be eaten in chicky yellow). Don’t even get me started on the blasphemy of the blue, purple, white, and GREEN?!?!?! Peep nuance is something my family takes damn seriously, in case you hadn’t noticed. 

I admittedly have a sweet tooth. I think I am going to blame it on evolution – humans are wired to like sweets. Rationalization out of the way, I just like sugar. It’s a tough mistress, what with the calories and the risk tooth decay, trust me. But people who claim to not like sweets, or who use that inexplicable “It’s too sweet”………..can they be trusted? Have they lost some essence of humanity in rejecting the life sustaining calories of a Reeses Egg?