The Boy and I go through at least three diapers each morning. The first is the very wet diaper he has when he first wakes in the morning; the second is right after breakfast. Inevitably, there will be a third diaper to change either right before we leave the house or en route to school.
This morning, though, we only had two diapers. Why? Well, we had that first diaper before breakfast, and the second diaper, too. No surprise, the second diaper had only a tiny bit of poop in it, which is how I knew the third diaper would soon follow. Only, I didn't know how soon it would follow.
I place a pre-fold cloth diaper under The Boy's bottom when I change him. I've done this since he was a wee baby; he had an uncanny habit of pooping or peeing mid-change, and we discovered this was the best way to preserve his clothing. Well, this morning, he pooped mid-change, and, thankfully, I had the cloth diaper to, well, "catch" all of it.
But here's what I discovered: Toddler poop is much easier to clean up than baby poop! This morning, I simply needed to flush the solids and quickly wash the diaper with soap, which took about a minute or two. The smell that accosted my nostrils so sharply just moments earlier was suddenly gone, and the diaper was amazingly clean again. (Wet, but clean.)
For some time, I've been toying with the idea of switching The Boy over to cloth diapers, even if it's just for home use, and this recent experience has given me some hope. The thing is, though, I would still need disposables for school, but switching would mean that I'd only need to buy half the disposables I buy now.
It's certainly food for thought. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to wash out poopy diapers as quickly as I did this morning, but I really did like how quickly it all washed out - and the fact that there was no smell once it was all flushed/washed away!
But I'll need to think about it a little more.
The Boy has not been much of a conversationalist lately. This really doesn't surprise me, as I've discovered he likes to perfect one thing at a time. Right now, he seems to be most interested in walking and opening doors, and doesn't seem to be so concerned with speech. It doesn't bother me too terribly much; my mother didn't start speaking until she was almost four, and Einstein didn't speak until he was three.
But anyway...
Mealtimes are interesting. It's not so much the actual time The Boy is eating as much as the moments leading up to it. When I put him in his high chair, he resists at first, then seems to realize, "Oh, that's right. Food is coming." The grunts that come from his vain attempts to escape are replaced by a quiet cooperation, only to erupt again into "AAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAAAAA!" when he actually sees the food coming.
It doesn't matter what the food is, either. Yesterday, he began screaming, "AAAAAAAAAAAAA!" when he saw me unfolding a bag of bunny crackers. He did the same while he watched me peel a banana for him. This morning, he screamed, "AAAAAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAAAAA!" when he saw me get the box of Rice Chex from the cupboard.
No matter how many times I try to tell him the name of the food ("Banana. It's a ba-na-na."), he responds with the same, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Of course, once the food is on his tray and he starts shoveling it into his mouth, all conversation ceases... until he wants something to drink. If his sippy cup isn't within reach, he'll reach for it, look at me, and deliberately exclaim, "EH!" Again, I try to tell him the name of the beverage ("Do you want water? This is wa-ter.), and he corrects me: "EH!"
These conversations make me wonder: Who's really teaching whom here?
I have to write this down or I know, at some point, I will forget this ever happened.
Friday night, I asked Chris to change The Boy's diaper and get him into his pajamas and ready for bed while I used the restroom myself. This isn't an unusal request; for some odd reason, my bladder is empty before I leave the office but somehow fills to capacity while en route. I don't understand it.
My bodily functions aside, as I was washing my hands, I heard a very familiar, "Boy, come back here!" from my husband. Chris changes The Boy on the ground, and The Boy likes to roll away from him at the most inopportune times. I walked into The Boy's room and, sure enough, he was crawling towards the door, clad only in his diaper.
I picked him up and placed him back onto the changing mat on the floor. Chris wrestled with The Boy's legs and successfully removed the diaper... only to have The Boy, now completely naked, roll off the mat, sit up, and heartily laugh at his father. Which made Chris laugh. And The Boy laughed even more.
We had never heard him laugh so much, which is what makes this story so much sweeter and that much more important to remember!
Plus, it's would be good blackmail material in another 14 years or so.
... and it's barely 3 o'clock!
The Boy has discovered a new skill: he can now walk behind his push-toys. (I don't know what else to call them because they're not exactly walkers, but they're designed for wee ones to stand behind them and, well, walk.)
I had an idea he was ready to do it Friday morning when I took him to school. I tried to get him to sit down in one place, but he kept moving his legs, propelling us both forward. When I got home that evening, I watched him interact with one of his push-toys, and saw that he was pulling himself up on it. I pointed it out to Chris, and he suggested we bring him to the living room and let him loose.
Well, he's been wanting to push his toys ever since. And if he's not in the mood to do that, he'll do laps around the coffee table and send to the ground everything within reach (which, you have to understand, is just about everything on the coffee table - he's figured out how to stretch on tip-toe).
The upside to all of this activity, of course, is that it's tiresome (for both of us, but mostly, I think, for him), and he's back to taking two naps a day. Well, he took two naps yesterday and is down for his second one today, but I suppose we'll have to see what he does at school before we can officially say he's back to two naps a day. The other amazing thing, of course, is that these are long naps - we're talking two hour naps here! (Yesterday, about twenty minutes after putting him down for his first nap, I left to run errands at Target and Lowes. I was gone almost two hours. When I came home, he was still asleep!)
Today, I'm exhausted because I was very busy yesterday (though I couldn't tell you what I did), and I've spent the late morning (after my own nap, which I took while he was napping) and the early afternoon trying to get some laundry done. Of course, now that he's napping, I've already got a load in both the washer and the dryer, and I've got a pile of clothes to fold, too, but I can always fold clothes while watching him flip through magazines.
That's how old my baby was yesterday.
Only, he's showing fewer baby traits every day. Last night, as I was preparing him for bed, he not only cooperated but helped while I was giving him his vitamins and brushing his teeth. When I brought him into the bathroom, he still had a pacifier in his mouth. I prepared the dropper for his vitamins; he saw the dropper, took the pacifier out of his mouth, allowed me to squirt the vitamins into his mouth, then replaced the pacifier. He did it again for the Mylicon (poor little guy has a very gassy tummy at night) and for his toothbrush.
This morning, I spoke at length with his teacher about his behavior in school. This is a very sweet child, and he's cuddly and loveable and so very sweet... unless you get into his space uninvited, and then he will scream and holler until you either leave him alone or he finds a means of escape. He carefully observes and assesses new situations before deciding upon his course of action, but if you tell him he can't do something or have something, be prepared to face a minor meltdown.
He also has a good grasp of how many things work in this world. Take, for example, the kitchen cabinets. We have Tot-Loks on them (since he was just 2 months old, courtesy of my father-in-law), which is great because he can't get into them. (In fact, we can't either, unless we have the magnet.) The other morning, I opened the cabinet under the sink to put away the Pine Sol, and he quickly crawled to it after I shut the door, hoping to open it. He tugged at it, pushed my leg out of the way (probably thinking I was blocking it), tugged some more, then stared up at me with his big brown eyes and proceeded to wail. Loudly. And when I didn't open it for him, the wail grew louder, at a higher pitch.
He's still easily distracted (thank goodness), so these fits don't last too terribly long.
But this recent behavior has prompted me to rethink the name I've been using for him on my blog. After all, he's clearly no longer a baby, but very much a little boy. So, henceforth, Baby C will now be known as The Boy.
Though, really, he's always going to be a baby to me!
bor·row –verb (used with object)
|
to take or obtain with the promise to return the same or an equivalent: Our neighbor borrowed my lawn mower. |
There are some things that should never be "borrowed".
Facial tissue and pieces of paper come to mind.
One of the girls at work asked another coworker if she could "borrow" some salt.
Let's not think about how she would expect to return it.
What have you tried in life that you just weren't very good at?
Hm... Where to begin?
- Calligraphy
- Sewing (though I'm taking lessons now and determined to master this!)
- Cinematography (I'm a better critic than a filmmaker)
- Calculus
- Pre-Calculus
- Logarithms
- Chemistry
- Physics
- Biology
- Anthropology
- Geology
- Most other -ologies
- Riding a bike
- Accessorizing
- Closet organization (though, I don't think I've really given this a go, considering that I didn't have
the necessary materialsan IKEA nearby until very recently) - Origami
- Accounting (beyond balancing my own checkbook)
- Surfing (I only tried once and had lots of fun, but I'd like to keep at it... only I don't live near the ocean)
- Knitting
- Basketball
- Volleyball
- Softball
- Most other sports involving a ball
This is what immediately comes to mind. Of the things on here, the only things I'm interested in trying again are sewing, closet organization, surfing, and knitting.
I know. I'm a quitter.
What talent do you have that you wish more people would recognize?
At work, I wish people recognized my writing abilities. I'm a good writer, and I'm an excellent editor (provided I'm not editing my own work). Sadly, though, it's something that gets lost as the only writing I do is of performance summaries in bulleted list forms. It's hardly Pulitzer-worthy, but I'm able to share information succinctly.
After Mom's passing, I started thinking heavily about getting all of my finances in order so that I don't leave Chris or Baby C with too many loose ends (read: bills).
Suze Orman recommends the CNN Debt Reduction calculator, and I have to confess it's my new favorite thing. You plug in what you owe, the interest tied to what you owe, and the minimum payments. It lets you choose a payoff date (say, 9 months) and tells you how much you will need to pay (and breaks it out for you) to be completely debt-free by that date. Or, you can plug in how much money you can afford to pay each month (more than the minimums, of course), and it will tell you how long it will take to be completely debt-free based on that amount. Or, if you need sobering, it will tell you how long it will take to pay off your debts with just the minimum payments. (Mine came out to 26 years and some months. Ouch.)
It's kind of depressing the first time you do it because you have to look at the numbers (and admit to them), but when you see that it's actually possible to pay off your debts in this lifetime (or even your pet goldfish's lifetime), it's kind of encouraging.
And when you check your credit card statements each month and see the balance and the interest rate dropping (which, of course, warrants a recalculation), it kind of gives you hope!
The battle for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination is making me very anxious. Very anxious, and very, very sad.
Let's face it: On November 11, I will be following party lines when I submit my vote. I already know this.
When Florida had their "primary" (pointless as it was), I was planning on placing my vote for Hillary. I say "planning" because I didn't have the opportunity. The baby got sick, there was spit-up avocado by my front door... it wasn't the best scene when I came home from work. Not that it would have made a difference, anyway, because Florida (once again) flubbed the democratic process and never got approval from the DNC to move up the primary. But I digress.
I like Hillary. As a person, I think she would be an interesting woman to join for tea. I think she's intelligent, strong, admirable (for some qualities - after all, no one is completely admirable), and shrewd. I like a lot of her ideas, and I think she would do a fine job in the White House.
This is not to say, however, that I think less of Barack Obama. I like a lot of his ideas, too, and those of John Edwards, which is precisely why I knew, even before the primaries began, that I would be voting along party lines come November 11.
But the news this morning, when she "misspoke" (or, rather, outright lied) about a 1996 visit to Bosnia, really saddened me. It was that moment that I had to admit something that had been in the back of my mind for some time now.
It's time for Hillary to call it a day, to preserve whatever dignity she has left, and bow out gracefully. When there are Democrats saying they would cross party lines and vote for McCain if she were to win the Democratic nomination, it's time to back down.
It makes me sad, of course, because I would love to see her in the White House. I really do think the world of her.
But I also think it's time.
