Jack's favorite new word this week is "Uh-Oh," but with a slight pause and then emphasis on the Oh, so it's "Uh- Oh!" This phrase is one we hear regularly, in part because there are so many opportunities for him to use it.....
"Uh- Oh!" The most frequent usage comes when he drops something on the floor from his high chair. Considering about 90 percent of what he drops he does intentionally, I'm working on a theory that says he drops things in part so he can practice saying "Uh- Oh!" Bits of waffle, crunchy goldfish crackers, his milk, anything he doesn't particularly care for...The "Uh- Oh!" is accompanied by him leaning over the side of the chair to watch what he's just dropped, sometimes before it even hits the floor. When he gets tired of saying it will food no longer end up on the floor? We can hope.
"Uh- Oh!" It gets windy at times in Denver, turning an otherwise warm sunshine-y day into a rather colder afternoon than it appears. A windy day often means that Jack's hat ("Hat!" he says) won't always stay on his head ("Head," he says, slapping a hand to it by way of emphasis). A stroller ride, then, can turn into a grand opportunity to say "Uh- Oh!" when his hat goes blowing off his head. And if the wind doesn't do its job, Jack will obligingly give it a hand, taking his hat off and dropping it to the sidewalk. "Uh- " "Jack, that wasn't an accident - YOU did that! Yes, you did!" "-Oh!"
"Uh- Oh!" Jack manages to grab his clean diaper and drop it over the edge of the changing table onto the floor. This forces me to 1) make sure his soiled diaper is beyond his reach, 2) use one hand to hold him in place, and 3) stoop down to get the clean diaper with the other hand. Not a big deal, really, but accompanied by a totally unsympathetic little "Uh- Oh!" it can be a trifle grating.
"Uh- Oh!" Jack drops the phone. The TV remote. The car keys. Anything else we're careless enough to leave at his level. Or I can't quite get his sneakers on. Or his jacket gets stuck halfway over his head. (This one is a somewhat muffled, "uhh-ohhh.) Or he turns his milk upside down and starts pouring it slowly onto his tray.
So I'm waiting for the day his new favorite words are "all gone," "put away," or maybe, "play quietly on my own for half an hour while Mom and Dad pass out on the couch on a Saturday afternoon." I'll keep you posted.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
5:58....5:59....6:00. Previously on....
24 is one of my two favorite TV shows these last couple of years, so this blog entry will be an homage to it. Plus, it gives me a chance to take you all through Jack Parker's evening in real time....
Previously in Jack Parker's life: He was born, he cried, he slept, he got bigger, he ate, he sat up, he started crawling, he made some little friends, he endlessly entertained his parents and their families, he made a lot of poopy diapers.
6:00 p.m. At the dinner table, Andy and Emily alternately eat their food and prompt Jack to eat. Emily pleads with Jack to eat a pea for Mommy. He finally complies.
6:01. Jack says "Hi!" for about 10 seconds straight, smiling all the while.
6:02. Jack has, on his insistence, been handed the entire plastic bottle of Heinz ketchup. He beams as he attempts to hold it upright on his tray. It's about half as tall as he is.
6:04. Charlie gallantly eats some peas off the floor that Jack has rejected.
6:05. Jack eats some more peas. Emily claps. Jack claps back. Andy continues to eat his french fries and take notes.
6:06. Jack, with a fistful of french fry, says, "E Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya!"
6:07. Jack's attempt to eat directly from the big bottle of ketchup goes poorly. Emily retrieves it and puts it away. Jack looks after it for a moment, then goes back to shoving fish fillets into his mouth.
6:11. While Emily gets more milk, Jack eats a huge spoonful of peas from his Daddy. Oh yeah.
6:12. Jack drinks milk. He typically raises the cup (with a spout top) up with both hands, tips his head back, and guzzles it down. Then he slams it down with a slight gasp. Good milk! The burp will come shortly.
6:13. Jack and Emily say "Car" back and forth for about two minutes. A few days ago it was "Ca," so his vocabulary is improving.
6:15. Jack waves his arms happily. His spoon remains clenched in his grip, at least for the moment.
6:17. Jack has drifted into the stage where he either looks like he's considering throwing food on the floor or skipping right past the consideration stage to simply doing it. That's Emily's cue to go start his bath, while I begin the process of wheeling him from the dining room back into the kitchen, in hopes that more of the food ends up on the floor than on the dining room rug (which we're planning to throw out into the alley this week anyway; it's lived a good and colorful life).
6:18. I remove Jack's shoes and socks while he's still in the high chair, followed by his shirt, which I shake out over the sink. A few peas and french fry parts tumble out. Sometimes I'll shake Jack himself out over the sink, but he's getting a bath anyway so may as well get those clothes off.
6:20. Removing his pants and onesie for the bath, I immediately perceive he has a poopy diaper. Since I'm giving the bath, Emily gets to run Jack to the changing table to clean him up a bit, and since he loves his bath, he wails at the prospect of being denied it. Just a delay, buddy, just a delay.
6:21. Emily brings Jack back to me and I plunk him into the bath. Charlie barges in, and suddenly the four of us are crushed together in the roughly 25 square feet of our bathroom (not counting the tub, but aside from Charlie, neither of us really wants to get in there with Jack). If there's a way to train a dog to understand "GET OUT," we haven't found it yet.
6:22. Emily and Charlie are gone, and even though 90 percent of Jack's bath toys are in the tub with him, it's that last 10 percent that he really cares about. He points determinedly until I've retrieved his rubber ducky - one of three - and this canvas ducky that comes with a surfboard. He never seems overly interested in these toys when they're in the tub, preferring to play with the faucet, the stopper, the washcloth, and the container I use to give him his shampoo, but whatever. I dearly want to open a side business designing bath toys, because most of them we've found seem pretty lousy to me. All of them are ducks and numbers and plastic fishies and stuff, but where are the tug boats? Where are the deep sea divers? What about the Plesiosaurs? I tell you, somewhere these toys must exist, and if they don't, I'd like to help design them. Get those things into production, stat - Jack and I need them for our tub time.
6:25. The shampoo has been managed without incident - I can't get over how, totally drenched and with his hair in his eyes and his little lip slightly pouty, he reminds me of my niece, Laura, as a baby. The rest of the bath is generally watching or helping him play and washing spare limbs when there's the opportunity. It usually goes pretty well.
6:35. Time to get out, but Jack, who wailed his way through his first-ever bath, now wails if made to leave. Since this will happen if the bath is 15 minutes or 15 hours, I tell Jack to pull out the stopper, which he complies with until he sees where this is going and tries to put it back in. But it's too late, and in the face of his disappointment, I lift him out, wrap him in the towel - naturally getting soaked myself, I have no idea how to avoid it - and then entertain him by making faces at him in the mirror.
6:37. Dried and diapered, Jack isn't unhappy anymore - he's ready for playing. I manage to get him lotioned up - it's dry here in Colorado, tough on his little skin - and into his navy blue pajama bottoms, which remind me of Spider-Man's costume. As he plays with the nose suction thing we'll be using later, I pull the top over his head and then turn him loose on the floor.
6:39. Jack crawls through all of his various toys, bumping them, hitting them, making them play music. He hits the mini-piano keys while the school bus, farm, and Pooh toy make noise in the background. Now I need a nice bath.
6:40. Emily comes in and we suction his nose. This experience is somewhat similar, I imagine, to shoeing a horse or branding a calf. He wrestles about while I try to simultaneously keep his arms immobilized, his head steady, and his neck slightly tipped back. On a good night, we get this done without making him cry too much or accidentally giving him a nose bleed with the suction. It happens on occasion. But there's not as much going on up there as there was the past few nights, so we think he's getting better.
6:44. Jack pushes repeatedly on the farm's work bench, which plays the sound of a hammer hammering and ends with Old MacDonald, presumably, yelping in pain. Jack used to laugh when we yelped; now he does it right along with Old MacDonald. Pretty funny.
6:47. I brush Jack's teeth. He's agreeable, except on the occasions he doesn't want to give up the toothbrush. But, success. I think of the videos I saw as a kid of the thick, ribbon-like floss SCRAPING back and forth between the tooth and gum, while a tooth-shaped animated character smiles wisely. That thing always freaked me out.
6:49. We watch Emily and Charlie go out the door for a brief evening walk. Jack waves bye-bye, as do I.
6:51. We've finally reached book time, which usually means Jack pulling books off the shelf and dumping them in my lap, one by one. Barnyard Dance. Dinosaur's Binkit. Big Little Book for Moms (I don't read him this one, but he gives it to me). Big Little Book for Dads. Big Red Barn. I Am a Bunny. (This is the sweetest book ever.) Good Night Moon. Harold and the Purple Crayon. (Two of my favorites.) Recently Jack's favorite was "But Not the Hippopotamus"; now it appears to be Dinosaur's Binkit, the touching tale of a huge dinosaur who doesn't want to go to bed without his binkit, finally getting it back when a little kid offers it to him as a handkerchief. For the kid's sake I hope he didn't utilize it that way first, as the dinosaur is pretty attached to it. There are pop-up pages including one where the dinosaur's mouth go's ARRR, ARRR, ARRR, and I let it bite my finger while yelping in pain, which Jack takes great amusement in.
6:53. Jack crawls out of the room. On most nights he's headed for the back stairs, or his toys in the living room, or maybe hoping to get back in the bathtub.
6:54. I retrieve him. I give him some water, which he gulps down. And burps. And smiles.
6:55. The night really isn't complete until you've read Dinosaur's Binkit a third time.
6:57. Jamberry. Good Night Moon again. I Am a Bunny. "I chase the butterflies, and the butterflies chase me."
7:05. 24 is running over a bit tonight. Jack needs more stories, so I oblige him with the touch and feel dinosaur book, the touch and feel wild animals book, and Good Night Gorilla.
7:10. He's starting to put his head on my shoulder, so I turn out the light and start singing the book whose words I know full well from its previous history as one of his favorites.
Ten little ladybugs sitting on a vine
Along came a grasshopper and then there were nine
Nine little ladybugs skipping on a gate
Along came a frog and then there were eight
The first time I read it I thought, gee, this is a little morbid. Except I got to the end and suddenly they were all there, all 10, riding on the backs of their friends the grasshopper and the frog and the bird and so on and so forth. Whew!
7:15. Jack’s almost asleep now. Still singing – sometimes I switch to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” as I heard Emily singing once, if I run out of Ladybugs -- I lower him into his crib and slip out of the room.
One little ladybug sitting all alone. A breeze came up and then – with all of her friends and family right there with here, no worries – she was home. G’night.
Previously in Jack Parker's life: He was born, he cried, he slept, he got bigger, he ate, he sat up, he started crawling, he made some little friends, he endlessly entertained his parents and their families, he made a lot of poopy diapers.
6:00 p.m. At the dinner table, Andy and Emily alternately eat their food and prompt Jack to eat. Emily pleads with Jack to eat a pea for Mommy. He finally complies.
6:01. Jack says "Hi!" for about 10 seconds straight, smiling all the while.
6:02. Jack has, on his insistence, been handed the entire plastic bottle of Heinz ketchup. He beams as he attempts to hold it upright on his tray. It's about half as tall as he is.
6:04. Charlie gallantly eats some peas off the floor that Jack has rejected.
6:05. Jack eats some more peas. Emily claps. Jack claps back. Andy continues to eat his french fries and take notes.
6:06. Jack, with a fistful of french fry, says, "E Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya!"
6:07. Jack's attempt to eat directly from the big bottle of ketchup goes poorly. Emily retrieves it and puts it away. Jack looks after it for a moment, then goes back to shoving fish fillets into his mouth.
6:11. While Emily gets more milk, Jack eats a huge spoonful of peas from his Daddy. Oh yeah.
6:12. Jack drinks milk. He typically raises the cup (with a spout top) up with both hands, tips his head back, and guzzles it down. Then he slams it down with a slight gasp. Good milk! The burp will come shortly.
6:13. Jack and Emily say "Car" back and forth for about two minutes. A few days ago it was "Ca," so his vocabulary is improving.
6:15. Jack waves his arms happily. His spoon remains clenched in his grip, at least for the moment.
6:17. Jack has drifted into the stage where he either looks like he's considering throwing food on the floor or skipping right past the consideration stage to simply doing it. That's Emily's cue to go start his bath, while I begin the process of wheeling him from the dining room back into the kitchen, in hopes that more of the food ends up on the floor than on the dining room rug (which we're planning to throw out into the alley this week anyway; it's lived a good and colorful life).
6:18. I remove Jack's shoes and socks while he's still in the high chair, followed by his shirt, which I shake out over the sink. A few peas and french fry parts tumble out. Sometimes I'll shake Jack himself out over the sink, but he's getting a bath anyway so may as well get those clothes off.
6:20. Removing his pants and onesie for the bath, I immediately perceive he has a poopy diaper. Since I'm giving the bath, Emily gets to run Jack to the changing table to clean him up a bit, and since he loves his bath, he wails at the prospect of being denied it. Just a delay, buddy, just a delay.
6:21. Emily brings Jack back to me and I plunk him into the bath. Charlie barges in, and suddenly the four of us are crushed together in the roughly 25 square feet of our bathroom (not counting the tub, but aside from Charlie, neither of us really wants to get in there with Jack). If there's a way to train a dog to understand "GET OUT," we haven't found it yet.
6:22. Emily and Charlie are gone, and even though 90 percent of Jack's bath toys are in the tub with him, it's that last 10 percent that he really cares about. He points determinedly until I've retrieved his rubber ducky - one of three - and this canvas ducky that comes with a surfboard. He never seems overly interested in these toys when they're in the tub, preferring to play with the faucet, the stopper, the washcloth, and the container I use to give him his shampoo, but whatever. I dearly want to open a side business designing bath toys, because most of them we've found seem pretty lousy to me. All of them are ducks and numbers and plastic fishies and stuff, but where are the tug boats? Where are the deep sea divers? What about the Plesiosaurs? I tell you, somewhere these toys must exist, and if they don't, I'd like to help design them. Get those things into production, stat - Jack and I need them for our tub time.
6:25. The shampoo has been managed without incident - I can't get over how, totally drenched and with his hair in his eyes and his little lip slightly pouty, he reminds me of my niece, Laura, as a baby. The rest of the bath is generally watching or helping him play and washing spare limbs when there's the opportunity. It usually goes pretty well.
6:35. Time to get out, but Jack, who wailed his way through his first-ever bath, now wails if made to leave. Since this will happen if the bath is 15 minutes or 15 hours, I tell Jack to pull out the stopper, which he complies with until he sees where this is going and tries to put it back in. But it's too late, and in the face of his disappointment, I lift him out, wrap him in the towel - naturally getting soaked myself, I have no idea how to avoid it - and then entertain him by making faces at him in the mirror.
6:37. Dried and diapered, Jack isn't unhappy anymore - he's ready for playing. I manage to get him lotioned up - it's dry here in Colorado, tough on his little skin - and into his navy blue pajama bottoms, which remind me of Spider-Man's costume. As he plays with the nose suction thing we'll be using later, I pull the top over his head and then turn him loose on the floor.
6:39. Jack crawls through all of his various toys, bumping them, hitting them, making them play music. He hits the mini-piano keys while the school bus, farm, and Pooh toy make noise in the background. Now I need a nice bath.
6:40. Emily comes in and we suction his nose. This experience is somewhat similar, I imagine, to shoeing a horse or branding a calf. He wrestles about while I try to simultaneously keep his arms immobilized, his head steady, and his neck slightly tipped back. On a good night, we get this done without making him cry too much or accidentally giving him a nose bleed with the suction. It happens on occasion. But there's not as much going on up there as there was the past few nights, so we think he's getting better.
6:44. Jack pushes repeatedly on the farm's work bench, which plays the sound of a hammer hammering and ends with Old MacDonald, presumably, yelping in pain. Jack used to laugh when we yelped; now he does it right along with Old MacDonald. Pretty funny.
6:47. I brush Jack's teeth. He's agreeable, except on the occasions he doesn't want to give up the toothbrush. But, success. I think of the videos I saw as a kid of the thick, ribbon-like floss SCRAPING back and forth between the tooth and gum, while a tooth-shaped animated character smiles wisely. That thing always freaked me out.
6:49. We watch Emily and Charlie go out the door for a brief evening walk. Jack waves bye-bye, as do I.
6:51. We've finally reached book time, which usually means Jack pulling books off the shelf and dumping them in my lap, one by one. Barnyard Dance. Dinosaur's Binkit. Big Little Book for Moms (I don't read him this one, but he gives it to me). Big Little Book for Dads. Big Red Barn. I Am a Bunny. (This is the sweetest book ever.) Good Night Moon. Harold and the Purple Crayon. (Two of my favorites.) Recently Jack's favorite was "But Not the Hippopotamus"; now it appears to be Dinosaur's Binkit, the touching tale of a huge dinosaur who doesn't want to go to bed without his binkit, finally getting it back when a little kid offers it to him as a handkerchief. For the kid's sake I hope he didn't utilize it that way first, as the dinosaur is pretty attached to it. There are pop-up pages including one where the dinosaur's mouth go's ARRR, ARRR, ARRR, and I let it bite my finger while yelping in pain, which Jack takes great amusement in.
6:53. Jack crawls out of the room. On most nights he's headed for the back stairs, or his toys in the living room, or maybe hoping to get back in the bathtub.
6:54. I retrieve him. I give him some water, which he gulps down. And burps. And smiles.
6:55. The night really isn't complete until you've read Dinosaur's Binkit a third time.
6:57. Jamberry. Good Night Moon again. I Am a Bunny. "I chase the butterflies, and the butterflies chase me."
7:05. 24 is running over a bit tonight. Jack needs more stories, so I oblige him with the touch and feel dinosaur book, the touch and feel wild animals book, and Good Night Gorilla.
7:10. He's starting to put his head on my shoulder, so I turn out the light and start singing the book whose words I know full well from its previous history as one of his favorites.
Ten little ladybugs sitting on a vine
Along came a grasshopper and then there were nine
Nine little ladybugs skipping on a gate
Along came a frog and then there were eight
The first time I read it I thought, gee, this is a little morbid. Except I got to the end and suddenly they were all there, all 10, riding on the backs of their friends the grasshopper and the frog and the bird and so on and so forth. Whew!
7:15. Jack’s almost asleep now. Still singing – sometimes I switch to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” as I heard Emily singing once, if I run out of Ladybugs -- I lower him into his crib and slip out of the room.
One little ladybug sitting all alone. A breeze came up and then – with all of her friends and family right there with here, no worries – she was home. G’night.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Ca? Dg! Ommy!
Jack's been talking a lot these days. A rough glossary of most frequently heard words follows...
Ca?: Unless by "Ca?" he means "air," this one seems to be kind of a catch all. He uses it when pointing to things in his room, the kitchen, the living room, the car, etc. It's possible it refers to his cup, for water or milk, since there are certainly times he uses it and points when he wants those things. However, he also uses it when those things are directly in front of him, suggesting he might have something else in mind. Cola? If so, he's not going to get that one for a little bit yet. I'm thinking that ultimately "Ca?" is kind of a variation on "Da," which was his catch-all for everything when he was about 10-12 months old. At first there was all this excitement - He's calling me "Da"! That's my boy! - which was quickly doused when he used it just as frequently while pointing at a banana peel or his Thomas the Tank Engine. Then we decided he meant, "What's that?", but I'm not sure we can say the same thing with "Ca." So I'm going to just go with, it's the easiest thing for him to say right now, and he uses it to get our attention.
Note: Emily tells me that when they're in the car, she'll sometimes point out other cars, and he'll say "Ca!" So MAYBE he's using the word to describe "cars" and when he points at random things in our house, he's actually indicating the street. More information on the mystery will be provided as it becomes available.
Dg!: Not that Charlie cares, but our son has deduced what species he is. If we're reading a book that has a dog in it, or playing with his little toy farm dog, Jack will point in Charlie's direction - typically in the same room, but sometimes a more distant location - and say "Dg!"
Ahmmy!: This one is typically of the plaintive variety, and it is probably him calling for his Mommy. The uncertainty comes from the fact that I call Emily "Emmy," often in his presence - I need to work more on calling her Mommy, perhaps - so we can't be positive he's saying "Mommy" and not "Emmy." But "Mommy" makes more sense so we're going with that.
Hat: It's been cold this winter and he's got his little winter hat, with chin straps so he can't take it off. (He has a sun hat and baseball hat which he typically removes at the first opportunity.) So when we're getting him ready to go out, he'll bring his hand or hands up to the side of his head and say "Hat!" So there you go.
Nana: Not his Grandma, but his favorite breakfast food. Although even he hasn't been as excited about bananas of late...the novelty, perhaps, has passed somewhat.
Ahmacah: I...just have no idea. "I'm a car"? A lesser-known Greek Pharaoh he heard referenced in a "Dora the Explorer" episode we surfed by the other idea? Arnold Schwarzenegger shopping at Office Depot? ("Ah macah! Ah need to buy ah macah for mah drah erasah boahd!") No clue. NOTE: Sometimes it's a question: "Ahmacah?" Others a statement: "Ahmacah!" Occasionally it sounds like "AmBAHcah." I'm buying a car?
Shhhh: Emily tells me she's heard this one. I haven't. Perhaps he picks it up subconsciously from us talking to each other and to Charlie after he goes to bed at night. "Shhhh! Don't open those crackers now!" "Shhhh! Must you scratch at your collar right outside his door?" "Shhhh! I think I heard him about to wake up...."
Hiiiiii! (Accompanied by big smile): Jack says Hi to us. And Charlie. And to others, on occasion. "Hi!" And then, quite pleased with himself: "Hi!" That one's a lot of fun. Hi, Jack.
Ca?: Unless by "Ca?" he means "air," this one seems to be kind of a catch all. He uses it when pointing to things in his room, the kitchen, the living room, the car, etc. It's possible it refers to his cup, for water or milk, since there are certainly times he uses it and points when he wants those things. However, he also uses it when those things are directly in front of him, suggesting he might have something else in mind. Cola? If so, he's not going to get that one for a little bit yet. I'm thinking that ultimately "Ca?" is kind of a variation on "Da," which was his catch-all for everything when he was about 10-12 months old. At first there was all this excitement - He's calling me "Da"! That's my boy! - which was quickly doused when he used it just as frequently while pointing at a banana peel or his Thomas the Tank Engine. Then we decided he meant, "What's that?", but I'm not sure we can say the same thing with "Ca." So I'm going to just go with, it's the easiest thing for him to say right now, and he uses it to get our attention.
Note: Emily tells me that when they're in the car, she'll sometimes point out other cars, and he'll say "Ca!" So MAYBE he's using the word to describe "cars" and when he points at random things in our house, he's actually indicating the street. More information on the mystery will be provided as it becomes available.
Dg!: Not that Charlie cares, but our son has deduced what species he is. If we're reading a book that has a dog in it, or playing with his little toy farm dog, Jack will point in Charlie's direction - typically in the same room, but sometimes a more distant location - and say "Dg!"
Ahmmy!: This one is typically of the plaintive variety, and it is probably him calling for his Mommy. The uncertainty comes from the fact that I call Emily "Emmy," often in his presence - I need to work more on calling her Mommy, perhaps - so we can't be positive he's saying "Mommy" and not "Emmy." But "Mommy" makes more sense so we're going with that.
Hat: It's been cold this winter and he's got his little winter hat, with chin straps so he can't take it off. (He has a sun hat and baseball hat which he typically removes at the first opportunity.) So when we're getting him ready to go out, he'll bring his hand or hands up to the side of his head and say "Hat!" So there you go.
Nana: Not his Grandma, but his favorite breakfast food. Although even he hasn't been as excited about bananas of late...the novelty, perhaps, has passed somewhat.
Ahmacah: I...just have no idea. "I'm a car"? A lesser-known Greek Pharaoh he heard referenced in a "Dora the Explorer" episode we surfed by the other idea? Arnold Schwarzenegger shopping at Office Depot? ("Ah macah! Ah need to buy ah macah for mah drah erasah boahd!") No clue. NOTE: Sometimes it's a question: "Ahmacah?" Others a statement: "Ahmacah!" Occasionally it sounds like "AmBAHcah." I'm buying a car?
Shhhh: Emily tells me she's heard this one. I haven't. Perhaps he picks it up subconsciously from us talking to each other and to Charlie after he goes to bed at night. "Shhhh! Don't open those crackers now!" "Shhhh! Must you scratch at your collar right outside his door?" "Shhhh! I think I heard him about to wake up...."
Hiiiiii! (Accompanied by big smile): Jack says Hi to us. And Charlie. And to others, on occasion. "Hi!" And then, quite pleased with himself: "Hi!" That one's a lot of fun. Hi, Jack.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Homesick?
When you're sick, as Jack was last week - again - and I am this week - also again - you tend to get kind of philosophical. Maybe it's all that lying around watching bad TV that you can't change the channel on because the remote is slightly out of reach. Gives you more time for thinking.
Anyway. Emily and I and Jack and Charlie were pretty much going stir crazy this past weekend, starting on Thursday, because Jack was too sick to go anywhere and when he can't go anywhere, we don't. Around the time he started feeling better, maybe late Saturday or Sunday, I started feeling worse. And suddenly the challenge of taking care of Jack and Charlie - who really needs to burn off energy in a decent daily walk or two - gets shifted entirely to Emily, plus she has to find a way to keep me from moaning too loudly with my flu/sore throat/body ache/whatever.
Those philosophical thoughts, coupled with just the difficulty of doing ANYTHING when you feel like death warmed over, let alone keeping your son from crawling up and down the back stairs every few minutes, help crystallize some uncertainty you've been having anyway: Man, wouldn't it be nice to live closer to family? To have someone who's not sick around to entertain your son and walk your dog, so you can just sleep. And we have friends, but whatever the reason, we don't feel comfortable asking them to come save us, either because we're not close enough or because we fear they'd say no or because we sense that we wouldn't do it for them. I don't know. It's a discussion we've had before and will likely have again, but Emily and I can be independent to a fault, not being closer to people sometimes because we're afraid to let anyone in.
My Mom used to say that home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in. I don't think she meant it as negatively as it sounds, and of course my parents had to take me in several times - after a cross-country trip, and after a cross-country move, and after a variety of jobs and addresses I moved on from for one reason or another.
And then on top of needing or wanting help - and this is just with one child, mind you - we want Jack to know his family, all of it. His cousin and aunt and uncle in New York, his grandparents in New York and Vermont, his family in Ireland - a far more reasonable trip from the East Coast than from Colorado.
This is the other discussion we've had frequently in the past year or two, and we don't have an answer for that either. We like our lives here. But we do miss our families there.
I think as long as we're here in Colorado we believe we'll be moving back East eventually. We just don't know when. And being brain-addled and confused by flu medication and groggy from poor sleep is no time to make a decision. Not for us, and not for Jack. It is, however, apparently a time to think about it. I think I'll go sleep on it.
Anyway. Emily and I and Jack and Charlie were pretty much going stir crazy this past weekend, starting on Thursday, because Jack was too sick to go anywhere and when he can't go anywhere, we don't. Around the time he started feeling better, maybe late Saturday or Sunday, I started feeling worse. And suddenly the challenge of taking care of Jack and Charlie - who really needs to burn off energy in a decent daily walk or two - gets shifted entirely to Emily, plus she has to find a way to keep me from moaning too loudly with my flu/sore throat/body ache/whatever.
Those philosophical thoughts, coupled with just the difficulty of doing ANYTHING when you feel like death warmed over, let alone keeping your son from crawling up and down the back stairs every few minutes, help crystallize some uncertainty you've been having anyway: Man, wouldn't it be nice to live closer to family? To have someone who's not sick around to entertain your son and walk your dog, so you can just sleep. And we have friends, but whatever the reason, we don't feel comfortable asking them to come save us, either because we're not close enough or because we fear they'd say no or because we sense that we wouldn't do it for them. I don't know. It's a discussion we've had before and will likely have again, but Emily and I can be independent to a fault, not being closer to people sometimes because we're afraid to let anyone in.
My Mom used to say that home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in. I don't think she meant it as negatively as it sounds, and of course my parents had to take me in several times - after a cross-country trip, and after a cross-country move, and after a variety of jobs and addresses I moved on from for one reason or another.
And then on top of needing or wanting help - and this is just with one child, mind you - we want Jack to know his family, all of it. His cousin and aunt and uncle in New York, his grandparents in New York and Vermont, his family in Ireland - a far more reasonable trip from the East Coast than from Colorado.
This is the other discussion we've had frequently in the past year or two, and we don't have an answer for that either. We like our lives here. But we do miss our families there.
I think as long as we're here in Colorado we believe we'll be moving back East eventually. We just don't know when. And being brain-addled and confused by flu medication and groggy from poor sleep is no time to make a decision. Not for us, and not for Jack. It is, however, apparently a time to think about it. I think I'll go sleep on it.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
The Everyday Things
Sometimes it's difficult to write a blog, because you're sitting there thinking, what happened today? And then you remember, well, it was a day pretty much like any other....
Jack spent 10 minutes on the kitchen floor this morning lifting Coca-Cola cans out of the 12-pack box, one-by-one. And then putting them back in, one-by-one. And then getting frustrated when he sort of got his arm stuck in the box. Saw me watching him, gave me a big smiles. Went back to taking the cans out again.
We threw the tennis ball in the backyard with Charlie. Typically this involves me throwing the ball, Charlie bounding after it, and Jack shrieking with laughter. Occasionally I put Jack down, and he'd crawl over to a ball, or one of Charlie's bones, and hold it up to me. I'd take it from him, and throw it out to be fetched just as Charlie was bringing back another one. This could have continued indefinitely, had I not wanted to bring Jack in considering it was about 50 degrees outside.
Jack crawled out of his room holding up the heavy "Goodnight Moon" lap edition, which is about half as big as Jack is. Holding it up took some effort, while crawling on his knees, but he managed it. We probably got through 3-4 pages before he'd crawled off looking for another book.
He woke up from his nap and I went into the dark room to get him, followed by Charlie. Charlie stuck his nose through the crib bars to lick his hand, while Jack grinned sleepily. I lifted him out of the crib and he hugged me.
We gave him leftover pasta for lunch. He'd grab huge fistfuls and jam them into his mouth, some of which actually made it in.
He climbed into his "hungry hippo" and I pushed him around the room. Big smiles.
He walked, bow-legged and careful, clutching his Mom's finger in one tiny fist, from one end of the house to the other.
He climbed down the back steps, and up the back steps, and down again. And again. He really likes going up and down the steps.
I told him to go get me his sneakers out of the closet. He crawled over to the closet, opened the door, got his sneakers, crawled back with them.
He combed his Mommy's hair with his little plastic ducky comb. He combed what's left of his Daddy's hair with the same comb a little while later.
He used Charlie's back to stand up, then stood on his own for a few seconds. Before dropping to his knees.
He pointed at something - yogurt, applesauce, his pacifier, his sneakers - and shouted Cah! Cah! When we gave it to him, he smiled happily and enjoyed it.
He said "Hi" to me this morning. It was sort of a cry: "HIIiiiiiy!" But I think he said Hi.
When I went to get the newspaper, he crawled to the front door and stood up against the glass to see out. When he saw I was coming back, he gave me a huge, laughing smile and patted the glass with his hands.
He got fussy at dinner - he'd been up for a while, having napped early - rallied to have fun in his bath, then was relatively low-key - half asleep? - during storytime. I finished the evening, as I often do, by reciting "10 Little Ladybugs" - since I know the book by heart, I can usually finish the words with the light turned out, and his head lolling on my shoulder, and then I put him down, pulled the door most of the way closed, and snuck out.
Later, I snuck back, and could hear his soft, rhythmic little breathing.
So yeah, just one of those days where very little happened. Almost nothing at all.
Jack spent 10 minutes on the kitchen floor this morning lifting Coca-Cola cans out of the 12-pack box, one-by-one. And then putting them back in, one-by-one. And then getting frustrated when he sort of got his arm stuck in the box. Saw me watching him, gave me a big smiles. Went back to taking the cans out again.
We threw the tennis ball in the backyard with Charlie. Typically this involves me throwing the ball, Charlie bounding after it, and Jack shrieking with laughter. Occasionally I put Jack down, and he'd crawl over to a ball, or one of Charlie's bones, and hold it up to me. I'd take it from him, and throw it out to be fetched just as Charlie was bringing back another one. This could have continued indefinitely, had I not wanted to bring Jack in considering it was about 50 degrees outside.
Jack crawled out of his room holding up the heavy "Goodnight Moon" lap edition, which is about half as big as Jack is. Holding it up took some effort, while crawling on his knees, but he managed it. We probably got through 3-4 pages before he'd crawled off looking for another book.
He woke up from his nap and I went into the dark room to get him, followed by Charlie. Charlie stuck his nose through the crib bars to lick his hand, while Jack grinned sleepily. I lifted him out of the crib and he hugged me.
We gave him leftover pasta for lunch. He'd grab huge fistfuls and jam them into his mouth, some of which actually made it in.
He climbed into his "hungry hippo" and I pushed him around the room. Big smiles.
He walked, bow-legged and careful, clutching his Mom's finger in one tiny fist, from one end of the house to the other.
He climbed down the back steps, and up the back steps, and down again. And again. He really likes going up and down the steps.
I told him to go get me his sneakers out of the closet. He crawled over to the closet, opened the door, got his sneakers, crawled back with them.
He combed his Mommy's hair with his little plastic ducky comb. He combed what's left of his Daddy's hair with the same comb a little while later.
He used Charlie's back to stand up, then stood on his own for a few seconds. Before dropping to his knees.
He pointed at something - yogurt, applesauce, his pacifier, his sneakers - and shouted Cah! Cah! When we gave it to him, he smiled happily and enjoyed it.
He said "Hi" to me this morning. It was sort of a cry: "HIIiiiiiy!" But I think he said Hi.
When I went to get the newspaper, he crawled to the front door and stood up against the glass to see out. When he saw I was coming back, he gave me a huge, laughing smile and patted the glass with his hands.
He got fussy at dinner - he'd been up for a while, having napped early - rallied to have fun in his bath, then was relatively low-key - half asleep? - during storytime. I finished the evening, as I often do, by reciting "10 Little Ladybugs" - since I know the book by heart, I can usually finish the words with the light turned out, and his head lolling on my shoulder, and then I put him down, pulled the door most of the way closed, and snuck out.
Later, I snuck back, and could hear his soft, rhythmic little breathing.
So yeah, just one of those days where very little happened. Almost nothing at all.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Indoor Playground
It was a 2nd birthday party for one of our friends' kids today; several people who Emily works with all had kids within a year of Jack's birthday (one within 10 days). So they rented out "Monkey Bizness," a huge warehouse south of Denver that was turned into an indoor playground / jungle gym, filled with inflatable rooms to jump around in, mammoth slides to ride, and ample room to run, crawl, and bounce around in. You know it's a kid's birthday party when it starts at 9:30 a.m., so as not to interfere with afternoon naps. Jack got some shuteye in in the car on the way down, while Emily and I fretted about our separation-anxiety afflicted dog somehow leaping the 7-foot fence around the back yard as we were leaving, for the second straight day.
The day began with orientation in the outer room, where the two staffers had all the kids circle around while they explained rules that 80 percent of the kids wouldn't be able to comprehend anyway. "Go down the slides feet first." "Don't take off your socks." (Clearly, they didn't know Jack.) "No climbing up the rock wall - that's for older kids." I'm not sure I could have managed that one myself, so they evidently meant not only older but also remarkably athletic kids.
Once we were in the playroom it was kind of like the play area at the mall all over again. Kids running around yelling while Jack, for the first few moments anyway, gazed around in a kind of awe at the huge, colorful structures. I saw a kid his age (and Mom) crawling into this big inflatable number on the right, and there were rubber balls in there, so Jack and I crawled on in, too. He liked the bouncy aspect of it, liked picking a ball up in both hands, liked "throwing" it (in the sense that he picked it up and kind of waved his arms in the air, while the ball cruised off in some random direction, occasionally forward). Then Emily joined us and there was a lot of bouncing around, big smiles from Jack, trips down the slide, and an incident in which Jack took a ball away from another baby, resulting in some embarrassment and tears (not, of course, from Jack himself, who seemed uncertain what all the fuss was about).
After an exhausting 90 minutes of this, it was off to another room for pizza, cupcakes, and Jack's primary fascination, a blue balloon. Somebody had to say "These kids will nap well this afternoon!" - because of course, Jack was so wired when we got home, either from the activity or perhaps the sugar in the cupcake, that he didn't sleep until an hour and a half past his normal naptime. Fortunately our Houdini-esque dog had not only again jumped the fence but, apparently, jumped back into the yard, at least according to the note pinned to our back fence. "I don't think he likes being left alone," it said. Yeah, we're getting that.
In any case, being at Turner's - who I remember as a baby - 2nd birthday party was both fun and scary, particularly considering we had actually forgotten Jack's 14-month birthday until early the next day. It was scary not because they grow up so fast, I don't think, but rather because each stage comes and goes and you're dealing with the next one before you can even fully appreciate the previous one. Jack's not walking yet, but soon he will be, and then these days of him crawling over to us or walking tentatively while holding my finger tightly in his pudgy little fist will be gone. Just pictures, memories, diaries, and blogs. I hope it's enough.
The day began with orientation in the outer room, where the two staffers had all the kids circle around while they explained rules that 80 percent of the kids wouldn't be able to comprehend anyway. "Go down the slides feet first." "Don't take off your socks." (Clearly, they didn't know Jack.) "No climbing up the rock wall - that's for older kids." I'm not sure I could have managed that one myself, so they evidently meant not only older but also remarkably athletic kids.
Once we were in the playroom it was kind of like the play area at the mall all over again. Kids running around yelling while Jack, for the first few moments anyway, gazed around in a kind of awe at the huge, colorful structures. I saw a kid his age (and Mom) crawling into this big inflatable number on the right, and there were rubber balls in there, so Jack and I crawled on in, too. He liked the bouncy aspect of it, liked picking a ball up in both hands, liked "throwing" it (in the sense that he picked it up and kind of waved his arms in the air, while the ball cruised off in some random direction, occasionally forward). Then Emily joined us and there was a lot of bouncing around, big smiles from Jack, trips down the slide, and an incident in which Jack took a ball away from another baby, resulting in some embarrassment and tears (not, of course, from Jack himself, who seemed uncertain what all the fuss was about).
After an exhausting 90 minutes of this, it was off to another room for pizza, cupcakes, and Jack's primary fascination, a blue balloon. Somebody had to say "These kids will nap well this afternoon!" - because of course, Jack was so wired when we got home, either from the activity or perhaps the sugar in the cupcake, that he didn't sleep until an hour and a half past his normal naptime. Fortunately our Houdini-esque dog had not only again jumped the fence but, apparently, jumped back into the yard, at least according to the note pinned to our back fence. "I don't think he likes being left alone," it said. Yeah, we're getting that.
In any case, being at Turner's - who I remember as a baby - 2nd birthday party was both fun and scary, particularly considering we had actually forgotten Jack's 14-month birthday until early the next day. It was scary not because they grow up so fast, I don't think, but rather because each stage comes and goes and you're dealing with the next one before you can even fully appreciate the previous one. Jack's not walking yet, but soon he will be, and then these days of him crawling over to us or walking tentatively while holding my finger tightly in his pudgy little fist will be gone. Just pictures, memories, diaries, and blogs. I hope it's enough.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Breakfast in America
If you move to Denver, at some point you'll go to the Cherry Creek Mall. There you'll find a pretty cool children's play area with huge breakfast items - fried eggs, bacon, cereal, banana slices, and strawberries - that kids can climb on, run around, and generally burn off a lot of energy playing amid.
Since we moved to Denver before Jack was even a gleam in his Daddy's eye, so to speak, my first, second, and most subsequent trips to the Mall where I encountered the little playland had me giving it the "Huh, that's kind of cool," look, and then quickly moving on before one of the little buggers running around like a crazed hyena struck me as cute enough to actually want to have one of my own. Throw in the fact that I hate malls anyway and generally run through them as fast as possible so as to be in and out and on my way before inadvertently purchasing a two thousand dollar leather chair at Pottery Barn, and it's not surprising I hadn't really given the play area a second thought. Until recently.
Because Jack loves to climb on things. The dog, our couch, our back stairs, his play table, you name it. He also loves breakfast. If he ate as much food at his other meals as he often eats at breakfast, he'd, well, he'd be really big. So today I decided to put aside my aversion to malls, wheel Jack's umbrella stroller from West Parking Deck 4 - the best place to park to more or less avoid the mass of traffic crawling through the parking garage that is part of why the mall experience is so dismal to begin with - to the play area, unstrap him, carry him to the spot that looked to be the least overrun by other (and bigger) kids, and turn him loose.
It was pretty funny. For about a minute or two he sort of knelt in one spot, just gazing around, kind of awestruck. I'm not sure if he immediately registered things like, wow, that's one big slice of banana, or MAN that's a lot of syrup on that freakishly huge waffle, or was (most likely) primarily fascinated by all the other kids. There certainly were a lot of them, ranging in age from probably a year old to 3 or 4, most of them moving faster than I personally had moved since either college or getting up from my desk after Emily called to say her water broke. Jack was fascinated; I was fascinated. It was like a toddler convention, surrounded by a wall of parents talking on their cell phones, leafing through magazines, or like me, unable to take their eyes of their young'un for fear he'd get swept up in a wave of galloping children and totally disappear.
Finally he crawled over to a big strawberry and pulled himself up to standing against it. Looked back, saw that I was still there, smiled, and then crawled over to a banana slice. Pulled himself up on it. Looked around some more. Saw I was still there. Went over to the huge bowl of cereal. Did the same thing. There were a lot of bigger kids there, and I could visualize a future injury to the somewhat less physically stable Jack, so after a minute I went over near him. He saw me, and immediately crawled over to be picked up. That was nice.
Then we went to one of the big waffles, and I sat on the edge while he crawled up onto it. A little smile of accomplishment. From him; I've been sitting successfully for years. Ba-dum-Bump! Sorry.
At one point I backed over to the edge where another parent, a Mom, complimented Jack - "He's very cute," to which I managed to respond "Thank you," rather than "I know!" and then her girl came running over and tackled her, and I watched Jack crawl off the waffle in the direction of three huge links of sausage. Feeling good that he at least started out at the strawberry, I went over and helped him try to climb up. It was a little high; he'd get one leg up but couldn't get the other one up, which was just as well anyway since if he'd gotten onto it he might well have fallen off the other side, you know, had I not been there to catch him. But of course I was.
And then he was done, and he reached up to be picked up, and it was back into the stroller and back to the car and back to the house and now he's sleeping and hopefully, hopefully dreaming of slices of banana - because he loves banana slices at breakfast - that he can keep on eating and they'll never go away.
Since we moved to Denver before Jack was even a gleam in his Daddy's eye, so to speak, my first, second, and most subsequent trips to the Mall where I encountered the little playland had me giving it the "Huh, that's kind of cool," look, and then quickly moving on before one of the little buggers running around like a crazed hyena struck me as cute enough to actually want to have one of my own. Throw in the fact that I hate malls anyway and generally run through them as fast as possible so as to be in and out and on my way before inadvertently purchasing a two thousand dollar leather chair at Pottery Barn, and it's not surprising I hadn't really given the play area a second thought. Until recently.
Because Jack loves to climb on things. The dog, our couch, our back stairs, his play table, you name it. He also loves breakfast. If he ate as much food at his other meals as he often eats at breakfast, he'd, well, he'd be really big. So today I decided to put aside my aversion to malls, wheel Jack's umbrella stroller from West Parking Deck 4 - the best place to park to more or less avoid the mass of traffic crawling through the parking garage that is part of why the mall experience is so dismal to begin with - to the play area, unstrap him, carry him to the spot that looked to be the least overrun by other (and bigger) kids, and turn him loose.
It was pretty funny. For about a minute or two he sort of knelt in one spot, just gazing around, kind of awestruck. I'm not sure if he immediately registered things like, wow, that's one big slice of banana, or MAN that's a lot of syrup on that freakishly huge waffle, or was (most likely) primarily fascinated by all the other kids. There certainly were a lot of them, ranging in age from probably a year old to 3 or 4, most of them moving faster than I personally had moved since either college or getting up from my desk after Emily called to say her water broke. Jack was fascinated; I was fascinated. It was like a toddler convention, surrounded by a wall of parents talking on their cell phones, leafing through magazines, or like me, unable to take their eyes of their young'un for fear he'd get swept up in a wave of galloping children and totally disappear.
Finally he crawled over to a big strawberry and pulled himself up to standing against it. Looked back, saw that I was still there, smiled, and then crawled over to a banana slice. Pulled himself up on it. Looked around some more. Saw I was still there. Went over to the huge bowl of cereal. Did the same thing. There were a lot of bigger kids there, and I could visualize a future injury to the somewhat less physically stable Jack, so after a minute I went over near him. He saw me, and immediately crawled over to be picked up. That was nice.
Then we went to one of the big waffles, and I sat on the edge while he crawled up onto it. A little smile of accomplishment. From him; I've been sitting successfully for years. Ba-dum-Bump! Sorry.
At one point I backed over to the edge where another parent, a Mom, complimented Jack - "He's very cute," to which I managed to respond "Thank you," rather than "I know!" and then her girl came running over and tackled her, and I watched Jack crawl off the waffle in the direction of three huge links of sausage. Feeling good that he at least started out at the strawberry, I went over and helped him try to climb up. It was a little high; he'd get one leg up but couldn't get the other one up, which was just as well anyway since if he'd gotten onto it he might well have fallen off the other side, you know, had I not been there to catch him. But of course I was.
And then he was done, and he reached up to be picked up, and it was back into the stroller and back to the car and back to the house and now he's sleeping and hopefully, hopefully dreaming of slices of banana - because he loves banana slices at breakfast - that he can keep on eating and they'll never go away.
Monday, March 06, 2006
It's Madness, Baby
If you watch enough ESPN around this time of year - most would agree I watch a little too much - you can't miss high-energy, shiny-pated Dick Vitale yelling out of the television at you: "It's Madness, Baby!!!" He's talking about college basketball, but that phrase was going through my mind today as I went through a day which - although not typical - was not entirely uncommon. It went something like this....
1:30 a.m. Jack wakes up crying. After 10-15 minutes it's clear he's not going to fall back asleep. I go in, soothe him a bit, give him his pacifier that's fallen out of the crib, and go back to bed.
2:00 a.m. Jack still crying. I go in again - Emily is feverish and wants to stay away - pick him up, and try rocking him to sleep. He falls asleep on my shoulder, but when I put him down again, he wakes up, wailing.
2:30 a.m. We give him Motrin. I rock him some more and he sleeps.
5:50 a.m. Jack is awake and unhappy. We wake up. Emily is feeling better and goes to get him. I spend about 10 minutes waking up and get up to join her.
6:30 a.m. I give Jack breakfast, Emily showers. After his rough night, Jack is happy as a lark. I'm guzzling coffee while he eats his bananas, blueberries, coffee cake, and pancake. I have a yogurt and a few bits of his coffee cake. And more coffee. Beautiful red sunrise this morning.
7:15 a.m. I dress Jack in blue jeans a navy blue T-shirt, my own favorite outfit. He's very cute and happy.
7:30 a.m. The pediatrician opens at 8, at which point Emily is going to call to try to get Jack in. We don't want to overreact, but the last time he was up for two hours or so in the middle of the night, he had an ear infection. We didn't react quickly enough and it spread to the other ear. Plus he's had a cough and cold for a few days now. Since we're both going into work today - I've been temping a decent amount for my old company - I take Charlie on a long walk to the park. I walk, he wants to run, so we kind of do a herky-jerky run-walk....i.e., we run until I'm gasping, then walk. At the park, we go onto the tennis courts and he fetches a tennis ball. I think he could do this for hours, and the good thing is I don't really have to move much.
8:00 a.m. We're back, and I give Charlie his breakfast and find out Emily can get Jack an appt. late in the day, 3:50. So she takes him to daycare and goes into work, and I shower, make sure the heat is off and the remote out of Charlie's reach, and go into work myself. (He destroyed one of our other remotes when it was left at his level. A little separation anxiety going on.
8:30-3:00 p.m. I'm at work on a proposal at the engineering firm I used to work for. I left on good terms and leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me professionally, but I'm slow with other, more enjoyable freelance stuff right now so I'm glad to make the money. I had been working as a tech editor when I was there full-time, so I draw no small amount of pleasure from finding some bad typos in a couple of printed and circulated promotional brochures I'm given to look at. "Tucson" is misspelled. Heh.
3:00 p.m. I head out to get Jack, first stopping by the bank to get out cash so we can pay the cleaning lady we just hired to clean our house tomorrow. If you consider the money as money we used to spend going out to dinner, it seems pretty reasonable.
3:15 p.m. At day care, Jack is about to have his snack and seems somewhat surprised to see me, but happy. He crawls immediately over and we're off. The teacher gives me a form about needing information on Jack's 15-month innoculations and so forth, which strikes me as odd since he's more than a month away from even having that appointment.
3:45 p.m. At the pediatrician. There's a crowd of kids and parents in the "sick patients" area, and the "well patients" area is empty, so I take Jack over there. Sue me. He has fun playing with this table thingy with metal columns and loops and stuff on it, that looks like some kind of futuristic city, until we're called in by the physician's assistant. She checks his temperature (he's fine) and says the doctor will be in shortly.
4:10 p.m. In there 20 minutes, no doctor. Jack is getting restless, as am I, considering the room is about 10 feet by 6 feet and there's pretty much nothing in it. I look outside, flag down the assistant, and she says sorry, the doctor will be with us soon, would Jack like some animal crackers? I say, well, okay, sure. He doesn't know what to make of them at first when she brings a little Dixie cup full, but soon he's wolfing them down like nothing. A new vice I guess.
4:20 p.m. Doctor comes in. Jack has a cold and a red throat, but no ear infection and it appears he's fine. Fluids, rest, and siphon his nose. "I would have brought him in too," she says. I'd like to believe she means it.
4:45 p.m. We get home, and go straight to the back yard because Charlie has been cooped up all day and has plenty of nervous energy. We throw a ball around, which Jack, Charlie, and I both enjoy. Jack crawls for Charlie's various bones, naturally, and my fun becomes more anxious. Charlie wants to run and play, Jack wants to pick up bones and tennis balls that Charlie chews on, and we won't even talk about the tiny rocks and dog poop from the previous day or so that has accumulated - fortunately Charlie very politely sticks to one area, near the fence, which Jack of course heads right for. No, he doesn't get there. And the poop won't be there the next time Jack's out there. I swear.
5:15 p.m. A couple of tries at going inside have been met with cries by Jack, but finally we get inside and I start giving him dinner. Tonight we're going to eat separately, so Jack gets to have whatever he'll eat. That means blueberries, cherry tomatoes, goldfish, leftover goulash, applesauce, crackers, and vegetables (unless I forget, as I did tonight). And milk and water, because liquids are important. Charlie hovers. Even after I feed him his food, which he largely ignores in favor of whatever Jack drops.
This is the hardest part of the day, because we want him to eat, and have a hard time knowing what he'll eat, and he tries to express it, and there's a lot of yelling and incidents of my nearly killing myself tripping over Charlie's hunkered down form. Madness.
5:45 p.m. Emily gets home; Thank God. I start the dough for our pizza.
6:00 p.m. I put out the recycling for tomorrow. Check the day's email. Empty the laundry basket. Make sure 24 will tape for whenever I get to watch it. Play the phone messages, two of which are from the Dumb Friends League about a message I left earlier - Charlie is afraid of the noise the clicker makes. which is supposed to be used for his training. Lessons begin Saturday and he's scared to death of the sound, cowering miserably. He is only a year and a half but must have some bad previous experiences.
6:15 p.m. Emily gives Jack his bath, I clean up the wreck of the kitchen where Jack was eating. He makes kind of a mess. Which is why we don't always give him applesauce. Which he likes to pour over his mouth, catching some of it.
6:45 p.m. I start putting Jack to bed, reading him stories and the like. Charlie comes into the room, Jack crawls off my lap and grabs his tail, Charlie whimpers, gets up, and moves away.
About 2 feet to his left.
Jack crawls two feet and tries to grab again. I beg Emily to come get Charlie.
7:15 p.m. I put Jack down. He whimpers for about a second and falls asleep. A good put down.
7:20 p.m. Charlie noses Jack's door open and goes in. Jack stirs but is still half asleep. I try to convey to Charlie that it would be best if he didn't do that. I don't think he gets the message. Maybe one day.
7:30 p.m. We watch "The Office" from last Thursday while eating pizza. Good stuff. Good show.
8:30 p.m. I come back here to write this blog. And now it's done. And I'm going to haul my tired, weary bones off to bed. G'night.
1:30 a.m. Jack wakes up crying. After 10-15 minutes it's clear he's not going to fall back asleep. I go in, soothe him a bit, give him his pacifier that's fallen out of the crib, and go back to bed.
2:00 a.m. Jack still crying. I go in again - Emily is feverish and wants to stay away - pick him up, and try rocking him to sleep. He falls asleep on my shoulder, but when I put him down again, he wakes up, wailing.
2:30 a.m. We give him Motrin. I rock him some more and he sleeps.
5:50 a.m. Jack is awake and unhappy. We wake up. Emily is feeling better and goes to get him. I spend about 10 minutes waking up and get up to join her.
6:30 a.m. I give Jack breakfast, Emily showers. After his rough night, Jack is happy as a lark. I'm guzzling coffee while he eats his bananas, blueberries, coffee cake, and pancake. I have a yogurt and a few bits of his coffee cake. And more coffee. Beautiful red sunrise this morning.
7:15 a.m. I dress Jack in blue jeans a navy blue T-shirt, my own favorite outfit. He's very cute and happy.
7:30 a.m. The pediatrician opens at 8, at which point Emily is going to call to try to get Jack in. We don't want to overreact, but the last time he was up for two hours or so in the middle of the night, he had an ear infection. We didn't react quickly enough and it spread to the other ear. Plus he's had a cough and cold for a few days now. Since we're both going into work today - I've been temping a decent amount for my old company - I take Charlie on a long walk to the park. I walk, he wants to run, so we kind of do a herky-jerky run-walk....i.e., we run until I'm gasping, then walk. At the park, we go onto the tennis courts and he fetches a tennis ball. I think he could do this for hours, and the good thing is I don't really have to move much.
8:00 a.m. We're back, and I give Charlie his breakfast and find out Emily can get Jack an appt. late in the day, 3:50. So she takes him to daycare and goes into work, and I shower, make sure the heat is off and the remote out of Charlie's reach, and go into work myself. (He destroyed one of our other remotes when it was left at his level. A little separation anxiety going on.
8:30-3:00 p.m. I'm at work on a proposal at the engineering firm I used to work for. I left on good terms and leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me professionally, but I'm slow with other, more enjoyable freelance stuff right now so I'm glad to make the money. I had been working as a tech editor when I was there full-time, so I draw no small amount of pleasure from finding some bad typos in a couple of printed and circulated promotional brochures I'm given to look at. "Tucson" is misspelled. Heh.
3:00 p.m. I head out to get Jack, first stopping by the bank to get out cash so we can pay the cleaning lady we just hired to clean our house tomorrow. If you consider the money as money we used to spend going out to dinner, it seems pretty reasonable.
3:15 p.m. At day care, Jack is about to have his snack and seems somewhat surprised to see me, but happy. He crawls immediately over and we're off. The teacher gives me a form about needing information on Jack's 15-month innoculations and so forth, which strikes me as odd since he's more than a month away from even having that appointment.
3:45 p.m. At the pediatrician. There's a crowd of kids and parents in the "sick patients" area, and the "well patients" area is empty, so I take Jack over there. Sue me. He has fun playing with this table thingy with metal columns and loops and stuff on it, that looks like some kind of futuristic city, until we're called in by the physician's assistant. She checks his temperature (he's fine) and says the doctor will be in shortly.
4:10 p.m. In there 20 minutes, no doctor. Jack is getting restless, as am I, considering the room is about 10 feet by 6 feet and there's pretty much nothing in it. I look outside, flag down the assistant, and she says sorry, the doctor will be with us soon, would Jack like some animal crackers? I say, well, okay, sure. He doesn't know what to make of them at first when she brings a little Dixie cup full, but soon he's wolfing them down like nothing. A new vice I guess.
4:20 p.m. Doctor comes in. Jack has a cold and a red throat, but no ear infection and it appears he's fine. Fluids, rest, and siphon his nose. "I would have brought him in too," she says. I'd like to believe she means it.
4:45 p.m. We get home, and go straight to the back yard because Charlie has been cooped up all day and has plenty of nervous energy. We throw a ball around, which Jack, Charlie, and I both enjoy. Jack crawls for Charlie's various bones, naturally, and my fun becomes more anxious. Charlie wants to run and play, Jack wants to pick up bones and tennis balls that Charlie chews on, and we won't even talk about the tiny rocks and dog poop from the previous day or so that has accumulated - fortunately Charlie very politely sticks to one area, near the fence, which Jack of course heads right for. No, he doesn't get there. And the poop won't be there the next time Jack's out there. I swear.
5:15 p.m. A couple of tries at going inside have been met with cries by Jack, but finally we get inside and I start giving him dinner. Tonight we're going to eat separately, so Jack gets to have whatever he'll eat. That means blueberries, cherry tomatoes, goldfish, leftover goulash, applesauce, crackers, and vegetables (unless I forget, as I did tonight). And milk and water, because liquids are important. Charlie hovers. Even after I feed him his food, which he largely ignores in favor of whatever Jack drops.
This is the hardest part of the day, because we want him to eat, and have a hard time knowing what he'll eat, and he tries to express it, and there's a lot of yelling and incidents of my nearly killing myself tripping over Charlie's hunkered down form. Madness.
5:45 p.m. Emily gets home; Thank God. I start the dough for our pizza.
6:00 p.m. I put out the recycling for tomorrow. Check the day's email. Empty the laundry basket. Make sure 24 will tape for whenever I get to watch it. Play the phone messages, two of which are from the Dumb Friends League about a message I left earlier - Charlie is afraid of the noise the clicker makes. which is supposed to be used for his training. Lessons begin Saturday and he's scared to death of the sound, cowering miserably. He is only a year and a half but must have some bad previous experiences.
6:15 p.m. Emily gives Jack his bath, I clean up the wreck of the kitchen where Jack was eating. He makes kind of a mess. Which is why we don't always give him applesauce. Which he likes to pour over his mouth, catching some of it.
6:45 p.m. I start putting Jack to bed, reading him stories and the like. Charlie comes into the room, Jack crawls off my lap and grabs his tail, Charlie whimpers, gets up, and moves away.
About 2 feet to his left.
Jack crawls two feet and tries to grab again. I beg Emily to come get Charlie.
7:15 p.m. I put Jack down. He whimpers for about a second and falls asleep. A good put down.
7:20 p.m. Charlie noses Jack's door open and goes in. Jack stirs but is still half asleep. I try to convey to Charlie that it would be best if he didn't do that. I don't think he gets the message. Maybe one day.
7:30 p.m. We watch "The Office" from last Thursday while eating pizza. Good stuff. Good show.
8:30 p.m. I come back here to write this blog. And now it's done. And I'm going to haul my tired, weary bones off to bed. G'night.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Thursday's Child
Thursday is the day that I'm alone with Jack. Being totally truthful here, this has its ups and downs.
It was tougher when he was younger, in many ways, because I had to put him down for naps without him being able to nurse (obviously), and I had to soothe his frequent cranky moods without the protuberances that were most soothing to him. Now weaned, these are not major concerns anymore.
Now the major challenge is that he's only slightly interested in his toys and books, and extremely interested in going up and down the back stairs, climbing all over our dog, scaling various pieces of furniture, and playing with the phone, computer mouse, and house keys. And none of these are activities which can be unsupervised -- on the contrary, left to his own devices there's a pretty good chance all of them would end with him hurting himself, or the dog, or the computer, or placing international phone calls. The furniture at least would survive, such as it is.
Consequently, a decent part of my Thursdays are spent as a traffic cop, running around scooping him up off the dog, or helping him down from a chair he's climbed onto but can't get down from, or acting as spotter as he descends the stairs and eyes the doggie door as though he's considering going through it. Another part is spent as sideshow barker, trying to interest him in toys he sometimes enjoys: "Feast your eyes on Old MacDonald's tractor - it rolls, it honks, it plays songs, AND it makes animal noises!"
And even as I write this I feel guilty, because the bad doesn't come close to the good. The laughs I get when I toss him up in the air. (Um, I'm very careful about it.) The smiles when we're reading one of his favorite books for the 37th time this week, something like "But Not the Hippopotamus" or "Ten Little Ladybugs." The interest he takes in the world around him when I'm pushing the stroller to the park for a ride on the swings. The exuberance with which he shoves fistfuls of macaroni and cheese into his maw. The way he cracks up over silly little things like my placing a couple of his plastic toys over his ears, so he can hear the ocean roar.
Lately I've been temping a bit for my old company, which has me going into an office for the first time since Jack was about four months old. I did that yesterday, which meant I barely saw him - Emily was putting him to bed when I got home. And since Emily still has an office job, working from home only on Tuesdays, this is HER life the other four days of the week. Not seeing him all day, and getting home only to see him for dinner, bath, and bed. And I know that she'd deal with the challenges of traffic cop/sideshow barker, if it meant seeing him more.
So yeah, Thursdays can be rough. By the end of the day, when Emily gets home, I'm exhausted, frazzled, drained.
And lucky.
It was tougher when he was younger, in many ways, because I had to put him down for naps without him being able to nurse (obviously), and I had to soothe his frequent cranky moods without the protuberances that were most soothing to him. Now weaned, these are not major concerns anymore.
Now the major challenge is that he's only slightly interested in his toys and books, and extremely interested in going up and down the back stairs, climbing all over our dog, scaling various pieces of furniture, and playing with the phone, computer mouse, and house keys. And none of these are activities which can be unsupervised -- on the contrary, left to his own devices there's a pretty good chance all of them would end with him hurting himself, or the dog, or the computer, or placing international phone calls. The furniture at least would survive, such as it is.
Consequently, a decent part of my Thursdays are spent as a traffic cop, running around scooping him up off the dog, or helping him down from a chair he's climbed onto but can't get down from, or acting as spotter as he descends the stairs and eyes the doggie door as though he's considering going through it. Another part is spent as sideshow barker, trying to interest him in toys he sometimes enjoys: "Feast your eyes on Old MacDonald's tractor - it rolls, it honks, it plays songs, AND it makes animal noises!"
And even as I write this I feel guilty, because the bad doesn't come close to the good. The laughs I get when I toss him up in the air. (Um, I'm very careful about it.) The smiles when we're reading one of his favorite books for the 37th time this week, something like "But Not the Hippopotamus" or "Ten Little Ladybugs." The interest he takes in the world around him when I'm pushing the stroller to the park for a ride on the swings. The exuberance with which he shoves fistfuls of macaroni and cheese into his maw. The way he cracks up over silly little things like my placing a couple of his plastic toys over his ears, so he can hear the ocean roar.
Lately I've been temping a bit for my old company, which has me going into an office for the first time since Jack was about four months old. I did that yesterday, which meant I barely saw him - Emily was putting him to bed when I got home. And since Emily still has an office job, working from home only on Tuesdays, this is HER life the other four days of the week. Not seeing him all day, and getting home only to see him for dinner, bath, and bed. And I know that she'd deal with the challenges of traffic cop/sideshow barker, if it meant seeing him more.
So yeah, Thursdays can be rough. By the end of the day, when Emily gets home, I'm exhausted, frazzled, drained.
And lucky.
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