Trying to figure this whole parenting thing out.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Week 7 Day 1: Junk grabber

This is my week off, so to speak. It's Stacy's winter break so she is home all week. It's nice, though it will make next week harder for both me and Gavin. But we're troopers. We'll make it.

I bought diapers today. On Friday I got some coupons for Huggies in the mail along with a Rite Aid circular that said Huggies were on sale. I looked at Gavin and said, "All right! We've got some reasons to celebrate."So, you know, that's my life. Thankfully Gavin still thinks I'm pretty cool. And he always will. Ha.

Gavin had a bath during the day, which is slightly unusual in that he usually bathes at night before bed (and by "at night before bed" I mean between 4 and 5 since he starts winding down for bed between 5:30 and 6 and is asleep by 7 at the latest). Stacy almost always bathes him. He grew out of his bath chair a long time ago and now he just goes in the tub with one of us. I was the first one to bathe him this way because Stacy had taken the cloth cover off of the bathing chair to wash it and I didn't realize the chair was inoperable until I already had Gavin completely naked. I could have gone to get the chair cover but I didn't know where it was. In any case, she and Gavin usually bathe together. He likes the bath for the most part. He has discovered splashing which he likes because it's something cool he making happen, but does not like because he always splashes himself in the face.

Stacy and I are big fans of our naked boy, which sounds weird maybe, but he's just so beautiful. It's hard not to just stare at him when you get him out of the tub and dry him off. He gets very animated, his chubby legs kicking and his fists pumping. He often puts his toes in his mouth when he's naked, something he can't do when he's wearing clothes and a diaper because they limit his range of motion. It's pretty adorable.

Gavin is also a fan of his naked body in that it is impossible to change his diaper now without his hands immediately clamping onto his privates (or his junk, as the male reproductive organs are colloquially called, much to Stacy's mother's horror when Stacy called it such in front of her. "It's not junk," she huffed, apparently mistaking Stacy's appropriation of the term for a declaration of man-hating lesbianism). And "clamp" is not an exaggeration. He has a vice grip. It worries me. I don't know if I've mentioned the raking scratches he is prone to giving himself on his head and face and once inside of his outer ear. The dude has some major claws. Stacy cuts them and files them religiously, but he manages to scrape the hell out of himself anyway. The way he grabs his junk I'm afraid he'll end up circumcising himself. We're doing our best to teach him the concept of "gentle touches" whether it's his penis and scrotum, the dog and cat, or his moms' hair. Although I should mention that he doesn't show any evidence of pain or discomfort when he's manhandling himself (like when my mom found my twin sister Laura screaming in her crib only to find that what was causing the crying was that Laura was pulling her own hair). A lot of times he looks pretty darn serene. While I don't mind him touching himself as long as he isn't maiming, it does make diaper changing a lot harder, especially when you're dealing with poo. I give him a toy to hang onto to keep his hands occupied, but he'll often take the toy in one hand and his junk in another. I've found that if I place the toy directly on his face he'll then grab it with both hands. But I can't expect this trick to last forever.

So yeah, he's a Grabby McGraberton. No matter what it is, he wants to touch it and hold it. And yesterday he pulled himself to a standing position for the first time. He's done this in his crib once before, but this was in the living room where the stakes were higher. It was pretty amazing. He was pretty proud of himself. As for me, I am proud of him, but also know that I am in deep trouble as soon as he becomes ambulatory. Gavin the Destroyer is not far away. As Laura said the other day when she was over, "Pretty soon he'll be tearing around the house with no regard for his safety or his health." I think I'll get him a helmet. Hell, I'll get one, too.

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