When I got Gavin up this morning there was a bead in his bed about the size of a pea. It was just right there, in the middle of his mattress, right next to the bunny rabbit he takes to bed each night. And there he was, on his stomach in the corner of his crib, lifting his smiling head up to look at me as if to say, "Hi Mom, I didn't eat that, aren't you happy?" I'm sure he didn't even notice it (though one of his developmental milestones at this point, according to the books, is the ability to pick up something as small as a raisin between his fingers. Needless to say, we have not actively tested out this theory). In any case, the bead culprit was Stacy. It fell out of her PJ pocket in the middle of the night while she was doing one of Gavin's night feedings (he has two). I've been finding these damn beads in the washing machine for the past week. They're from a broken wine charm (is that what they're called? Those little trinkets that go on wine glasses so you can tell which one is yours? I don't drink wine so I don't know, but isn't alcohol anti-bacterial? So does it really matter if you drink out of someone else's glass?) and Stacy had squirreled them away intending to put it back together. When I showed the bead to Stacy she looked at Gavin with abject horror and said, "I'm so sorry, Baby."
And then when I went to change his diaper I realized he was soaking wet. Drenched in pee, to be exact. His diaper had literally exploded, the inner absorbent goo all over his stomach. When I took his diaper off I saw that his tiny penis was folded in half so that it pointed directly up. That, combined with his stomach sleeping, was a recipe for a peetastrophe. Do I need to mention that Stacy is the one who diapered him before bed? Yes, yes I do. The direction of the penis is a very important factor in baby boy diapering. I am very conscious of this. Hyper-conscious, even. For one thing, I don't want him to pee all over himself, and another, I want him to be comfortable, not contorted and smooshed inside his diaper. Diapers are already damp airless chambers of skin sadness. But it's really not practical to let Gavin spend his days and nights buck naked (though some would argue otherwise, but the whole diaper-free thing is really way beyond my comprehension and temperment).
Despite our rocky morning, Gavin and I had a good day together. New foods were tried: peaches (a big hit) and spinach and potato baby food (not so much). I never even gave him a bottle because he really filled up on solid foods during his feedings. Bottle feeding was such a trial yesterday that I figured I'd feed him solids and then wait to bottle feed him when he acted hungry again, which he never did. I did make his cereal with breast milk so he did get some of his usual fuel. But he's getting to be quite a good eater.
We also went to Target yesterday to get Mama D some more DayQuil. Our shopping trip was largely uneventful, which is good news. Yesterday was the first time he ever reached out for something on the shelf, but today he didn't, except for some clothes on a rack in the baby department, and really he just reached out and brushed his hand across them. He didn't try to yank anything into the cart. He will eventually. Laura and I were famous for slapping glass jars off the shelves when Mom would take us to the supermarket. Maybe we were comforted by the sound of breaking glass. Right now Gavin is really serene at the store, taking it all in, looking up at me with this part-wise, part bemused look on his face. It won't be long, I'm sure, before he's crying because I won't buy him an Elmo doll. ("But I told you we hate Elmo, Gavin! Elmo is not welcome in our house.")
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