Today is my birthday and this morning I woke up to the sound of Gavin crying. Super loud crying, in fact. Wailing, even. I took some NyQuil last night so I wasn't quite fully conscious when I first heard it. And I even tried to go back to sleep. I figured Stacy was up and dealing with it. He was probably getting his diaper changed, something that frequently causes him to pitch a fit. Not that he minds the diaper part so much as he really minds the being horizontal and not able to climb everything in the world like it's a jungle gym part. He's all about his new mobility and he'll be damned if soiled drawers are going to stop him.
So when I finally get out of bed I come in the living room to see Stacy working on the computer. Gavin is in his room crying like a madman. "What's going on?" I ask Stacy. "Oh," she says, irritation in her voice, "he wants me to rock him for another hour and I'm waiting to see if he'll go back to sleep." I should mention it was time for his first nap. I'd slept through his morning awake time. It was very clear to me that Gavin was not going back to sleep by himself. It was also clear to me that Stacy was not in her happy place and she needed to not be the one to go and soothe him. So I headed into the bathroom to pee and to gargle, two things that were crucial before Operation Soothe Gavin could commence. Ordinarily I would gargle AND brush my teeth, but this was an emergency. Brushing my teeth would have to wait.
When I entered his room he was sitting up in the front corner of his crib, one sleep-sacked foot hanging out, hands clutching the bars. I unzipped his crib tent and lifted him out. I don't know what I said to him, but it was probably something along the lines of, "Quit crying, Mama's trying to watch her stories." I'm kidding. It was more like, "Hey, Bear. You're okay. You are okay," with plenty of back patting and swaying. While Gavin was sick we got back into the habit of rocking him all the way to sleep because when the poor dude would cry it would put the mucus factory on high alert and he'd end up super stuffy and unable to breathe properly and, thus, unable to sleep. So letting him cry it out for even a short time was counterproductive. Thankfully he's over his cold now, but he rather likes being rocked to sleep so it's been a tough transition for him. I like rocking him to sleep, too, but he's a chunky little monkey and his mamas aren't body builders.
But my birthday wasn't all screaming and crying. Stacy and Gavin gave me some pretty awesome presents, including a book for Gavin and I to share and some monkey chopsticks. But best of all, Stacy made me a "How To" book modeled after a book I bought for Gavin called No No Yes Yes, except she used pictures of Gavin throughout the book. So, for example, there is a page that has an image of a monkey washing his face and it says NO NO on the page, and the opposing page is a photo of Gavin with food all over his face and it says Yes Yes. Because Gavin does not like having his face wiped. It is really awesome. She even laminated it and spiral bound it at school.
Gavin got lots of presents for my birthday. Laura and Jamie gave me the Chicco DJ Remix Piano I've been coveting forever and I did, indeed, use part of the Amazon.com gift certificate from my mom to get Gavin the Chicco Music 'N Play Table. I hope it arrives before Lisa gets here (next weekend!!!!) so that Brenden can play with it, too. I have to say, I really like Chicco brand toys so far. Gavin has several of them (including the DJ Guitar, which I got super cheap on eBay) and they're all pretty cool. Well, most of them. He has the Adventure Backpack, which I picked up 70% off at Borders after Christmas, which is kind of dumb. I mean, it's a backpack, but it doesn't open. So what's the point of making it a backpack? It doesn't really do that much and the removable parts of the toy, a walkie takie and water bottle, are really cheaply made. In fact, the so-called "water bottle" doesn't look like a water bottle. I think it looks like a hand grenade and Stacy says it looks like a bottle of sun screen so we've taken to calling it a lotion bomb. It does, however, play music and, like the other music-playing Chicco toys I've encountered, it has really good music for a children's toy and the sound is pretty decent to boot. So there's that.
In any case. I didn't do much baby watching this week since I was sick and Stacy was home. It sucks that I was sick her entire week off. And it sucks to still be sick on my birthday. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow healthy again. Who knows? But a couple of NyQuil certainly won't hurt.
Oh, and today I got an offer letter from the University of Michigan to teach in the fall. So it looks like starting September Gavin will be back in day care at least part time. And that I'll have a job.
Man, you sure take a lot of NyQuil.
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