Trying to figure this whole parenting thing out.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Week 15 Day 1: Deer tracks and woodpecker holes

Last night was a hell of a night. And I don't mean that in a "why am I asleep in my car and where are my pants" kind of way. We don't roll like that around here. Our night-o-meter is pretty exclusively measured by how well Gavin sleeps. Thankfully he usually sleeps really well. He goes to sleep around 7 and quite often stays asleep until 7 the next morning. Sometimes he wakes once or twice to feed, but he really is a good sleeper. Not last night, though. He was up and down from 7 until after midnight. I don't know what the deal was, either. He'd wake up crying really hard and one of us would go in, soothe him back to sleep, and soon after he'd wake up again. And I always found him sitting up in the corner of his crib closest to the door, holding onto the crib slats. Stacy said she read somewhere that some babies practice their newfound mobility skills when they're supposed to be asleep and we thought maybe that's what he was doing, but I am not so sure. It was not at all normal behavior for him. We finally guessed that he might be teething and gave him some baby Tylenol, some teething tablets, and swabbed his gums with Oragel. I don't know if that solved the problem at all, but he did go to sleep and stay asleep soon after that.

So needless to say I was tired today. And I am still sick. Much better, mind you, but still sick. So, awesome.

Our big outting today was to go to AJ's Cafe in Ferndale to see Ellen Cogen Lipton, our representative in the Michigan House but also someone I know personally. I really wanted her to meet Gavin and I'd gotten an email saying she was holding neighborhood office hours or something along those lines at AJ's today from 10-11, but when we got there at about 10:45 she wasn't there. Alas. So Gavin and I went for a walk around downtown Ferndale instead. We went to the dollar store (his first time. A very special moment) and to Naka, an indie boutique store I really like. The owner is really nice (and, okay, very cute) and there's a store dog, too, which I whole heartedly support. They have some cool baby stuff, most of which is much too expensive for me to buy for Gavin, but they had some books there and, well, I'm a sucker for books and so we left with one. I mean, we paid for it and everything. Not trying to make it sound like I'm turning Gavin into a shoplifting accomplice. I got him a book called Touch and Feel Town, which is exactly what the title describes. There's a page with a brick wall that's rough to the touch, and another with a sidewalk. What sold me on the book, however, was the cover, which features the grill of a car made out of some kind of corrugated cardboard material. Gavin is really into scratching things and experiencing different textures, and when I held out the book to him he moved his little fingertips across the grill and then looked up at me with a big smile like, "Wow. Cool."

Speaking of new textures, yesterday Stacy, Gavin and I went to Grandpa Gary's (Stacy's dad) and we went for a walk in the woods behind Gary's house and Gavin got to feel moss under his bare feet and dried leaves, too. He got his little feet dirty and I, who think dirty bare feet are disgusting, thought it was the cutest thing ever. Gary even took Gavin up into his deer blind, which Gavin loved. We took lots of pictures, but I don't know if any of them turned out because they were taken with a disposable camera I picked up at Meijer on the way there because we'd realized we forgot ours. Gary lives over two hours away, so we weren't exactly going to turn around and go back for it. The funny part is, when we got home we got the stroller out of the trunk and the camera fell out of it. So we had it the whole time. In any case, Gavin also got to reach out and touch the pine tree needles on the trees. He's very much a city boy so this was very cool and is what I always kind of imagined hanging out with Grandpa Gary would be like for him. Of course, Gary doesn't know that we're raising Gavin as a vegetarian and that the only time I want him in a deer blind is with a pair of binoculars, not a gun. But Gary is a big nature lover, too, and I think he'll be happy showing Gavin deer tracks and woodpecker holes and taking him for rides on his 4-wheeler (when Gavin is older, of course. Much, much older. And not without a helmet. But that conversation comes later, too).

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