Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010: Thanks a lot

Gavin and Stacy are in the bathroom giggling. He's getting a bath. She might be in the bathtub with him. I don't know, because I'm in the living room not grading essays. I have a hole in my sock. I am tired. These are the things I do know.

Gavin can do so much for himself now. Well, he wants to do more than he can actually do, but even when he can't actually do something, he gets it. He's also a total monkey these days, climbing on and over and under everything. Stacy's taken to putting the kitchen chairs sideways on the floor to keep him from climbing up onto them. He likes to sit at the kitchen table and draw. Scribble, I guess. Still, he's got an artistic streak. But he wants to sit at the table all of the time and he can't be trusted not to chair surf, i.e. stand on the chair. "Chairs are for sitting" and "Sitting please," are very common phrases around these parts. Gavin's response is to either sit down, pretend like he's going to sit down and laugh maniacally, or to ignore us all together opting for a physical correction by default. And by "physical correction" I don't mean we beat him or something (although yesterday my dad was over and he saw the book Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline on the kitchen table and asked, "Are you going to smack him around?" Um, no, Dad. We aren't. Anyway, he was kidding, I think). I just mean we have to pick him up and take him off of the chair or gently encourage him to sit.

I took Gavin to the doctor on Tuesday because he'd had a cold for about three weeks. She gave him some antibiotics - nasty cherry-flavored pink goo that I can barely stand the smell of but that Gavin sucks down like it's candy. He doesn't know any better. And that's really to our benefit when it comes to giving him medicine, I guess. We've never given him anything besides baby acetaminophen before, so this was Gavin's first prescription. Unfortunately, his cold seems to be going on four weeks now, since it doesn't seem to have cleared up by now. I don't know if it should be cleared up by now or not, though. Stacy called the doctor this morning and left a message asking if we should give him another dose of the meds since we have enough left for one more. So we shall see.

Gavin's first Thanksgiving as a conscious being went really well. I mean, he was conscious last year, too, but not eating anything besides boobie milk and the occasional helping of cereal. Last year we were at Grandpa Gary's where Gavin got to cruise around in Great Grandma Mary's wheelchair. This year we went to Grandma Kathy's new place (see photo at left, taken by Laura's girlfriend at Grandma's), but had we gone to Grandpa Gary's no doubt he would have been pushing the wheelchair around the house rather than riding in it. Grandma Kathy has no wheelchairs, but she does have a piano and a harp and Gavin played solos on each. It took him awhile to get comfortable over there since he hasn't been very often, but once he was acclimated and could detach himself from Stacy he was very confident and curious.

Stacy made apple pie and Gavin got to have some. He was a very enthusiastic apple pie eater. He never gets to eat stuff like this since we are terribly mean moms. Stacy makes a damn good apple pie, too. Part of me wishes she would make it every day, but another part of me, the part that doesn't want to spend my life confined to a motor scooter to cart around my girth, is glad she doesn't.