Jan. 27, 2011: Say my name, say my name...

You know, the thing about being a mom is that you really don't have time to update a mom blog. So, yeah, sorry about that. Doing the best I can here.

In big news today: Gavin asked for me specifically by name. While I was in the bathroom. So I didn't hear or witness this. But Stacy was pretty excited about it. So it must be real. As I said, I didn't experience this firsthand, but I have every reason to believe that it is true ("every reason" being that I want it to be true).

One of Gavin's favorite things right now is wearing grown up shoes. Especially Aunt Laura's boots. She has several pairs of Doc Martens that he loves to put on. The other day when I went to pick him up at daycare he was shuffling around in one gray ladies pump and one tan ladies pump. He was also wearing a 1970's fashion vest and carrying an orange purse. Where am I sending him, daycare or RuPaul University? I'm kidding. I thought it was adorable. Especially when Shelly, his daycare teacher, looked at his shoes and said, "Pretty!" So he digs playing dress up at daycare. This doesn't surprise me since we have put him in many articles of our clothing for our own personal amusement. Once Stacy tied her bra onto Gavin's chest and sent him out in the living room to show Aunt Laura, who then cracked up. That's how a lot of this stuff happens. He'll eventually realize that "Go show Aunt Laura" means we're making him do something ridiculous.

More and more words are being tested out around these parts. Gavin is really into "B" words and sounds right now. This morning he pointed to a baseball in an illustration on the front of one of his shirts and said, "Ball." He also says blue, button, ca-ca (which is peanut butter, because the Spanish word for "peanut" is "cacahuete," so Stacy calls peanut butter "something-something-cacahuete." So now he calls peanut butter ca-ca. Great. Thanks a lot, Spanish. I can't wait to explain to social services why my son's favorite thing to eat is "ca-ca"), down, here, drop, yeah, mas (Spanish for "more"). I'm sure there are others I am not thinking of.

Horsey is another favorite activity. Stacy gallops around the house with him on her back. In the mornings he often wakes me up by jumping on top of me and saying, "Jump, jump," which means he wants me to pretend to buck him off, which he loves. Going from "completely asleep to "playing horsey" is a little rough, but having a smiling, happy child staring at me first thing in the morning makes up for it.

A couple mornings ago Stacy heard a helicopter over our house and so she pointed out the sound to Gavin telling him what it was. He ran into his room and pulled his puzzles onto the floor. They're wooden sound puzzles, so the act of pulling them off the shelf involved many noises of various farm and zoo animals and cars and trucks. He came out of his room holding two pieces and ran toward Stacy. He was holding two helicopter puzzle pieces, each from a different puzzle. So I need to say we were blown away by this? He understands so much now it's almost unreal.

I spent a half an hour in my driveway after I got home from work wrestling with the cover for the car seat. I had some damage to my car a few weeks ago so it was in the shop and in the process of repairing it they got Bondo dust all over everything. They took all of the loose items out of the car and put them in the trunk and then they wiped the whole inside of the car out, but I didn't want to put Gavin back in his seat again until I'd been able to wash that cover. So, yeah, a half hour later and I have the cover off and I see that the label inside the cover says, "Do not machine wash." What? This is a cover for a car seat, yes? And the Britax people know kids are overwhelmingly disgusting, right? So why the hell is this thing so complicated to take off, for one, and why does it apparently not survive the wash. What am I supposed to do with it? Take it down to the river with my washboard and drape it over a rock to dry? No. Fuck you, Britax, seriously. Taking the cover off entails way too much contact with the cover. I kept thinking, "What if Gavin puked in here? I've got to dig around in his puke to find the straps and release buttons and whatever else holds my kid in his car seat? I wanted the thing washed thoroughly and so I put that cover in the wash on delicate cycle and hung it to dry and when I went the next day to put it back on, it looked as good as new. So Britax is a liar, basically. Still, I'm counting on them to keep my kid safe. Any other thought is untenable. The bottom line is that car seats shouldn't be so difficult to install and the covers should certainly be removable for cleaning. Is that too much to ask?

Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011: Magic book

Oh, the screaming. Man, can Gavin kick up a fuss when he wants to. Stacy had the nerve to cut his bath time short (in his opinion) and then she had the nerve to leave for dance class, which means I had to put him to bed. To say he freaked out is putting it mildly. I managed to wrestle him into his pajamas but once the sleep sack came out it was all over. He couldn't be soothed. I tried. He was reaching toward the door clearly wanting Stacy, which was not an option (I mean, I suppose I could have let him hoof it in his footie pajamas down the icy street after her van, but that's just impractical, not to mention teaching him that as long as he screams enough he'll get what he wants or at least some kind of terrible, freezing cold alternative).

I put his sleep sack on the floor because sometimes he likes to put his sleep sack on the floor and then lay down on top of it. But he wasn't having it. He ended up in the corner of his room screaming, just standing there, his face all red and pinched, snot running down his lip, tears a-streamin'. So I decided just to back off. In one of the many parenting books and tips I've read one of them said that if you're kid is in full throttle insane-o-mode and you're in a place that's safe and not public, then sometimes it's just best to let them freak it out. So I sat down on the floor in front of his book shelf a few feet away from him and said, "Gavin, I'm going to read a book while I wait for you to calm down." I got a book of of his shelf, one of the find and seek picture books he likes, and started flipping through it. Boom! Gavin was instantly silent. He walked over and then turned his back to me, his signal that he's about to sit on my lap. Which he did. And though he still had the crying aftershock shudders, he chirped and pointed and turned the pages of this book, this very magic book I had taken off his shelf. Thank god Gavin loves to read.

We've started covering him in his crib with a blanket. Which maybe sounds weird to a lot of folks since almost everyone I know has been using blankets with their kids for a long time, well before they were 18 months. I mean, for a long time we didn't use a blanket because we were worried about SIDS and every parenting advice guide says that if you're going to use a blanket in your child's crib when they are a wee infant you might as well put chloroform on it. So he's been using a sleep sack since day one. Gavin's crib is very utilitarian. There are no mobiles, no crib bumpers, no busy boxes, no crazy patterns. It's just a white crib with a white sheet over the mattress. The only toy is Conejito, his stuffed bunny. I know, it sounds like prison to a lot of people. Don't report us to Pottery Barn Kids, please. In any case, it works for us. Yet another parenting tip we picked up from who knows where. The crux of it is, if you want your child to actually go to sleep in his crib, don't pimp the crib out like it's from Babies R Vegas. In any case, the blanket is a recent thing. They've been using one at day care for awhile now (where he sleeps on a cot like he's in a little toddler hostel).

I can't really remember what prompted us to start using one, though it was Stacy's suggestion. Maybe to get him ready for the real world of sleeping in a real bed in real life someday. I don't know. But, to make a long story longer, he's really taken to it. When I put him to bed tonight I rocked him for a couple of minutes and then lowered him into his crib (the mattress is on the lowest setting now and we don't use the drop down side since the recall, so lowering my 26+ lb. baby into his crib is no easy feat, especially if I want to do it smoothly and gracefully so that I don't undo any or all of the calming created by the rocking). Once in his crib he looked up at me with sleepy eyes and just waited for me to cover him. He gave me a look that seemed to say, "I'm safe and I'm good and I'm going to go to sleep now love you Mama D." I don't know how to explain it, but it was such a sweet moment. And once I covered him up I zipped up his crib tent (the one accessory we use, which was originally intended to keep the cat out of his crib and has thus far worked. Either that or the cat has no interest in going into Gavin's crib) ans left the room. And not a sound. Just the quiet of a baby drifting off to sleep.

Jan. 14, 2011: Blowing noses and kisses

I don't like tantrums for some reason. I know most parents love them, but not me. If only Gavin had the courtesy to respect this and not throw tantrums. Alas, he is a toddler, and "courtesy" is not in the toddler vocabulary. "Shit" sometimes is, but that's usually an accident on the parents' part.

Thankfully tantrums were at a minimum today. All in all today was pretty good. It's Friday, which means I'm home with Gavin. We hung out and played and he ate and slept and I tried to get work done but largely failed. I did get a cute picture of Gavin and Emma, however, and that's got to count for something.

Gavin's becoming quite a good kisser. Kissing used to be him basically licking your face or coming at you like a sucker fish all open mouth and lips. But he's gotten pretty good at relatively normal kisses. He even blows kisses now, which is adorable. Although he once blew me a French kiss where he licked the palm of his hand and then pressed it against my face. He makes kissing sounds now and thinks it's quite funny to kiss Stacy's tummy. Stacy frequently kisses his belly and makes him laugh, so he wants to return the favor.

He can also blow his nose now. I mean, he's not like an Olympic Nose Blower or anything, but he has the concept down. When I got him up from his nap today he was crying (that's been the trend lately, waking up crying) and so his nose was runny. He pointed to his nose and I said, "Yep, we need to wipe your nose" and once the Kleenex was near his face he started to actually blow out of his nose. In the past his tactic was to perform heavy open mouth breathing into a tissue and then stuff it back into the box. I'm hoping that this new nose development also comes with a throw it in the trash upgrade. We'll see.

I think he may have said "mouth" while pointing at my mouth shortly after the nose-blowing. He reached out and touched my lip and said, "Mou," like "mouth" without the "th" sound. The other day he touched a screw hole on his crib and said, "Bu" as if starting to say "button." He's pretty into buttons right now. If I'm wearing, say, a button down shirt, he will be sure to point the buttons out to me. Then he pointed to his pajamas, which have sports balls all over them, and he pointed to one of the balls and said, "Ba" as if beginning to say "ball." He's still very consistent with "mas," Spanish for "more," which he does along with the accompanying baby sign language hand gesture. He also says "down" and "up" and "op" (for "open"), "sit," and "yeah" in answer to questions. He has started to say "woof woof" when he hears a dog barking and he makes "vroom vroom" noises when he plays with his cars and trucks.

I'm fairly certain he knows his colors. I guess I shouldn't say "fairly certain" because that makes it sound like I'm not confident in my son's abilities. I am, but I've never had kids before and I guess I'm worried about being one of those moms who way over-hypes her son's abilities because she thinks he's the spitting image of genius and beauty. But on more than one occasion he's repeatedly pointed to the right color object when I asked him. Most recently he had three stacks of colored plastic bowls that my mom gave him and when I said, "Where are the red bowls?" he pointed to the red bowls and so on with the red and yellow ones, too. And I asked him several times and he always got it right. So he knows basic primary colors. I don't think he'd be able to point out periwinkle or sage or anything like that, but he's not exactly vying for the youngest ever editor of Martha Stewart Living or anything.

The other day I was having a bad day and so I put, "Today is not my best day" as my Facebook status. I got a comment from Laura that read, "I just read your status out loud to Stacy and she said, 'Oh no!' and then 30 seconds later yelled, 'You should tell her her son is balls out and eating his foot!'" And it actually did help tremendously.

Jan. 8, 2011: Kids Klub clobbering

Gavin gave Grandma Kathy two hugs and a kiss today. A record. Usually she gets the cold shoulder. She bought him a set of red bowls that set her back and entire dollar at Target. But $1 can buy a lot of toddler love since they don't know yet to hold out for an iPod. Or a car. My mom's convinced that because she's babysat for Gavin a couple of times he associates her with us leaving, thus making her the enemy.

Before Grandma Kathy came over Stacy, Gavin, and I went to the gym. It took Gavin awhile to get acclimated at Kids Klub so I hung out with him there. After clinging to me for awhile he was lured away by some cute little (but older than him) girls who were trying to engage him. Ordinarily I would head for the door at this point, but one of the Kids Klub attendants had disappeared so there was only one woman in charge of 10 kids. Two older boys in particular were in need of some close supervision and I was the only adult watching them. At one point I got all "moms aren't afraid to tell other moms' kids what's what" on them when the older boy pinned the younger boy on the ground and started punching him in the arm repeatedly. And hard. Each punch made a loud thwap. I took a couple of steps toward them and said, "Hey! Totally not cool, totally not cool," all stern and stuff. It broke them up momentarily, but it wasn't long before the older kid, who I already suspected watched too much wrestling on TV, grabbed one of the chairs from the kiddie table and was brandishing it World Wrestling Federation-style at the other kids. The mom in me wanted to march right over to him and snatch the chair out of his hands, but I was afraid that Gavin would get clingy at the sight of me walking away, run after me, and then get hit in the face. And then I'd have to kill that kid which would be a bad example to set for my son. So I just kept my eye on him so I could let the staff know if anyone needed to go to the hospital. Several times I had heard the lone Kids Klub attendant tell them, "No touching," and every time the older boy insisted they were playing. And I think they were. But the older boy clearly had the upper hand and could have easily hurt this other kid either on purpose or by accident. The bottom line is that Kids Klub needs more staff on Saturdays. By the time I left Gavin the other attendant had reappeared (she'd been in the bathroom with one of the kids) and Wrestling Kid had the chair confiscated. But I still felt nervous about leaving him there. Oh, and it turns out the boy being pinned down by Wrestling Kid was Stacy's coworker's son. Gavin still wears a lot of his hand me down clothes.

Gavin busted out some new dance moves to "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics. Sadly no good video footage was acquired. I tried, but he wasn't into dancing for the camera. But added to his bag of dancing tricks is putting his hands above his head and turning in a circle. No doubt he picked this up from Stacy. I'm more of a Roger Rabbit girl myself.

Jan. 7, 2011: Liar, liar, pants on fire

I know you've all been dying to know how this whole pink eye thing turned out. So, yeah, we're pretty sure Stacy had pink eye but it only lasted for two days and no one else got it. I know. Anti-climactic. But that's the kind of ending you want for a pink eye story.

It's Friday, my only day as full time Mama D now since I work Monday-Thursday. Gavin is in day care only Tuesdays and Thursdays now. Laura watches him on Monday and Wednesdays for a few hours in between when I have to leave for work and Stacy comes home from work. After Wednesday Laura was totally wiped out. I hope she doesn't quit on us. Free live-in care is hard to find. Then again, I did buy her cookies and Vitamin water at the grocery store today. So it's a wash, really.

Gavin is asleep right now. I wish I was asleep, too. I actually fantasized all day yesterday about taking a nap on Friday while Gavin napped. Alas. It's almost 3:00 so chances of him sleeping much longer are slim. Which means chances of a nap for me are zero.

Gavin told his first lie to me today. After detecting a rather foul odor in the air I asked Gavin, "Gavin, did you poop?" And he responded by saying, "Oh," and pointing to his crotch, which is what he always does when you ask him about a wet or otherwise soiled diaper. But then he shook his head no. Skeptical, I said, "Gavin, do you need your diaper changed?" He shook his head no again. But his stench was much stronger than his protestations. And man did he kick up a fit when I was changing him. Screaming and crying and thrashing about. I really don't know what to do when he acts like that, so I just make sure he's restrained enough so that he won't throw himself off the changing pad and I just talk to him very calmly and say things like, "You are okay, Gavin. I'm sorry you don't like this, but we have a 'no poop' policy for the pants in this house. You're going to be fine," etc. It's stressful, don't get me wrong, but staying calm is really the only thing I've got to fight against it. I am, after all, the adult here.

His newest word is "yeah." As in, Me: "Gavin, do you like bananas?" Gavin: "Yeah." He also shakes his head no, as I've said, and he definitely knows the difference between the two though, to be fair, sometimes I think he just says "yeah" because of the tone of my voice. I should, perhaps, correct him and encourage him to say "yes" instead of "yeah" but "yeah" is what I say all of the time, which is no doubt where he got it. I can barely stop saying "fuck" in front of him, let alone avoiding saying "yeah." Plus, it's really, really cute when he says it. He can hear it's a question and hear that I sound happy and positive, But other times he definitely knows what I'm saying. Like on Wednesday, I left him with Laura so I could go to work. He was very clingy that day. Earlier he'd spurned Aunt Laura's offer to pick him up, which I don't think he's done much before and Laura acted all hurt (partly in jest, but partly for real I think. Because it totally sucks to receive social rejection from a 17 month old). So when I scooped him up to give him a hug good bye I asked him, "Gavin, do you like Aunt Laura?" ("Yeah") and then I asked, "Do you want to stay with her and play?" His answer was a whine and a very clear "no" head shake. This might have hurt Laura's feelings a bit, but now she knows how I feel. Granted, Gavin will still choose Stacy over me any day, but I'm told that will eventually change. I'll manage to turn him against her one way or another.

Jan. 2, 2011: Pinky f#%kin' swear

Stacy might have pink eye. Try not to be jealous, everyone. Time will tell if Gavin and I get it or not. Last time she had pink eye she had it for, like, six months (this is a slight exaggeration, but it felt like she had it forever. She missed so much work that it ended up cutting into the accrued sick days she'd planned to use for her maternity leave). I never got it. But this time there's a kid in the mix. A kid who loves to play "point to the parts of the face," which involves him answering a question like, "Where's your eye?" by pointing to (read: poking) his own eye. This is often followed with, "Where's Mommy's eye?" (poke) and "Where's Mama D's eye?" (poke). I woke up to some version of this game today, though the only part I remember is him raking me across the cheek with his fingernails and sticking some of his fingers in my mouth. I think the question was, "Where are Mama D's teeth?" In any case, my Great Big Hope is that I don't get pink eye and that Gavin doesn't get pink eye.

In other news, Gavin and I went to Kohls (a store I had no use or love for until I had a kid) and Target to return stuff and to get out of Stacy's hair so she could get stuff done for school. It was super cold today and Gavin wasn't wearing mittens and I felt terrible about that even though it is highly unlikely he would have kept them on his hands. On the way home I heard him playing with the Velcro of his boots. When we got home I went to get him out of the car and lo and behold he'd taken off both of his boots and his socks. He was quite a sight all bundled up from head to, well, leg. He used to do that all of the time as a baby. No matter where we went he'd have his socks and shoes off before we arrived. He still prefers to be barefoot, though I really hope that we can convince him that Winter is not the best season for naked feet.

Yesterday we went to see Stacy's dad and grandma (a.k.a. Grandpa Gary and Great Grandma Mary) up north. Gary gave Gavin a rooster clock that crows every hour on the hour or when you push a little button on the back. Gavin is quite enamored with this clock and its rooster sounds, though I've just taken the batteries out for the second time because even though the clock is supposed to be sensitive to light and therefore only work during the day, its concept of day is apparently quite different from ours. And since Gavin has been in bed for hours, there is no one to delight with cock-a-doodle-dooing at this hour.

Okay everybody, let's pray that no one has pink eye tomorrow.