Thursday, Feb. 14, 2011: Limey

Stacy packed up a bin of maternity clothes to give away to a coworker this evening. It made her sad but that she said she couldn't think of a better thing to do with them. It makes her sad to give them away not because of the tens of dollars she could probably get for them at a maternity resale store, but because she will not need them again. Because I am mean and won't let her have another baby. At least that's the way my sister Amanda sees it. We went to the gym tonight and she gave me a hard time about not giving Gavin a sibling and about not wanting to get pregnant. It's very difficult to try to defend your desire to not get knocked up while walking briskly on a treadmill. But the fact remains that I have no desire for another baby. I love, love, love Gavin and am perfectly happy with him, thank you. Yes, I feel bad that he won't have a sibling. But that doesn't make me change my mind about having another kid. People keep telling me I might change my mind. And that's true. I might. But it's a very, very distant might right now.

"Ow. Eye." That's what Gavin said in between bouts of scream-crying when Stacy squirt him in the eye with lime juice at dinner. I was not home so I didn't witness this. She had made him some banana avocado smash and decided to put a splash of lime juice in it to help it keep longer or some Hints from Heloise kind of thing. She presented the lime juice container, one of those plastic lime replicas with the yellow cap, to Gavin so he could smell it. And while she held it under his nose she squeezed it ever so slightly to let some of the scent out, only she squeezed too hard and a spurt of juice went directly into Gavin's eyeball. Oh how he screamed, she said. Stacy took his cup of water and poured that into his eye, which he also didn't like, and then she just let him cry it out since the tears were helping to wash it away. He is now afraid of the lime juice container. Hopefully he is not blind when he wakes up tomorrow.

So many new words. It's hard to keep track any more. "No" is still one of his favorites. The other day Stacy asked him if "no" was his favorite word and he said, "No." He's using words to tell stories now, even if it's only one or two words. Like if you ask him if he had fun at Kids' Klub at the gym, he'll say, "Ball," because he played with a ball there. If you ask him where Aunt Laura is he'll say, "Down" because her bedroom is in the basement. He's also started "calling" Laura. He'll stand at the gate at the top of the stairs and he'll imitate my call to her, which is kind of high pitched and sing song. He doesn't have the consonants down, but he makes the sound quite well. It is pretty adorable.

Dude busted his lip open the other day playing in a laundry basket with Stacy (she was not in the basket, he was). He looked like he'd been sucking on a purple marker. It had just started to heal a little when he tripped into a chair at daycare and split it open again. Shelly wrote on his daycare report something along the line of, "These aren't good days for his lippers."

Speaking of Shelly, she's leaving the infant room at daycare. She'll be right next door in the toddler room, but this still makes me said. Gavin and Shelly get along really well together. But he'll still see her frequently and then next year when he's in the toddler room he'll get to have her again. So it shouldn't be too much of a shake-up for Gavin, but I am sure he will notice. Okay, I'm not sure he'll notice, but I think he will.

I'm on Winter break right now (otherwise known as Spring Break, but that's delusional. It is so clearly not Spring). Much needed. As is sleep. Which I must do now. Because Gavin will be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow as usual. I didn't get to see him before he went to bed tonight so I am looking forward to seeing him. Hopefully he's in a good mood tomorrow morning. That's the best. When he's happy it's damn near impossible to be unhappy.

Speaking of happy vs. unhappy, Gavin went to my Grandma Helen's funeral. He was really very good all things considered. And having him there helped me a lot. He was a handful, to be sure, but he was also a good distraction. I think babies at funerals are a good thing. Maybe we should start renting him out.