Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011: Sick limbo

I'm sick today and hanging out with Gavin. I have a cold. Lots of sneezing and coughing and not being able to breathe, the whole bit. Good times. Before Stacy left for work this morning Gavin asked me, "Feel better?" Alas, I did not, but I thought it was super sweet that he asked and even seemed genuinely concerned. We went to CVS today (I know how to show a toddler a good time) and I told him that Mama D feels junky, which he promptly repeated. He repeats everything now. Before his nap after a particularly loud sneezing bout, he again asked me how I was feeling. I told him I was still feeling junky and he said, "Has medicine?" And I told him that, yes, I had already taken medicine. And that's where he decided to leave it, perhaps feeling there was nothing more he could do, and asked me to read him a book about caterpillars. Which I did. I am hoping that he magically doesn't get sick but I can't exactly say I limited my exposure to him. It's kind of hard to quarantine yourself when you're in charge of a two-year-old.

It was picture day yesterday, which is very exciting for me. I'm pretty sure that school pictures are in the top five reasons I even had a kid. At left is his photo from last year. Quite dashing, thank you very much. When I saw this photo I literally screamed. Again this year we sent him in a button down shirt and black tie. Because school photos are serious business, mister. It is my dream that we will somehow get him to dress in this same combo each and every until he graduates, though I realize that he might decide otherwise as he gets older. They say pick your battles. Maybe I will barter with him, tell him he can get a piercing or a tattoo if he'll just wear the shirt and tie. While I was getting him dressed in the morning he decided to flip out while I was pulling a t-shirt over his head -- all was fine, all was calm, until halfway through the process he decided that he wanted no part of wearing a shirt -- and he fell and scraped his cheek. I felt terrible, but it was totally his fault and I'm not going to lie, part of me wanted to be like, "Dude, that's all you," but I did not. But scrapes and bruises right before picture day are a rite of passage I suppose, and I can always Photoshop it out. Which I probably won't do. Probably.

I have mentioned before how well behaved Gavin is at daycare and how jarring it is to get a bad report, but I'm afraid that picture day was not a shining moment in Gavin's behavior. He was apparently great during the pictures, but nap time was a no go. He's skipped naps before, so that's nothing to be alarmed about, but this time he decided that if he ain't napping ain't nobody napping. Shelly said he would not stay on his cot and that he kept screaming and being very rude. And, of course, part of me thinks, "Hey, this is normal toddler behavior," and another part of me thinks, "I'm raising a sociopath." I'm hoping for the former. In fact, I'm betting on it, all my chips in. Still. Both Stacy and I have spoken to him about staying on his cot during nap time and if he doesn't want to sleep how he can read a book or talk to Shelly quietly, but he cannot keep his friends awake because they really want to sleep. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, it's Gavin's Halloween party at daycare. A party I will, regrettably, be missing since I have to work. This saddens me a great deal. This evening I am getting his costume together. He's going as a fireman. I put together his little hose backpack and I'm washing his black pants on which we're going to put yellow trim with electrical tape. On Friday there's a Halloween party for kids at the library so we're going to that, too, so I can see fireman Gavin in action. Even if I didn't have to work I'd probably be too sick to go to a Halloween party at a daycare anyway. I mean, that would make me an automatic asshole. So I've got my wellness goal set on Friday. No matter what, I'm going. No offense, but I've seen some of the folks who hang out at the library. The bar is simply lower there for contagion.