playground drama, take two

This afternoon, G and I headed out for a quick jaunt to our closest playground, the one at the library. It was the scene of G's first encounter with a bully. There were several other kids there, mostly older toddlers or pre-schoolers. One set was a mom with a baby in a carrier and her three year old son. Another set involved a grandfather with a 4-5 year old boy and a 3 year old girl.

I started talking with the mom after our boys collided accidentally. No one was hurt, and they both went back to playing pretty quickly. While G was playing, I noticed every once in a while the grandfather would try to instruct one of the two kids he was with. He would say things like, "Don't climb up the slide because that kid wants to come down" or "stop running into the road." For the most part, his two grandchildren ignored him. Most of the time, they laughed at his meager attempts at discipline and ran off.

At one point, I noticed the grandfather's little girl try to pick a fight with the mom's little boy. She shoved him, and the mom separated them. She shoved him again, and he went to shove back, so the mom separated them and herded the boy off to another area to get away from her.

G decided he wanted to go down the curly cue slide. He sat down and got himself all prepped to push off when the little girl came up behind him. She sat down behind G and started pushing, yelling at him to move out of the way. After a moment of that, he started getting upset and just wanted to abort the attempt to slide, but she kept on pushing and yelling. I was standing below them, on the ground, and she was watching me. I told her to stop pushing him. She looked at me, raised her hands, and pushed some more. I told her again, and she lifted her feet, and while watching me, kicked him hard in the back. I rushed to the nearest stairs and climbed up, but by the time I got there, G had run off, upset.

Soon after that, the little girl ran after the mom's son who she had shoved earlier. She pushed him hard, and the mom immediately stepped over, saying that was unacceptable. The girl continued, chasing the boy around the playground and pushing him repeatedly. The boy was crying and yelling, "No, stop!" over and over, but the girl ignored him. The mom called over to the grandfather to do something, saying the girl would not leave her son alone. He verbally reprimanded the girl without even going over to her.

I went onto the platforms to follow G around, and when he ran down one area, the little girl followed. I hurried after him, but I was too late. The girl shoved him hard in the chest and down he went. He sat up, looking at her like she was crazy, and started crying. At that point, I was pissed. I yelled at the girl, who was still putting hands on my son, to go away and leave him alone.

I picked G up as the grandfather walked over, and I just lost it. I said, "She is going around pushing other kids and being very mean. You need to do something other than just standing around. Our kids can't even play!" He didn't even reply. He just stood there looking bewildered.

It took a while to calm G down, and by then, his nerves were shot. He just wanted to go home. He signed for water and pointed at the car, so we headed out. In the parking lot, I met up with the other mom who had also been chased off by the crazy child. Neither of us could understand why the grandfather would just stand there and allow these children to terrorize others. It's not like he wasn't paying attention; he was constantly following them around, verbally trying to instruct them to get of the road and leave other children alone. At one point, he even said they were leaving, but of course he did nothing to make that happen.

I understand that, being a grandparent, this man really might not have known what to do with these kids. Maybe he doesn't watch them often. Maybe they're so out of control that he just doesn't have a clue what to do. But when your child is hurting other children on the playground, you need to physically step in and remove that child. He had two moms complain that the little girl was shoving others, but he just stood there and did nothing.

Frankly, it was just lazy parenting. He didn't want to have to go in and stop them from doing anything. And he was too lazy and ignorant about the whole situation to pack up the kids and leave. What will that three year old be like if you allow her to hurt other people now? It's really not that hard to follow up on your threats, people.

All I know is, as we pulled out of the parking lot, they were still playing there without a care in the world.

playground bully (or, mama bear wanted to punch a face)

To enjoy the break in the slight drizzle outside, G and I headed to one of our favorite playgrounds at our local library. We go here probably at least once a week because it's so close and easy to pop in and out. Plus, G loves this playground. It has wide, open walkways where he can run in a large circle, many slides, and several different sets of stairs. Really, if the place had some swings, it would be perfect.

When we arrived, a father and son were playing with some toy (a slingshot, maybe?) in the empty parking lot. G proceeded to do his thing, screaming happily and running in circles. I tried to engage him in a game of tic-tac-toe, but he became distracted by the boy walking into the playground area. His dad stayed in the parking lot, playing on his phone. The boy seemed to be about four years old, about a head taller than G. He said "hi" to G, and I asked G to say "hi" back - of course, G only waved. He's starting to notice other kids more and more, so he watched the other boy for a bit.

At one point, the boy jabbed a finger into G's chest. Now that I think about it, it was probably to move G away from the top of a small set of stairs that G was standing nearby. G looked at me and back at the kid and back at me, like what was his problem, mom? G didn't seem hurt, so I told him it was okay, to go ahead and keep playing.

The boy went down the set of stairs, and G wanted to follow. G headed down a few steps before the boy rushed back, telling G, "You can't go down these stairs. No stairs. No slides. You can't get on the ground." He said this over and over.

I thought, okay, we've dealt with this before. Some kids get possessive over certain parts of the playground. I told G he could go down the stairs if he wanted. But there were other steps to use to get down as well. I pointed him toward another set, but he felt like being a little stubborn and standing his ground. I wasn't about to discourage him; G is notorious to giving up ground to any kid who even walks past him, so the fact that he wasn't running away was a huge step in the right direction.

I told G to just wait his turn and let the boy get off the stairs first. The boy did, but again, as soon as G tried to go down, the boy would rush back and yell at Grayson. At this point, I was encouraging G to just use another set of stairs and he decided to agree. G started to walk off, but the boy followed, still talking about what G could and couldn't do. He was getting right up in G's face, and G was really started to get unnerved by this boy. I told the boy, "You need to leave my kid alone."

The boy started to stomp close to G's feet like he was trying to hurt him. He was grunting, swinging his arms around, trying to intimidate G. I put my hand up, saying, "Do not touch my kid. If you touch my kid, I will not hesitate to push you away." He continued to stomp and make threatening gestures at my son.

I looked for his father who was oblivious and called over to him. "Sir, you need to come talk to your son. He is bothering my kid."

The man started walking over. "What's he doing?"

"He's not letting my son play. He's being a bully." Yeah, I used the b-word. But it was true. It was bully behavior.

The man looked at his son, who had backed off. "If you can't play nice, we're going to leave." His kid started whining and saying he hadn't done anything. When G tried to go down the stairs again, the boy immediately tried to prevent him from going down. His father (I'm assuming here) stopped him, saying, "Okay, we're going home." The kid took off, yelling. The man said, "Come get your shoe." It was on the steps and he was too large to get it; I actually went and got it for him, eager for the kid to go.

This continued for a while, with the father telling his kid to do something, and his son repeatedly whining and saying no. Once, the kid ran off saying "Don't hit me, don't hit me!" and the father replied, "I won't if you leave the other boy alone." The father eventually gave up, though he did hover nearby on the ground, finally keeping an eye on his son.

G relaxed and began to run in circles along the top platforms. The boy began to chase him, following about half a circle behind but slowly catching up. G would notice and start running faster, trying to get away from him. When G would run over to me, the boy would stop and yell at G to keep running. OMG, seriously!

After a few rounds, G got upset, making the noises he makes when he's scared. He didn't cry, but man, he was close. He came over and clung to my leg, staring at the other boy like he was psycho. I told the boy, "Leave him alone. You are scaring him." His father came over to say basically the same thing and demand that they leave. Of course, the kid refused.

At that point, I held G close to me. Either we were going to leave, or they were. The father eventually managed to catch his kid, hoisting him over his shoulder and carrying him back to the car. The kid screamed bloody murder the entire time he was being strapped into his carseat, and I could hear him still screaming as they drove out of the parking lot and onto the main rode.

Why are some kids this horrible? The boy couldn't have been older than 5 at most, and he was probably more like 4. We've met some pushy kids before, including two I've had to physically block from touching G. But this is the first time I've come across an actual bully. It was like he smelled blood in the water, and as a shark, he was compelled to circle. Or maybe something about G just screamed easy victim. Or maybe he was bored and G was the only other kid around. While his father tried to control his kid, he was mostly ineffective. Following through with your threats when you first make them is kinda Parenting 101. I can't help but blame the parent for at least part of the kid's behavior.

I wasn't sure how to get G to handle it. I've always told him, "Do what you want. Take turns, but don't let someone push you off your toy." But he's just passive that way. At the mall that morning, he asked to leave the play area after some more kids arrived because he couldn't be assertive enough to use the slide. Being passive is just part of G - it's a large reason as to why he hasn't started talking much yet. It's part of his kind and gentle nature.

I don't want my kid to be bullied because he can't stand up for himself. I know it's unreasonable to demand a two-year-old to stand up to a bully, but I won't always be there at his side. I want to teach him some skills now, but how do you do that with a child who doesn't talk? I read something about just teaching them to say "No" loudly, and I'm going to work on that with G.

Our first encounter with a bully broke my heart. I'm glad that I managed to keep my emotions in check, but inside, I was burning with mama bear rage. I had to push aside my angry tears to be strong for G, and to not lose my cool with a kid who was still so young.

What would you do if your kid was being bullied on the playground? Any tips for this mama?

this boy? he cray-zee

Do you ever have one of those moments when you look at your toddler and think, Who are you and why are you yelling at me?

Because I'm having those. A lot.

I have no idea where the yelling is coming from. No one in our house yells, or at least, yells a lot. The hubs and I are both fairly calm people except during football season, and even then the yelling last year was toned down for the sake of our kid's ears. So why does G insist on trying to communicate by yelling? Or both throwing things at the wall, including himself?

He'll yell at random people we meet too. He did this at two girls in Target the other day, and I'm standing there thinking, should I tell them he's just saying hi even though I'm pretty sure he's just yelling at them for no reason? They just laughed at him and moved on, while I pretended I really needed to go down a aisle for dog food even though we have no dog.

Most of the time, he's very well behaved in public, especially to adults. People comment all the time on how good he is, sitting there patiently in the cart while we check out. Sometimes he'll have a snack, and he never dumps his food on the floor on purpose.

And of course, inside, I'm all no, wait, we'll go home and then. the yelling. it'll begin again. When we're out and about, you're only seeing poker-face G who might flash you a smile if you're lucky but at least he's well behaved.

Yeah.

The kid knows what an inside voice is and how to be quiet. If you ask, he immediately drops his tone to something less harsh on the ears. If you say, "ask nicely," when he's whining for something, he'll immediately do the sign for please. But I'm like, c'mon kid, if you know how to ask properly, why are you yelling at me?

I know those with 3 and 4 year olds are laughing at me right now. I hear a lot of, "Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet, hon." And I die inside a little more at the thought of worse. I also know that I'm asking a lot of a 2 year old who doesn't understand most of what he does or half of what I say, and he can't remember where his own elbow is 25% of the time. Like everything else with him, maybe it'll pass soon as a phase. We went through some screaming a while back, and some random crying, and that short period where he rammed his head into the wall. 

Sigh.

But yes, the yelling. I love that my kid has already figured out how to look bashful. When he's been yelling in the other room for a moment, and I go in there to give him my stop that OMG what are you doing in here? look, he gives me that sweet face. Then he'll walk over and give a peace offering of plastic food or my own phone as if to say, here, mommy, some food will calm your blood sugar or maybe you should play Gem Miner 2 for ten minutes to calm yourself down before you start yelling. Yelling isn't nice.

car buying aka headache time

I can has Bumblebee?

The hubs and I have been car shopping.

Oh, it's not by choice, mind you. The day I was supposed to go in for my recurrent pregnancy loss testing, my old 2002 Ford Focus ZX5 hatchback died. Not completely died, but the kinda slow warning lights, jerking, grinding gears attitude that singles that death is imminent. Death by transmission failure.

At ten years old and 113,000 miles, my car wasn't exactly ancient, but I had been expecting it to die at any moment. We'd had problems with the Focus for years. It felt like something was going wrong with it every few months.

So it coughed a dying breath on Monday. By Tuesday afternoon, it was sold. Thank you, Craigslist.

Of course, this left us down to one car. We've been lucky enough to have in-laws close by who are letting us borrow a car while we shop. Otherwise, G and I would be stuck in the house 24/7.

But but car shopping is HARD! Our budget is tight. Saving for another baby, paying for expensive RPL testing, and prepping for one or two semester when I can't teach (and therefore have a payment coming in) - all of this freaks me out when we're looking at car prices. And why are cars so expensive?? It warrants double questions marks.

We're hoping to find something by the end of next week, but the thought of spending that much money on an object just makes me cringe. I know it's an investment, something we'll use for at least ten years, and I know that we can drop more money on it as we save. But jeez. Debt. I hate it going backwards into debt instead of paying things down.

On top of everything else we're dealing with, my car had to die. Why, life? Just... seriously?

ups and downs at the zoo

This zoo day from yesterday did not end well.

But before I get to that, lemme share some cute photos of my kid.

He loves this pond. He almost didn't want to leave this spot.

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to cut his hair soon. sob. It's a mop though and I can't tame it anymore.

This is also one of his favorite places in the zoo. This kid is hesitant to get into water but boy does he love looking at it.

After I took the above photos, I glanced over at Dave who was sitting on the rock near the stroller. His head was in his hands. I walked over to him and his face was so pale, his lips bloodless. Soon, he started to shiver all over. He didn't feel hot yet but I just knew he would start running a fever any moment. He said he felt like throwing up, but when we tried to walk out of the zoo, he started to lose his vision and hearing, signs that he was about to faint.

I told him to sit down near the bathrooms in the sun while I went with G to find a zoo attendant for help. Eventually, a cart pulled with with a stretcher attached to it - I guess what they use to drive out anyone who gets injured in the park. It had a seat too. They strapped Dave into it and cranked him onto the back of the truck.

Don't think I'm heartless, okay, for taking this pic. Dave told me too! He's all huddled like that because he was in the shade and shivering like crazy.

There are all these back ways of getting out of the zoo, so they shuttled us out a secret exit and I drove us home. Soon after that, Dave started running a high fever and it stayed 102-103 well into the night. We were afraid at one point that we'd have to go to the hospital but a lukewarm bath helped bring it down. His fever broke sometime during the night and his temperature has been steady at 98.6-99.6 today, thank goodness.

We took a good look at his throat and sure enough, there were the tell-tale lesions. Dave has caught Grayson's hand, foot, mouth disease. I was exposed to HFM when I was a kid because my brother got it from daycare, but apparently Dave has never been. Sigh.

I've spent the past two days holding down the fort while Dave sleeps it off and praying I'm actually immune. I won't get my test results back until Wednesday, so I'm nervously feeling my head every five minutes and checking my throat for bumps. I'm not worried about the bumps and sore throat and the aches, but the fever terrifies me. I know a fever, especially in the first trimester, can be fatal for a developing fetus or cause terrible birth defects.

G is almost back to normal with just some leftover red spots on his toes. I'm sure Dave will sprout spots on his hands and feet soon but he would be back to normal by the end of the week in time for G's second birthday party. My baby turns two tomorrow!

Anyway, it was cool to see behind the scenes at the zoo. But getting sick to receive the VIP treatment wasn't worth it!

toddler face-plant

G just can't catch a break this week. Here's a pic of his cheeky bruise after face-planting into the kitchen cabinet yesterday.

all aboard the tantrum express

Based on my last few blog posts, you may be thinking that life with my almost two-year-old is all puppies and rainbows and kid-snuggles. Well, I can say that while there may be lots of kid-snuggles, there are few rainbows and no puppies at all.

G has decided to hit those infamous terrible twos a month early.

The pic above is what we've been dealing with for the past couple of weeks. G has hit a new low on the tantrum front. Right now, his "preferred method of bitchery" takes the form of the following:

• stomping his feet repeatedly while clenching his hands into tight fists and quivering all over
• screaming, usually just once
• throwing things, usually not at me, but whatever
• running around the house like a mad man
• contorting his body into weird shapes, like with his legs all splayed out and his back twisted
• whining. a lot.
• sitting and crying (see also: hiding behind the couch and crying, and following me around and crying)

I'm currently trying all of the following to see how they work and fit into my "preferred method of parenting aka not killing the kid or causing undue emotional trauma." Not in this order or all at once, mind you.

• ignoring
• acknowledging his feelings
• talking about it
• trying to get him to communicate without whining (see also: my kid doesn't freakin' talk)
• distraction
• putting him in a time out for 1-2 minutes (I've only done this once or twice. The last time I did it was for throwing blocks at me day after day, and he hasn't thrown them at me since.)
• leaving the room
• cuddling

The distraction method still works more than anything with him. When ignoring or talking it out doesn't have a positive effect, I'll start reading a book aloud, which usually causes him to come sit in my lap to read. Sometimes we'll step outside for a moment. Sometimes, when I get really desperate and a lot of time has gone by, I'll pull out some Yo Gabba Gabba.

Most of the time, he does pretty good. I have to say we haven't had any major fits outside the house so far, but I know that'll change. Today, while we were in Party City, he got impatient to leave so he started thrashing about in the cart. I ignored him and told him we would leave soon, and he stopped throwing his tantrum, though he did keep pointing and whining about the exit doors. Usually, once he sees that you're not going to give in, he'll give up. Sometimes, he gets so upset that he'll start crying. I'll usually let him cry for a bit before trying to get him to stop. For one, a good cry kinda helps release that pent-up emotion. For two, I don't want him to think that whatever distraction I offer is a reward for that behavior.

I guess really parenting a toddler means walking a fine line between sympathy and teaching your kid about appropriate behavior. I mean, he's not even two yet. I know that it's difficult for him to control himself. Those emotions he has are big and often scary. Sometimes, after a tantrum, he just wants me to hold him.

I get it, kiddo. Sometimes you just need to thrash it out. His drooling has picked up, and his fingers are often in his mouth, so I'm thinking those two year molars are on the move. He's also been sick lately. So yeah, being a toddler is rough.

And a lot of tantrums are avoiding tantrum scenarios to begin with. Like giving him a toy to play with while I change his diaper.

But that doesn't mean that mama will give him everything he wants just so he'll be quiet. It doesn't mean he gets to throw things or smack his little hands against my legs in frustration. It doesn't mean that this mama will listen to him when he's whining about it.

Unfortunately for G, his mama is as stubborn as he can be.

here we go again

 Oh lordy, this again?



Why yes, yes, it is.

My readership has grown like crazy in the past few months. The sick part of me realizes part of that is due to my miscarriage. Readers are drawn to that sort of thing. So when I saw that NaBloPoMo's May theme was going to be play, I kinda blanched and thought at first I'd ignore it.

I'm not really in the mood for playing at this point in my life. I'm still very much mourning the baby we lost. Sometimes I'll spend G's entire nap just looking at sites about non-genetic brain defects because I like torturing myself. My OB got a decent look at the baby and said the brain had developed out the back of the skull, and of course this points me toward encephalopathy, a defect that most resembles what I picture in my head. (I don't recommend looking that up because it isn't pretty.) Of course, most of the non-genetic brain defects are neural tubal related, which means they didn't close properly.

Which means, you know, why didn't I just take more folic acid or something? Really.

It does mean I'm taking extra folic acid now, as we're trying to get pregnant again. Another 400mg on top of my prenatal vitamin's 800mg. My OB never once mentioned taking more folic acid to prevent something like this happening again in future pregnancies. Her case was that the baby's brain defect wasn't preventable, but I'm not sure if she was just being nice about it - why screw with the emotions of someone who's obviously not all put back together yet? Maybe the defect wasn't neutral tube related and it's just all in my own head.

Speaking of all in my head. FertilityFriend.com, the site I'm using to chart my basal temps for ovulation (I highly recommend it, by the way), seems to think I've already ovulated due to my temps. Which is ridiculous because I've been sick, so of course my temps are whack right now. But if I went by the day the site thinks I'll get my next period, assuming I don't conceive this month, and plug that into a due date calculator, the due date for that baby would be the exact day of my D&C. February 17th, 2013.

How messed up is that? These are the things I think about on a daily basis. It's a wonder I'm not having to see a therapist for post traumatic anxiety right now.

...You know, NaBloPoMo's May theme of play may be just what I need this month. It's a healthy dose of fun coming at the beginning of my summer "not-quite-a-vacation" vacation.

If nothing else, you'll have a couple of guest posts from the hubs coming up. He's way funnier than I am.

keep your politics off my body

Yesterday was my follow-up appointment with my doc concerning my D&C. We hit the four week mark on Saturday. Today, of course, marks five weeks since we heard no heartbeat, five weeks since that moment of horror in the doctor's office, five weeks of this nightmare that will never go away.

I must say, I love my obstetrician. She's been fantastic throughout the process. She told me point-blank to ask for whatever I needed the next time I get pregnant. Once you've lost one baby, you freak out that you'll lose each one thereafter. My OB understands the neuroses of those women in the miscarriage club, and she's guaranteed weekly sonograms and an early anatomy screening at 13-14 weeks for our next baby. I can even just walk in to get a sonogram. In fact, she said she'd be disappointed not to see me often; the shock of my later miscarriage affected her too and frequent sonograms would ease her mind as well. Sweet, right?

I don't often get political on here, but given what I've been through the past month, I have to say something about the proposed Georgia law which could very well prohibit women from being able to receive a D&C after a miscarriage. The law basically states that a woman must carry a fetus until birth, despite the circumstances.

We chose to have a D&C instead of a natural miscarriage because that is what my doctor highly suggested. She said that a miscarriage at 14 weeks would be painful, very bloody, and last a long time. She said 20-40% of women who miscarry naturally need to have a D&C anyway due to hemorrhaging. Not to mention there is the emotional trauma of passing a 4-inch long fetus into the toilet. A natural miscarriage can also take a while to even begin, with some women carrying the dead fetus for 6 weeks or more.

I'm sorry, Terry England, but as a woman, I should have the right to decide between a D&C and a natural miscarriage. If my baby had survived further than 14 weeks, we would have discovered its fatal brain defect at the 20-week ultrasound. At that point, we would have needed to make the decision between aborting at that point or trying to carry the baby to turn, waiting at any moment for the baby to spontaneously pass away either inside me or soon after birth. Terry England, as a woman, I should have the right to make the decision to abort a baby that could not survive past birth.

You, Terry England, have no right to decide what is best for me or my family. You are not a doctor nor a woman. You apparently have no experience with miscarriage or pregnancy since your only plane of reference is to compare women to farm animals.

Oh yeah, I wish I was making that up.

This article does a much better job than me of explaining the situation and a woman's reaction to it. She so clearly writes with the rage I'm feeling right now.

begone, kitchen remodel!

We're painting our kitchen right now. It's the last phase of our slip of a remodel, which involved painting the walls and ceiling of our two-story living room, replacing our nasty kitchen countertops, and sprucing up the kitchen with some new hardware and backsplash.

The backsplash will now have to wait due to G's emergency room bill, but at least we're getting the painting done. The first coat went on tonight. The god-awful light yellow color is now officially GONE! Picture me dancing a jig right now.

Or not.

My father-in-law and his fiancee came over to watch the kiddo for us while we painted. At one point, G was getting fussy, so we turned on a Yo Gabba Gabba episode to keep him entertained. Immediately, he went into zombie baby mode, as YGG typically drains him of his ability to look away from the TV. The old folks? Yeah, they totally fell asleep on the couch. We peeped in to check on them, and there they both were with their heads thrown back, sleeping upright.

Maybe YGG has that effect on anyone over 3?

Keeping a toddler happy is hard work. It's no wonder I'm ready to crash at 8:30 every night. I can't imagine have two or more of those things running around the house at the same time. When do people of more than one child go to bed? 5pm?

a list of 5 ickies

Well, it took only just over a week until I got stumped for NaBloPoMo blog entry ideas. Alas! So I'm going back to my listing roots. Here's a list of things that have happened in the past week.

1. My car broke down on Halloween. Except it wasn't really broken down, just had a broken thermostat. And I thought I had forgotten my phone but I hadn't. That day sucked.

2. G almost broke his leg on the slide and had his first emergency room visit.

3. I had to put on my big-girl panties about a situation when really I just want to get angry. Again. But the anger just isn't worth it.

4. Another toddler pushed G down on the playground. I was so stunned, all I could do was help my kid back up and brush away his tears. I wanted to punch the other toddler in the face, but that would have caused more problems, I think. I should have at least punched the dad in the face for not saying anything to his kid.

5. I have yet another dentist appointment today about those old fillings I had replaced A MONTH ago. Looks like a crown might be in my future because the pain won't go away. I'm so upset about it, but what can you do?

Eh, that's it. I'm just drained from work and school and motherhood, and wanted to rant.

I'll return you to your regularly scheduled baby-ness tomorrow.

grayson says, it's ON, grass

We went to the park and it was grand. I got to swing forEVER. Then Daddy took me over here so I could practice standing and crawling. I love to stand!

Hehehe, standing is so fun. Wait, what's this..?

Something is touching my feet.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. It kinda feels prickly. Not like carpet at all.

I'm not so sure I want to sit down on this stuff.

No wait, Daddy. Where are you going? Don't leave me all alone with it!

Maybe I can push it out of the away and crawl over there.

Ew, what IS that?

Why do you keep touching me, stuff? I command you to stop it!

 If I can crawl over there, maybe the grass will go away.

It's FOLLOWING me. Stop touching me, grass! I don't like this at all.

Daddy, WHY? I kinda resent you right now.

Ew ew ewwwwww.

Stop touching me. Stopitstopitstopit!

I'm just gonna hold up my feet so you can't touch me anymore! But wait, you're still touching my other foot.

So I have to lift that one too. I wish I could raise both feet at the same time. Unfortunately, I don't have such magical powers. I think I'd just topple backwards, which means it would touch my head. GROSS.

You win this round, grass.

oh my poor car

So yesterday I got in a car wreck.

I'm still kinda pissed about it.

Well, no "kinda" about it - I'm still pissed.

I was having lunch with my dad, my first lunch with him in the new year and my first lunch with G without the hubs. I was excited to stretch my ability to go out and about with G by myself and involve eating. I saw Applebee's up ahead, so I turned right into the parking lot. I go forward, and soon my dad cries out, and I see a large SUV's butt backing into me.

It was way too fast for me to do anything but try to pull to the left a little, but of course there wasn't much room. She hit me in the front right side of my car. I heard a loud crunch and my car rocked sideways.

I was kinda stunned, so we sat there for a moment. The woman got out of her car and ran over, immediately apologizing. Dad said to get out of the way with the car, so I pulled into a nearby parking spot and got out to check on G. He was just looking around, sucking on his paci like nothing was wrong. He didn't even seem alarmed. I kept checking on him during the process of taking pictures and exchanging info, but he was perfectly fine the whole time.

Anyway, I didn't call the police to handle it the way that I should have. My dad though the law was different in Tennessee than it was, and I really should've stood my ground about it. The wreck was obviously the woman's fault for not pulling out slower than she did, so I'm hoping her insurance will cover it. Her vehicle only had a few scratches, while mine now looks like this:

My poor red baby. Hmm, I think that tire needs a little air.

Due to the way she dented in my door, my passenger side door won't open more than a foot. It'll probably end up being a pretty expensive fix due to all the dents and paint. Who knows, but my car's only worth $5000, so we're looking at a fix that'll be a good portion of that.

And I have to hope the lady was honest with her insurance. I'm worried they'll convince her to not admit fault, even though she said that it was her fault over and over. And my insurance guy was a jerk about the fact that I didn't call the police. Not really what I wanted to hear. I felt bad enough as is.

Rar, the whole thing just boils my blood.

At least G's fine and the car is drivable. I'll contact the insurance company tomorrow to see what's up. Hoping for the best!

10 random things I know today

1.
I'm likely going to quit breastfeeding at 10 months. It makes me sad, but I'm beyond ready to have my boobs and body back to myself. I plan on doing it gradually, and once it's all over, I'll pat myself on the back that I made it 4 months longer than planned. Go team boob!

2.
Friends Hammer and Tammy gave G a late Christmas present. This was his reaction upon receiving it:

Okay, so he actually loved the present. He was rather overwhelmed with all the toy goodness. So sweet of H&T!

3.
It's snowed again today. I'm so not amused. On the plus side, it's supposed to be sunny and in the 50s all next week. I think I'll take G for some kind of outside adventure each day. That kid really thrives on being out and about now that he's older.

4.
Crystal of Domestic, But Not Martha was sweet enough to linky me in her Pay it Forward campaign. A big WELCOME if you're a new around these parts. You can follow me to the right if you're so inclined and/or hit me up on Twitter!

5. 
I'm thinking about going back to school to get my certification to teach elementary. OMG.


6.
Speaking of the big G, this teething business is dragging on way too long. He's been "teething" for three weeks now with no toothie to be found. We swear he's got one just below the surface on the bottom, but it's hanging out there, in no hurry. Since he's 8 months old with no teeth, we're a bit impatient at this point.

7.
Though I'm so obvious about it, I love peeking in on the hubs reading to G before bed. The moment kills me with cute.

8.
G and I went shopping at the mall yesterday all by ourselves. It was a momentous occasion with very little fussiness on his part. There was lots of fussing on my part as I didn't find the shirt I was wanting, but there you go. I did keep him out a little too long, so he was overtired by the time we got home. He did not want to nap after that. The day ended in tears (both his and mine) but at least I got out with him? Right? I feel more confident that G and I can enjoy a day together out and about like that, especially once the weather warms up.

9.
Here's a pic of G and Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum. Yeah, she was over at my father-in-law's doing some music writing business. (I love how casual I sound there even though I had to try very hard not to be giddy around a celebrity.) She was sweet and totally in love with G. I didn't have my Lightscoop with me and the lighting was horrible, but at least I got a pic! And she said I could post it! Woo.

10.
Okay, last one... I have the grossest story ever. It involves poop. You've been warned. Two days ago, G was sitting in my lap as we read a book. He started to make his poop noise - you know the one - so I waited for him to finish. And waited. And waited. It took forever but he was finally done. So I carried him upstairs and pulled off his pants, folded them and put them down. Then I went to take off his diaper and realized there was poop all over his legs and ankles and feet. There was poop everywhere. To make matters worse, he was in a great mood and flailing his legs all over the place, flinging poop on the wall and the changing table and the changing pad. And me. I tried to wipe him but only succeeded in smearing it around and getting it on the wipes case as well. You know how hard it is to open two doors and a shower curtain, all while carrying a poop-covered baby away from you so you don't get more poop on yourself? Yeah it's hard, and I wasn't that successful. G handled the whole situation really well. Especially when I had to put him in the bathtub with his onesie and diaper still on, without him being in his baby bathtub. I had to hose him down, but you know, this semi-solid poop doesn't just rinse off. Plus, oh the horror, that's when I remembered that our tub needed to be draino'd, so none of the poop was going down the drain. My poop baby was sitting in an inch of poop water. So once he was mostly rinsed off, I put him in our bathroom sink, which he was way too small for, and soaped him up there. Again, he handled it fantastically. Then I realized I'd forgotten a towel, so I had to carry him dripping wet into his room again to towel and diaper him on the floor. It was awful. Soooo awful.

And there you have it. I leave you tonight with the poop to end all poops.

sicky baby

Last Thursday night, G's nighttime sleep just went haywire. He went from waking up once, maybe twice, to waking up every hour (if we were lucky). And it's been that way ever since. Last night he woke up every two hours and we felt so well rested.

Often a quick paci replace would get him to go back to sleep. But sometimes he wake up and take 30 minutes of rocking to go back to sleep. Or we'd have to put him downstairs in the swing. We have to get up at 5 so I can get ready for work, but we haven't had to use our alarm clock because he doesn't sleep past 4:30. Seriously ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. And 4:30 is actually good because he could be wide away at 3:30 and take an hour to go back down. The poor hubs handles all of the night wakings in case the sight and sound of me causes G to want to eat. If he's tired and I'm holding him, he goes ballistic trying to nurse. But anything G's up, we're both up.

It's certainly enough to make you reconsider having anymore children in the future. A reminder of that lovely newborn sleep.

Of course, we kept checking and checking his gums. Didn't see anything for a while. At almost eight months old, G is still toothless. After the first couple of nights, we started giving Tylenol. We had lowered the temperature in the house at night to account for a super high heating bill last month, so we bought him a fleece sleepsack in case he was getting chilly. These things maybe bought us the waking up every two hours that we got last night.

Also, he's rolling onto his tummy in his sleep. Over and over. He hates being on his tummy, so of course once he pops out of deeper sleep, he has a hissy fit about it. He knows how to roll onto his back from his tummy, but there's not enough room in his crib for all that rolling. You'd think he'd stop doing it since it pisses him off so much but nooo.

Along with the bad night sleep, G has exhibited other odd behavior. The worse is the random crankiness. We call him the "hot and cold baby." He'll be sitting and playing happily by himself one moment, then shrieking and making cry faces at you the next. He'll freak if you left the room to get a glass of water. He's learned how to push things away, so if you'll hold him and he decides to crank, he'll plant a little clawed hand against your face and shove. He doesn't want to drink from a bottle much, which is a problem on the mornings when I'm at work for over four hours.

On top of all of that, he developed a rash yesterday morning. It's now across almost all of his body, all of these tiny raised red bumps.

Since he didn't seem to be getting much better, we took him to the pedi today. She checked out the rash, said it didn't seem to be a contact rash like last time but rather a rash caused by a virus. A throat swab ruled out strep, so we're supposed to just keep an eye out for fever and worsening symptoms. Should go away.

She also did a thorough examination of his mouth and confirmed that he does indeed seem to be moving toward cutting his first teeth. Both of the bottom ones seem to be on the move. Yay for toothies!

I feel bad that my little one is in so much discomfort, but I'm glad that at least there seems to be (several) reasons for the nightwakings. I didn't like the idea of doing any heavy sleep training. G has always slid toward great sleep on his own, with us just aiding him and tweaking our methods as we go. It all seemed to be unraveling, but at least there's some hope that things will return to normal once the virus is gone and these first two teeth are out...

At least until the next teeth come along. Or he decides to start sitting up or standing in his crib in his sleep.

Sigh. There are people who have more than one kid! How do they ever get to the place where they look at each other and think, "Gee, I want to do it all over again"?

time for some holiday pics... or not

G just hasn't wanted to cooperate with getting some Christmasy pics taken. The above photo is really the best so far. Hoping he'll cooperate more this weekend.

I mean, come on, look at that face below. That's a face that knows what you want and won't cooperate anyway.

Or the presents are just too distracting.

Or I'll chop off a hand.

This is the best one taken with a Santa hat. Really.

On the plus side, he's getting really good at sitting!

unamused g is unamused

Today, Grayson had his six-month doctor checkup. He's 27 1/2 inches (80-90th%) and 18 1/2 lbs (65-75%). He shot up in the percentile for height after being in the 50% since he was pretty much born. I thought he had longer legs. He was born with short stub legs, and then suddenly whoosh they popped out there.

He got all of his regular shots, which always breaks my heart. He did really good though. Except later today he was obviously hurting a lot. I tried everything to get him to calm down. A dose of Tylenol helped, but only after I gave him back the boob and he succumbed to sleep again.  We put him to bed a little earlier, so I'm hoping he gets some much-needed rest.

I feel so bad because the middle finger of his left hand has a sore place on the tip that has gotten infected. We had just noticed it right before the appointment so the doc looked at it. I had noticed it was red and swollen a few days ago, but left it alone to see if it got worse. And it did. It looks awful. The doc said it was because he was chewing on his hands a lot; his thumb looks like it's heading in the same direction. So we have to put some antibiotic cream on it and hope it gets better or he has to have oral antibiotics. I definitely want to stay away from those! They make me nervous with the threat of thrust, diaper rash, and upset stomach on G's part.

Then, as the hubs was reading to him a little before bed, G got a paper cut that bled when he grabbed the book! Right near the infected spot on his poor injured finger! I felt so horrible. Poor fingy. He screamed bloody murder, too.

I took the picture below a few days ago, but I think it sums up G's day perfectly.

Unamused reindeer-baby is unamused.

thanksgiving full of family

My Thanksgiving was grand. I had two aunt, four cousins, and two significant others fly in from various parts of the country to stay at my parents' house in Alabama. So altogether we had fourteen people under one roof. I've got a plethora of pics to post (ha) tomorrow, but for now I just wanted to do a quick recap, along with a group shot.

This Thanksgiving:

• We ate and ate and ate. I was rather touched by how much effort various family members put into making sure I had dairy-free things to eat. I actually got to eat stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cupcakes, brownies, and a cherry/pineapple dump cake.
• We drank and drank and drank. Well, I had a little and most everyone else had a lot.
• Lots of games were played. The hubs and I discovered a few news ones to add to our collection. I hope G grows up with a love of playing card and board games. It's just what my family does!
• Cousin Binky is getting married next October, so we got to gab about that.
• The hubs and I actually stayed up till 11!
• G actually slept till 6:30 two nights and 7 one night
• Speaking of G, his screeching noises have only gotten louder. I think he upped the volume over the last four days to hear himself over a full house, and then he's forgotten how to tone the volume down now that it's just the three of us again. So ear-piercing. He's also discovered his feet (a little).

So thankful that everyone got to meet G. Also thankful to see the family banding together in the wake of my aunt passing away earlier this year. I didn't get to be involved with the funeral or the get-together to celebrate cousin Alex's graduation, so I was eager to spend time with everyone. I'll get to see them again when we travel to Miami next October for the wedding. G will get to meet his other great-grandparents.

From left to right: (front) Grayson, me, my mom, Loretta (big Alex's wife); (back) Paul (Steve's boyfriend), cousin Steve, aunt Marlene, cousin Binky, the hubs, my dad, cousin Alex, my brother Manny, cousin Alex, and aunt Poti.

What a damn fine lookin' bunch!

Oh, so G didn't poop for almost three days while we were away. It was the longest he'd gone without pooping. It's scary when he only poops once a day because it's huge, so we knew it would be bad. This morning, he finally pooped a decent amount. We thought that meant the Missing Poop Adventure was over. However, on the way back to Nashville, within 10-15 minutes of leaving the house, there he went with the I'm-poopin-now face. And he kept on and on. I was sitting next to him and the smell was awful.

We pulled over as soon as we could, and it was horrible! In fact, Dave's face of horror as he peeled off the layers of sticky clothing actually scared G. Poor baby. It was cold with a fierce wind, and we had to take off all his clothes with him laying in the driver's seat with the door open. Poop everywhere! The biggest poop ever! We cleaned him up the best we could, put on new clothes, and got him warmed back up. I think he must've felt bad (or tired himself out) because he slept all the way home, over two hours. In fact, he was so out that I stopped and picked up some diapers.

He was in a fantastic mood when we got home, even though we had to wake him up. Of course, that was until we both accidentally clipped his fingers while trying to cut his nails. He's so squirmy, so I'm kinda at a loss as to what to do about those nails. He keeps scratching his face, and just using an emery board doesn't work too well.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. Off to edit more pictures for tomorrow's post.

open and say "AHHHH!"

At our four-month appointment, our pediatrician gave us the go-ahead to start Grayson on rice cereal. We haven't been in a rush, though. I know the current recommendation for breastfed babies to start solids is six months, and even though we'd been getting comments that maybe it was about time, we just didn't feel ready. G had barely begun to take interest in what we were eating, mainly just watching us more intently. He certainly wasn't showing any signs that he actually wanted to eat our food. Nor did he seem dissatisfied with only boob (really, my kid dissatisfied with boob? pssh!) like he wanted more or something.

So we waited and waited, and figured since he's turning five months next week, we'd go ahead and give it a try. I don't want to give him much rice cereal anyway because I know it can cause constipation and what-not. Plus, it's kinda gross. But it's a tradition first food, so why not?

G will sit fine in his highchair, though he's not a huge fan. I thought he was in a pretty good mood, but he started fussing pretty quickly in the chair, so I guess not. That probably didn't help matters. I mixed up the stuff (so gross) with a little breast milk, dipped the spoon in it, and shoved it in his mouth. He stopped fussing real quick, as he does whenever something goes into his mouth (except for pacifiers, as you well know that he hates).

So I tried some stuff actually on the spoon. That didn't go too well.

We wiped his mouth pretty quickly, so there aren't any pics of the mess. Needless to say, I'm certain he didn't actually swallow any of it. That little tongue pushed out every bit of that rice cereal, accompanied by the appropriate faces. I think we'll give it a rest and try again in a few weeks.

This is what I think of your attempts to make me eat something other than boob. Bleh!

He looks rather toddler-ish in the photo above, doesn't he? My little baby is growing so fast!