It's a good thing he's cute

Wow.  That was one shit-assed bedtime.  Mark's out tonight, and my boy was seriously off his game.  During the bath, he slapped at the water and cried, "I DON'T WIKE BUBBLES!", cried through the drying off, cried through the pajamas, then cried through the first story.  "I WANT DADDY! I WANT DADDY!"

After two rounds of milk, and him taking off his own pajamas to throw them into the dining room while laughing maniacally and a truimphant yell of "THACKIE EMMERT DID IT!" he is finally asleep. 

It's a good thing he's cute.



Photos by Craig Larsen



Pushing 2

It's been a while since I last checked in.  I could pretend that it's just that my son keeps me so busy, but there's been a free-floating spirit of ennui coursing through my life, which makes it hard to sit down and concentrate.

It's hard to believe there was a time where I worried that Zac didn't talk enough, or that I would beg him to say "Mommy" instead of "Daddy" all the time.  I think he broke a world record for the number of times one person can say "mommy" in a 60 second time frame.  After the 932 reiteration of "MOMMY?" I said "Jeez, Zac, WHAT?!?!" (I was on the phone while he was doing this, of course)

He smiled sweetly and said "HI!" Yep.  That's an almost 2 year old for ya.

He got to spend a fair amount of time with Papa & Granny (My dad & his wife) this summer, and the attraction between Zac and his Papa was almost palpable.  Upon first re-meeting, Zac walked up to his Papa, reached for his hand, and said "Hewwo Papa!" They spent some time reading stories, playing cars, and walking around, holding hands and talking about things.  Zac became very aware that they were a matched set - there is no Granny without Papa, and vice versa.  He also named their RV "Harvey" and likes to check random RV's to see if Papa is inside.  The old ones are back in Arizona for the winter, and they are already missed. 

 

Zac and I also spent a few nights on the Olympic Peninsula with Ahhhhh-neee (Auntie Jennifer) Nom (Uncle Tom).  They had rented a house on the water that was absolutely gorgeous.  Zac enjoyed the boats, seeing wa-wa everywhere, and at one point he exclaimed "Oh My GAWD.  The Tweeees!" (trees). Fwwwwwwy-innnnn kiiiiiiiii-yites! on the beach was a huge hit. 

Fwwwwwwwwwy-innnnnn kiiiiiii-yites! with Nom

He parrots everything I say.  EVERYTHING I SAY.  I've heard him admonishing other drivers from the back seat ("Beep beep, atttttth-hoooooo!") and he met me telling him he could not have Ma-Means (Jelly Beans) for breakfast with a scrunched up face and "Puck you, Mama" (yeah, I'm not gonna translate that one.)

He's sleeping in his own room 100% of the time - we had a sitter over a few months ago and rather jokingly suggested she feel free to get Zac to sleep in his crib.  He went right to sleep for her, and has been sleeping there ever since.  Naps and bedtime have one of three possible outcomes: Really easy, One check in, and fucking awful.  There is not a lot of middle ground with my little man.

Yay! Potty!

He's very interested in the potty.  He likes to tell us to poop, and he likes to undress his doll and sit her on the potty so she can poop.  Last night, he told me he had to go, so I got him undressed.  He peed on the floor NEXT to the potty, yelled "uh-oh!" covered it with a book, and ran away.  It's a start!  My previous experience with cats has not really prepared me for this, I know if a cat was peeing next to his litter box, it would be his way of saying "I'm not particularly happy with you."  For Z, I think he just didn't QUITE make it in time.  I'm pretty content to let this go on his own schedule, with no real pressure about potty training.

He has a fine fashion sense, which is to say he wears what I buy for him without too much of a fuss. He's figured out that he gets fawned over A LOT when he's wearing a hat, so he will keep a hat on.  And while he likes his own hats quite a bit, there's nothing quite like getting his hands on one of my hats, or Daddy's hats. If ever you see him wearing a baseball cap backwards, it's not because I put it on him that way, he has his own sense of style, and he will not be limited by what Mama and Daddy say is "right".  Backwards caps are COOL, you guys!

 

Wearing Mommy's Hat (and Tigger slippers), an Animal hoodie (complete with mohawk), and Mr. I-Do-It baseball cap.

 

It's been an amazing almost two years, a frustrating almost two years, a happy almost two years, the most exhausting experience I've ever had, and more joy than I thought my heart was capable of.

I showed this picture to my primary care doctor.  He said "kids can't fake that happy look."

We've come a long way, baby.

17 months ago today, we brought our son home from the hospital.  Zachary was born via scheduled c-section, and it was an uncomplicated and normal birth.  He had some problems the first night - after nursing, he would fall asleep and then make horrible choking noises.  I still remember the terror like nothing I'd ever felt the first time that happened.  I was still attached to an IV and catheter and could not get out of bed, his bassinet was out of my reach, and I couldn't GET TO HIM while he made these awful noises.  It was my job to press the panic button and communicate what was going on.  The nurse came in, took one look at him and grabbed him up to literally run him down to the NICU.    As a C-section baby, he had some amniotic fluid that hadn't fully cleared because he didn't travel down the birth canal and have that compression.  This, coupled with the fact that he had undiagnosed reflux, was causing him to choke a bit on the thicker fluid.  He cleared that incident on his own without having to have a tube into his stomach.  After the heat of the moment, the nurse turned to me and said "OK, you have this panicked look on your face.  Talk to me.  What's going on?"  I couldn't really put words into the absolute helplessness I felt, being connected to tubes and unable to get to my baby, unable to help him.

Nursing was not an easy adjustment for either of us, and Zac lost 12% of his body weight in the first two days.  I was instructed to wake him every two hours to nurse, and we supplemented with a little formula while waiting for nature to do it's magic, my milk to come in, and for the whole thing to get easier.  On the first day home, we had snuggled up for a nap together and I had an alarm set to wake me up to nurse him.

The alarm went off and Mark and I woke up, but we could NOT get Zac to wake up.  I played music for him, stroked his face, we clapped and snapped, I poked and prodded, we even put a cold washcloth on his face and he was having nothing to do with it.  I started to get scared, and we called the consulting nurse line.

I went through their script of questions, and I provided answers.  "No, he has not had a wet or poopy diaper in the last 2 hours.", "Yes, he's breathing", "No, it doesn't seem like he's in distress."  After about 10 minutes on the phone answering questions, she told me it just wasn't worth it to take a chance with a newborn, and that we needed to return with him to the urgent care immediately.

As I was hanging up the phone, there was the tell-tale sound of a soiled diaper and we changed him while he was still refusing to wake up, and returned to the hospital.  I couldn't tell if the diaper was wet AND poopy or just poopy, so I bundled it into a bag and put it in my pocket, and off we went.

I sat in the back seat with him, shining the light of my cell phone on him so I could see if he was still breathing, and could assess if there were any changes to his skin color.  It was a silent ride while Mark drove with focus back to the hospital.

By the time they got us into triage, he had started to wake up. By the time the pediatrician got into the exam room, he was wide awake and ready to chow down.  It turns out, we had brought our baby to the emergency room because he was just really soundly asleep. It became a story we shared with a lot of chagrin and self deprecation.

Fast forward 17 months.  A couple nights ago, Zac tripped and took a header into the door jam, resulting in a scrape and a SPECTACULAR goose egg.  I held him to comfort him while he cried, and blew gently in his face when it seemed like it had been too long since his last sobbing inhale.  He looked up at me with the giant eyes that I love so much and he wailed "BAAAAAAAAAA?"  Even though it was dinner time, I said "Absolutely, sweetheart.  You can have a bottle."  Mark heated him up some milk and I continued to hold and rock and shhhhsh him and tell him he was ok.

"Do you think we should take him to the emergency room?  Does he need stitches?", Mark asked worriedly.

"I think he's fine.  Let's just put some ice on it" I replied.

Zac calmed down, and then I got the shakes and started crying.  He was playing happily on the floor while the tears dripped off my cheeks and nose and I put my head in my hands.  "I just worry about him SO MUCH", I told Mark.

We reassured each other that he really was acting fine, and I went forward with preparing Z's dinner for him.  By the time he sat down to eat, he had completely forgotten about the whole thing, outside of a little annoyance at me for putting a band-aid on his head.

I was out for drinks with a few of the moms from our parenting group, and I showed off the picture of Z's goose egg.  One of the moms asked if we took him to the emergency room, and I shrugged and said "No, we just kept an eye on his pupils and how he was walking and gave him a little tylenol before bed.  He shook it off pretty well."

She said "Wow, you've come a long ways from taking him to the emergency room because he was asleep."

I thought about that, and I thought about this journey.  We really HAVE come a long way!  Emotionally, mentally, and physically for Zac, we are not the same parents today that we were when we brought him home.  Neither one of us worry any less, but I like to think we've all changed for the better as we've got to know each other.