Suzy Q Homemaker

Or: More Reasons My Life Is Overwhelming At Times.

You see that?  This is the best shot I can get of Timothy when he’s busy.  Those beautiful longies are now pilled and shedding and practically felted on the crotch because this boy DOES NOT STOP.  No, not for anything.  Ok, sometimes he stops rolling/swimming/scooting/wiggling to check out a puddle of spit-up that he just made or a wad of cat hair Lucy graciously left for me as soon as I got done vacuuming.

Seven months have brought forth a whole slew of milestones.  Timothy can roll, he can maneuver his body into plank pose for several seconds, probably outlasting some of the old people in my yoga class.  As I type this, he is exploring the living room floor with one toy in his mouth–that’s where most things end up.  Our bookshelves are once again littered with The Things I Have Taken From Timothy or Picked Up Before He Could Get To Them:

• Legos
• Pennies
• Pencils
• Tiny Paper Bits
• Leaves
• Rocks

Hey, this list can also be a list of things that I have to remove from pants pockets and you’ll probably find many items like this on my dryer!  Coincidence!

For those who are keeping score, Timothy weighed in at over 17 pounds last month, and when we were at his WIC appointment on Monday, he was 19 pounds (with clothes and wet diaper–soaking wet).  No, he hasn’t started to eat table foods yet.  He is so close to sitting up by himself; he rolls onto his side and sticks his foot up in the air like this:

But then he loses his balance and lands on his face.  I wish I could video this event so you can see this because, while you probably aren’t supposed to laugh at your child when they do a face plant, we do.  Plus, he doesn’t seem phased by it, so who cares?  My point is that he is still mastering the whole sitting-by-himself thing, and once we put that together with the pincer-thing, we’ll plop down some avacados or something yummy in front of him to see what he’ll do.

Meanwhile, we’ve got other hurdles to overcome, such as the fact that diaper changing time is now WRESTLEMANIA 2009!!!!  Oh my sweet baby Jesus, Timothy cannot STAND to be changed right now.  No, he has more important things to do, thankyouverymuch.  How DARE we try to hold him down and get a wet diaper off of him.  We are such horrible, horrible people, keeping him relatively clean and dry, right?  Even if we are putting the fastest kind of diapers on (pockets), we aren’t fast enough and we have to hold him down with one arm while he writhes in agony, screaming at us because we will not let him roll over and bite the rail of the table.

Speaking of biting, where are Timothy’s teeth?  Shouldn’t we see some by now.  Good grief!  This child has been slobbering and gnawing on anything that touches his chubby little hands (look at those dimples!!).  I can see the whites of the bottom two teeth, but they will not break through.  What’s up with that?  Maybe the teeth will come in when he’s got the pincer-thing and sitting-up-thing going.  Then we’ll all have a New Teeth Party and celebrate with some homemade guacamole that Timothy will make for us…in his pants.

Our Pumpkin Butt fleece soaker from Enchanted Dandelions’ etsy shop arrived just in time for Halloween!  I can’t get over how stinkin’ cute Timothy is, even if his nose is oozing green mucous and he has boogers stuck to his forehead.

So yesterday was exciting!  It all started in the wee hours of the morning, say, 2:00 a.m.?  Yeah, I think that’s right.  Timothy decided that he really wouldn’t like to sleep.  Instead, he wanted to fuss and burp and have Jamie walk him around the house until it was time for showers and coffee.  After the boys got on the bus and I had some coffee of my own, Timothy woke up with a fever.  JOY!!  It wasn’t terribly high–101.7, but he was so miserable that I gave him a dose of medicine, which he immediately vomited all over the kitchen.  I don’t blame him for puking because I’m not a fan of artificial grape flavoring either.  It reminds me of Now ‘n Laters, which remind me of being in fifth grade on the bus back when our bus driver was allowed to give us candy on Fridays.  A friend of mine loved Now ‘n Laters, especially banana ones.  Not once, but twice she pulled out a tooth with a banana Now ‘n Later and I’ll never forget the look of horror in her eyes as blood and banana-flavored drool oozed from her mouth.  After that, we weren’t allowed to eat candy on the bus.

Anyway, grape flavoring.  Timothy hates it so I’m thinking maybe we should just get suppositories.

That brings me to the second part of this story.  Since Timothy felt warmer than the common fever should feel, I opted for the rectal thermometer so I could get a more accurate reading.  Thing is, Timothy hadn’t pooped in a few days.  He’s a once-a-week pooper and it was due time.  I had to get the temperature, though, and I thought, “Well, if he’s going to poop on the thermometer, it’s a risk I have to take.”  And that reminded me of when my friend Beth was telling me about her daughter pooping on the thermometer when she was running a fever.  It was a great story, and I liked it because in all the years of taking babies’ temperatures in their butts, I had never had one poop on me.

I got the thermometer all lubed up with vaseline and got Timothy un-diapered and in The Position.  As I waited for the temperature reading, he farted a couple times, and I was all, HM.  Then he started grunting and I was all, OH CRAP HERE IT COMES.  So he was mad because I was holding his legs up while he was trying to poop and I had the thermometer in one hand which was now covered in baby turds.  I let him poop as much as he could on the clean diaper I had lying beneath him, then got out another diaper to put on him.

After I cleaned off the thermometer and dumped the tiny little poop in the toilet, it was time to nurse.  I gave Timothy more medicine because his temperature was up to 104.7 (no puke this time!) and we settled onto the couch for nursies.  Wouldn’t you know that he wasn’t done pooping?  No, sir, he let loose an ungodly amount of bodily waste that, if it wasn’t for the awesome snappi job I did on his prefold, would have shot up the back of his pants.  I was grateful that he finished his weekly elimination, but I wish there wasn’t always so much drama surrounding the arrival of baby feces.

Knit for a trade, these custom longies are 1×1 striped with a custom colorway and a solid green.  I had to play around with the striping to get it just right, but I love the way they turned out.  I scored some super-cute fitteds (think robots & mint chocolate zoo!) from Tara in return.

In all honesty, I was a nervous wreck about this trip to Louisville.  Who wouldn’t be afraid to take a four-month-old on a nine-hour bus trip?  I was concerned about how we would handle crying, diaper changes, and sleeping.  The feeding I wasn’t concerned about because I didn’t have to pack anything special for nursing.

Here’s what I packed for Timothy:

• cloth diapers and diapering essentials for three days and then some
• clothing for warm & cool weather
• the pouch sling & the didymos wrap
• teething tablets
• toys
• car seat for bus napping

The best part about being on a bus was being able to hold Timothy when he needed to be held.  He wasn’t confined to the car seat for hours on end, so I didn’t have to do any fancy car seat nursing or ask to stop when diapers needed to be changed.  The motion of the bus also helped soothe him to sleep whenever nap time was in order.  Timothy rarely fussed and never cried while we were on the road.  It was GLORIOUS.

While we toured Louisville, I kept the didymos tied on so that I could easily slip Timothy in when we were walking around and then take him out when we were on the bus again.  How about some action shots!

Obviously, I didn’t take these pictures.  My friend Mary Ann did!  In the picture right above, I was actually putting Timothy in the wrap while we were walking to the Ohio River.  I became very adept at adjusting while walking, a skill much needed in a group of people with a touring goal.  There was no time for strollers or buckles!

I was asked constantly while we were on this trip how Timothy slept at night.  The truth was that he slept just as well as any other night.  Since we co-sleep, there really was no change in his sleeping routine.  All I had to do was lie down with him in our bed, nurse him, and voila!  If he woke during the night, it was only to nurse some more and then go back to sleep.  This is exactly how it goes at home and what I expected to happen while we were in Louisville.  I made sure to get a single room with a queen-sized bed so we wouldn’t be bothered by (or be bothering) other people.  Not that Timothy was fussy or cried at night, but still.

In the mornings, I had to make sure to wake earlier than I expected Timothy to in order to squeeze in a shower and get dressed.  I was quite proud of myself for being able to do this.  I thought for sure I’d have to pawn him off on someone so I could put my pants on!  Cause you know, on any normal day, Timothy and I usually wake about the same time and I can’t get a shower until at least after lunch.

Our only trouble with Timothy was when I had to be away during rehearsals and performances.  He screamed and screamed.  It was heartbreaking and I hated that we had to be separated for those short amounts of time.  I’m grateful for a good friend who was there to hold him while he cried.  I need to think of a way to thank her.  Is there a Hallmark card that says, “Thanks for holding my screaming infant?”