ouch

Here's what happens when I leave my child alone in his "childproofed" bedroom for less than thirty seconds:

If I had to guess what happened based on where he was when I left him and where I found him when I rushed into his room, I'd say that he decided to climb onto the end table next to his rocking chair, then attempted to jump the one foot gap between the table and the chair and fell somewhere in between, bashing his cheek along the way.

Considering the large pile of books that were still stacked on the end table and the random ones that were scattered on the floor, I can only assume that he upped the ante by standing on top of the pile of books that were on top of the end table, and then tried to jump onto the chair, slipping on the wobbly stack of books and plummeting to the floor. Yeah, that sounds like something he would do.

I attempted to put ice on it and tried out his "Boo-boo Bunny", which is a block of plastic that you freeze and wrap a little plush bunny around, thought being that the kid will be more willing to let you mash a piece of ice into his already-tender face because it looks like a cute little bunny rabbit. Apparently the inhaler-mask-designers and the Boo-boo Bunny people are in cahoots. I'm pretty sure Alex hates bunnies now.

After a few hilarious minutes of freezing Mommy's arms and legs with the Boo-boo Bunny (Mommy hates bunnies now, too), A was back to himself. "Boo-boo" has become a regular staple in Alex's vocab as of late as he has gotten braver and/or more reckless in his daily activities. Unless I duct-tape him to my hip (which no, I'm not willing to do to save him some bumps and bruises), I just can't keep up with him. So for now I'm just hoping that these bumps are "bumps of knowledge", and that maybe next time, he'll take the books off the table before launching himself from it.

playing hooky

With A having strep throat and all, we decided to skip church Sunday morning so as to not pass the plague on to unsuspecting kids in the nursery, and instead, went to the park to spend the morning with the rest of the heathens. The park we frequent has a ton of ducks that are usually very hungry and tend to stalk park goers in hopes of scoring a stray snack, so we were armed with a giant sack of stale bread that we had saved over the course of the week. A loves to feed the ducks, so we were really looking forward to a fun morning of duck-fattening.

Unfortunately the duck-fattening didn't happen as planned. Almost every family with young kids brings a loaf of bread to this park to feed the ducks, so maybe by Sunday they were already stuffed to their eyeballs and simply weren't hungry for our bread. Perhaps they have already started their low-carb diets, trying to slim down for bathing-suit season. Could be that they are just sick to death of bread, and they're all, Seriously, who told you people ducks only eat simple carbohydrates? Can't you spare a Porterhouse? Some yogurt? Heck, we'd even take Brussels sprouts! Anything but bread!! Or maybe they like bread alright, just not our week old hard-as-a-rock bread that could render a duck unconscious if Alex's aim was off a little.

Whatever the case, the ducks were not interested in our bread. But we didn't let that ruin our fun. Alex tested out each piece of playground equipment - more than once - and impressed us by mastering the rock wall, which he can now scale in under eight seconds. He is fearless when it comes to the slide, and the higher you can push him on the swing, the better.

Next Saturday, our church is having "Family Fun in the Park" day, complete with a bouncy house and games and snacks and loads of fellowship. So assuming we haven't been kicked out for playing hooky this morning, we have that to look forward to.

Streptococcal Pharyngitis

That's right. The kid is sick. He's been coughing for a few days, which tends to happen when the weather changes and his throat gets snotty. Normally we'd just run the vaporizer at night and lube him up with Vicks VapoRub until it passes or until he starts running a fever, at which point we'd take him to the doc assuming that an ear infection is to blame. This time, it was keeping him up at night, and while a dose of Benadryl before bedtime soothed his itchy throat enough to let him sleep, the coughing wasn't going away or even getting better. I still wasn't really worried until he was listening to music on Tim's headphones and was so uncharacteristically calm and quiet that I noticed he was wheezing. That pretty much raised a red flag - time to see the doc.

The wheezing started on Friday afternoon, so our only choice was to take Alex to the walk-in clinic at Baylor Pediatric this morning. Timothy volunteered to take him so that I could have a peaceful morning at home (much-appreciated after Spring Break week with no M.D.O.), so the two of them set off early to beat the rush. Unfortunately, the rush beat them. The clinic opened at 9am, and by the time they arrived at 9:06am, they were 11th in line to see the doc. Luckily, A was in a stellar mood and entertained himself by entertaining the masses in the waiting room. A mere two hours later and they left with the diagnosis - Streptococcal Pharyngitis, aka "Strep Throat", and a minor respiratory infection.

They came home with antibiotics and an inhaler, which Alex loves and hates, respectively. Well, to be accurate, he only hates the inhaler when we force him to breathe from it. It really doesn't help that the handy, kid-sized mask attached to the inhaler has been painted to look like a cute little ducky face. Nice effort, inhaler-mask-designing-people, but instead of making my kid love his inhaler, I think you've made him hate ducks.

So forcing him to use the inhaler is a torturous and traumatic process for all of us. But thank God for that nurse who taught us an invaluable technique for making a kid do stuff that he doesn't want to do, one that involves one parent sitting on him while the other pins his elbows to his ears. Thanks to that method, we were able to administer Round 2 of his Albuterol much more efficiently than the first time. A few hugs and one gumdrop later, and A was back to his usual giddy self.

Speaking of which, aside from the occasional cough and a little wheezing, you'd never know the kid was sick, let alone inflicted with two nasty infections. He's been a total goofball, super happy and lovable, maybe even more so than usual. Case in point:

Seriously folks, does that look like a kid who is suffering? Streptococcus, shmeptococcus.

St. Pat's Revenge

I attempted to bring out the goofy hat and glasses that Alex so willingly donned last St. Patrick's Day, but apparently he has gotten much cooler since then and was not interested in letting me make a fool of him. I tried to explain that he would simply be expressing his holiday spirit, but he was not buying it.

So instead, we compromised, and he allowed me to dress him in a "less dorky" greenish outfit.

After a few errands, we came home and had lunch. I suppose it should have been something like potatoes and green beer, but Alex ended up having a decidedly un-Irish meal of pitas and roasted red pepper hummus, after which he developed a nasty red rash around his mouth. He's eaten it before with no problems, so I guess he's developed an allergy to hummus or roasted red peppers or the combination. That, or St. Patrick is exacting revenge from the grave and is punishing Alex by causing a volatile reaction between un-Irish hummus and Alex's 1/4 Irish blood. We'll try the hummus again another day, and if no rash appears...well, I guess next year it will be beer and potatoes.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

20

So A turned the big two-oh yesterday. I wish I had lots of exciting news and updates and milestones to speak of, but this month's post reads pretty much like the last one. He's growing like a weed, debuting new words everyday, loving school, loving the outdoors, loving his family, etc., etc.

One change is that we have had to work a little harder to keep his attitude in check this month. He seems to think the world revolves around him. I cannot possibly imagine why. The timeout corner has been getting a lot more action this month, and thank goodness, he seems to be responding well to it. A little too well, in fact. The kid actually likes timeout. When he starts to cop an attitude, we will ask him if he wants to go to timeout. So far, his answer has always been, "yes", and when we tell him, "Okay then, go to timeout," he marches right over to the designated corner and sits down until we tell him to get up.

We thought the novelty might wear off after a while and that he would eventually realize that timeout is a punishment, but after dozens of opportunities to fight us on it, he still goes willingly. Not that I blame him. There are many times during the day that I would love to be sent to timeout, but no one is willing to send me. Then again, it is not at all uncommon for Alex to put himself in timeout for no apparent reason. Many times during the course of the day, I will look over and find Alex sitting in the corner by himself, flashing me his aren't I funny? smile. I'll ask him, "Are you in timeout?", and he'll say, "Yes". I'll ask, "Are you a bad boy?" and he'll say, "Yes". Then he waits for me to tell him to get up and give me a hug and apologize for his bad behavior.

Despite the fact that he seems to enjoy his few minutes of solitude, this method of discipline does seem to be effective. He usually gets in trouble for throwing a fit when we tell him he can't have something that he wants, or when we tell him not to do something and he continues to do it. The word "timeout" calms him down immediately and distracts him from his bad behavior, and once he has had a few minutes to "reflect", he never goes back to doing what got him in trouble. Not right away, at least...

Other than the occasional short-lived hissyfit, he is a good, sweet, fun boy. He is super affectionate, always climbing on me and hugging me and kissing me. He has become more independent and has started to enjoy more "big boy" pastimes, like doing art projects and collecting things and trying to read. His personality has continued to blossom, and he is more outgoing now than ever. He loves to scream "hi" and "bye" to friends and strangers and loves to participate in the activities at school. After I picked Alex up from class one day, we ran into the director of the Mother's Day Out program. She stopped to say hi to Alex and told me that she had come into his class that day to play games with the kids, including a game where you sing a song about rolling a ball to someone, then you roll the ball to that person, and they roll it back to you. She went on to explain that he was the only one in the class that would play with her because the rest of the kids wanted to keep the ball once she rolled it to them, while Alex was the only one who understood that you are supposed to roll it back. It seems that the kid knows who to impress. Of course, we figured Grammy deserved some credit for his cooperation because he's had some practice with rolling his bowling ball.

And that about covers it for this month. Our "project" for this upcoming month is to work on Alex's two and three word phrases because, while he seems to have single words down, actual phrases are few and far between. We have also been working like mad on his numbers because his counting now goes something like this: one, do, eeh, bow, five! We're hoping that, by age 2, he will be able to recite the first 1000 digits of Pi from memory. Hey, it's doable.

bed business

Things are still going pretty well in the big boy bed department. A is putting up a little more resistance when it comes to staying in the bed, but I've developed some strategies for dealing with his urge to jump and run. At bedtime, I turn the light off before I put him in bed, and since he can't see his toys or his books, he really has no choice but to go to sleep.

Naptime is a little more complicated, however, since daylight pours through the cracks in his blinds. I have resorted to letting him pick a few books to take into bed with him, but he will still climb out as long as I'm standing in the room. The trick is to get him in bed and under the covers, then book it out of the room before he has a chance to get up. For some reason, once I've closed that door, he gives up and goes to sleep. I guess at that point he knows Mama means business.

Now that daylight savings time is over and the sun stays up well past Alex's bedtime, we've determined we may have to invest in some drapes for his windows to keep the light out. But in general, we are very happy and proud of how well he has transitioned into his big boy bed.

bittersweetness

After much guilt-tripping and arm-twisting, we finally convinced the Primms to come visit us in Dallas. To say that we were super-duper-ooper-shmooper excited about them coming would be an understatement. They drove down from NWA Thursday afternoon and arrived late that evening, which meant we had almost three full days to take advantage of.

The weekend was the perfect combination of relaxing at the house and going out to do "Dallas things", including a trip to the park, the zoo, Tim's office, church, and a few local restaurants. Tim even scored tickets for he and Seth to watch Friday night's Mavericks game from TK's posh suite at the American Airlines Center.

The Primm boys have grown so much since we last saw them, and we were reminded why we miss them so much. Oliver is such a smart, cute, sweet boy, and Alex loved to play with him. They had a great time playing together in Alex's playroom, watching videos, splashing in the bathtub, and sharing (or not sharing) their toys. As it turns out, Alex also loves babies, or at least one insanely adorable baby by the name of Sullivan Cole. He spent a lot of time on his hands and knees next to Sullivan's bouncer, chatting with him in gibberish, giving him kisses, and demonstrating all of the features of his bouncy seat.

We had an awesome weekend, although having such a great time with people that you miss so much only tends to make you miss them twice as much when they leave. I'm thinking a road trip to northwest Arkansas might be in our future.

Thanks again for visiting, Primms!! Love you guys!!