milestones

I feel a day late and a dollar short today.  I’m drinking a Rockstar (Juiced, with mango, orange and passionfruit to be exact!) hoping that it’ll give me the kick in the pants that I’m needing.  My mood seems pretty stable today (honestly, from day to day, I cannot tell if I’ll have an “on” day or an “off” day until I’m having it) so that’s a good thing.  But I am getting sick.  I’ve been anticipating this.  Liam had a fever last weekend and was under the weather.  Before that, Harry had a slight cold.  I was worried that Evie would get it but so far so good.  Better me than her, right?  I just hope that I don’t give it to her.  Right now it’s a sore tickle in my throat, a tickle in my nose that makes me sneeze, a headache and a general feeling of uckiness.  Bah.

Still, slow as I’m feeling today I do have two niggling little worries pecking at the rear of my mind. First is Liam.  His speech delay.  We’re canceling with his speech therapist again so that’ll be two weeks in a row that we’ve begged off.  Not good.  But this month is just insanity around here.  Kile is uber-busy at work and I just don’t feel as if I could handle both children at that appointment by myself.  I need Kile there.  Plus, I feel like butt.  What I would like is if we get could get in with Early Intervention and find a program that would come to the house and work with him.  That would be ideal.  But dragging the entire family out and across town every week to pay a copay and watch a lady try to get Liam to say “milk” for an hour just ain’t cutting it.  I’m sorry, but NO.  I can do that at home.

Speaking of speech, the speech therapist at Harry’s school wants to work with him too.  He’s got a slight impediment that should have resolved itself by now but hasn’t.  I spoke to her on the phone and told her that, yes, by all means, work with him!  But she needs me or Kile to go down to the school in person during school hours to speak with her, possibly fill out some forms.  As you can imagine, this hasn’t happened yet?  Why?  Because it’s AUGUST and Kile is busy and I have two small children at home.  Harry takes the bus for this very reason because I can’t leave the house.  I read a phrase on Baby Bunching yesterday that describes it exactly.  I’m in the Nap Trap.   The Nap Trap happens when one or more child is sleeping virtually all day long, trapping you in the house.  She mentioned coming in before school starts at 9 or after it gets out at 3:30.  Well, at 9, Evie is in the middle of her morning nap and at 3:30, both Evie and Liam are taking their afternoon naps.  And, I’m sorry, but I don’t mess with the naps.  You mess with the nap, you throw off the ENTIRE day.  With Kile working late because he is UBER-busy at work, I’m not going to throw off my day.  YOU CAN’T MAKE ME DO IT.

So in the meantime, I look like a neglectful parent because I haven’t come in yet to sign some stupid paper.  So sue me.

Then there’s Evie.  Because my life isn’t complete until I have something to fret about concerning all of my children, right?  For the most part, she’s just perfect.  And, as far as I know, she IS perfect.  I don’t even know if this is something I should be concerned about or not.  But she turned 5 months old yesterday (sob) and she has yet to really laugh.  Sure, she has done a low chuckle, she has squealed with delight and she smiles at us almost constantly.  But no baby belly laughs.  Don’t they usually laugh by now?  Should I worry about this?  I want to hear her laugh.  But nothing I do seems to do the trick.  Ideas?  Suggestions?  Feel free to tell me I’m a worrisome nitwit.

So there’s my Thursday.  Full of child-related fretting and a few sneezes and blinding headaches thrown in for shits and giggles.  Don’t you wish you had my life??

What is with these children thinking they can just go ahead and grow up right under my nose?  Frankly, I’m getting tired of it.  Every time I turn around, someone is having a birthday or surpassing some milestone or something and I’m going to start feeling Winnie the Pooh here soon.  You know, like how Christopher Robin grew up and outgrew him?  Isn’t that how the story went?  ANYHOW.

So here’s Evie doing something that I’m SURE she’s far too young for but that her pediatrician actually said was a good idea to introduce: eating rice cereal.

She’s not quite sure what we’re trying to accomplish here

Okay, that was weird.

A little more interested now…

Hey, that isn’t half bad!

So eating rice cereal has proved to be a sucess, so far.  Of course, we haven’t been at all consistant about feeding it to her.  OOPS.  Doesn’t help that I’m not all that excited to be getting into this particular stage.  But it is something we need to start making more time for.

In the meantime, I’ll be over in the corner rocking and sucking my thumb.  Until the little men in the white coats show up, that is.

Thank you to everyone who commented last week when I was feeling bad about my relationship with Liam while we were away. I’m pleased to report that things are much more back to normal now.  I’ve found the joy in interacting with Liam once again and I am so happy for that.  From the day he was born, he’s been my special guy.  Perhaps it’s because of all the struggle we went through in order to bring him into our lives, but I’ve always been able to tolerate quite a bit of shenanigans from that child.  The little stuff doesn’t bother me so much anymore and I’ve always been happy that I can sit back and enjoy the mischevious glint in his eyes without worrying so much about what he’s going to DO with that mischevious glint.

I guess if we’re going to be honest, it wasn’t JUST our trip to Elko that caused a strain.  Surely, the birth of Evie has contributed.  I have less time for him.  Less opportunities for snuggles on my lap.  My days are more packed and more tiresome.

In the last week, however, I’ve mellowed out again and yesterday (and for the last several days) I was downright charmed by my middle child.  He was being especially sweet.  Or rather, I was noticing his intentions better.  What I was seeing as him pestering Evie was him trying to help out with her.  He wasn’t just throwing toy cars at her, he was giving her the cars to play with when she was being fussy.  He wasn’t trying to hassle her by rocking her carseat violently in the shopping cart, he was trying to soothe her as he has seen us do (though a bit more on the rough side, to be honest).

He’s still a sweet boy, with a wide, open face, twinkling eyes and engaging grin.  He wants love and cuddles as much as he ever did.  And I’ve been a lot more happy to indulge him in that desire.  I guess, in a way, being the only one around here who can lug him around these days has “forced” me to spend more time with him without Evie between us.  I’m directly involved in all of his activities once again.  It used to be that after Kile was home at night, he would take over with Liam and they would play together while I fed and cared for Evie.  Kile would put him to bed himself.  I never questioned it.

Now, I take a part in that.  I carry him up to bed.  I still leave so that they can have their time alone together, but on nights like last night where Liam needed extra assurance before bed, I was on hand to pick him up, rub his back and give him lots of loves.

This time is SO fleeting.  He’s already growing up so much.  I can’t believe his birthday is in just a couple weeks (two, I think.  Or less.  GAH).  Yesterday, he ran towards me, chattering “Ma-ma-ma-ma!  Mama!”  He isn’t what I would call a talkative sort, but he is saying more and more words every day.  And even if he isn’t saying it, he’s understanding it.  On “Blue’s Clues” yesterday (a personal favorite of his that I can’t help but indulge), there was talk of jumping.  Liam got excited by this and I asked him if he was going to jump.  And jump he did, a big grin on his face.  He loves to jump.

I guess this post is rather ramble-y and has no real point.  But I wanted to let you all know that your advice and shoulder-pats did help.  And I wanted to let you know that things are getting better around here.  And I had to chuckle at everyone who suggested our trip to visit my parents here in a couple weeks will SURELY be less stressful.  Only Michelle got it right.  She knows my parents and nailed it on the head.  It WILL be worse at my parents’ house.  MUST BRING BABY GATE.  And BOOZE.  (For me, not Liam, though I can’t promise anything.)

She’s getting bigger every day, growing up at alarming speeds.  She is all smiles this week, sometimes saving her biggest open mouthed grins for her papa.  She is napping better and getting more reliable at being apart from me.  The carseat is still detested, but is becoming tolerate.  Which, really, is all I can really ask for.  And when she gives me one of her smiles, which always start up in her eyes, turning them to half moons, it doesn’t matter how restless she was the night before or how often she wants to nurse in the afternoon when I need to be getting things done.  All that matters is keeping her safe and warm and happy.

Gosh, this is fun.  Who knew I would enjoy parenthood so much?