Babyzilla

That’s what the Munchkin has become: some kind of enormous, mutant baby monster rampaging unsteadily through the house.  I shudder to think how bad it’ll be once he’s walking on his own instead of lurching around grabbing onto everything and shuffling along sideways.  *grins*

The little guy had his 9 month appointment this week.  He clocked in at 28 inches long and 22 very solid pounds.  That’s as much as our friend’s two-year-old weighs.  *facepalm*  Poor thing had some blood taken from his finger and had to pee into a bag so some lab work could be done; hopefully that will all come back clean, especially now that we’ve finally got him healthy (for the time being).

We also get to start weaning him off formula and onto whole milk and real food.  I just felt like it was a step in the right direction that he’s eaten baby foods with meat in them the last two nights.  And some tiny bits of spaghetti, with sauce and without, from my plate and his tray tonight.  We’re going to get there, slowly but surely, which is good, since the price of formula jumped four dollars a can about a month ago, and we had been up to almost two a week.

Now I just guess I’m going to have to get used to cooking for one and a half most nights…

On the road

To recovery, I hope, now that we’re finished with our mini-road trip to finish up our final Christmas celebrations.  If there’s anything I don’t recommend, it’s trying to travel with a baby suffering from diarrhea.  It’s just a bad idea.  Thankfully, the Munchkin was already drying up some before we left, so we didn’t get hosed while on the road.

What he wasn’t interested in doing was sleeping overnight.  Although he hasn’t been doing that for almost two weeks now, so it wasn’t really anything new.  Turned out he was teething in addition to nursing an ear infection, so everything just hurt, poor guy!  He’s still working on cutting that tooth, but the ear infection is on its way to being taken care of, and the diarrhea is slowly drying up (he had it to start with and the main side effect of his ear infection antibiotics is… diarrhea *headdesk*).  I suspect that by this weekend, we might all be sleeping through the night.

Dear God, I hope so.

“Mama!”

If there’s one thing that the Munchkin’s illness — ultimately diagnosed as a very sneaky ear infection this week — has demonstrated, it’s that he’s finally grasping the concept of language, he knows that I’m Mama and Southern Honey is Dada, and he’s willing to use ‘em.

Of course, “Dada” gets trotted out when he’s having a great time, bouncing around the living room and laughing his head off. “Mama” is reserved for the times he falls on his face because he was trying to climb the bookshelf (which he knows he shouldn’t do) or his poor ear is hurting.  I think this is supposed to be some sort of commentary on my awesome nurturing skills, but I’m less than reassured.  :P

Still, I love knowing that he knows his first words, even if he mastered “Dada” well before “Mama.”  :D

In other news, this really has been the stealth ear infection from hell, since it’s been accompanied by massive diarrhea and hasn’t actually been manifesting as anything other than that and not sleeping well.  The doctor was going over his symptoms and checking him, going, “Sounds like a virus… Uh huh, virus… Yep, sounds like … an ear infection?”  So now the kid’s on antibiotics and Nystatin, since he already had killer diaper rash, and the main side affect of the antibiotics is… diarrhea.  *headdesk*  I figure he’ll stop screaming in pain at diaper changes in approximately three weeks when he dries up.  I hate it.

Typhoid Munchkin?

Twice in the past few weeks I’ve gotten hit by a nasty stomach bug.  It’s been miserable.  Absolutely miserable.  Not to mention taking up sick leave I’d have far rather saved for the times when he gets sick and needs to stay home.  :/

Since the Munchkin is in daycare, I thought he might be responsible, carrying his germs back and forth, doling them out to us at home like candy and generally being a miniature Typhoid Baby.  However, after hearing that my brother got sick, too, and thinking back to last weekend when we were together, I realized I was blaming the wrong person entirely.  This time, at least.  This time, our cousin’s son, who came to the big family Christmas gathering sick, is the likely culprit (poor little guy).

Also, being sick around Christmas sucks.

Christmastime for babies

Babies give approximately zero shits about Christmas.  Really.  They’re like, “Okay, so, there’s stuff and fifty million random relatives I’ve probably never met pinching my cheeks and food I can’t eat yet and people wanting me to stay up way past my bedtime even when I’m cranky as hell.  Why is this so cool again?”

That was pretty much the Munchkin’s reaction to our first Christmas celebrations this weekend.  He just wanted to get down on the floor and play, while everyone else wanted to cuddle him and see him do cute things or unwrap presents.  We had some rather frustrated moments as a result yesterday.  Although maybe it was just his complete disinterest in the shiny boxes or bags — he ignored them completely!

On the bright side, he has some really fun new toys.  And he got to spend lots of time with my dad and the extended family on that side.  Some of my cousins hadn’t met him since he was born, which was entertaining.  We had a lot of fun in between bouts of “ohmigod, give me a NAP!” but I definitely consider myself educated about what it means to have Christmas with a baby.

They have to sleep eventually

That’s what I keep telling myself, at least.  He has to sleep sometime.  Preferably at the same time I need to sleep.

None of us have slept well this week because the Munchkin appears to be going through a growth spurt that has made sleeping at night undesirable.  Nay, impossible.  I’ve gotten about fourteen hours of sleep in the past three nights (further complicated by the fact that I accidentally drank caffeinated tea instead of decaf on Monday morning) because the Munchkin has been campaigning against sleep.  I figure tonight won’t be much better, but maybe we’ll get lucky.

HAH!  I swear, this kid and sleep are mortal enemies.  Nemeses, if you will.  I figure we’ll all get to sleep sometime around the time he turns 18 and moves out.

Is your beard real, Santa?

This picture was taken about five seconds after he did a beard-check* and about five seconds before he decided that big men with beards and mustaches were not his cup of tea.  *laughs*

*The beard was real.

Little boys need clothes, too

I know that this is hard to believe, given that little boys (and probably little girls the same age) would far rather run around naked in my experience, but little boys do actually need clothes.  And not just knit pants in weird colors and patterns to go with onesies in awkward designs, either.  Real clothes that they can be seen in public in and look just as cute as little girls with all the vast selection of casual and fancy clothes that can be found for them everywhere.

All I wanted was a couple of cute outfits for the Munchkin for Christmas and some Christmas pajamas.  I mean, it’s his first Christmas; he should look the part, right?  He has to go meet Santa and get his picture taken; he should look good for that, right?

HA!

Target laughed at me.  No non-knit pants in his size.  Heck, only one pair of pants in his size, period!

WalMart tittered behind its corporate hand.  Pants, I could have.  Something Christmas-themed?  Not if I don’t want ruffles or bows on it!

Old Navy snickered.  I could have a monkey snowsuit and some monkey pajamas, but Christmas stuff?  Pish.

Sears, JCPenneys, Dillards, and Macy’s invited me in and laughed in my face at the idea of finding something affordable AND Christmas-related.

I still haven’t made it to A Children’s Place, so I don’t know if they’re laughing at me or not.

So, clothing retailers who figure little boys apparently don’t need nice clothes, kiss my ass.

Dear Munchkin,

There really wasn’t a need for you to spread your germs throughout the family this weekend.  Especially since, while you had passing diaper discomfort, I spent the day worshiping at the altar of the porcelain goddess and may be making my next obeisance any moment now.  Next time, please feel free to keep this to yourself; mommy only has so many sick days.  :P

Love,

Exhausted Mom

Naptime

I have to admit to really liking naptime.  It’s my chance to catch a breather on Saturdays when it’s just the Munchkin and me; maybe I grab some food or something to drink or just sit here on the couch and veg out.  (Guess which I’m doing this morning?)

It’s also giving me a chance to recover from fighting with the Munchkin over eating his cereal.  He wanted no part of it this morning, at all.  I’m hoping that he’ll be hungry after he wakes up and will be interested in grabbing a bite instead of grabbing the spoon.  We’ve had some trouble getting him back on track eating since he was sick, and I think some of the his resistance today stems from that — hand, foot, and mouth includes blisters inside the mouth that make it painful to eat, and he had several.

On a lighter note, we just got the online proofs of his pictures from daycare (yeah, don’t even get to wait until school starts to get hit up by THAT pitch anymore), and they’re so adorable!  This one might be my favorite:

I love my teddy bear!