Fear of abandonment issues?

For some reason, lately when Big M's parents come to visit, Little M has been very clingy and cries when they try to hold him.

When they came for Labor Day weekend, Grandma could hold Little M just fine, but when she tried to hand him off to Grandpa, Little M just broke out the crocodile tears and was bawling!

Same thing this visit when I tried to hand him off to Grandma! I am wondering if he thinks we're going to give him to them and leave? I usually do turn around to go do something else (while my hands are actually free!), so maybe not having mommy in sight is what makes him scared.

Poor little guy. It was a little before his nap, so I think he was already a little tired, but he's been quite the champ today. And tomorrow will be more people, more babies, and cake! So hopefully he won't melt down at his own birthday party.

We can't wait to see the whole family for the party!

Love to all the mommies and daddies whose babies are turning 1!

Distract, distract, distract!

That is the key these days to getting ANYTHING done where Little M is concerned. Whether it's dressing, changing, bathing, or feeding, he wants to be doing anything else at that time.

So for dressing and changing it's the tube of aquaphor (which is still between the wall and the changing table for those of you who ready my last entry).

For bathing it's a cup with holes in it. I use the cup to get his hair wet, then give it to him and he tries to drink out of it. But the bathwater drains out the holes, so really he's just chewing on it.

For feeding I've discovered that if I just put a little food on the high chair tray, he puts his hand in that and swirls it around a bit, while I put the spoon up to his face and shovel it in. Probably not the best way to teach my child to eat, but while he's sick (and has been coughing to the point of vomiting up most of his meal) I'm doing it.

He still takes "No" pretty hard, no matter how gently you say it. But if he bursts into tears for something like not being allowed to chew on a cardboard box, that's just the sign of a tired baby, so off we go for a nap.

And if all else fails with the crying, sometimes tickling works. Anything to get that happy baby laugh back! Ahh, happy times.

Tonight was so NOT the normal bedtime routine...

I think it may have been because poor Little M is sick, or because I was waiting for a call from a recruiter about an interview, but the bedtime routine was shot to hell tonight.

Little M is also on 4 different medications, one of which is dispensed in a nebulizer. The first try with the nebulizer was constant crying (him, not me). The second try was better, I used the brain-sucking (thanks, Grampy) Nasalclear to entertain him since it has little songs on it (and bravo to whomever thought of that!)

So here's how bedtime went after Little M climbed the stairs...

I locked the gate at the top of the stairs then put him down to explore while I set things up. I knew I needed to refill the humidifier with distilled water, so I opened a fresh gallon (which fits in there with room to spare) and poured it in. There was more water in there than usual when I started, so I quickly ran out of room and spilled on the carpet in Little M's room. Oh, well, I can clean it up with his bath towel after the bath, since just about every other towel in the house is currently in the laundry room. On to getting the baby to the bath.

I put him on the changing table to undress him, and I notice that we have a stowaway in the room. Little A is using one of her nine lives to explore the room while I am otherwise occupied, so I make a mental note to kick her out later. While I'm distracted Little M takes my go-to toy for distracting him so that I can undress him and starts running it along the wall. My mind tells me this is probably not a good thing...and yep! It falls between the changing table and the wall. But I have a naked child, so off we go to the bath.

It occurs to me as I'm in the hall on the way to the bathroom that I have not actually run any water in the bath yet. Oops.

So I put naked Little M in the big tub (this is our third time in the big tub, the others have gone fine) and turn the water on. Big.....mistake. The loud faucet coupled with bathroom acoustics scares Little M, who tries to climb up the side of the tub and then me. I pick up my poor baby and apologize profusely as I let the water run, check the temp, and finally turn it off.

I put naked Little M back in the tub. He is still not convinced that the loud water monster is not in there waiting for him, so the climbing begins again. I decide to try getting in there with him to show him it's not scary.

I take naked Little M back out of the tub and put him on the floor. I get halfway through undressing when I hear a grunt from Little M. When I look over, there is a light yellow puddle in front of him. He has managed to get BOTH bathmats by peeing between them.

So I have to open the linen closet to find the ONE remaining clean towel that is not in the aforementioned laundry room, and put it down to soak up the lake of pee. I finish getting undressed, pick up Little M, and we get in the tub.

I put him down, then start to sit down myself and by the time I'm down he's standing, trying to once again climb up me. I try to reassure him, but he just lays the little head down on my shoulder, so I just wash around this and get him clean and rinsed.

Now I have to get him out. I have put his towel on the toilet, so I put the hood on his head and try to wrap the rest around him without letting it hit the water in the tub, and with reasonable success he ends up sitting outside the tub.

While I'm getting out of the tub, he takes the opportunity to start pulling things out of the linen closet, whose door I've managed to forget to close, what with all the peeing.

So I have to get out, get the door closed, get dry, and put on enough clothes to get across the hall (which was about half of what I started with) and we're back at the changing table.

Little M has spotted the cat. She has made her way to the top of his dresser, so with Little M in one arm, I grab Little A by her scruff and throw her out of the room. Not literally, of course, though she would beg to differ.

So we're back to the changing table, but Little M is so wound up by all the excitement that I can't get him to sit still for anything, and we no longer have the go-to toy. By the time he's dressed and ready for the last feeding of the night, he's twisted up in the sleepsack.

I finally get him out of the cocoon, with room to kick the little legs around, he's calmed down and we're nursing, and my phone rings. It's the recruiter I talked to last night, telling me I'm all set for my phone interview later with the hiring manager.

When I finally left Little M in bed (still chatting and coughing), and used his towel to clean up the humidifier water, I felt like I'd been through the ringer, and decided that come hell or high water, we're doing the bedtime routine the old way (in the baby tub, pre-filled) tomorrow.

Remembering the first two weeks of motherhood by myself (or "The Horror Film" Period)

I cannot believe that in a few weeks my baby will be one year old! It seems like we brought him home from the hospital just yesterday.

We were exhausted, had no idea how we were going to take care of this little person, thought the people who let us leave the hospital with him were clinically insane to thing we could do this. Then spent another exhausting week just trying everything under the sun to keep him happy.

Then came...the end of Daddy's time off. I was going to have to do it all ALONE! And when I finally had those stretches of time alone with our little bundle of joy, I started seeing whey they say that about babies!

I got to really listed to the noises he made, and saw that, YES! They were actual words (we'll, not in English, but words nonetheless), and he was TELLING ME that he was hungry. Or sleepy. Or uncomfortable (wet diaper, too hot, too cold, something's pinching me!) Or had gas. Or had to burp. Once I finally could hear those magic five words of baby language, it's like a light bulb went off. I finally had read the right instruction manual for my baby!

Now it's been 50 weeks later, and the noises don't sound the same, and now they come with gestures too, but we're still communicating. And we're all getting more sleep. Thank God for small miracles, especially ones like Little M.

Cold Case # 2

That's Little M's second case of a cold. Or allergy. Or something else that is not responding to anything we've thrown at it.

Anyway...we noticed that Little M was drippy and sneezing last Thursday, so we went in on Friday to see Little M's regular doctor. He said it was probably allergies and to go with the children's Benadryl (I know, it says it's not supposed to be used by children under 2 years, but I made sure he knew that and gave me a lower dose to give Little M). NO CHANGE.

By Sunday, it was coughing and head shaking and ear pulling which is all new for him and went along nicely with the other symptoms that were STILL AROUND. So we got a prescription for a stronger antihistamine, antitussive, and decongestant, and started giving that to Little M. NO CHANGE.

From Sunday night till now, we've added on coughing so hard at night that he VOMITS ALL OVER THE CRIB. So I've been changing the sheets at least once a day. At least I was semi-smart about making his bed in the first place. I put at least 7 sheets on the mattress every time I remake the bed so that if something happens to the first one, I just peel it off and the next one is ready.

So I called the Pediatrician back today and they gave us samples of Singulair, a new version for children that is chewable. So Little M gets 1/2 pill per day, and it gets mashed and put in his fruit. So far I'm still hearing coughing. And he's been in bed for two hours. YIKES!

Anyone care to try to solve this Cold Case???????