7 Quick Takes Friday #13

Today we are with Grace @ Camp Patton, who is hosting 7 Quick Takes Friday for Conversion Diary.  Jen is still in the throws of figuring out the medical complications with her new little boy. Grace gives us a little more info, and Jen promises to update us soon.  Please continue to pray for her and her wee one. 

The past two weeks have been filled to the brim of “firsts” for my little family.  I found myself starting to get a little emotional about my children growing up…

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But the bittersweet went completely sour when I noticed Collin, our 6 month old, noming away on a Goldfish cracker he’d found on the floor of our living room.  I threw myself at him for retrieval, and caught a whiff of poopy smelling coffee.  That’s when I glanced at my middle child, Emmett,  who’d soaked his front with the remains of my cold coffee from the morning and then promptly pooped, shoved his own handful of goldfish crackers into my mouth and I, who’d been teaching Emmett the importance of the words “Thank You” all day, garbled a word of gratitude for his generosity.  At that moment, Lexington, my oldest, waltzed by, announcing that it was his turn to produce a number two, which I ignored, knowing that he’d be at least 10 minutes on the toilet and I could clean Emmett in ample time.  Upon laying him on the floor for diaper changing, I’d just opened Emmett’s diaper when Mr. Collin crawled over to wallow on Emmett’s face.  I grabbed Collin, and stopped short of tossing him into the Pack n’ Play, only to turn around and catch Emmett in mid stride, poopy diaper left on the floor, bum covered in its contents.  I wrestled him to the ground to finally begin clean up, and Lexington hollers from the bathroom, “I’M ALL FINISHED!” indicating his expectation of my arrival for wiping duty within 30 seconds.

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Collin has officially begun crawling; it’s a really slow, methodical crawl quite similar to the rocking steps of a chameleon. He’s also started to scale the furniture which has me at about a 9 on the anxiety richter scale. YOU JUST STARTED CRAWLING– NO CLIMBING YET! Give me a minute to compute the crawling process first, crikey. It just doesn’t look right, a 6 month old standing upright. Though Lexington was similar at 6 months, so I can hardly be surprised.  I still am.

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Collin has also tried his first solid. I’m doing baby-lead-weaning (BLW)– which is not what it sounds like: I’m not weaning him off the breast, Heavens, NO!  It is in our best interest, for now, to have him fully dependent on nursing, as it delays the return of my cycle and thus my fertility. NFP ed-juh-macation, y’all. After a full week of constipation, I have determined that his tiny gut still isn’t ready for full immersion.  This is fine with me, and I’m glad that I am more aware now than I ever was about my first two babies about how the infant digestive system works when introducing solids.  Did I know that baby cereal (rice/oatmeal) is what causes constipation, and it probably the worst “first food” for your child?  No.  Both of my older boys were cereal fed– Lexington at 4 months!  A whole 2 months earlier than I should have even begun thinking about it!!  Alas, I hadn’t done my homework and I’d allowed myself to be pushed around because, “He’s hungry!  Breast milk alone isn’t enough for that boy! Supplement with formula!  Mix cereal into his bottle to make him sleep longer at night!”  Bull.

Anyone who even glances at my child can account for the excellence of breast milk nourishment: He’s a fatty. I’m hoping to take the features of BLW that I like and see what works for Collin and I. …but not for another week or two.

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Our Emmett is two years old and still doesn’t talk. This is completely opposite from his older brother who popped out of my belly already knowing the alphabet, shapes, colors and animals. Lexington thrives on attention, but Emmett is suddenly too busy to be bothered with as soon as I encourage him or point to the book he’s looking through and try to read it with him. Our Pediatrician says Emmett is normal, just different than his brother. He recommended speech therapy if, at 2.5 years, he still isn’t talking.  I feel stupid realizing that at my core, I expect each child to be the same (reach the same milestones at the same time) even when I know they’re different human beings and operate at their own pace!

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Last week, however, I noticed something that generated chills on my inside and out:  Emmett sings.  We’ve tried to carry on, teaching and talking to him the way I talk to Lexington.  We sing the ABC’s and read books for as long as I have captured Emmett’s attention. Until, last week, I’ve kind of felt like throwing my hands up in frustration, wondering if he’s even mentally ingesting anything at all.  I was cooking dinner, Emmett playing with Hot Wheels on the kitchen floor, babbling and screeching his usual conglomeration of noises– wait, WHAT!?  “…aitch, eye, jay, kay, ellemohPEEEEH!”  Mid-stir into my skillet of chopped chicken, I realized Emmett was singing the alphabet.

Later that week, we were all playing in the living room, my husband had Lexington cackling like a hyena, Collin squawking in my lap, I heard a soft musical tune that sounded so recognizable my attention snapped straight to the singer: Emmett, “Boom, Boom, Boom, dah dah dah Moon, Moon, Mooooohn” He was singing Katy Perry’s Firework.
Now, no, we don’t electively listen to Katy Perry.  He knows the song from Madagascar 3, a movie we hadn’t watched in weeks.

I chimed in and started to sing the words along with Emmett, and he stopped, raptly staring at me in a way that spoke to me that he was satisfied that I’d understood what he was singing, and that he wished to learn how to sing the song better.
We have since noticed that he sings much more than we realized.  This all makes complete sense, because his first form of communication wasn’t saying “Mom” or “Dad”.  It was “la la la laaaa” the tune to Elmo’s World.
What makes this all even more hilarious is that I have realized one of the songs he likes to sing the most is a second song from the movie Madagascar 3, sung in FRENCH by the villain.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40IU0nxufIA?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

 “Non, rien de rien. Non, Je ne regrette rien…”  Yes, Emmett sings this,  I just never detected it until now.
I guess he’s my little songbird.

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Nothing is quite so humiliating as punching yourself in the face, especially when you’re already frustrated.

BAM! Right on the kisser. I had uppercut myself, somehow surpassing my chin altogether, and crushing my bottom lip while trying to single handedly yank my shirt up to nurse my 20lb, 6 month old; my foot back up on the oven door, cooking dinner, again. I am increasingly finding myself in this idiotic scenario and it’s increasingly dangerous because I am fully aware of the reaching and grabbing abilities of my hefty fella, and that if I don’t prep dinner earlier to allow time to stop and feed the baby, a pan of scalding meat will end up on the floor, or a tiny, grubby hand will be burned.

If you were to punch yourself in the face, would you rather do it with no witnesses, or with another person in the room?
I found myself wishing someone had seen it because I find healing in laughter. But no one saw, and it was more like, “…JUST. PUNCHED. SELF. –Business as usual, then…” And I repeated the injurious motion to lift my shirt, insanely assuming I wouldn’t punch myself a second time…

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I live in constant fear of writing words like “peruse” when I mean to write “pursue”.  So If you’re ever reading and notice a misplaced word that makes absolutely no sense, there you go.  Comment and say, I caught ya! And I’ll go, “Daaaghghg!”