Happy Friday! Linking up with Jen over at Conversion Diary today.
I
How do the weeks go by so quickly without me accomplishing anything? It seems like it's all I can do to keep the house clean, the meals cooked, and the child somewhat happy, despite the teeth that just keep coming. It's summer! I want to be outside doing fun things with my family--hiking, planting, playing at parks, making spontaneous trips to fun places around town--but it's always nap time or raining or we are all too tired from... from what? The basic chores that by rights should take a half hour a day? I don't know.
II
To be fair, I've spent an absurd amount of time in doctors' waiting rooms over the past few weeks, which has eaten up my days and delayed naps and generated plenty of stress. Our insurance's fiscal year restarts on July 1, so we are trying to keep as many medical procedures as we can in June so that insurance will cover them. Which means that I'll be getting all four wisdom teeth out on June 28... yay... Matt is taking off that day (a Friday) and the following Monday to take care of Little Bear while I'm recovering, for which I am very grateful.
III
We are standing! Little Bear can go from sitting or crawling to standing up without holding anything or using anything to pull himself up. No walking yet--he just stands there clapping and looking proud of himself--but he is standing for longer periods every day. It is so much fun to watch as he keeps learning and growing!
IV
...And growing, and growing, and growing... The boy is 21 pounds, much bigger than any of my mom's kids were at his age! I know he's actually no more than average for kids in the U.S., but I'm so accustomed to smaller babies that he seems really big. And I know that it is healthy weight, muscle and bone and such, because he is so active and would spend every waking minute moving if I didn't occasionally corral him to sit still and listen to stories. Because he is my first, though, and everyone likes to tell new moms what to do, and because one of the pediatric buzzwords these days is "childhood obesity," there is a part of me that's cringing as we get ready for his 12 month appointment, worried that some nurse will only look at numbers instead of at my kid crawling all over the exam room and start lecturing me. Unreasonable? Yes, probably.
V
We are all getting impatient for him to turn one so that we can put him in a forward-facing car seat; I found a fairly new one in good condition at a garage sale last weekend, and it cleaned up very nicely with a bit of Simple Green. He has well and truly outgrown his rear-facing seat: His head comes above the top, and his knees are scrunched up because his feet hit the seat back. This makes him unhappy, which makes all of us very unhappy on our hour-long drive to and from Sunday Mass. The new car seat is a convertible one, so we could put it in backwards now... but it wouldn't really solve the problem because his legs are so long, and the sides are much higher than the one he is in now, so he wouldn't be able to see out the window.
VI
Part of my productivity problem, I've determined, is that Little Bear wants to sleep on my lap. He falls asleep nursing, and if I lay him down in his crib or on a blanket, he will sleep for fifteen minutes to a half hour at the very, very most. If I let him sleep on me, he will stay asleep for several hours. Several hour nap = happy child = happy but unproductive mama. But if he's unhappy I'm unproductive too, because he wants to be held while he whines incessantly, and I'm pretty sure happily unproductive trumps unhappily unproductive. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm just committed to being unproductive until he learns to sleep in his own bed? Is this resignation or a cleverly disguised excuse for laziness? Don't answer that.
VII
Today is the "spiritual birthday" (birth into eternal life) of one of my favorite lay writers: G. K. Chesterton. I could fill reams with "favorite" quotes from his extensive work, but here are two for your weekend:
What fairy tales give the child is his first idea of the possible defeat of the bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
- Tremendous Trifles
Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilization, what there is particularly immortal about yours?
- The Napoleon of Notting Hill
Andrew wasn't 20lbs until he was about 16 months. We had to buy a convertible carseat (to keep him rear-facing) because he was too tall for his carrier carseat.
ReplyDeleteAnd if a nurse starts to lecture about childhood obesity, just ignore her. But I doubt she will. 21lbs at 11 months is normal. My nephew was over 20lbs by at least 9 months. He's now a tall, lean, healthy 6 year-old. If he's eating a healthy varied diet (read: you're not feeding him candy and chips for snack everyday), I'm guessing he'll be okay. There certainly is a problem with childhood obesity these days. That's because there's a problem with feeding our children junk instead of food.