Haiku Friday #20: It's Broken

Remember when I
Was berating myself for
Being a bad mom?

Well, it turns out it's
Even worse than all of that.
Wedn'sday the second,

My husband took our
Son to the orthopedic
Doc to check his arm.

At first it was to
Check for any hip problems
Since he's not walking.

But while he was there,
The specialist would check his
Hurt right arm as well.

At the orthopedic center, they took yet another x-ray of his arm and found a healing fracture up near his elbow. So they put a cast on it right then and there. They let him pick out the color he wanted -- he chose kelly green. Apparently he wasn't into the teddy bears or dinosaurs (now, if they'd had a cat pattern...).

Horrible mother that I am, I stayed at work during the whole process -- with all of Adam's illness lately, I'm running out of sick time (the next day, we found out he had roseola as well -- this in addition to already having an ear infection and several molars making their entrance).

So he's still in the sling. He's still trying to crawl on that arm, although with more success and fewer tears and frustration now. And we still don't know what happened, although we now know what's wrong, at least.

The good news? There's nothing wrong with his hips, so as long as he's willing, walking shouldn't be a problem. The nice lady from Help Me Grow came today; she determined that Adam has a gross motor delay, but otherwise he's developing on or ahead of schedule -- especially ahead in the language. No surprises.

Any suggestions for encouraging a child to walk, who is usually content to just sit on the floor with whatever has caught his interest?

Haiku Friday #15: Sick (of Winter)

My whole family

Is sick: my son has had hives,

Pinkeye, and a cold

All in the last week;

My husband passed a kidney

Stone Monday morning;

While recovering,

He caught pinkeye from my son.

I just have a cold,

But that is enough.

I'm fed up: with being sick;

With the weather, too.

I'm sick of the snow

And temperatures below

Forty-five degrees.

But mostly I hate

The constant changing from one

Extreme to the next.

It's hard to predict

What I should wear or what clothes

To dress my son in.

And ever-changing

Temperatures are good for

Making tornadoes. :(

The downside to a lot of cold, snowy days in late fall this year is that it now feels like winter is dragging on forever. I am so ready for spring right now, it's not even funny. I have cabin fever in the worst way. I want to see some green leaves, smell the blossoms growing on the trees, and hear the birds rejoicing in the warm(er) weather.

Sigh. Why is it still February?

If you'd like to read more Haiku, visit Christina at A Mommy Story.

Holiday Realities

Another Thanksgiving come and gone. I was thankful for the 24-hour break between feasts, especially with the added perk of helping an infant feed himself this year -- all I had to worry about last year was third-trimester heartburn.

But it was a great extended weekend, overall. We ended up not going to Mass on Thursday, as I was feeling sick and actually spent most of the day on the couch. Dinner wasn't until a little after 5 o'clock -- we had to wait for my sister's boyfriend. He was supposed to be there sooner, but he was hunting. Seriously? Nothing against hunting or anything, but we were all sitting down at the table, ready to start eating at least 10 minutes before he decided to grace us with his presence.

My son made everybody laugh, first by offering my husband some of his mashed potato-cranberry mess, and later when he had two pieces of turkey sticking out of his mouth and my grandmother said he looked like a walrus. My dad then responded by mimicking the Sesame Street character The Count: "One, two, turkey bits! Ah! Ah! Ah!"

Friday morning we slept in and ended up leaving for Cincinnati around 11:30. The baby slept the whole way there. We spent the afternoon hanging out with my father-in-law, who was installing his new stereo system for his gigundus flat-screen, hi-def tv. My husband's grandmother cooked the dinner, which was wonderful, of course. She -- and her whole family -- is from New Orleans, and she used to teach culinary arts. I relish any opportunity to eat at her house. Cousin Jody entertained the two little ones (mine and his cousin Zoe) with a laser pointer while the adults had after-dinner drinks.

Saturday we spent with some friends we went to college with. They took us out to lunch and talked about her dad's refusal to pay for their modest wedding and his mom's insistence on including items such as lavish centerpieces for their reception. We caught up on local gossip. At six we went to Cousin Jared's engagement party. It was great -- everything I would have wanted, had it been mine. Well, maybe minus the kids. My son, his cousin, and my brother-in-law's daughter were all there and under the age of three (my brother-in-law's "daughter" is actually his girlfriend's daughter, whom he was caring for while she was at work). And there was a pregnant couple there -- but that's a bit different. Jared asked me if I had any advice for them. I said, "Be prepared for anything." I couldn't think of anything wiser or more eloquent at the time. I should have said, "Get a Pack 'N' Play." That thing would have saved us so much grief when we tried to put the baby down for naps in strange beds this weekend.

Sunday we watched Star Wars: Episode III and the Bengals game (yikes). My father-in-law sent us home with his grandmother's Christmas tree and our tray-table set that we apparently forgot to move out of his basement with all the moving we've done over the past few years.

All in all, it was a great weekend. Very festive and fun. The single worst part was going home with all the traffic and torrential rain to several piles of laundry. But we made it a bit better by listening to "The 12 Pains of Christmas".

Still Alive

...even considering this is my first job in a day care setting and I have the plague that just won't end.

At first it wasn't so bad. Yeah, I spent my first weekend with the flu. But I seemed to make it through the rest of my first month at the JCC preschool unscathed.

And then last Monday I woke up with pinkeye. Woohoo. I felt okay other than that, but as the day wore on, I felt pretty tired and my nose was a little stuffy. No biggie; I just figured the abrupt changes in the weather were responsible and I'd be fine after getting some rest.

Ohhhh no. It was a full-blown, knock-me-down, double-whammy cold and sinus infection. Runny nose, stuffy nose, headaches, toothaches, coughing, losing my voice -- all week long. I'm still not 100 percent yet: my voice is still a little raspy, and my nose is still clogged a bit. And of course I bring everything home with me -- my husband, son, and mother all got the cold/sinus infection. Fortunately none of them got the pinkeye.

So I've been trying to get better and still manage to be a mommy. Still haven't quite got it down yet.

Despite Adam sneezing what my husband called "snot rockets" for a few days, he managed to complete some milestones:

• He has two more teeth coming in (he got the bottom front two, oh, around 6 or 7 months, then nothing until a few weeks ago -- the two outside top incisors started coming; now it's the two in the top middle).
• He (maybe?) said his first word, I think: "meow" -- we have cats, both sets of grandparents have a cat, and he loves basically any cat he sees; he gets all excited and squeals usually, but my parents' rather vocal Siamese was meowing last week while Adam was at their house and we heard Adam make a high-pitched kinda "mew".
  
• He's started waving bye-bye, although as yet only to my parents, and he needs a little help to get started, but then you let go of his hand and he does it on his own.
• He's crawling scooting froggy swimming now! He pushes with his hands and feet while still laying on his belly to propel himself forward on the carpet. He's fast, too! I was surprised at how quickly he got from one end of the room to the other, considering he's not actually crawling -- which he can get into the position for, but can't really move from there.

Yay! My baby's growing up. No, I'm not sad. Yes, I'll have to get on that purchasing of the baby gate thing, but I'm proud, and I don't regret anything except that I haven't spent much time cleaning around here yet.

Haiku Friday #4: Long week

It's been a long week
Sorry this is a day late
Been no time to write

Weekend: I got sick
Monday night so did the boys
Tuesday: went to work

We're over the flu
(For Brandon and me, the worst)
Now Adam won't eat

Hey, folks. Sorry for the involuntary week-plus-long hiatus. I kept trying to sit down to at least write a quick note about why I wasn't posting, but things kept getting in the way -- you know, getting sick, caring for my sick husband and son, washing all our clothes and dishes to make sure all the germs left... just mundane things. But we're basically all better now. Brandon and I are back to 100% after a good night's sleep last night, and Adam's almost there. He just won't eat anything. He's been nursing like crazy (of course he is! I have been slowly coming to the decision that I want to start weaning), but if I attempt to give him any solid food, he gags and spits it out. My mom says he's probably just not back up to 100% yet, but I'm not sure.... Should I be worried? My symptoms started on Saturday and my appetite came back on Wednesday. He and Brandon both got sick Monday, and Brandon has already bounced back, and I thought Adam would maybe even recover faster than we did.

We'll be heading to my mom's house tonight for the OSU game. Go Bucks!