Horrible & Spectacular

As motherhood goes, yesterday was simply horrible and today was spectacular. Friday night and until about 3:30am I spent vomiting, apparently with a bad case of food poisoning, along with chills and muscle aches. The only other time I was so sick was a similar episode my very first night with Elias, in Ethiopia. Like then, my physical misery was compounded by the emotional anguish of worrying that I was utterly incapable of caring for my baby. I felt very alone and helpless. (Amazingly, both times Elias slept soundly through the whole ordeal. How anyone could sleep through that happening just a few feet away is completely beyond me--perhaps God put him into that same deep sleep that got Adam through ribcage surgery.) Come morning, with my GI tract completely cleared out, I no longer felt poisoned, but was very weak and trembly. I was disappointed I had to cancel grand plans to go to the Sun Prairie Corn Festival and maybe Farmers' Market. Elias was his normal, healthy, happy, active self. I was able to spend a good hunk of the morning in bed, between diaper changes, getting him food, and restarting his blessed Elmo video. Still, he was constantly checking in/jumping on me. When I drug myself to the couch for some "quiet" reading time he was just a sqirmy hyper whirlwind climbing all over me, which was oh-so-painful. It was like he had a pathological drive to jam his toes and knees into my legs, backed by his full 30lbs. I tried to fend him off, but he had the advantage of boundless energy and pure motives, for really he was just happy & excited to be with me, such as I was. How could I scold him for that? Once again, I wouldn't've been able to cope with a less perfect child, for I'm not sure how I could've handled bad behavior, whining or crying. After a long-but-not-long-enough nap, a friend from IL came to visit, which got me through the rest of the day. I and the house were a mess, but I was too thankful for the company and help with Elias to be too embarrassed. We even went to Hubbard Street Diner for dinner where I was finally able to eat something.

What a difference a new day and 10 hours of sleep can make! I woke up much stronger today, although still queasy around food. We made it to church, then spent an hour at a park. He has largely abandoned the "2 to 5 year old" playground equipment in favor of the "big kid" structure. It makes me a little nervous because he climbs up far beyond my reach, but he really likes the challenge and the faster slides. He took a nap just long enough for me to mow the lawn; when I came back inside he was clapping for me. We wrestled a little, cleaned up a little, and talked a lot. He's still outpacing me in adding new words and partial sentences while I'm trying to understand them. Then I decided that I was up for our first trip to the pool. I logged on to my laptop to look up info on it, and Elias was immediately there, asking to see pictures of himself. So we viewed pictures from June and July, which he loved, pointing out people he knows. Then it was snacktime and off to our first pool experience. We encountered some friends there, who helped us learn the ropes. Elias was very reluctant at first. I had finally cajoled/pushed him to wade a little in the "zero-depth" pool when they called a 10 minute "safety break," when all the kids have to leave the pool. Of course, then he wanted to go in, and it was all I could do to keep him on dry land. I told him we had to wait until the other kids went back in, and when he saw them go in, he immediately started off as well. We waded out until the water was up to his chest. Then he started kicking off and bending at the waist so he was underwater with his butt up, then bobbing back up to take a breath, all giggly! Twice I put him up on my shoulders and he "jumped" off into (and under) the water. He went underwater intentionally many, many times but never sputtered like he'd inhaled any, and always came up laughing. He had a blast, and it was a joy to be with him. After just a little while, though, he started to get really cold and said "all done," so we came out. He was really cold, even though I was OK. I wrapped him in a towel and just held him close for a long time while his shivering died down, at which point he declared "home," and we left. We made detours, though, to those same friends' house to get lots of fresh corn (they had gone to the corn festival), and the grocery store mainly to get bedtime milk (where he was exceptionally good, even though still wet and around dinnertime). After dinner, we read books for nearly an hour straight. He still carefully selects each one, but now often "reads" key phrases to me, having memorized them all. What is that myth about toddlers' attention span? Tonight, like virtually always, it is me, not him, who insists on stopping reading. I was yawning and Elias declared me "tired." Yes, indeed. He had his milk, I sang a couple songs, and he went to sleep without a whimper. Then I got to clean the kitchen (sooo much better now), do 2 loads of laundry, and make a taco salad for tomorrow. Ah, life restored.

A few other tidbits:

• Elias has discovered pockets. Today I felt something hard in his jeans and pulled out a bunch of crayons, which apparently he'd swiped from daycare. I let him put them back in there to hide.
• In a related story, only about 1/2 hour later I discovered him happily and exuberantly drawing large circles in brown crayon on the dining room walls. I said "No drawing on walls!" and he broke into tears. He didn't get that crayon back. I'd wondered when my first drawing-on-the-walls episode would happen. Apparently, though, it happened 2 or 3 days ago, as I just discovered another area of green marker on the living room wall (and had noticed guilty green hands and a missing marker 2 or 3 days ago).
• I think his favorite number is 2. He likes grabbing pairs of things and declaring "Twwwo!" He counts to 10...well, without using 7. Well, who needs 7, anyway?
• He kept yelling "you! you!" at mealtime one day, holding up a slice of hotdog. Then I saw that he had eaten out the center, so indeed it was shaped just like a U. I turned it on its side, and then we celebrated the new-found "C."
• He has now turned his attention to learning "little" (lower-case) letters. He renewed his interest in his Seuss ABC book but now carefully points out and identifies the little letters in particular. Again, this is entirely self-driven; I just do capitals. I have mentioned he's a genius, right?

sick, bleh.

Here's a cheery start for a blog: I just spent the last hour or so vomiting up all vestiges of my dinner. Thankfully, Elias is sleeping peacefully. I guess I'm glad now that he didn't eat much of my cassarole at dinner, if that's what it was. Ugh. I'm hoping a few Cheerios will calm things down so I can go to bed. In the meantime, though, it's good to stay upright and think about better things...like Elias!

This morning when having his diaper changed he informed me that was "poo" and his diaper was "poopy." That must be another daycare word, since I don't say that. Recognition is the first step to potty training!

This evening he was upset that I made him come in for dinner after playing outside, and showed his frustration by whining then throwing his sippycup of milk across the room. (He might be the best baby in the world, but he's still mortal, after all.) Well, that called for a timeout in his room, where he stood and really cried for about 1/2 a minute, then abruptly stopped. So I led him back out, and he went over to the sippycup and declared "mess." He picked up the sippycup and gave it to me, I gave him a paper towel, and he went back over to the couple drops of milk on the floor and wiped them up. Awww...so good-natured and cute!

one of those days

I woke up sick, with Elias crying. I've been struggling with a cold or mild flu the last few days, but it slammed me today. More, my great fear was realized: "the cough" is back after a respite of a couple months. This is a nasty cough that started in April 2008, and plagued me most of the time since then, stumping a whole slew of doctors. It's gotten so bad that I couldn't catch my breath such that I had to rush to urgent care, and a year ago it jarred a disk in my back out of place, essentially crippling me in probably the worst physical pain I've ever experienced (while still having an infant to care for). I'm relating this to give weight to my claim that this "simple" cold scares me. Yet, life goes on. Elias was uncharacteristically crying because he'd soaked through his super overnight Huggies, and top & bottom pajamas, and sheets. Ugh. On the way to work I missed my offramp. Over lunch I looked down and discovered this:

I had a busy day at work--fortunately, busy doing things, not needing to think much. By 4pm I called it quits. On the way home I stopped at Costco and bought WAY too many things I didn't really need, including a pizza. Then I hit a bunch of new road construction, but still able to get Elias before the daycare closes. He was pretty excited to see the pizza (alternately "zzha" "ussa" "pee" and "pee-uh"), and we both ate too much. The rest of the evening was reading books, doing laundry, taking care of the chickens, making tomorrow's dinner, and, after he went to bed, some rare TV veg time.

Still, it was not all hard going. When I finished my shower Elias excitedly chanted "all done with shower" all morning--his longest "sentence" yet, I think, and very cute. (He still hates me taking showers.) At work I had the followup meeting with the Birth-to-Three child development specialists, who told me he was at age level or advanced in every category, with the only "lagging" piece related to potty training (which they said was still totally normal, especially for boys.) This is in contrast to their evaluation last fall, when he nearly qualified for remedial tutoring because of his delayed speech. They were very impressed with his gains, and commented several times at how unusual it was to know colors and letters so well, so early. One thing that engenders immediate good will in me is to complement Elias. At night he sweetly asked for a song and went through most of my repertoire to find the songs he liked, shaking his head and whispering "no," or softly clapping his hands and smiling for those few he liked (tonight, Silent Night, This Land is Your Land, and 10 Bottles of Beer on the Wall). Then he went right to bed.