Another Milestone Gone

 

Potamus has been showing A LOT of interest in potty training. The other day I showed up to school to pick him up, and I found him reading at the table. His teacher was SO EXCITED to show me the book he picked “all by himself,” which happened to be a Berenstein Bear story about potty training. Whoa. Since Boof didn’t potty train until 3, I figured I had awhile before we’d be starting that adventure, but apparently not so much!

Yesterday afternoon, after we got home from school, I noticed that he was assuming ‘the position’ over by our side table, and I calmly picked him up (he had much protesting, as I had clearly interupted him getting comfortable), and set him on his training potty. I turned my back to give him privacy, and BOOM there he is, pooping in his potty. When I gave him a loving congratulations he looked SO FREAKING PROUD, which is just like a dude, right?

I love photography, and documenting milestones, but this one I couldn’t. Not because I couldn’t, but because our dickweasel dog ate the poop straight out of the training potty. BARF! I guess that example highlights the insanity that happens in our life!

 

What cool things are your kids up to these days?

Loss

It seems as though the universe is trying to teach me about non-attachment. I don’t consider myself to be that sentimental of a person, but when asked what (non-people) items I would save from a house-fire, I am certain to include photo-albums and the journals I’ve been writing since I was 14. Everything else could be replaced, but those things feel priceless to me. So imagine my surprise, and shock, and horror, and sadness when I change out my SD card on my camera, put the filled one in my wallet to later transfer to a safe place, only to find that somewhere in the transfer my wallet has fallen open and my SD card is missing.

Big deep breaths.

While it wasn’t the SD card holding the pictures right after Potamus was born, it did hold months 4-7 and if you know me in real life (or on facebook) you would know that SD card held over 5,000 photos of my sweet little cherub that are now…gone.

Well, Boof tries to console me that they really aren’t gone, not all of them at least, thanks to the handy Facebook photo archives and random hard-drive backups…but all of the pictures in high quality are gone.

When I realized this happened, I tried to not freak out. Being able to still see many of those photos online is okay, it means that I can still see them, but the loss of those digital “negatives” is pretty heart-breaking to me.

And then, my backup hardrive went kaput. Yeah. Not only did I lose all of those photos that I had backed up, (some still saved on Boof’s computer), but random documents from the last few years. Things I don’t necessarily need, or even remember, but just knowing that they ARE NO LONGER THERE is sad and disconcerting to me.

But I survived that.

AND THEN our Scrummy-dog chewed up the memory stick that held ALL of my music. I had lost several CD’s after my trip to India, but still had them all this memory stick, which is now a mangled mess of plastic and metal. All of those songs. Thousands of songs. Gone. Now all of it can be replaced, as I could go to Amazon and just buy them all again, but still…the time and energy going into that is ridiculous.

So what am I supposed to learn in all of this? Is there some big mystery lesson or just really really crappy luck?

 

Dog Beds

On the slow days, Potamus takes long, lazy naps in our bed. I have managed to transition him from sleeping in my arms for naps, to lying down-nursing-to-sleep in the comfort of our cool cave-like bedroom. It’s like bed-time, but during the day, and I think he very much enjoys being removed from the hub-bub of toys and dogs and tv and all the goings on that happens out in the living room, and slows down for awhile at naptime. Maybe he’s like his mama in this way, that sometimes I’m not even tired so much as the world is a brightly lit over-stimulating place and I need a retreat from it all, to gather my thoughts and recharge for more play.

With (hopefully!) a new job prospect on the horizons and the knowledge that in a month (whether I get a new job or not) the routine around our den is going to change. Boof may be primary caregiver for awhile until he shores up a job, or Potamus may join a local daycare for a few days a week. Regardless, it means that naps must be done differently, even if it’s a hard transition. My mother-in-law’s petite frame is having a hard time holding him while he sleeps, and he never naps quite as long on her lap, as he does in our bed. Boof can usually manage to get a 90 minute nap out of him, but it’s inconsistent and restless at best. And while I hope we find a fabulous day-care provider, since we can’t afford a nanny, I doubt they’re gonna be able to hold him for naps like he’s used to. So the quest begins, to let my sweet babe learn how to nap on his own.

Some days, like today, where I am on-call and flitting about, Potamus naps in the carseat while we drive, but lately these little bursts of napping have left him cranky and over-tired. I long to give my boy routine, as I notice he thrives off it. The days we get two long lazy naps he is SO happy. Even yesterday, with only one morning 2 hour nap, and a few carseat nod-offs, he managed to make it through a coffee date with a friend and dinner with my mother-in-law, all without throwing any tantrums. I’ve tried laying him down on the couch, side-lying nursing him like at home, but he’s not having it. I’ve tried laying him on the floor, but that hasn’t worked, either. A pack-n-play isn’t big enough for me to cram my 6’1 frame into, and the beds downstairs are too far away to feel comfortable with him sleeping. And I don’t really like cribs.

So my mother-in-law and I were out at Costco, and like every trip, we managed to meander all the aisles (instead of heading straight for the blueberries like she wanted) and ended up parked for a minute in front of these dog beds. Dog beds with two slightly raised sides and soft fluffy lining. Dog beds that were made of memory foam and looked like a great dane could curl up comfortably. We looked at each other, and back at the dog bed, I laughed and said, “are we really considering this?” and we stood there scratching our head for awhile longer.

Well, we managed to leave the store wit a dog bed. We set it up in one of the quiet rooms upstairs and I put him down and nursed him for awhile. He seemed calm, and while I knew he was tired, he hadn’t quite decided he was THAT tired yet. More play. We tried it again. Almost asleep and then wild, smiley, distracted boy. She bounced him on the exercise ball, transferred him to my arms, and now, thirty minutes later, he has gone down for his first nap in his grandparent’s house.

In a dog bed.

I guess, if our dog is allowed to sleep in our bed, our baby can sleep in a dog bed?

Road Trip: 3 adults, 2 babies, 1 dog

This weekend Boof and I realized that in NO way are we ready for another infant. We had a family reunion across the mountains in Eastern Washington and because my brother’s almost-ex-wife is not letting him drive her around (can’t wait for the custody to be figured out soon), so we packed her up in our car, along with Potamus, crazy Scrummy the dog (sporting his new “autism” wrap to help him stay calm) and headed out over the mountains with bro following on his banged up crotch rocket.

The trip went smoothly there, stopping once in Cle Elum to refuel the adults and the babies (and a pee break for Scrummy). The day was spent catching up with my grandma, playing Catch Phrase (a game I am wicked awesome at) and sneaking away for a coffee break with my good friend. The BEST part was introducing Potamus to The Columbia River. He wasn’t nearly as impressed as me, but did warm up to it after awhile, even dipping his toes in the water on his own and reaching down to touch the waves.

On the way home, however, I decided that despite my 6’1 frame, I am really an Olympic gymnast. It was getting late (for babies, which means it was aproximately 6:20pm) and my niece started whining…which set Potamus off whining…which ended up in this big circle of whining (I joined in), that wasn’t alleviated by my holding a bottle or pacifier into the back seat for Niece and trying to hold one of Potamus’s toys out for him to play. It wasn’t working. Because we were still on Blewett pass, with very little area to stop and refuel the babes, I slid into the backseat….in between the two car-seats. Yeah, brings back memories of “double-buckling” when we were kids. To sooth Potamus, I leaned as far forward as I could and flopped my enormous boob into his mouth. Yay, I got to celebrate World Breastfeeding week in an unsually contorted position! Meanwhile, my other hand was trying to hold the bottle of pumped milk out for Niece to drink from.

She might be the slowest eater ever.

Potamus might be growing through a needy/whiny/nurse-to-sleep-and-keep-nursing-for-20-minutes phase.

(needless to say, I got a massage this week to deal with the new kinks I discovered).

So there I am, boob in the mouth of one babe, arm stretched for bottle in the mouth of the other, and I realize that Scrummy is eating a poopy diaper in the front seat.

Awesome.

I said, “wow, we need a picture of this!”

In Boof’s unruffled way he replied, “I’m sorry, I’m not in a position to be taking a picture at this moment.”

So we survived our day trip, but I’m thinking I’m going to be less-inclined to get knocked up before Potamus is in…oh…say college. One crying baby in diapers is enough!