molars suck

Hey, molars! You suck.

Even now, I just ran upstairs because he was crying in his crib, but I stopped outside his door. What could I do for him? Nothing. I don't have a magic soothing touch to make it better. That's one of those great lies you discover when you become a mom.

I breathed silently, listening as his frustrated cry was defeated by sleep. An entire evening week of orajel, ibuprofen, teethers, and it isn't getting better. What haven't we tried? Baby dentures?

I remember commiserating over my teething infant with Angela, who said, "Wait until molars." I get it now. It turns out we spend a large portion of our second (and third) year on this earth in horrible pain. This explains a lot.

In other news, my husband ran a half-marathon because, *shrug*, why not? One of his best characteristics is his ability to follow through, even when he does little or nothing to prepare. He started a new job today, too, *shrug*. After a few weeks with him as a stay-at-home dad, now we have to get used to being single parents all over again. While Fletch is getting his first molars. Yippee.

Fun.

He eats an ice cream cone better than I do.

sweeper

is the carpet clean yet?

all right, let's vacuum!

it puts the lotion on its skin

rare moment of happiness

at the park

hi, daddy!

End Note: Between Fletcher and I, we managed to wear three different states on our T-shirts in these pictures. Weird.

Let me buy my bananas, old people.

Andy went away for the weekend, which meant lots of quality time for the boy and me. The weather was so perfect, it would've been a crime to stay inside. After feeding Fletch the leftover chicken casserole for lunch, we played at the park, where he was more interested in the wood chips, grass, and sidewalk than the actual toys. Then I got a sandwich, and finally we went to Pick 'n Save for a few groceries.

I stopped at produce first for bananas, which happen to be the easiest and cheapest food ever to feed him. Then we headed toward the baby food aisle.

Now, Fletch is pretty cute. He gets a lot of attention when we go out. It's especially conspicuous when I'm pushing a stroller through the grocery store instead of a cart. So the few glances we got from strangers were not unusual.

In the baby food aisle, I had to stand around pretending to be interested in greeting cards because a woman was taking up half the aisle, and the other half was blocked by a display. I even read a few cards in an effort not to rush her.

The woman was speaking to her son in Spanish and taking her sweet time with the jars of Gerber. I finally noticed that she also was shooting sidelong looks at my son.

Yeah, lady, we're waiting for you.

It took long enough that I decided to offer Fletch his cup of water. Umm... yeah. It was easy to see the reason he was garnering attention. I don't think you can call it "spit up" when the slime stuck to his shirt, shorts, and stroller actually contains whole noodles. I think we're in vomit territory then.

So I got busy checking the floor and greeting cards for signs of projectile, and he's smiling away at me, and heaven only knows what was being said in Spanish behind me.  Probably, "Asqueroso."

Have you ever tried to take a puke-covered pullover shirt off a toddler who has a big head and a lot of hair? In a Pick 'n Save?? Mere hours after I had washed his hair??? It required much care.

Sometime during Fletcher's public undressing, my Spanish friend disappeared, but it was too late now. I had a stroller full of partially digested puke noodles and a half naked toddler, I wasn't going to bother with shopping. I took my bananas to the checkouts.

When you have only one item, of course, that's when every lane is full and all four self-checkouts have been hijacked by the slowest, most technologically impaired folks you'll ever find. Not only that, they were the folks most likely to stare at and judge the mother of a half-naked toddler in public. LET ME BUY MY BANANAS, OLD PEOPLE, AND YOU'LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN.

Lesson: My son is cute, but sometimes people stare for other reasons.

thinking less

When I was pregnant, I prepared by thinking a lot about my baby's first year -- no sleep, diapers, nursing, protecting him and helping him learn all of his firsts. I didn't think much about the second year and beyond.

Now it's staring me in the face. He's cutting some vicious teeth. He's showing resistance. He's curious about the limits of what he can get away with.

He's going to need to learn the potty. He needs to learn what's nice and what hurts -- for the cats and for me. He needs to learn how to behave in public -- how what's cute and funny at home isn't appropriate for the restaurant. He needs to know when I'm serious and when I'm playing.

I'm tired just thinking about it all.

If I were the me from a year and a half ago, I would purchase a handful of books and combine everything I read. I would scour Amazon for the best teaching toys and gear, and sort the list by best customer review instead of price. I would think on it, every day, until I felt prepared for the tasks ahead of me.

Instead I'm going with the flow, with only my instincts, which aren't always sharp. And when I think on it, it's with a bewildered sort of panic.


He'll be fine. We'll be fine. I just need to think less.


(Tiring him out helps, too. Here are photos taken after a day out with grandma and grandpa. When he lets me use my camera, I take advantage.)

my favorite