Golden Pig Tales

Almost a week after Ezra came home with an ‘Incident/Accident Report for Parent’ for teething on another kids hand, -v- and I noticed yesterday while changing Ezra that he had a set of bite marks on his shoulder like some four toothed child vampire went for the jugular but is still unskilled and sucked on the shoulder instead. The skin wasn’t broke just bruised with four tiny red marks, but considering Ezra was wearing a shirt the baby vampire did some pretty serious teething on Ezra’ s shoulder.

Now, a week after Ezra’s ‘Incident/Accident Report for Parent’, I am imagining a bunch of kids teething on each other at daycare.

Since noticing Ezra was a becoming Momma’s Boy, I have noticed during the past days that this attachment of Ezra to -v- is becoming more frequent and extreme. We can still play the door trick when -v- is on one side and Ezra the other, and we close the door hiding -v-, and Ezra will cry, and then we open the door revealing -v-, and Ezra will stop crying. Now every time -v- leaves the room Ezra becomes fussy and cries.

I am becoming more and more annoyed by Ezra’s obvious attachment and concern, almost fear, that -v- may never return once she leaves the room.

Why? (I have asked myself.)

Jealously. He rarely cries when I leave the room, and usually when he does cry it is likely because -v- has been gone for hours and I am denying him something he wants now like milk, food or a clean diaper. While I do enjoy being able to leave a room for a few seconds without Ezra crying out to me, it would be nice to have him miss me as much too.

Ezra had a pretty nice weekend. It was super sunny on Saturday, and sort of sunny Sunday. We did some outdoor activities - we looked around the the yard and looked at some plants. And by look, I mean Ezra grabbed at whatever was within reach and tried to get it in his mouth. We took a couple of walks in the stroller, and also went to Costco. Everywhere we went, Ezra got compliments on his crazy stand-up hair. Kalab made some pancakes Sunday morning, and Ezra got a few bites. We were practicing his food picking-up skills. He was able to grab the small pieces of pancake I placed on his tray and sort of shove them toward his mouth, but only a little bit would get in and the rest would fall to the floor in many smaller pieces. We are still awaiting the actual emergence of tooth #8. Ezra has continued symptoms of teething, but the tooth still remains unseen. Maybe it will come out during the week so Ezra can have a weekend free of teething.

We tried the sippy cup, but Ezra used the tip of the sippy cup to chew on and the handle of the sippy cup to slam the body of the sippy cup against the nearest surface.

We are trying to use a cup that we hold, which appears to be more effective. And by effective I mean he inhales water up his nose and sucks water into his mouth while he bites on the edge of the glass then swallows some water while most flows out of mouth. …But he does swallow some water unlike the sippy cup.

If I could bottle the smell of today’s shit, I would label the bottle: Ezra’s First Really Stinky Shit.

A stinky shit that did smell different before I removed the diaper. In fact, both -v- and I smelled Ezra before the changing as we usually do trying to determine if he pooped, and we both weren’t sure if what we smelled was an Ezra shit. Most shit still smells like sour milk or a subtle mildew like smell. Not this stinky shit. A stinky shit that didn’t reveal its full fragrance until I peeled the diaper away.

I gagged. Then I went on a rant of: OH! MY. OH. THAT’S BAD. I tired to hold my breath, but that didn’t last. Even with the diaper off, and Ezra wiped down, the stink of shit remained. And I can’t hold my breath that long. He pooped out the diaper and on his back and then roll around while I was changing him only spreading the smell and making a bath a needed thing.

-v- helped clean up by cleaning off the diaper in the toilet filling the bathroom with the smell. A smell that is giving me shivers even now.

Ezra came home with an ‘Incident/Accident Report for Parent’ today. The ‘Nature of Incident/Accident’: ‘Ezra bit a classmate on the hand.’ ‘Action Taken’: ‘I gave him a teething toy and redirected his attention.’

This happened around 1:00 P.M. today. Fortunately, the situation wasn’t too serious, and -v- and I will makes sure Ezra knows that biting people is not socially accepted behavior.

-v- and I are wondering which kid it could be. There are a couple of kids that we have spied pulling on Ezra’s ear or taking a toy away from Ezra and hope that any bitting was done to them. There was this one kid today whose mom accidently tripped Ezra, and then her kid took Ezra’s playing area while Ezra sat fussing on the ground, and I have thought that I hope it was her kid Ezra bit even though the kid was a girl, but I have not told Ezra this for Ezra must learn bitting people is bad.

What are we going to do about Ezra’s sleep? Kalab is a growing voice for the “cry it out” method, especially after the recent “mama’s boy” night. Kalab convinced me to let him cry because there was nothing wrong with him other than he wanted to be with me. I agreed, and in hindsight I wish I would not have. I think it was the most emotionally painful thing I’ve ever done. I felt like I was betraying his trust and breaking the bond I have with him. It’s safe to say I am not a fan of the “cry it out” method. I feel like there are too many reasons for him to cry to feel it’s OK to ignore those cries - a baby cries because he needs soothing from teething and/or illness, or maybe because he’s too hot or cold, maybe he’s hungry, maybe he’s got gas, maybe he’s scared of the dark or had a bad dream, maybe he’s got a poopy diaper. I don’t think a baby cries to be manipulative.

And Ezra is not a terrible sleeper, from what I’ve been able to gather by reading the Internets and random mama blogs. He’s also not a sleep champion, pulling marathon 12 hours stretches with no crying or waking to feed, like some of the babies we know (or at least the claims of the mama’s of the babies we know). But is he a not a good sleeper? I am not sure. Usually, he’s got a fussy spell anywhere from 2-4 hours from the time he goes down for the night. I think those fussy spells increase in intensity and frequency with teething, which he’s been doing more than the average baby his age. In general Ezra often will put in a solid 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night, many times even 6 or 7 hours, but will sleep a total of 9 or 10 hours per night. I do nurse him back to sleep when he wakes, more often than not, because Ezra will almost always go right back to sleep after he wakes up and feeds.

So what to do? I want to come up with a sleep plan that lets me (or us, depending on how Kalab feels) be responsive to his cries, but I also want Ezra to learn to self soothe and not always rely on nursing to get to sleep. If something could happen where he did become a marathon sleeper, I wouldn’t complain! I (we) need to come up with a good plan, and have a bit of a reprieve in that I convinced Kalab the plan shouldn’t be enacted until we get back from our trip to DC.

Gone are the days of spit-up always smelling like sour milk that is mildly repulsive and looks like cottage cheese at its worst. .

Here are the days of spit-up becoming puke. The puke smell is more repulsive for it smells like stomach acid, carrots, peas or various other vegetables partially digested and mixed in bile stew. The texture and color varies in shades and sizes depending on the meal making clean up require more scrubbing and some water.

We think we have turned Ezra into a momma’s boy. For whatever reason, during tonight’s reason for crying (we suspect teething or reflux) Ezra would only stop crying when he saw -v-. -v- and I even tested this by having -v- stand on one side of a door while very loud crying Ezra and I stood on the other side of the door. Then I would open the door and reveal -v-, and Ezra would stop crying. I would close the door and hide -v- behind the door, and Ezra would start to cry again. After doing this trick six or seven times and other similar occurrences during the past days it is becoming apparent that our thoughts about him becoming a momma’s boy may be true.

I am convinced any parent who says that their child didn’t give them much fuss during teething is lying.

I have been noticing when Ezra walks (held up by a vertical area or me) he walks on the tips of toes more often than not. While his walking on the tips of toes technique is the result of needing to increase height to reach that hot cup of tea or that electrical device or that piece paper to grab and put in mouth, his ability to walk distance on the tips of toes makes me wonder if maybe will he become a ballet dancer?

I use to work the Money Job from home on Tuesdays with Ezra. I use to begin work early, so by the time he woke up I was ready to play with him and talk with him and be with him until he took his first nap. After his first nap the day was a mix of entertaining Ezra when he wanted attention and working while he didn’t want attention and working while he had his noon and afternoon nap.

I was also able to work the Money Job from home because Ezra wasn’t mobile like he is now. Before he could crawl Ezra was easy to monitor and entertain, but during the past months that has all slowly changed. Now when working from home there was more tension because I couldn’t give Ezra the attention he needed when he wanted attention nor could I watch him when he was focusing his attention on something other than me causing my mind to be pulled between working the Money Job and making sure Ezra didn’t hurt himself as he crawled here and there. It was like the tension levels of life increased tenfold.

So, Ezra began going to daycare today making his daycare days three out of seven days a week. It was a depressing and sad day for me for no longer will I have the fun and chaos of working with Ezra. And now this is one less day a week I will be with him from when he wakes and to when he goes to sleep. One less day a week until he grows up and moves out and won’t even be around to bright my entire day.

Oh, they are coming. Tooth #7 and tooth #8 are coming. They can be seen. They can be heard and they can be felt. They can be heard because Ezra has been fussing. They can be felt because with the teething is the drool. I only hope tooth #7 and tooth #8 come sooner rather than later. Even if they do come sooner it will only mean that the molars are not far behind.

…The molars. I have heard stories about the fussiness the molars can cause.

Ezra went to brunch with me and Auntie Darling on Saturday. I had biscuits and gravy (mmmmm…gravy), and Ezra had pancakes! His first pancakes! Ok, so it was actually just 2/3 of a smallish pancake, but he ate it in little bits that I fed to him. He seemed to very much enjoy it.

After brunch, we went to a park and sat on a blanket in the shade - it was a hot day! This was the first for Ezra as well! Ezra crawled around on the blanket, but only to the edge of the blanket. He would reach out and touch the grass, rubbing his hand on it a little, but wouldn’t put his hand down on the ground. Maybe he was afraid of getting dirty - the ground was sort of muddy.

It was a big, fun, exciting day with Ezra. Then this morning I woke up and thought it was Monday, and I was running around trying to get Ezra ready, wondering why Kalab was sitting around being all lazy.

Ezra’s Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Metallica arrived today. -v- ordered the lullabies a week ago after hearing similar lullabies from other bands at the daycare center during the past months.

Having had been a Metallica fan since the release of …And Justice For All, and having spent many hours listening to their first four albums for many, many, many hours, I was a bit worried that the sounds would suck.

I was wrong. They are actually quiet relaxing and amusing. I am, of course, an old person now, so what do I know about music. I do know it is relaxing for it did put me to sleep today.

…And yes, for those of you true Metallica fans who have listened to the Kill ‘em All album many times, Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Metallica does feature the cover (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth from the album Kill ‘em All, which was an instrumental by their first bassist Cliff Burton.

Now music I once listened to as hormonal teen will now be music that will relax and put Ezra to bed.

Growing up is weird.

Stair Master Ezra earned the title today after successfully climbing the stairs from one level to the next. Yes, I was following him the entire way, but I didn’t force or guide his path. He just wanted to climb some stairs and did without falling or slipping or pausing or with the help of his dad. When he reached the top, he let out a squeal and crawled way searching the next challenge to over come.

…Now it is time to install the gates before he wants to try to climb up or down the stairs without -v- or me there to make sure if he tumbles that he doesn’t become the Stair Victim.