I know he's barely one year old, but he can totally level me.
It's been gray this week. Rainy. And we've been....icky sick. He's been cutting what I thought were four upper teeth, but upon closer inspection it almost looks more like maybe six. I think he's in a growth spurt. And he's trying to learn how to walk.
That's a lot for one 20lb person and a tired, stir-crazy mama.
This morning he came undone. He took a sad little one-hour nap and I barely had a chance to get in some quiet time and start something in the crock pot for the weekend (working! shuttle launch!). And I mean, barely start cutting the stuff up to put in the crock pot. He's been clingy this week, and not that I really blame him. So of course he was in no mood to play by himself while I put together a meal. I set him up in his high chair with a snack and his sippy. He took two bites and started to yell at me again. A little blond 20lb dictator. He spilled his milk down his shirt. The milk I struggle to produce anymore. Still yelling, spitting out his food. Oh my word. In my mind I'm yelling SHUUUUTTTT UPPPPP!!!!! But I sing hymns instead because that seems a little kinder. But I still feel like a louse because I really want to tell my poor baby to, well, shut up.
I really wanted to call my friend. She beat me to it. Her morning was even more award-winning (zero thanks to the GI bug we shared with her kid). Misery really does love company, because I admit my spirits lifted. She also reminded me that Levi's teething. Oh yeah. I hold him, the phone, and draw up some ibuprofen and squirt it in his mouth with one hand, and he happily receives it. Thirty minutes later he's a new kid.
Usually naps are fairly smooth around her, but not so much today. He sobbed - deep, gulping sobs - like I had locked him in a dungeon (with four pacifiers, his giraffe and three beanie babies) and thrown away the key. Thrice I pulled him out to comfort him and thrice I returned him, and thrice he came unglued.
What happened to my easy baby??? I know this is nothing compared to some people's normal day, but Levi is not this...this...clingy, fussy, or any other form of -y.
He slept thirty minutes and it all started again.
I fed him his bottle. He gulped it like it was going to grow legs and walk away.
And then, for the first time since he was about four months old, he turned to me and plopped his head on my chest and laid there, eyes wide open and quiet, for about fifteen minutes. I rocked my baby - no, my little boy, now - in the quiet of (another) gray day. Did you hear that? It was the world righting itself again. All he needed was something for pain, something in his tummy, and his mama to rock him for a few minutes.
Then he pulled himself up, looked me square in the face, grinned, and slid off my lap. And that was that.
He's been more himself than he has in the past week ever since. He chowed down three quarters of a banana (yes, on the heels of an enormo bottle) while I ate my (very late) lunch, and then we walked around the neighborhood and waved at cars.
And now he's back down for a nap. No fanfare, no drama, no to-do.
The stew's in the crock pot. The diapers are washed and folded. Levi's veggies are steamed.
The preparations are almost complete for takeoff.
I don't know what just happened, but apparently Levi feels better and that's all I care about. :)
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