THREE!

He played happily here today until we decided to head to the lake house to spiff it up in preparation for the arrival of The Godfather. When we got to the lake house, he happily played in his car for 10 minutes or so, and then he walked around and fussed at me for the rest of the hour that we were there. He fussed when I cleaned up his toys, and he fussed when I stopped him from sending the DirecTV remote on a ride in the toilet. He followed right on my tail until I turned on the vacuum cleaner. I didn't mean to startle him, honest, but the vacuum was already turned on when I plugged it in, and I admit that it startled me, too, when it came on. His eyes got so wide, and he ran across the room, stood behind a chair, and started wailing. He's seen a vacuum before, even that particular vacuum, but I think it upset him when it turned on while he was standing right next to it. He stared hatefully at the vacuum while I cleaned the carpet, still looking a little worried, crying just a little. I had a hard time not laughing. That sounds excessively cruel, I know, but he'd been driving me crazy following me and grabbing my pant leg and fussing at me while I was trying to straighten, and he'd been messing up whatever I cleaned as I cleaned it. I put the videos on the shelf, he removed them and tossed them in the floor. I put his toys in the cabinet, he opened the cabinet and flung toys around the room. I went in the bathroom to put the towels away, and he immediately opened the toilet lid and stuck his hands in. The vacuum afforded me the first peace I'd had since we got there.

Lest you think we don't vacuum at home... We actually have a Roomba, the robot vacuum, and it isn't quite as loud or as large as a regular vacuum, and Dennis has seen it, chased it, been bumped by it, and now ignores it. It runs while he's asleep and doesn't wake him up, and it doesn't bother him when he sees it running when he's awake. He just hasn't seen us actively engaged with a vacuum lately because we haven't had to be (much to our delight).

After an intense 45 minutes of cleaning and fussing, we thought that maybe he was hungry, so David gave him a piece of cheese. I saw cheese sitting on the counter, so the next time he came over to me to cry, I put a bite of cheese in his mouth. He pulled it back out of his mouth and yelled louder, and when I went to take it away from him before he tossed it onto my freshly vacuumed floor, he cried even harder. Then he put it back in his mouth, gave me a dirty look, one serious "waaah!" (which I translated to mean, "I wanted the cheese. So there. But you didn't have to take so darn long to give it to me. I'm still mad."), and walked away eating.

I decided he needed some attention when he kept trying to destroy the touch lamp in the bedroom. So I picked him up, and he cried, and I began bouncing him up and down, and counting "one, two.........THREE!". At three, I tossed him lightly onto the bed. He stopped mid-cry and began giggling uncontrollably. We did this several times, with me counting each time. Then it was time to leave, and the exit door is through the other bedroom. When we were walking by the other bed, Dennis stood there, held up his arms, looked at me, and said "THREEEEE!!!". So I bounced him again, of course. And then we rushed him to Zaxby's for dinner, and all was well. He even helped me clean his room tonight, actually putting his birds and books back on the shelf. He put a bird on the shelf, tentatively, and I praised him effusively. So he put the other birds up and a few books, all the while clapping his hands and saying "yaaaaay". Then he went to his crib and said "nye nye" and we put him to bed.

cabin fever

I didn't get much chance to observe the wild creature in action today, as my illness kept me asleep for much of the day. I did hear fussing and crying coming from the other rooms way more often than I normally do, and tonight David and I were theorizing about why that might be. I know that there have been days where Dennis has been fussy all day and when I took him out somewhere (usually Wal-Mart), he suddenly got happy. I don't know why this is, other than to say he's a social little guy, and spending too many days away from his adoring public really makes him irritable. So David tried to soothe the savage beast by taking him to Wal-Mart and for a quick visit to Grandma's house, and he came home just as fussy as before. Maybe it was cabin fever, maybe it wasn't.

He must have tried his Daddy's patience beyond belief today, and when I would go into his room to see what the problem was that was causing such loud screeching, he would smile sweetly at me and come sit in my lap. And then he'd get up, walk away, and start crying again. He hated getting his diaper changed, hated being put down, hated being picked up for longer than 10 seconds... And when we were getting him ready for bed, a little earlier than usual because we needed a break, we discovered the problem. Once we got his comfy clothes on, while he cried and fussed the whole time, he picked up his pacifier, picked up Frog, and walked over to his crib and grabbed the bars. He wanted to go to bed. And when we picked him up and put him in bed, he immediately rolled onto his back and gripped Frog, and waited for us to turn out the light and shut the door so he could go to sleep.

Maybe he was as sleepy today as I was, and we didn't let him nap it out. I got to sleep all day, and I know David would have liked more rest. What a shame we didn't just put Dennis back to bed whenever he got fussy. Maybe he's still sick like I am, maybe he needed to sleep to let his little immune system fight his ear infection and prevent him from getting the crud that his parents have. That will certainly be the strategy for tomorrow if it's another day like today!

eat play sleep repeat

We established an important form of communication today. He woke up from his nap and cried. I went in and picked him up from the crib and put him down. He walked into the kitchen and cried. He patted his high chair. I asked him if he wanted a snack. He cried. I asked him if he wanted some milk. Nothing. I asked him if he wanted to eat, and he grinned hugely and replied "EAT! EAT!". So I fed him. He then asked for juice ("jooooos"). We were both happy that I was able to understand and comply with his requests. He knows "up" for when he wants to be picked up, and "on" and "off" for the lights, "out" for going outside. He's still saying "Nye nye" when he wants to go to bed (night night). I can ask him where his ball is, and he'll go and get it and bring it to me. He says "diaper" when he sees one, and sometimes just when he wants his diaper changed. Occasionally he says "Eh-mo" when he sees a diaper because Pampers have Elmo on them. He also says this whenever he sees Elmo or Cookie Monster, whether his stuffed animals or on the front of his pacifiers.

There's a big mystery tonight. We don't know where the cows have gone. Farmer Jed and the horses, chicken, pig, sheep, rabbit, duck, goose, and turkey are all safe on the farm (on his play table), and the tractor has somehow parked itself upside down inside the top of the silo, but there are no cows. Perhaps they have jumped over the moon. We asked Dennis, and he made a show of looking for them, but they are nowhere to be found. I suppose this means we are waiting for the cows to come home, ha ha. Strange.

He seems to feel better than yesterday and even better than the day before, but still not totally himself. So many naps. I haven't minded so much, because I am SICK SICK SICK myself, and I am convinced that if I get up again, I will cough my lung out onto the floor, where Dennis would probably stick his fingers in it and make a mess. We have enjoyed brief periods of play between the naps and meals, and he's still pretty snuggly. The amount of time he'll spend in a lap has diminished as the week has progressed, but he's still clingy. And sweet. And as much as I hate to see him feeling bad, I will miss the snuggles when he's running through the house independently again, hiding from me while he finds all the toxic things we thought were stashed safely away. Babyproofing is a process that is never quite finished!

superfrog

Still not himself today. He was in a great mood, but so very sleepy. He took countless naps, and did much lap-sitting. He kept coming over to each of us and actually climbing into our laps. This is something pretty new. He usually prefers walking around constantly, and we aren't used to this much still time. Many times he fetched a book from the shelf and brought it over and climbed into one of our laps, clearly indicating (demanding) that we needed to read to him. This is good for him, though, so we have no objection at all. He did manage to climb onto David's lap and catch him unprepared, though, which was quite funny. David was lying flat on his back on the floor, not really watching us, and Dennis walked over, positioned himself right between David's legs, and plopped down somewhat forcefully. David sat up quickly after this (and perhaps sang soprano for a bit), and I couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably, and this set Dennis off laughing. So we had a little fun at Daddy's expense today, poor guy.

I cannot underestimate the importance of Frog during this illness. Frog has been dangling from Dennis's hand constantly. He's come to mealtimes and shared the highchair, he's been to every diaper change, he went through every nap, and he even joined in all the book reading and shape sorting today. Dennis has been somewhat fond of Frog before now, but this week and today especially, Frog has been his inseparable companion. To get a picture of Frog, I had to snatch him from the crib while Dennis slept, and I had to wait for Dennis to roll off of Frog before I could borrow him. And I had to return him quickly, because I could hear rustling from the crib via the baby monitor, and I knew that little hand would be reaching for his amphibious buddy.

We don't know anything about Frog's origins. He's an adopted Frog. He arrived at our place in a bundle of used clothing from Laine and Emily, clothing I have passed on to younger female babies. But we kept Frog, because I liked his wild coloring and softness, and somehow he's become very important to Dennis. He has no identifying tags. He might have even come from one of those claw vending machines. We have no idea. We would love to have a backup Frog, but I don't even know where to begin looking! Frog has already had some surgery on his back leg, and his pupils are wearing off, and he'll be blind before too much longer, or at least until we figure out a non-toxic way to give him renewed vision (I think Sharpie is out, at least until Frog's eyes are permanently out of Dennis's mouth). He's been a loyal Frog, and so far we've managed to keep up with him, but it sure would be nice to have a Frog II, just in case.

I wonder what things Frog knows about Dennis that we don't know...

apple-sauced

He's not quite himself yet, but things are 100% better than yesterday. He didn't spend hours crying today, and he didn't whimper much. He was still pretty cuddly, but I never mind his cuddles. Rare is the time when he's still long enough to snuggle!

When I got to the lake house today, Dennis and David were sitting together and eating lunch, and Dennis was doing his best to share lunch with David. He kept offering pieces of food to his Daddy, who of course thanked him but politely declined. Some of the food that Dennis tends to offer is pre-tasted and therefore a tad slimy. I once made the mistake of accepting one of his offerings, and then he spit out everything that was in his mouth and offered it to me. Ick!

Tonight we had supper at the table like a real family. It was fabulous. We vowed to do this nightly before Dennis came along, and we have failed miserably! We do manage family meals, but they usually don't happen at the dining table. He seemed to enjoy it immensely. He ate his cheese and applesauce and whole wheat bread and also shared some of our vegetable beef soup. He did a fabulous job feeding himself with the spoon, mostly dipping the correct end in this time. The strawberry applesauce ended up everywhere, but a good portion of it actually made it to his mouth. We're so proud.

Before the meal, I am happy to report that he played happily alone in his room for nearly an hour while we cleaned the kitchen and cooked. He threw a few toys over the gate to freedom at first, though, and shouted for us. When he got quiet, we snuck by to check on him, and he was engrossed in his wire and bead toy (where you move the wooden beads along the colored metal wire). We were quite amazed that he was so happy and playing so peacefully while sitting in one place.

He eats with his left hand. He tried it with his right hand some, managed to dip the spoon in the sauce, but transferred it to his left hand to get it to his mouth. But when he and I were 'coloring' tonight, he used his right hand to make marks with his crayons. It'll be interesting to find out which one becomes dominant.

I also noticed today that his conversation is becoming much more sophisticated. He uses sounds that are so very like real words, in cadences like real sentences. We have absolutely no idea what he's saying much of the time, but he will occasionally throw in a word that we know, like 'tree' or 'Daddy' or 'outside' or 'door' or 'car'. Pretty soon he'll be telling me all about it!

infected

He woke up burning hot and crying, and the crying escalated to screaming once he got out of bed. We took him to the pediatrician, of course, and on the way there he got happy and talked and babbled to us. He weighs (gasp!) 24 pounds now. After quizzing us thoroughly to make sure Dennis wasn't having some sort of bad GI infection (lots of this going around), the doc looked in his ears for less than 2 seconds and discovered our problem. Dennis HATES having his ears looked in. He screamed like we were killing him. Yes, they are infected again. Second ear infection of his life. The first ear infection took 3 rounds of antibiotics to kill, though, so I hope this omnicef that we got today will do the trick. This go round we also have some auralgan numbing drops, and that should cut the screaming some.

He babbled happily on the way home again, and then zonked out. He has slept so much today, and I am glad, because when he's awake he's just miserable. He has no sense of balance, and it's freaking him out, and mostly he just wants us to pick him up and hold him while he cries. The fever is also making him miserable, and even though it's early, he's been dosed with tylenol and ibuprofen (2 hours apart, of course), ear drops, and antibiotic, and we're hoping he can sleep it off. Poor little guy. We've never seen him cry like this, ever, and it was so pitiful when he climbed into my lap and leaned against me and cried. His little eyes are red, and there are purple bags under his eyes--he even looks like he feels bad. I don't know where he picked up the infection, and I hope it wasn't exacerbated by the flight on Wednesday, but he never complained during the flight. He has seen his cousins (both sets) this week, and Chloe, and I hope he wasn't a little Typhoid Dennis passing something around for all to share. He didn't run fever until yesterday, though, so maybe all is ok.

I hope tomorrow is a better day to write about.

fever day

This morning we took Dennis to meet Pop at Shoney's for his Father's Day breakfast when we noticed that Dennis was acting peculiarly. He was burning up hot, and his lower jaw was trembling and his arms and legs were shaking a little. I ran next door to get him some Tylenol, and we finished the meal quickly and got him home. At first he lay in bed with us for a while, watching Happy Feet, but he got bored with it quickly, and we put him to bed in his own room. He napped all afternoon on and off, and we kept him updated on Tylenol and Motrin, and finally around 5:30 he was acting like himself again. We went in his room and played with him. We played with the animals in his barn, and we played with the Tonka dump truck, and with the ball sorter...

At dinner, he fed himself with a spoon fairly successfully, even dipping it into his applesauce and getting it to his mouth. At times he dipped one end and put the other end in his mouth, but all in all, he did very well. And after dinner, he wanted to be read to. He walked around his room, picking out books from the shelf and bringing them to David and snuggling down in his lap for a good listen. I got to read one book to him, but then he took it to David to reread. His favorites were his dinosaur color book and, as always, Moo Baa La La La. He concluded with Goodnight Moon, also chosen by him, and we put him back to bed. He seems to be feeling much better, but I know we'll be checking on him all night. It's the absolute worst when your baby is sick, and there's not much you can do to make them better when they whimper and cry pitifully because they just don't feel good. It makes us feel so helpless! I know David had a tough Father's Day worrying about the little guy. But that's what fathers do, I suppose.