Is it okay to call this week 13? Maybe I should change the names of all of the previous entries to read something else. For example, this week could be called "When I get around to it - #13." Or maybe "Oops something really important happened and I'd better write it before I forget - #13?" I'm not even making excuses, really, because I don't feel too badly about the whole thing. If I write at least once or twice a month, I should have a pretty good record of the wonderful days with Joshua. The last thing I need in my life is one more task to stress out about.
Speaking of wonderful days, I feel somehow like our lives are starting to make a transition. It's nothing that I can put my finger on exactly, and nothing tremendous changes from one day to the next. I guess it's the little things that just keep adding up, and when I step back the big picture is pretty exciting. For instance, I'm a bona-fide watch wearer once again! I stopped wearing a watch when Joshua was born because it scratched him. Little by little I just got used to not wearing one, and now having one on even feels somewhat awkward. But I feel proud of it, somehow, because I'm past a certain stage. Look around, and I'll bet you don't see many moms of newborns with watches on. But I'm one of those moms now - you know, the watch wearing kind. It's my own personal milestone.
Also, Joshua and I were outside tonight . . . in the dark. How bizarre and somewhat intoxicating it was. I can barely remember what the outside looks like during the night, and I know it sounds corny, but I was enchanted by the lights everywhere. The store marquees lit up, and haphazard headlights darting around on the freeway, and the skyline . . . the magnificent Las Vegas skyline . . . We only went on a quick errand to drop off Tim's jacket at work, but I felt like I could stay out forever just looking. At a stoplight I looked back at Joshua, and found that he was sitting so happily in his car seat, smiling his little heart away. He's such a music lover, so maybe it was the music and not the lights (can I teach him to love 10,000 Maniacs as much as I do?). But maybe it was the music and the lights, and Joshua was captivated, too. Who knows, maybe he'll be a night owl like Mama someday, and he'll drive out to the edge of town to look at the sea of lights. Maybe he'll remember back and it will even make him think of me and get a little warm and fuzzy inside.
What else, you ask, is happening to make me feel a transition? Maybe it's that Joshua can play so well by himself while I fix dinner. Maybe it's that he communicates with us so well using his signs. I'm not sure entirely, I guess it's just a feeling I get. Like how Joshua just got his first at-home haircut. (Really, who can afford to drop $20 every month or two, just for a haircut??) We set up his booster seat in the bathroom, set the TV where he could watch Dora having another great adventure, and went to work. Of course, he hated every second of it, but what of that? It got done, and in a relatively short amount of time, too. I'm of the mindset that our money can be better spent buying him clothes or food, and a new 'do just isn't as high on my list of priorities.
His absolute and utter refusal to eat anything that he's not craving right at the moment makes me think that Joshua's entering a different era, as well. While we used to be able to coerce him to eat an almond butter and jelly sandwich, he won't be tricked anymore. Joshua is in control (well, somewhat anyway) at the dinner table, and nothing enters his mouth unapproved. This is how we found out that he might be allergic to mustard, actually. After not eating his lunch sandwich, I offered him some of mine . . . lunchmeat, pickles, sprouts and mustard. I think it was the pickles that attracted him - Joshua loves to eat pickles, and will eat them 'til the cows come home, as the saying goes. Several minutes later we noticed bright red splotches around his mouth. Since he'd had everything else on the sandwich, we figured it was the mustard . . .
Okay, I'm being somewhat dishonest. I'll admit it, it was honey-mustard. I thought I could get away with not mentioning this fact, but my guilty conscience is screaming. Yes, in the face of every book ever written and every bit of advice ever given, we gave our son honey before the age of two. And yes, I know there are those parents out there who would say, "We did it for our kids and they turned out fine." I realize that many babies had honey before the experts discovered it could be lethal, and they were perfectly okay. But isn't that doing something of a disservice to those parents whose babies weren't okay? It's a little like the "Back to Sleep" campaign, where you're told to put babies to sleep on their backs to prevent SIDS. My own mother even told me that "we did it that way and it never hurt you," but what about the babies who died?? In my heart of hearts I know that those parents desperately wished they'd known then what we do now.
Anyway, that's my little tirade, and I guess it got me a little off track. The whole point was that Joshua is not just allergic to mustard, but he's allergic to honey-mustard. Tim thought (no kidding) that he was hemorrhaging from his ears. He'd noticed some little spots on Joshua's earlobe and right inside his ear and decided to keep an eye on them to see if they got worse. Several minutes later he brought Joshua to me, brow furrowed, looking very worried. "The spots in his ear are getting worse." I inspected them closely, not sure what I'd find. To Tim's relief (and chagrin!) the spots disappeared when I licked my finger and rubbed on them. My pronouncement? Jelly from the uneaten lunch sandwich. I'm not sure how they actually got worse, but to a concerned daddy, I guess things like that grow.
So day by day our lives change, and the under-the-surface changes that you don't really notice at first add up to seem like such a big deal. Is this what makes parents want to have another baby? Believe me, I'm not there yet, but I think this is how it happens. You let your guard down, and you start to forget about all of the sleepless nights and spit-up caked clothes. You're walking down the aisle of Wal-Mart and notice how cute those teeny tiny baby clothes are, and my, but aren't they tiny? You reminisce about just how adorable those chunky baby legs and cheeks were, and everything becomes romanticized. You forget about the days of walking around like a zombie, being peed and pooped and sucked upon. The memories of trying to stand and nurse a newborn in the middle of the kitchen just to be able to stuff something resembling nourishment (cheese and Twinkies and isn't there any CHOCOLATE anywhere??) into your face seem obscured by the scrapbooks full of first birthday pictures and smiley mischievous pictures and the breathtaking coming-home-from-the-hospital pictures. Yes, I think that really is how it happens, and even though we aren't there yet, I can see us creeping up on it - one teensy watch-wearing step at a time.
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