Teething Terror

Kathleen has reached that point in her life, where, alas, she is growing teeth. She has had two top teeth since she was six month old, and the two bottom showed up three months later, but none other decided to make an appearance until we were on vacation for three weeks. As we were on vacation, her increased fusiness and clinging wasn't completely unusul, just incredibly wearing. I didn't realize the cause of her anxiety until we were riding home from the beach and my cousin Melodie pointed out that she had a fully erupted molar in the back. When I got around to inspecting her gums at home, I discovered four more teeth on the way, including two molars, on her upper jaw.

Now, two and a half weeks later, she is still teething, and I discovered today that she now has teeth threatening to make an appearance on her lover jaw. Both Brandon and I try to keep her regularly dosed with Tylenol, but there's nothing we can do when she refuses to eat and won't drink her bottle. At first I was pleased about her newly growing teeth, but now we're both ready to put her in a box with some puppies outside of Wal-Mart with a sign announcing "Free Baby - Car Seat Included."

Beware the Quiet Child

After running every morning with Kathleen, I shower. And as Kathleen can't be trusted with the run of the house, I put her in her room. Sometimes she plays with her toys, or pulls things out of her closet, or bangs on the door, and sometimes she complains about her confinement. However, as I am in the shower and the mom, there's nothing she can do about it.

This morning, Kathleen wasn't very happy and banged on her door while complaining, and as usual, nothing changed. After awhile she gave up, and I finished showering, and then dressed without the aid of Kathleen clinging to my legs after I let her out. Emerging from the bathroom, I went to let Kathleen out. As I opened the door, she turned and looked at me with a smile of great delight and pride, having just demonstrated that often a quiet baby is one who is getting into trouble - this time with diaper cream.

Summer Break

Recently, Kathleen, Brandon, and I returned from a trip. I hesitate to say vacation, because anything involving a 1 year-old, very active child doesn't quite qualify as a vacation, or a date, or an outing, or really anything that has to do with leisure. We all drove out together to Brandon's parents' house in southwestern Missouri, with the 19-hour drive going miraculously smoothly, even without having to resort to Benadryl. Kathleen very much liked her grandparents' house that had the unimagined delights of cows (only if they are more than 3 feet away), a dog (the closer the better), cats, a light-up singing play gym (that will NEVER be purchased for home), and a gravel driveway.


After a week with her grandparents, uncles Brett and Adam, and an increasing number of cousins that eventually turned into a dull roar, Kathleen and I left Brandon in Kansas City, and flew further east to North Carolina (which did involve Benadryl) while Brandon returned home to Utah to work so he could pay for our plane ticket. After spending a few days at the other grandparents' house, which contained the unimaginable wonders of stairs, a deck, and a goldfish pond, we went down to the beach to meet up with more cousins. The beach had the best wonders of all: sand, more stairs, and the ocean. After two weeks of playing without Brandon, Kathleen and I headed home.



After having traveled for three weeks, two of them without my husband, I have realized several things about traveling with a child:

1. Regression. Despite eating the bulk of her nutrition in solid foods, Kathleen quit eating anything but a token amount, and so we were forced to supplement with (expensive) formula. Whoever designed babyfood in those neat glass jars obviously never designed them for babies that have only eaten table food. Despite all of the warnings against it, we had to add at least a teaspoon of salt to the squash before she would do anything but spit it out. As soon as we got home, of course, food was tasty again.

2. Solitude. Many parents enjoy keeping their children in their room. We do not. Upon waking in the middle of the night, Kathleen discovered that she didn't just have her teddy bear to keep her company - she had her favorite friends - Mom and Dad! A vacation is not a vacation when no matter how late one stays up to spend time with relatives, one's child is still the first up. In the entire house.

3. Attachement. After so much time with just Kathleen and me, I was looking forward to having other people to share my entertainment burden. However, the more people around who would absolutely love to play with her, the more Kathleen wants to play with Mom.

4. Bravery. More bravery than brains. Kathleen's favorite activity at the beach was to sit in the waves, letting the water wash over her until a wave knocked her down. Then she would crawl down further so the water was even deeper.

5. Single parenting. All of the problems above are only made worse by being the only parent around. I've also realized that the nicer your surroundings are without your spouse, the more you miss them. On the upside, however, when I finally arrived home after more than two weeks of absence, Brandon was possibly more excited see me than I was to see him. He had even made me dinner. And for the next week, he kept exclaiming how wonderful it was to have someone who knew how to run the household; perhaps every wife and mother should take a few weeks off to show everyone just exactly what they're missing. For this right now, however, I'm glad to be home.

I guess I could have used the exercise anyway

Every morning (that Brandon is working), Kathleen and I go running. I say Kathleen and I because Kathleen comes along in her stroller; she certainly isn't doing any running. As the mornings are a little chilly, I put her blanket in her stoller to keep her warm. So off we both go, me pushing and Kathleen sitting like a little princess in her chariot, calmly sucking her thumb and watching as the scenery (slowly) passes by. Our run is almost four miles, long enough to tire me out fairly well. Kathleen, as well as I, know when the run is almost done and giggles and claps as we approach home.

This morning we were almost done; Kathleen was giggling and I was crossing the street for the last uphill block before home, when I glanced down at her. No blanket. I looked behind. No blanket. And for good measure, I looked underneath. No blanket. I considered briefly; Brandon wouldn't be home with the car until this afternoon, and by that time the blanket would most likely be gone. Kathleen has quite a few blankets, but I didn't like losing one of her favorites. One never knows if they'll take to the next one quite as well.

So, with some annoyance, I turned the jogging stroller around. And Kathleen started howling - loud, jagged cries that I was sure the whole neighborhood would hear and wonder what I was doing to my child. As there was nothing to do for it, and it was her own fault for tossing her blanket overboard, I kept running. I kept running as people gave me shocked stares, kept running as it started to rain, and kept running as there was no blanket in sight. Finally, a third of the way back, I saw it - pink, fluffly, and sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. As to how she managed to drop it without me noticing as I ran over her blanket, I'll never know.

Curious Children and Drunk Deer

As they have not been here very long, and been mobile even less time, small children seem to be exceedingly curious. The only problem is that their curiousity sometimes leads them to explore things that perhaps better sense would tell them to leave alone. This morning, after enduring the stink long enough, I took Kathleen's diapers out to the trash. Her diaper pail is a small step-pedal one with a lid. When I returned, I found her chewing on the lid.

Every evening, Kathleen gets a bath. If perhaps you question the necessity of a small child having a bath every night, you've never seen them after crawling around the floor and backyard all day. Our bathtub is equipped with the usual soap-holder, in which we keep our soap. Thus far, Kathleen has not been too interested. Yesterday evening I heard her coughing, and looked over to see her sticking her tongue out with some measure of disgust on her face. She was chasing something underwater, and I saw that it was little bits of soap. Intrigued to see if she would like some more, I helped her catch a bit, and then watched as she made the same face while spitting it out. However, as soon as she dropped it, she started fishing again.

I have a mug that I like to keep cold water in. Kathleen is fixated on it whenever I have it out. This morning I went outside to move the sprinklers, and came back inside to find her splashing in a big, wet, puddle on the carpet, right next to my now-empty mug.

Brandon told me once of a TV show where it showed animals in the savannah all getting together around a tree surrounded by fermenting fruit and having a party together. The footage was complete with weaving animals, clearly drunk. On our morning run, Kathleen and I pass by a house that has several apple trees. Some of the apples have fallen, and the owner has piled them up in a grassy, treed area near the house. This morning as we rounded the corner past the now two-week old apple pile, I smelled the sweet aroma of fermenting apples. Evidently the local deer had smelled it too; as I looked over at the apples only a few feet away, he looked at me, froze for a moment, and then bounded off. Was it me, or did he weave just slightly?

Pictures

For those of you who like those things, we have some new pictures (mostly of Kathleen) on our Picasa web site.

It's Hot!

I'm not normally one to complain about the heat, especially after spending the two past summers in Egypt and pregnant, but I wouldn't mind if Utah cooled down just a little. This afternoon, at 1 o'clock, Kathleen and I have a birthday party to attend. Outside. At a park. With no mature (shady) trees. With a forecasted high of 98 degrees. And we have to walk there. At least she has a sundshade on her stroller. Thankfully, it is less than a half mile away, or I think we might melt before we get there.

Everyone likes to say that the heat in Utah is a 'dry heat.' I can appreciate that, especially as I sit in our backyard, in the shade, in the afternoon. The shade feels at least 15 degrees cooler than the sun. However, when you're in the sun, the sensation is something akin to broiling inside a very hot oven, with the direct, hot, piercing, dry rays of the sun beating down on you.

I grew up in North Carolina, where some like to call the heat a 'soggy heat.' I remember going running in the afternoon and coming home with every article of clothing (including sometimes my shoes) soaked from the soggy heat. But at least I didn't become dehyrated, because the air I breathed hydrated me. And even if you didn't get much, if any, cooler in the shade, when you were in the sun you didn't get roasted alive. I would call it being steamed alive. I prefer a soggy death to a roasted one.

Thankfully, we'll have a respite from the dry, unending, sunny, heat when Brandon, Kathleen, and I head out to Missouri in a week. Earlier this week we enjoyed a brief rain shower, lasting for the duration of my run - the ground was dry when I left, and the rain was almost completely stopped when I got home. Kathleen was fascinated, viewing the whole event from the safety of her stroller, with a shade. Hopefully she'll have quite a few more rains to enjoy when we go to the land of soggy heat. I, for one, wouldn't mind a few cloudy days.

We're Wasting Money on Food

When I was around Kathleen's age, my parents took my older sister and me on a hike to Hanging Rock, in North Carolina. As family legend goes, I took a fancy to rocks, or perhaps thought that I was a chicken, and ate quite a few. I have never understood how a child can eat rocks - they certainly aren't tasty and should be rough on the way down. Well, like mother, like daughter, I suppose.

Monday afternoon, Brandon and I were at home, and Kathleen was crawling around, exploring. Brandon heard her coughing in the bathroom and rushed in to see what razor or shampoo cap she had swallowed. Instead he found a piece of pumice, with large bite marks newly incised into it. Evidently she wants to grow up and be a bird, too.

Happy Fourth of July!

Or perhaps, happy fifth of July. As Brandon had work off yesterday, we were able to celebrate the Fourth of July with something other than an early bedtime (although that was in effect, also). We have decided that our family policy on holidays is to treat them like holidays - so no pulling weeds, cleaning the house, or other necessary things are allowed.

So, to follow our family rule, we decided to go on a family outing - a walk along the Provo River Trail. As one could guess by the name, the trail follows the Provo River until it empties into Utah Lake. I would have rather been out on a speedboat with half of the population of Utah on the lake, but as we have no speedboat and no friends with a speedboat to mooch off, we contended ourselves with a quiet, and drier walk. I enjoy the Provo River Trail because it has something that most of the valley is devoid of - trees that weren't planted and aren't watered. It reminds me of where I grew up, in North Carolina. Of course, the trees don't occasionally break to views of mountains, but nothing is perfect.

Kathleen's favorite part of the walk was seeing, and petting, the horses that pastured alongside the trail. She seems to have an affinity for them, probably because they're so big. She also enjoyed dipping her feet, her hands, and attempting her head, in the river. And for most of the walk she contradicted her maxim of preferring home to anything else.

Yesterday afternoon we invited Brandon's siblings, Ashlie and Nick, over for hamburgers, homemade potato salad, and homemade mint ice cream. Having recently acquired our first grill, we made good use of it in creating carcinogen-enhanced meat, as that is is only way to enjoy a good hamburger. And to celebrate the founding of our country, we watched a movie about a good English-French war, Henry V, with Kenneth Branaugh. Unfortunately, we didn't see any fireworks, as bedtime was early, but we did hear some. All in all, not a bad Fourth of July!

Pictures of our House

For all of you curious devotees, we have just posted pictures of the duplex that we moved into at the beginning of May. Enjoy!