A promise is a promise. A deal's, a deal, right?! As a kid, aren't promises our first experiences with something like a contract? And, what gets you out of that contract? Maybe your parents grounding you or saying that absolutely, under no circumstances, are you allowed to do whatever it is that you promised to do. But outside of that, you're obligated, right?! Stuck. Committed. No excuses accepted.
So as an adult, what nullifies a promise? A contract? A deal between a husband and a wife? Hmmm, let's think about this... I'm not sure saying your parents won't let you do it would fly in this arena. But going to Urgent Care and having the doctor say you can't... maybe.
I've never before pondered, what exactly I would consider an acceptable reason to break a promise. I've been a pretty lucky girl and my husband has basically always (over the years I've let a few small things slide here and there) fulfilled his promises. Until last weekend....
We had a deal. And it wasn't just a deal with me. It was a deal with Jamie and Garo and Adam! It was a big, sweeping, let's-involve-a-whole-bunch-of-people deal and Dave..... well let's just say, Dave reneged. Oh sure, he had an excuse from the doctor. And he sounded like Demi Moore after a night of hootin' and hollerin' while smoking 20 packs of cigs. And he looked like crap. But a deal's a deal, right? And when reneging on a deal means I have put on a bathing suit before my child is even one year old, I have to call the man out on it!
A group of us signed up for swim classes. Seemed innocent enough, at the time. The guy's were going to take the kiddos in the water, while the chicks clicked pics from the pool deck and cheered them on. Then Dave got sick. Bronchitis. It sucked. And I had to don a suit and take Dash into the pool for his first class. Not exactly the way I had pictured this family-fun event when we signed up for the classes. But here's the explanation right from the horse's mouth (or should I say the hoarse mouth?!)....
He sounds pretty bad, huh? Maybe I should let him off the hook... just. this. one. time!
Ok, well now that we're past that, I have to say that it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. (At least for me.) At first, Dash wasn't too keen on the whole being-in-the-water-but-not-able-to-touch-the-bottom thing. But he eventually got used to it and seemed to have a pretty good time. We sang songs...
...and did the hokey pokey. Jumped off the wall...
... and kicked and splashed.
He wasn't exactly laughing, but there was a fair amount of smiling. You'd think that after being in water for nine months that he would enjoy it like nobody's business (especially since due to the extra amniotic fluid thing, Dashy had a super-sized pool of his very own for most of that time!) But, no. It definitely took some warming up to. And even in the end, he still wasn't exactly sure he was thrilled to be in the water.
It'll be interesting to see where he's at with the whole swimming thing, after a few more times in pool (with Daddy!)
Here he is modeling his new swim duds...
First time in the big pool...
Trying to figure out how deep that water really is...
They're coming into the final stretch and it looks like...
...could it be... ...Li'l Baby Blue comes from behind to clinch the race!!
The crowd goes wild!
YAY!!! GO BABY BLUE!!!
We went to the dentist for Dash's follow-up appointment today. He gave the tooth a 50-50 shot at surviving. It could go either way. (But that's definitely better then the 10% we're given last week!) We're hopin' Li'l Baby Blue wins this race too!
We've got another appointment in 2 weeks. Fingers crossed 'til then. I'll let you know what happens.
The count so far...
Baby Blue - 1
Big Bad Table - 0
Now I'm off to knock some more wood (with my knuckles not my teeth!)
Life can be strange. You think everything is going to be one way and then OOPS! Like you're having a great day and then OOPS! (or insert some more colorful words here if you'd like; it will probably make it more realistic that way) some jerk turns left at an intersection just as you're going through on a green light and your car is totaled. Or you have just enough time to tidy the house before guests arrive and OOPS! you spill flour all over the kitchen. Or your child's been basically healthy, and accident free, and you're within a couple months of his first birthday and you think, "Phew! Never ended up in the emergency room during his first year. Dodged that bullet!" then OOPS! Yes, OOPS!! Not sure if I jinxed myself by having that thought last week, but I definitely did NOT dodge that bullet.
I'm sure you've been wondering why everything went silent on the blog over the last week, when I seemed to be on a pretty good roll. (I even had extra post topics, I never even got to!) Especially when after the Sunday-From-HELL, Monday morning was looking pretty rosey. Well pictures do say thousand words, but you have to remember that those words are for that moment only and who's to say what the next moment brings. In the case of the pictures I posted of Dash on Monday and Tuesday of last week (smiling and happy) they only tell the story of a few brief, oh so fleeting, moments of those days.
Here's a short re-cap of all of our recent Drama (and yes it has definitely been Drama with a capital "D"!)...
Dash stopped eating all solids for a full week. He was bursting into tears (yes, real, wet, dripping down his cheeks, Halle-Berry-crying-for-an-Oscar tears) at least every hour an a half for five full days. This started the Sunday of my post and continued until Friday. There were many things that contributed to this...
1. He was REALLY constipated. (But the not eating eventually took care of this little problem.)
2. He was sick. Mucus-dripping-down-his-chin sick. Blowing-snot-bubbles-as-big-as-his-head sick.
3. I realized Tuesday night, when I was brushing his teeth, he was cutting 2 new upper front teeth. So, add teething to the list.
4. And this is the one that, I think, made all this go on SO long... it's a biggy. Are you ready for it? Tuesday night Dash pulled a small wooden table down on himself and severely dislodged a tooth.
It was horrible! Horrible!! (It's taken me until today, a full week later, to even be able to write about it.)
We were in his room after his bath and instead of going to bed, he wanted to play for a few more minutes. He'd been a complete crabcake all day and in the hopes of seeing some of the happy child I had a vague recollection of, I decided to not push the bed issue. So I put him on the floor near his toys (note to self: being a softy gets you in trouble) and walked across the room to pick up some his books. I turned around just in time to see him standing, holding onto the edge of a small table we have in his room, rise up on his tippy toes and then, as I flew across the room, Dash and table came crashing down! At first, it was as if time froze. No one moved. Not a peep. I thought maybe the table had just come down on his legs but everything was fine. And then all hell broke loose! His mouth filled with blood. He started screaming. I picked him up and there was blood everywhere!! All over me. All over him. The diaper I put up to his mouth to catch the blood was soaked. Dash only has two little teeth and I couldn't see them! Then finally I saw one. But the other was missing. I looked as best I could in his mouth but blood was everywhere. I looked all over the floor but didn't see it. Finally the blood slowed down and I realized that the tooth was still in his mouth but instead of sticking straight up, it was sticking straight out. At a full ninety degree angle! I wanted to throw up.
Our pediatrician said to go to the emergency room and see if they could save the tooth (since he won't be getting another one there until he's 5 or 6!). The emergency room did an initial exam of his vitals, determined that nothing was life threatening and pretty much let us know that we would probably continue to be pushed back on the list, so they could examine people with more pressing conditions ahead of us, before we would be able to see a doctor (they SO didn't understand that this HAD to be fixed because I just wouldn't be able to stand a constant reminder, for 5 years!, of my complete failure as a parent) and that it might be wise for us to try and find an emergency dentist.
Well, let's just say that oral health has not been at the top of our list for quite a while. (If there's anyone out there who can recommend a good dentist in our area, we'd love a referral!) So, we started working the phones, calling everyone we knew who had kids old enough to have a dentist. Meanwhile, Dash is working the room. Befriending all the emergency room patients. Who knows what happened to the crazy crabcake he had been earlier that day (or even the full two days before), but that night, way past his bedtime and with a sore tooth I might add, he was a total delight. They say kids are unpredictable, and man, are they ever!
We finally reached three dentists (HUGE shout out to Cassie for all her help!!) who, couldn't help us that night, but who all said that we should try to push the tooth back into place. Now I don't know about you, but just looking at the tooth made me feel sick (for many reasons) and the thought of trying to pin Dash down and whack that tooth back into place just did not appeal to either of us on any level. Dash would freak out if you just tried to touch his lip. So, we put him to bed and decided to wait to see a pediatric periodontist in the morning. All night I angsted as to whether this was the right decision. I couldn't sleep. And when Dash woke up in the middle of the night screaming, I happily became his own personal sleep comfort bed (for the next 2 full nights).
Here's the important part of the story for anyone with kids.... the next day at the pediatric periodontist's we found out that you should NOT, NOT, NOT try to reposition a baby tooth. Just leave it alone.
Adult teeth: repositioning - good.
Baby teeth: repositioning - bad!
I guess you run a huge risk of damaging the adult tooth bud if you move the dislodged tooth. So, they tell you, if it's still firmly in there, just to watch it and see if it dies, or moves, or falls out. In Dash's case, the doctor said that because it was dislodged so badly he gave the tooth a 10% chance of surviving. Ten percent. My heart sank.
Every time I looked at him I felt guilty. I just wanted to live those 10 seconds, that it took for the accident to happen, over again. Every night, at the time of the accident, I would just wish I could go back in time and be more vigilant. I was in tears for two days straight. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't focus on anything other than how I had failed my child.
Meanwhile, Dash was more miserable than ever. He wouldn't eat. He couldn't sleep. He was getting sicker. And he was teething but, now, not allowed to put anything in his mouth in hopes of possibly saving the tooth. He was bursting into tears all the time.
When it became obvious that his pain was being caused by more than just the tooth, we called the pediatrician Wednesday night and Thursday morning he was put on antibiotics. Which he loves. He looks just like a little baby bird, every morning, as he hungrily sucks his medicine out of the dropper.
Dash finally started eating again Friday and his appetite soon came back in full force.
As for the tooth... so far (and I feel very hesitant to say this, for fear of jinxing it) it's looking pretty good. I tried to take a picture yesterday to show you, but the tooth seems to be repositioning itself. Yipee! (knock wood, cross fingers, salt over the shoulder) so all I got was this (you can kind of see the difference in the two teeth)...
...and this (where everything looks ok.)
We've got an appointment with the pediatric dentist on Friday. We'll see what he has to say. Until then we've got our fingers crossed (and damn if I haven't knocked on more wood in the past week then I have in my whole entire life!) Good wishes and positive thoughts appreciated. I'll let you know what happens!
p.s. There has been one positive to all this... a couple days after Dash dislodged his tooth, he began sleeping through the night (no 3:30am feeding). So, if you're struggling to eliminate those pesky nighttime feedings and have a spare tooth, I highly recommend a small, but solid, wood table!
I have no fun story or whimsical anecdote for this entry. Today Dash was sick. He's been sick before, but not like this. In past he's been a little uncomfortable. During many of those times, it seemed as if he wished his nose would run off and bother someone else. But nothing too bad.
Today on top of being massively uncomfortable (I contribute some of this to being crazy constipated since Wednesday night), he had a slight fever, an incredibly runny nose, a little bit of throw up (on mommy) and a complete lack of appetite for anything solid.
My poor little boy. Several times today he just burst into tears. The rest of the time he was a whiney mess clinging to me for a cuddle and some comfort.
We never watch tv in front of him, but today because he was so miserable we let him watch some of The Great Race and Finding Nemo. (And I don't think we'll be revisiting the latter for a while; it has some really scary parts that I totally forgot about. Of course, we just discovered that, Dash currently thinks they're very funny, but I suspect that will change in a short time.)
When he tried to nap today, his nose would clog and wake him up. I can only hope that tonight he is able to rest more peacefully and wake up tomorrow feeling much better.
Why is it that the pain of our children affects us in ways nothing else does?
-----------------------------------
Update...
This morning I woke up to this...
All smiles and chatter.
He's even eating a very little bit.
His nose is still a runny mess, but I think we're on the road to recovery. Thanks for sending all that positive energy our way!
Once upon a time, in a kingdom not so far away, there lived a little prince. (Let's call him Prince Shaggy-Head, or PSH for the sake of this story [because, let's face it, I'm basically lazy and I'm going to be typing his name a lot because he is, after all, the main character of this story.]) Well, PSH had lived a short but relatively blissful existence. His every whim and whine had been had been immediately attended to. And to top it off he had very, very rarely had what some of the less fortunate refer to as "bad hair day".
You see, PSH had been born with a dazzling head of auburn hair that, although shaggy, would naturally arranged itself in a rakish pho-hawk.
Eventually though his auburn hair gave way to (and by "gave way to", I mean fell out at an alarming rate leaving him with a really bad comb-over)...
...some beautiful, blond duck-fuzz.
This fuzz amazingly enough (well, maybe it wasn't so amazing, he was the prince after all) grew in perfectly, just as if the royal barber himself had coiffed it.
At first PSH's hair looked as though he had a perfect little buzz-cut. The king was green with envy. He had often wished he could sport one as lovely himself, but the queen regularly put the kabash on that plan!
And soon PSH's hair grew a little bit longer into a handsome side-part-do.
But as hair does, the prince's hair continued to grow and grow and soon the king could not stand that his young son's hair was sweeping over the tops of his ears.
In fact every time the king gazed upon his son, the pleasure that he felt was minimized by his distaste for the prince's unruly hair.
So one night when the queen was working late (yes, in this kingdom even the queen works; it's a sign of the times, right?!), and the king was left to care for the prince on his own for an hour, the king snuck into the quarters of the royal barber and swiped his shears. The king then waited until the right moment and relieved the unsuspecting prince of some of that bothersome shaggy hair. But the king was unfamiliar with the energetic ways of young princes and one side ended up much, MUCH shorter than the other. So it was only a matter of time until the queen, after arriving home exhausted from a hard day at the office, screeched, "OMG! Who cut the prince's hair???!"
There were some harsh words and the queen eventually sought the council of the royal nanny, Lady Patricia, and together they decreed that the king was never again allowed to even so much as trim a hair on the prince's head.
Well, eventually the hairs that the king cut grew back (3 months later!) and once again he began to grumble that Prince Shaggy-Head was looking a bit unkempt. So, to head any unwanted action off at the pass, (the queen knew the king could only resist for so long) she scheduled an appointment for PSH at a place that specializes in cutting young princes' hair.
When the day of the appointment finally arrived, PSH greeted the whole operation with the appropriate gravity.
And in the end he was rewarded with his very first balloon!
The king and queen were pleased with the results, but realized that their son could no longer be known as Prince Shaggy-Head. So they once again began referring to him by his given name, Dashell.
And they all lived happily ever after (or at least until the prince's hair became shaggy again!)
He used to sit there turning an object end over end. Studying it. Mesmerized for minutes on end. He'd tap on the switches with his index finger. He'd point out all the screws. Sometimes he'd even play with it (the way that it was meant to be played with.) Until eventually, he would become bored and whine to be handed something else fascinating.
But with Dashell's new found mobility he is the unstoppable explorer of his very own "New World". No need for anyone to sit there and entertain this boy! These days I feel more like a member of the audience (and many times the safety squad) than a playmate.
Check out some of the places I've found my little adventurer lately...
That's the typical Hollywood depiction of how you find out what you're having. And in real life, it may very well be like that too. Although ours was more like...
"Are you sure you want to know?"
"Yes."
"Because there are two extra identical genetic markers in every cell."
"I'd still like to know."
"Just to let you know, we are having meetings like crazy to try and figure out what you're looking at here, because quite frankly we've never seen anything like this before, but the odds of this pregnancy surviving are very slim and even if it does.... well, you might want to consider... well, you know. Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. Fire away."
"Ok... (deep sigh, long pause)... it's a boy." (In case you're reading this aloud, and really getting into the theatrics of the moment, the last part was said with an almost apologetic tone. Try it. There you go. Bravo! Oscar for you!)
So later, oh say between weeks 18-26 before all hell broke loose again, when people asked "Are you excited it's a boy?!" I'd honestly just reply, "We're hoping he's healthy and beautifully average."
It wasn't until much, much, much later (say, after he was born and the x-rays and kyrotype came back in good shape, and I'd examined every nook and cranny of him myself) that I even allowed myself to think... "Boy, hmmm, boy?? Does it matter?" And, quite frankly, to me it didn't.
Well, that is to say, for the most part it didn't matter... unless I was shopping for clothes for him. And, as the mom of a boy, you realize that 80% of all baby clothing is created for girls. It's pink. With ribbons. And little leggings. And flowers. And cute little matching bows and shoes. Hooooo-ly crap! It's nuts! And for your little bouncing boy, madame, we have a lovely blue onesie. Would you like that with a truck or a baseball bat on it? That's it. A truck or a bat. Actually, I guess, I'm being a little harsh, sometimes they really get crazy and make a few outfits that look like fatigues. Those are green.
But I have to say, in all honesty, that the whole boy/girl thing hasn't really hit yet. I mean sure he's messy. But what baby isn't, right? The other weekend my husband was pointing out that Kacey's (the little girl whose parents we were having a delightful lunch with) outfit looked immaculate and, well, Dashell's was a little worse for wear. Below, Exhibit A...
But let's all be honest, at this age it's really all about the mommy's, right?
Is it that Diana is much more attentive in regards to Kacey's general hygiene and appearance, and that maybe (let's think of a good excuse for me), I just concern myself with other things? Like, say, the situation in the Middle East. But, then what does that say about me as a mom?? Not much, right?! So, let's not envision me concerning myself with that. (Besides, I know as much about that, as I do which size knitting needles you should use to knit a scarf.)
Or is it that mom's of girls are more attentive in regards to their daughter's appearance. Feast your eyes on Exhibit B...(and of course revisit Exhibit A image 1)
I've never done the bib-for-crawling-around thing (see Exhibit A) and I realized after going to a few playgroups that it's not just a mommy-with-girl thing. So, maybe it wouldn't matter if I had a boy or a girl. Maybe any child of mine is just destined to look like a vagrant.
I don't know what the answer is. But, definitely don't forget to check back in a few months when he gets into some real dirt! Until then I'll think about maybe carrying around a few more wipes and bibs. But, come on, he's a boy, right?! Mess 'n' mayhem, in one little irresistible package.
This weekend Dash conned the innocent and beautiful Taline into helping him pull off a devilish Tupperware heist...
Dashy, you're changing by the hour. I'm worried that as you get older, I will start to forget the things about you, at this age, that bring so much joy to my life every day. These are a few things I hope I will never forget...
- I love coming into your bedroom first thing in the morning to find you in your crib, smiling like crazy, surrounded by your toys.
- I love that for about two weeks, over the Christmas holidays, you would purr (actually it was more of a growl) whenever you were happy.
- I love that when you're excited to see someone you squish up your face and thrust your hand toward them like your trying to high-five.
- I love listening to you "sing" to yourself. It's one of sweetest sounds I've ever heard.
- I love that your feet look like they are made out of bubbles.
- I love that when you examine a new object, you first tap it gently with your index finger before you go at it with gusto. - I love that you are endlessly curious and aware of your surroundings.
- I love your face in the morning, when you're straining to look out your window and see what interesting things the new day has brought.
- I love that you think a good smile involves a wrinkly nose.
- I love that when you get really excited about something, you tremble so much that you are practically paralyzed with joy. - I love that you are naturally happy. And even when you are really tired you try hard to smile.
- I love that you find it comforting to snuggle your head up under my chin as I rock you to sleep at night.
Dashy I love you, and every day I am thankful that you came into our lives. (This, I know, I won't forget.)
A promise is a promise. A deal's, a deal, right?! As a kid, aren't promises our first experiences with something like a contract? And, what gets you out of that contract? Maybe your parents grounding you or saying that absolutely, under no circumstances, are you allowed to do whatever it is that you promised to do. But outside of that, you're obligated, right?! Stuck. Committed. No excuses accepted.
