Small hands

Joel has discovered how things feel. He is moving his chubby little fingers over everything they come in contact with. He loves reaching up to our faces to feel them. Jav reminded me that Gabriel went though a stage where his little hand would open and close on our shoulders whenever we held him. I remembered him doing that alot when we took him to his first Ranger Game. Joel has learned to comfort himself, and even put himself to sleep, by opening and closing his hand on top of his head. I didn't even realize this was happening until I found tons of scratches on his head one day. I now make a point to trim his nails every week. The other night when he was having some tummy trouble that woke him up, I was rocking him and he reached his little hand up and started feeling my chin, ever so gently. So, so sweet!

He wants to roll over to his tummy every single time I put him on his back. Gone now are the days of putting him down for a few minutes on a bed while I run to start a load of laundry. He had an unfortunate experience of rolling off of his activity mat and onto our rug that needed a good vacuuming from all the shedded pet hair. When I got him turned over it looked like he had a beard! He had his first experience of bellying-over to a toy he wanted to play with yesterday, and it was a good four feet away from him. He's ready to move! And the more he moves, the more delighted his brother is to realize that this little lump that we brought home is actually going to be able to play with him one day.

The game they play right now is the "Stinky Feet" game. Gabriel will grab one of Joel's feet, sniff it, and then yell, "Pew wee!!!" And both of them laugh. I tried pointing out to Gabriel that Joel's feet smell waaaaayyyyy better than his since he never wears shoes (I refuse to put them on him until I have to). But Gabriel doesn't pay any attention to me and just keeps on having fun.

Fixable mistakes

I think I really messed up with Gabriel when we first brought Joel home. In my sleep-deprived and overwhelmed state, I think I expected him to grow up overnight. I expected him to stop arguing with me and start minding me, and basically stop being three years old just so that my life would be a little easier. I lost my patience with him all too quickly, and used my exasperated tone with him so much. And even yelled at him a good number of times. It took me a couple of months to realize that I was doing these things, and it's taken another couple of months to figure out why. It also dawned on me that every time we leave the house as a family, to go to Mass or run errands, that I grab Joel and Jav looks after Gabriel. It is amazing to me how much Joel has become almost like another appendage to me. Now I am trying to let Jav take Joel more while I take Gabriel for awhile.

I keep having a sensation that he is slipping away from me, that I am not tending to his three-year-old psyche somehow and it will change our relationship forever. When I mention even a hint of this to women who have been Moms for a long time, they always tell me that he will not remember any of this and to stop worrying so much. But I have been making a huge effort to try and be more patient and loving with him again, and to constantly remind myself that he is only three (and really acts more like two sometimes). This takes almost superhuman effort because my child was either born defiant and thinking he knows everything, or it's just a very long stage we're going through. But I think my efforts are paying off. I feel him coming back to me again. He hugs me more, and is talking to me more and wanting me to play with him again.

I had my teeth cleaned a few weeks ago, and my dental hygienist has two sons who are 16 and 19, the same age difference as mine. She said she realized that she was doing the same thing to her oldest when she brought her second son home, and she swears that it did change him forever. I have known her long enough now to know that she would never exaggerate about this. She said he never was as huggy and snuggly baby-like after that. And now she can't get him to show any affection to her at all, whereas the younger one is the exact opposite. It was a little unnerving to hear validation of my worries from someone, but it will just make me work that much harder to fix what I may have messed up.

Now that Joel is taking some pretty good naps Gabriel and I are playing more and more again, and it feels so great to spend that time with him on the floor, laughing and tickling him. Yesterday we crazy danced (more like jumping) to the Ting Tings all around his room. I have missed that more than I can say, and it feels so great to get that one-on-one fun time with him again.

A week of firsts

We had quite a week around our little household last week. Gabriel caught a new cold, this one all down in his throat and chest and making him cough. Joel began sleeping through the night, which just makes my life so much easier.

But Thursday was a big day. Joel rolled over for the first time, of course when I wasn't in the room. And Gabriel had his first experience up on a stage with his classmates to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" during his school's fundraising evening. He didn't seem nervous or excited about it, but I don't think he was feeling very well. He sang and did all of the motions they were supposed to do, and smiled through the whole song. But the best part was just before they sang and he saw me waving at him, and he grinned really big and waved back. We taped it, of course, and then Jav, not knowing that I had rewinded it to show my Mom the next day, accidentally taped over it. This made me cry for a pretty long time. I know we will probably have many more on-stage performances to tape, but this was his first.

And then Friday night, Gabriel was waking up coughing, so much so that he would choke and get really scared. We decided to let him sleep with me in our bed (another first) and Jav slept on the couch. That night we had a pretty strong thunderstorm, and even though I hated having him feel so bad, it was really sweet to have him right next to me all night long.

I realize now that Joel is here and everything with him is changing so fast that I would like to make this blog like a scrapbook. I never got into scrapbooking, and I just don't think it will ever be my cup of tea. So this will become part baby book, part scrapbook and part diary. I just wish I would have thought of it when Gabriel was a baby. At least having the second one is jarring my memory constantly about that time, and maybe I can go back and get some of it down.

They stay little for such a short, short time.

Portraits

We went to have the obligatory family portrait made about a month ago, along with some shots of both boys and just Joel. We went to JC Penney's, I guess because that's where we've had Gabriel's pictures taken and it's affordable. My problem with them is twofold. The result is nice, but very generic and boring. And they have ridiculous turnover so you never know if you're going to get someone who knows how to photograph kids. We got lucky with Gabriel. Not so much this time. I ended up having to make Gabriel smile for every picture, and she had NO clue how to deal with Joel. She kept trying to get him to sit up by propping him with some pillows. And of course, being three months old, he kept falling over. When we left, I vowed in my head to not waste our money there again.

When Jav and I decided to get married in Fredericksburg, my Mom and I took a really fun trip to find the cake baker and photographer. I had come up with two, one an established studio and the other just a person who came up in the search. His name was Michael Roche, and we had our first meeting with him at the local coffee hang out. He seemed very stand-offish and even a bit snooty, and informed us that he never worked in color, only black and white or sepia. So if we had wanted shots of the Fred. Herb Farm in all of it's spring color, he wasn't our man. I liked the samples of his work that he shared with us, but I left the meeting thinking there was no way in you know where that I was going to let that jerk take pictures at my wedding.

So we drove to Kerrville to see the big studio, and it was there that I discovered how little I like the standard, posed pictures that people have taken at weddings. You know what I mean. The close up of the hands with rings. The bride simulating taking off her garter and all the groomsmen lined up. Gag. Yawn. Driving back to Fredericksburg, I decided to give Mr. Roche a chance and just hoped I wasn't making one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

It turned out to be one of the smartest moves I've made. He really wasn't a jerk, either, just extremely shy and cursed with one of those "artistic" personalties that are hard to converse with. He took the most beautiful pictures. They have life and movement, and show the joy from the occasion better than I ever thought possible. Even his posed pictures of the wedding party, etc.. have a playful quality. And he did take quite a few in color, the first time ever for him. He ended up staying way past the time we hired him for and took pictures of everyone dancing and the mariachi band. Whenever I flip through the album, I am transported to that happy day. I will never be able to repay him for what he gave us. And I have a dream of having him take the boys pictures some day.

The link to his website is here. He has ten pics from our wedding, numbers 10 through 13 and 17 through 22 under "Weddings".

Overwhelmed

Joel is kicking my butt. You would think that by now things would be settling down into a routine, or as much as you can have a routine with a baby. You would think my experience with Gabriel would be helping me with this second baby. But my two baby experiences could not be more different. And I'm completely overwhelmed most of the time.

Gabriel was so easy (even though we didn't know it at the time). He had his sleep issues, and was a bit fussy when his teeth started coming in sometime around 6 months or so. But Joel has been so much more challenging. He started solid foods three weeks ago, but we are moving very slowly. This is partly because I want to take it slow and partly because he is teething. I'm not really sure if he's hungry and eating with gusto or if he just wants to get that spoon in his mouth to gum around on. He's now pulling it into his mouth with both hands for every bite, and getting extremely upset when I pull the spoon back to get more food loaded up. I usually don't even give him half of the cereal I made. But he ends up with most of it on him. Gabriel never grabbed the spoon and never seemed to get much food on his clothes.

He is drooling, trying to put all kinds of things in his mouth, has a perpetual runny nose, and seems pretty miserable the last four days or so. When I called worried that he might have caught Gabriel's cold, the nurse told me today that I probably wanted to avoid bringing him in unless he had higher fever or developed a bad cough, and that his nose could just be part of his teething symptoms. And it seems like I'm calling the doctor for various things about Joel every week.

The only way I could get him to take a nap before this extreme teething started was to put him on his tummy. This made me nervous, and I would check on him continually, but he would sleep for an hour or so that way. Now I'm afraid to do it because he's so congested, but he will not stay asleep more than ten minutes on his back or side. The only naps he's getting during the day are just after he nurses while I'm still holding him, or in the car, and he will wake up out of a deep sleep as soon as the car stops moving. When his teeth are really bothering him, he isn't happy in the swing, or the bouncy seat, or basically anywhere except my arms. It's getting more and more challenging to make dinner. The only thing that seems to pacify him is me singing Old MacDonald. I think one night I came up with over 25 verses, including jungle animals, to get the dishes done while he was in the bouncy seat. That was some farm.

And then there's the laundry. Gabriel never spit up. He just didn't do it. Joel has major spit up days every other day. And it seems to have increased the laundry by four large people, not just one tiny one. I feel like I just get finish folding one load when another is in the dryer waiting for me. It's starting to frighten me there's so much of it. I have virtually given up on cleaning my house, getting a room vacuumed here or there, dusting something off if it gets bad enough.

At least his nighttime sleeping has greatly improved. He's usually only waking up once, sometimes twice, and he doesn't make a peep in between. I guess it's the only time his teeth aren't hurting him. And know that no matter how hard it gets for me, one look into that face and my heart just melts and I don't care how tired I am. My poor little guy! I wish I could feel the hurt for him. He's such a sweet baby and has the best laugh. I just wish he felt good enough to use it more these days. I think we will all be having a party when that tooth (or those teeth) break on through to the other side.

Beatles Tuesday...literally

Tuesday I sing Beatles songs to Gabriel and Joel at bedtime. Or any other time of the day, like bath time. Yellow Submarine is a great bath song.

So since Jav is out of town, it has been a tiresome couple of days for me. Joel was particularly fussy all day long, with his cold and teething hitting him at the same time. I tried to put him down before putting Gabriel to bed, but he was having no part of that. So I fed him while reading to Gabriel, then sang a song and told Gabriel good night and moved into Joel's room to try to get him asleep. I kept thinking I heard Gabriel, but the humidifier in Joel's room cushions the sound from next door pretty well, so he had to yell before I really heard him.

I ran in there with Joel and Gabriel was hysterical by then, and saying that he heard a sound and wanted to come sleep with me. Now, Gabriel has NEVER wanted to sleep with us overnight or even for a nap except for one Fredericksburg trip when I took him out of the pack and play and neither one of us could sleep after that. So I knew this was really bad. I felt terrible that I didn't hear him at first because I always tell him to call us if he needs us before I walk out of his room. And honestly, I was a little scared myself wondering what he had heard. I kept asking if it was outside the window, and he kept insisting that it was in the room. I picked him up too and we all headed down to our bedroom. I got him calmed down and went to put Joel down in his crib. It was then that I remembered hearing something like paper rustling while I was reading to Gabriel, but I just figured the ceiling fan was making something rustle.

I would have loved to keep Gabriel with me, but I've been bringing Joel to the bed for the last three nights with his cold and was worried someone would either get rolled over on or fall off of our ridiculously high bed. So I got him to go with me back to his room (which really is just temporarily his room and I don't feel like he's ever been comfortable in there) and try to listen for the sound again. I heard it about the same time Bones wandered into the room and headed straight for some wires behind our file cabinet. And there it was. A big greenish black beetle was walking around and trying to climb up that cabinet and was making a heck of a ruckus doing it. I went and got a big plastic cup and a skinny but firm book, which is my method of choice when it comes to trapping bugs and getting them back outside. But I couldn't get a good angle and the damn thing crawled behind Jav's behemoth of a desk. We were doomed.

Now, I've been trying to teach Gabriel to not be afraid of bugs for about a month now. I want him to have a healthy respect for them. But he has been freaking out lately every time a little gnat lands on him. So this was not a good situation AT ALL. I told him what it was, though, because he had even mentioned Monster at one point and I didn't want that in his head. I tried to keep him back so he wouldn't see it, and I don't really think he wanted to. But because he was so tired he was loudly saying over and over again, "Oh, it's a big black beetle", and of course Joel woke up. I went in to get him back to sleep and Gabriel followed telling his brother what was happening and running into things. I finally had to tell him (probably a little too firmly) that if he didn't go into the hallway and keep quiet I was never going to be able to catch that bug and we wouldn't get any sleep. I finally got Joel asleep again and went to get the flashlight.

I really didn't think I'd find him, but after tapping a couple of things under the desk I heard a rattle and did a very girly yelp and jumped way back. So much for showing Gabriel that I wasn't afraid of bugs. He started whining for me to pick him up. But I bravely shined the flashlight back underneath and saw the bug sitting on top of our blank CD case. After much deliberation with myself and silently cursing my husband, I went in for the capture. Gabriel couldn't hold the flashlight still because of his nerves so I set it in the desk chair. I quickly put the cup over the bug and slowly but very carefully started to wedge the book under the cup, making sure not to leave a big enough gap for the thing to escape. It started finally making a clicking sound when I got the book all the way under the cup and I came so close to just dropping everything and running away. But Gabriel was watching and I had to keep fighting. So I asked him to open the back door for me and moved cup and book outside. I wanted Gabriel to see the bug leave the cup so he would know it was out of his room, but when I started to move the book I was so nervous that the thing was going to fly back in our faces that I sort of just threw the book into the Asian Jasmine, where, of course, we couldn't see the bug leave the cup at all.

But I guess I convinced him it was really gone, because he's sleeping in there now. And the book is still laying in the Jasmine. Even so, I think I earned quite a bit of respect from Gabriel tonight. And Honey, boy do you owe me big for this.

I know you have a medical degree, but..

I have a hard time disagreeing with doctors. They are supposed to be the experts. I have put my trust in them to help heal me or my children, and I expect them to do just that.

Gabriel is battling his third sinus infection so far this year. He is an unusual case because he doesn't seem to have allergies or a cold or anything, but then all of a sudden he will just wake up really sick. He runs low-grade fever, has a perpetual runny nose and usually wakes up complaining several times during the night that his mouth hurts, which we now think means his throat due to drainage. He almost stops eating and doesn't want to play like normal, and just really seems to feel lousy.

I would be able to accept perpetual colds, because that's part of having little kids. But he never just has a cold, he always has infections, and then has to take antibiotics to get rid of it. Last time the antibiotic tore up his stomach and we had to stop giving it to him early. I don't want him to end up developing a resistance against antibiotics in case he ever needs them for something more serious. But they seem to be the only thing to help make him well. So I would like to find out why this keeps happening, and what we should be doing to prevent it in the future, if there is such a remedy for a three-year-old with invisible allergies. I suggested to our pediatrician that maybe Gabriel might need to see a specialist. This took much courage from me.

And of course, it didn't go over very well. He said that a specialist probably wouldn't be able to do any more for him than he does, but if I really wanted to see one, he would refer me. So I guess I stepped on his doctor toes. And now I imagine that I'm on some "trouble-making parent" list at the reception desk.

In the meantime, we are on day 5 of whatever this is, and now Joel has it. So maybe it is just a cold this time. Nothing is more pathetic than a baby with a stuffed up nose and bad cough. You just want to breath for them. Joel had two horrible nights in which Gabriel was the only one to get any sleep, then out of the blue last night he slept for hours at a time with no sign of congestion or cough. I thought it had gone away, but it was back this morning. And Jav left for a two day work training trip this morning. We're back on Grandparent Mode!