DumbFunnery

Hello again friends, we have less than a month til the little fella is a ONE YEAR OLD! I would also like to say that any and all typos in this post can and will be blamed on my son. We’ll get to that.

It was a hectic month in the life of the fella and his mom and pop, so we’ll take a chronological approach to month 11.

Houston

The big events started at the beginning of July when my wife had her first solo trip with the kiddo, with the two of them heading off to Houston, humidity, and family. I joined them on July 4th and we stayed there til the weekend after the 4th.

Starting a week or so before the trip the kiddo began to sleep through the night … consistently. Thank the Lord almighty. He slept, with maybe one or two nights off, a week straight! You know how many times he had slept through the night leading up to that? 2 or 3. It was a welcome reprieve, to say the least.

Then in Houston, shock of all shocks, the great sleep continued. It was miraculous. We had figured surely the new place, the new … everything … would throw him off but the little champion sleeper continued to impress. He didn’t have a perfect record in Houston, but it took very little on our parts to get him great sleep which was phenomenal.

July 4th, with fireworks nearby, was a more involved night. But who can blame him. And, let me say, it was the first time I heard fireworks on July 4th and would mutter curses to myself while hearing them. Yeah yeah, America’s great and all that, but GET OFF MY LAWN AND QUIET DOWN EVERYBODY.

As part of the Houston trip we headed to Galveston where the kiddo had his first beach experience. Sitting in the surf, between mama’s legs, trying to catch a little toy that would drift away and come back with the tide … His mom, and maternal grandmother, couldn’t have been happier. The kiddo, too, seemed quite content. And for my part, I held the little guy and would squat down and stand up to let him experience waves in … some kind of fashion. It elicited some good grins from the monster, which is all I need in life (well, that and food. AND SLEEP).

The trip also saw me having my first nights alone since he came along. It was wild. One night I mowed the lawn, took out the trash, made sure all the dishes were in good shape … LOOK OUT. But I did treat myself – I squeezed in an extra workout, got fast food, and watched action movies VERY LOUDLY. Huzzah for the small things.

Eyes

The Sunday we came back the kiddo woke up earlier than we would normally like, but it worked great for the travel plans that day. Little did we know that was the beginning of the end of his great run of sleep. It’s not like things got terrible, they just went back to being not good. For example, waking up an hour earlier than we want him to.

And you may say, what’s the big deal? Well, then it makes him more inclined to be cranky, and that impacts the whole day, and throws off the next night’s sleep. And when he wakes up just an hour or so earlier than we want him to it is QUITE difficult to get him back to sleep, because he’s recovered enough to say, ‘HEY DAAAAAAD. LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOO!’ but you know … he says that with cries.

Monday the kiddo woke up at 5, not 6, and since my wife would be home all day with him I took him downstairs to hang out til my wife would take over around 630 (when I would need to start getting ready for work).

Do you want to play on the floor? No, too fussy (because you’re tired, child).

Ok, how about dad reads a book and you sit on my lap?

I plop the kiddo on my lap and boom, he’s trying to take off my glasses. Ok, fine fine, let me put these over there and then … that’s when spazzy militaristic baby arms got me.

BAM. Right in the eye.

It felt not good. I think I even cried out, I’m not saying I’m a tough guy (I’m not), I just don’t normally react vocally like that.

With one eye open, the kid tucked into my arms, and one hand covering the other eye, I made my way slowly upstairs and handed the kiddo off. I sat in the dark for a while, eyes closed, and things began to feel better. I showered, dressed, and headed to a doc appointment I happened to have.

While driving I realized … this was not wise.

I had my appointment, a mole was removed (the doc said, ‘this will be the second most painful thing you’ve experienced today’). After the appointment my wife and adorable assailant arrived to whisk me away to an eye doc. My wife was thankfully able to book an appointment for me pronto.

The doc gave me some numbing drops that were a little taste of Heaven, and then he took a look. ‘Oooh, he got you good.’ He showed my wife, who responded with a, ‘YIKES’ … Which was encouraging.

That week I missed work that day, the next day I happened to have a vacation day because of my sis and her fam being in town, and I missed work Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday my eye hurt/was uncomfortable. The kiddo scratched about 15% of my cornea, and managed to get down to the third layer. Between the location, and the depth, the eye has been taking a while to heal. It’s almost a month later and my eye is still blurry. The eye doc gave me a band-aid contact which I wore for a bit over a week, tons of eye drops, and plenty of eye doc visits (I think I’ve been 8 times in the last month). One of the drops slowed the healing down so that it would be less likely to scar. But now the scarring process is beginning, so hopefully my brain will adapt to the scar and adjust and I’ll have pretty much normal vision. The doc mentioned that surgery could be what happens if my brain can’t adapt … which would be a horrifying nightmare scenario for me. I might opt for blindness over an eye surgery.

Anywho, fun stuff.

Ears

I didn’t even get into how he’s progressing with food. With mom or dad’s help he drinks from a cup … and oh, how the mighty backwash river flows.

The morning after the GREAT EYE POKE INCIDENT OF 2018, the kiddo had a surgery scheduled for 7 am. He was going to get tubes put in his ears to address his frequent ear infections.

This was all great stuff except for two things:

1) The surgery was scheduled for 7am and the little guy couldn’t eat until after the operation. Considering he normally breastfed anywhere from 530 to 630 am this could be a challenge. Also we had to be there an hour early, which meant an hour of ‘why am I awake and not eating?’ I don’t know what the kiddo is thinking, but I imagine he was looking at mom thinking, ‘uh, dude, the buffet is like … right there. What’s the deal.’

2) When coming out of anesthesia, I think about 90% of babies respond NOT WELL. As in, inconsolable crying. Unfortunately he was part of that 90%.

We got to the hospital without too much anger in the morning, and then the bjorne and me wandering worked the magic we work. The kiddo was delightfully distracted, I was squinting at everything like some poor man’s Clint Eastwood (cornea scratches can make you quite light-sensitive) and the kiddo got some sweet compliments from random hospital staff. His button nose – yes, I agree, it’s adorable. His quick smile – yes, agreed again, it’s fantastic. His insane squawking – you know what, ADORABLE.

The staff at the hospital was tremendous, too. The anesthesiologist came by, talked to us, talked to our kiddo, poked at his belly, gave him smiles, the kiddo smiled back … That guy ended up being the one to whisk our son away to the OR and he did so like a seasoned pro. He got a warm blanket, wrapped it around him, held him tight, and to our happy surprise our kid went away without any tears.

If our son is anything like his mother, he was probably marveling at the magic of a toasty blanket.

The surgery finished quickly and we headed back to see our sweet boy. At this point I quit my charade of pretending to not have weird eye stuff going on (up til then I would make brief eye contact, then look down, close my eye, and it might water some … it really was in a weird state). I donned my shades and took turns with my wife pacing, singing, cooing, bouncing, and every trick we knew to get our son to calm down and stop crying.

After maybe 30 minutes it took hold and the little guy was knocked out in his mom’s arms. The nurse helping us said, ‘just keep the shirt’ so we now have a little baby hospital shirt as a very strange souvenir.

I took an Uber to an eye doc appointment (what a ride – the driver, a man in his 50s, talked to me about his ex and their sex life) while the kiddo took a 2.5 hour nap. That is an INSANELY long nap by his standards.

Quick Hits

This picture does the mess no justice. There’s a layer of grime so thick you’d think it does squats. EH!? JOKES!

Ok I am writing WAY too much. Absurd. And too much about me and my dang eye (but really, it’s been a ride).

So, let’s speed up.

The Tuesday of the surgery my sis and her fam arrived, to which I played the role of terribly boring host who likes to sit in the dark and not play. My nephew was probably bummed, but all the more reason for them to visit again in the future.

It was fun to watch our kiddo just stare at his almost 6, and 2.5 year old cousins playing with ‘his’ toys. Who are these guys? How are they so quick? HOW CAN THEY STAND!?

And speaking of standing …

The little guy has gotten much faster at standing up. And with maybe a week before he turned 11 months he figured out sitting back down. This was pretty revolutionary. Until then he would stand, happily, until he didn’t want to be standing and then he would make an upset screeching/squawking noise (you may think I am overusing the word squawk … I am not).

He is still very slow to sit back down (it’s adorable how he gingerly approaches the ground like it may rush up to meet him … which, from his perspective, it probably does fairly often).

My FAVORITE new thing this month is the most playing back-and-forth the monster and I have done. It’s been amazing. It started with me taking his pacifier, and pretending to suck on it while I stared at him. He would stare, find it hysterical, and then climb up me to retrieve his coveted friend. That’s all well and good.

My wife had brought up our ottoman from downstairs to afford more cruising opportunities, and this was the centerpiece of the new game. The kiddo would crawl to one side, stand up, and I started sneaking up to faux-bite his belly while he stood there.

This would lead to him getting down from standing (gingerly, very gingerly) and then crawling after me. And there you have it – he’s chasing me! He is a LOUD crawler, his hands hit the floor with a fierceness, so I do the same and when he hears my loud banging on the ground he knows … it’s go time.

Words can’t do it justice, but it is wonderful to crawl away from him (at which point I inevitably speed up enough to then catch him) and grab his little belly or tickle him.
He’s also a smart kiddo (biased much?) because he has figured out that I’ll turn around to surprise him as he rounds a corner. So he will crawl after me, pause, and look back. He also is a cheater, because he’ll stand up to try and spot me.

(I maybe just realized this started right after the 11 month day but … whatever, I already typed it.)

And in the category of random we have …

One day my wife was getting her teeth cleaned and a Walmart was right nearby. The kiddo and I, trusty bjorne employed, headed to Walmart to see the sights. In one toy aisle I got a sort of kickball out and began bouncing it which, unexpectedly, CRACKED UP the kiddo. He found it hysterical. Why? Lord knows. But you know who bought that ball? This guy.

Ok, congratulations even to you future self for sticking with me. This was far too long.