And I thought this was easy!

Up until now, being a mom has been the most fun thing in the whole world and I've felt like there wasn't anything I couldn't handle. That was before all the screaming and fevering and honest-to-goodness throw-upping. (Jonathan got the worst of the latter, I'm afraid. If I could have had it on video, y'all would die laughing!)

Anyway, it's still the most wonderful thing in the world, but I'm definitely feeling the strain. Suddenly, the most perfect little boy is a handful. Yowser! I've been thinking it was just teething, but it took a turn for the worse yesterday. They called me from his school because he was running a fever. Unfortunately, with it being the end of the month, I couldn't easily take time off of work, so I took him to the office with me. Oh, what fun! He was fine and dandy as long as I would hold him, but the problem with most jobs is that they aren't do-able with one hand. Lucky for me, I work with some fabulous people who didn't mind me being a bit slow so that the boy wouldn't cry.

When I got him home, he started the vomiting. How bad was it? Well, he didn't seem particularly upset to do it. But he wore six pairs of pajamas that night ~ the most spectacular change occurring after he doused his Daddy as mentioned above. So much fun!

Then this morning, I had to think long and hard about whether or not to take him to school, and the bottom line was this: if some other kid had a fever and had been throwing up, I wouldn't want him at school with Caleb, so I had to apply the same standard. So I went to work really early, and worked until I had to get him to his doctor's appointment at ten o'clock.

Doc said that he had some kind of virus, and took him off milk all day! So Caleb lived on Pedialyte and Ginger Ale today! I finally broke down at about four o'clock and gave him some rice cereal. Anyway, he seems to be doing pretty well here at the end of the day, praise the Lord!

I forgot to mention that he got to go to his first birthday party this weekend! Jaxson Dale turned one year old, and Caleb and I got to go celebrate with he and his family. It was a lot of fun - except for Caleb's urping all over my former boss. Oops! It made me realize how much effort is involved in baby parties! But Jodi did a great job, and I can't wait to have her input on Caleb's first party!

Monday night...

I’m typing on an iMac! Who would have thought that I would ever be a macintosh type person? I always rather thought of them as techno-snobs, really. I wonder why there’s such a division. I never really disliked the idea of a mac, but I truly disliked the idea that I would have to learn all kinds of new things. My old PC is the same kind of computer I’ve been using my entire life and I just learned how to cut and paste a year ago. Sad.

The only thing that really throws me so far is that all the close buttons are on the top left of a box rather than the top right. Such a rough thing to learn. The biggest, coolest thing in the universe is that it’s sort of a flat screen monitor, but the monitor is also the CPU! So it takes up like zero space. (We got it in lieu of a laptop, so it better be small!)

So MANY big things in Caleb’s life! First of all, he’s getting cuter by the day. I kid you not. I know I’ve been saying it over and over and over again, but it CONSTANTLY holds true. I was telling Jodi that the only time we’ll be able to stop saying that is when our boys finally hit puberty. Then we can look back and take comfort in the fact that they USED to get cuter by the day, and we can look forward and hope that they will one day be half as attractive as we thought they were as children.
He’s still not rolling over. At first I was letting it bother me, because there are a lot of babies that are doing it much earlier. But the bottom line is that he’s a baby, and babies develop differently. He’s definitely developing, because day by day he does things that he couldn’t do earlier. Right now, one of my favorite things is that he actually seems to becoming more aware of things, at least so far as putting them in his mouth is concerned. I hope, I hope, I hope that Jonny gets the video loaded of him eating one of the toys on his swing. You can kind of tell how adorable it is from a still picture, but the video shows how hilarious it is. (Of course, Jonathan says that I sound like an evil clown laughing in it, so maybe I DON’T hope he gets it loaded.)

He continues to smile with his entire body. It’s so wonderful ~ he’ll look at you with those big BLUE eyes, and if you give him any indication that you’re interested in conversation at all, he’ll scrunch his shoulders in, pull his neck down and to the side, and his smile is so big that it takes up all the room in his face and his eyes narrow in the kind of happy crinkle that only really big smilers get!

A good and bad thing: he’s only been getting me up once at night lately. It’s been a joy to sleep more, but it’s rough because that was always time with him that I could count on. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I MISS him when I’m sleeping!
Finally, the other magnificent thing about him getting bigger is that Jonathan is having so much more fun with him. I think it might be a guy thing, but when Caleb was a lot smaller, Jonathan didn’t enjoy him. Now, me? I would look at the little wrinkled ball of baby and enjoy every second of it. But he didn’t really do much.

As he continues to develop his fabulous little personality, Jonathan gets more of a kick out of him. The two of them will just sit and look at each other and have a good old time. Jonathan likes to mess with him, and he thrives on it! We discovered at Sam’s yesterday that when Jonathan basically rubs his hand all over Caleb’s face (the way you would tousle a kid’s hair) Caleb will squeal with nothing short of pure glee. I, as a normal human, would have never thought to subject my son to such a thing, but it makes him so happy that I’m overcoming my natural hesitancy and smooshing his little face.

Life is good.

Brief Exclamation...

CALEB ZAKAI IS THE CUTEST LITTLE MAN IN THE UNIVERSE!

When that boy smiles, your heart doesn't melt, it LEAPS!

Of course, he is awfully drool-y right now. No one is faultless.

But he comes pretty close right now! So much so that I'm actually looking FORWARD to him getting a little older and more exasperating so that I don't spend every minute of every day just wanting to BE with him!

But really, is that so bad?!

Stream of Consciousness...

Jonny posted the beginning of my blog on Saturday when I got called away to ooh and aah over Caleb's new bed. It's BEYOND gorgeous! I'm hoping Jonathan will get the pictures posted tonight, but I'm not sure he will.

Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, but it made Caleb sleep for the longest time! Okay, maybe it wasn't the bed, but he slept for almost ten hours last night! Of course, I got called away from work today to come get him at school because he was such a miserable little boy. No one knows what to do with him when he's upset because he's usually just a peach, so he probably would have been fine if I hadn't gotten him.

But several peeps have suggested that maybe it's because he slept so long, and was taking some time catching up on his eating. So maybe I'll be happy if he's not sleeping through the night for a while!

Anyway, my Papa did SUCH an incredible job with it that I'm in awe. And finally, we get to use the crib set, which was the first thing my parents bought when they found out they were getting a grandbaby!

I hate ventriloquists dummies. You know what else I hate? MANGO! Or maybe it's papaya. One of the two, which are usually served together, tastes the way pine trees smell. When I think of trees, I think of Chance, who fell out of one on my watch, and I think of Shane, who got stuck in one when we were on a picnic.

Time to be done. I've got to get some dinner because the stream is trickling...

Saturday?!

I never write on Saturday! I hadn't realized that! So here we are, just moments from the arrival of Caleb's CRIB! I'm very excited about it, and if he's to be believed, so is Caleb! It's all very thrilling here at the Fashbaughs!

One tiny aside - have you ever just CHOMPED the inside of your cheek? I'm not talking about some little thing where you scrape your cheek with your teeth, but where both the upper and lower jaw do their darnedest to connect with a chunk of cheek in between? I did that last night, and this morning, it's swelled up so big in my mouth that I have a headache. Random, I know!

I got to take Caleb Z. to my other office on Thursday. We were chastised for being so loud - those girls squealed like I'd brought in a baby or something! He was such a joy! I was a little nervous because sometimes with big groups of people he tires out really easily, and I had wanted him to be there for almost two hours. Nopers - that bug was such a charmer that I feel a little bad about having had him there because it was such a distraction! Portia Y. started calling him "chunka chunk." Ordinarily I get a little offended