Happy August!

Caleb Zakai Fashbaugh is SUCH A BOY! I can’t even believe how amazingly resilient and hilarious he is! First of all, it would be impossible to recount all the ouchies and boo-boos he got on our camping trip this past week. And no matter how many times he would fall, scrape himself, bang his head, or engage in countless other cringe-inducing activities, he just kept trucking.

The first morning we were up there, we saw a baby moose. We had to go out to a marshy place to follow it, where we found some kind of a giant water beetle. Grandpa picked it up, and Caleb immediately snatched it out of his hand. He almost squished it when he let out a shriek and threw it back on the ground. That darn beetle had taken exception to his imminent demise and bitten Caleb. Then Grandpa picked it back up to demonstrate proper bug-handling etiquette, and Caleb tried to squish Grandpa’s hand around it! Jonathan actually got video of that. As soon as he turned off the camera, Caleb told the bug “bye-bye!” It was so cute that we really hated having missed getting it.

A little later, Jonathan caught a couple of little froggy toady things. I don’t actually know the difference between them, but I didn’t want him touching them since they didn’t have the same defenses as the beetle. We found some more later, though, and he was very sweet with them.

He took great delight in pointing out every single pile of “poopies” that we passed at the top of his lungs. And since we were so near so many horses, it was a frequent occurrence. Oh! And even though he wouldn’t go near Miss Kellie’s horse without freaking out, he actually called a couple of horses over to him and pet every one that he could. We walked past some stables near the petting zoo and he just crooned at them. It was lovely.

The upside of this trip for this eight and a half months pregnant lady was that it stayed so cool because it rained so much. The downside for this mother of a hyperactive 21 month old was that there was SO MUCH MUD! When we were at the petting zoo, he insisted on being independent and walking through yet another muddy patch. I tried to be mellow about it – he’s a little boy, dirt washes, etc. But on this particular outing, his foot sucked down into the mud, and when he yanked his foot out, his shoe remained locked in the muck. So Momma trucked over, grabbed him, and carried him to sit down where we could steal his shoes and socks to wash in the river. Honestly, if we hadn’t been near a river, I’m not sure what we would have done.

I didn’t drink enough on this trip due to the fact that no matter how little I drank during the day, I was up every two hours or so to go to the bathroom. That’s my biggest pregnancy gripe right now. However, at that altitude, it affected me a little bit more. On our walk back from the petting zoo the first day, I ended up having about a half dozen crippling contractions, which continued after I got back to the RV and started chugging water and resting. But after an hour, they subsided. Seriously, if I had gone into labor that far from our hospital I would have been SO ANGRY! Not because of the money, either. I want to spend another couple days at Rose Hospital! It’s like a hotel! Who knows what I might have ended up with in the mountains? Coulda been a veterinary clinic or something! No way, no how. I’m getting my hospital stay, darn it.

Caleb’s other favorite thing on this trip was the pile of firewood. He would literally just sit there and sort stuff and bang sticks together. What a BOY! There were also two little girls at the site next to ours, and he turned on the charm for them. By our last night there, they were taking turns hugging him and carrying him around. They were four and six, and I again saw the difference between boys and girls – after the littler one dropped him for the fourth time, she asked, “Why doesn’t he cry?!” He’s a tough little nut!

We had to have some discipline on the trip, though. The biggest issue is the fact that he’s really learning by copying other people’s behavior. So when both Grandpa and Daddy put big sticks on the fire, he assumed that was the thing for boys to do. I assumed he was using a big stick as some sort of walking stick, but he was aiming for the fire with it. Ugh, it’s awful to try to tell him that he can’t do something even though he just saw other people doing it. Grr.

Oh! Has anyone read the Dangerous Book for Boys? I almost bought it at Sam’s a couple of months ago and decided to wait until it came out in paperback. But after seeing how very B-O-Y this kid is, I think I might need the hard-cover. It had all this fun stuff about knives and how to start fires and stuff. It’s still on the best-seller lists, so I think it might take a while for it to reach paperback. I want to know at least some of that stuff so that I know how to keep from freaking out when Caleb starts doing it. There were GENERATIONS AND GENERATIONS of kids doing stuff that we would never dream of letting our kids do, and somehow the majority of them survived childhood and were the stronger for it. I’m far more mellow than a lot of ladies with a boy this age, but I still find myself cringing and asking if spiders are poisonous when Caleb plays with them. Caleb’s grandpa was out playing with snakes and other creepies by the time he was Caleb’s age, and he’s the biggest badass I know!

Oops, I was corrected by my own sweet Mommy this weekend about my language. Apparently even though I’m learning to cut “crap” out of my vocab, when I’m not actually talking to Caleb, I let things like “damn” slip in for emphasis. (“Damn straight” is one of my favorite phrases of all time. Poo on responsible parenting!)

Okay, gotta get going on my day! Hope all is well for all my wonderful peeps out there! Happy Day!

 Terra replied...

Enjoy your little "rambo" boy. Mine cries at every little bump and bruise, which are coming more frequently now as he learns to walk. I'm glad that you had a great weekend!