True Confessions...

I admit that on Tuesday I was ready to ship Caleb Z off to the gypsies. Or at least the cryogenic scientists that could freeze him in his current state until either I wasn’t pregnant anymore or the stinking heat died down. Get this: Tuesday morning, we fought and fought and fought. Over absolutely everything from changing a diaper to the fact that I stopped him after four glasses of milk and juice. And while we fought, at the back of my mind was the fact that I not only had a doctor’s appointment later in the morning, but lunch scheduled with the entire staff of my previous office.

I wanted to cry.

But Caleb was a gem at the docs. He shook hands, smiled at babies and charmed the socks off the OB who had delivered him. It was precious beyond belief. It gave me a little hope for lunch, which I was no longer trying to figure out how to excuse myself from. And would you believe that he maintained that smooth attitude through lunch? He gave hugs, grins and lectures to a captive audience that was gracious enough to let us join them. (It was an awards luncheon for the top producers at my company. Not something you’d ordinarily invite a former employee and her one year old to!)

He had one major meltdown, and it was because he had twisted his ankle getting out of the booster seat. The trick that I discovered that day is to kiss ouchies before trying to comfort the crying. I sat there and held and soothed him for about thirty seconds before I finally hiked his little foot up to my mouth to smooch it better, but that’s when the tears dried up and his disposition became positively sunny.

When lunch was over, he made a point of giving all of them hugs and big waves, and was such a politician that he approached the table next to us and started a discussion with them. It was hilarious! Here are these two older businessmen that I had been terrified of when he was screaming, and they’re just eating out of his hand. Too funny! He actually shook hands with both of them, and when we left, they both told him good-bye.

With these errands having been such a glowing success, I faced the rest of my day with optimism and hope that our discord was behind us. Wrong-o. The little one woke up from his very short nap, and proceeded to scream “no” and “don’t” for the next three hours. Even when I did something as inane as GO TO THE BATHROOM. He melted down EVERY time I made my way to the bathroom, wailing as if I were doing him grievous harm. It was no wonder then that I offended Jonathan later that night by being bitchy about how late he came home from work.

Then Wednesday? Devil-boy was gone, angel-child reigned again. We had absolutely NO conflict yesterday whatsoever. There were a couple of rough diaper changes in the afternoon, but that’s because he’s getting some kind of a bug that gives him the runny poos. Today’s diaper changes have been overly frequent and insanely hellacious. Poor baby can’t go more than an hour without a diaper change, and his little bottom is raw. It breaks my heart.

In other, non-fecal related news, my appointment on Tuesday was great. My blood pressure is still low, Gavi’s heartbeat is still perfect, but the doc put me on limited activity warning. My contractions have gotten more frequent and more severe toward the end of my pregnancy, and the doc doesn’t want Gavi to make an appearance for a minimum of three weeks. No more going to the zoo until after he’s born, no more carrying Caleb kicking and screaming around a mall, and no more going to the park in the middle of the day. No big sacrifice on any of those, but curtailing my activities has been a little tougher than I expected. Today was a little easier because he’s so pathetic when he’s sick that he just wants to cuddle and read, but yesterday was rough, because he’s such an energetic little bug!

And thanks to any and all of you who have been praying about Jonathan’s job / our financial situation. It’s going to be a rough few more months, but we have the utmost faith that God is doing a good work through Jon’s company. My man is kicking tail and taking names with sales, and it looks like he’ll start to see the rewards of that by the end of the year. My biggest issue with his success is going to be that it means that he spends a bucket o’ time at work – right when I feel like I need him the most. But I know that God will give me the grace to deal with that as well.

Why oh why can’t I do short posts?!