Well, baby?

Things that happened at today's pediatrician appointment:

• During the interminable wait between the nurse checking his height, weight, etc. and the doctor actually entering the room, Riley gruntingly filled his freshly-changed diaper with the sort of digestive output that requires half a container of wipes, a steely constitution, and a vigorous blast or two of Febreeze afterwards.

• I learned that he's now average in height, low-to-average in weight, but still sports a South-Park-sized head (90th percentile, good god).

• On no less than twenty separate occasions, despite my increasingly loud distractive blather, Riley heard a male voice outside the appointment room door and began yelling "DA DA? DA DA? DA DA?" before bursting into bitter tears, sending runners of snot all down his naked torso.

• He discovered a childproof plastic lock attached to one of the cabinets, and proceeded to experience the greatest meltdown known to mankind when he couldn't wrench it free. I have my limits: eventually I ripped the damn thing off and gave it to him.

• The nurse kept asking me questions that under normal circumstances—ie, without a screaming, snotting, pooping baby—I would be able to answer right away, but instead I kept making these mouthbreathingly stupid noises like "Uhhhhhhh" and "Ohhhhhmmmmmm" as I tried to access the flatlined part of my brain that contained information like how many words Riley is speaking and how many ounces of milk he drinks per day and whether or not he can walk backwards (okay, to be totally honest I'm still not sure about that last one).

• When the doctor was discussing Riley's eating habits and whether he's learning to use a spoon (sometimes) and fork (not yet because I like his eyeballs just how they are, unpunctured) he also randomly mentioned that we shouldn't bother giving him a knife for a few years, and I immediately let out this totally inappropriate snort—"SNKKKK!"—because DUH, I mean really, no knives, you don't SAY, and then I sort of choked on the snort because it tickled my throat so basically I was like: "SNKKK-KAH! KAH! KAH!" like a cat trying to hork up a tennis-ball-sized furball, or maybe like the mating call of some exotic longbilled jungle bird, and I guess my point here is that neither my son nor I managed to present ourselves with any dignity whatsoever during this entire appointment.

Oh, and as the doctor was prying Riley's scream-hole open with the tongue depressor, I looked in and all I could see were angry pink gums being broken by emerging teeth. His eyeteeth are coming in. His molars are coming in. He's got like EIGHT TEETH coming in, all at once. This is exactly what the pediatrician wrote on his sheet:

"HEALTHY BUT TEETHING BIG TIME!!!"

You know, that really explains a few things around here.

A comparative study of reading styles

METHOD A:

"That's right, Riley, that's the number three! Where's the two? Can you find it? THERE it is! Good job!"

METHOD B:

"And these here are called hooters."

Doomsday predictions

JB's luncheon conversation, as retold to me this evening:

Bob (father of a 3-year-old and a 1-year old): "Dude, two ruins it."

JB: " . . . "

Bob: "Now that we have two, my wife is never happy when I come home. Never happy. Two ruins it."

JB: " . . . "

Bob: "We sold the boat. There's never time to take it out."

JB: "The Bayliner?"

Bob: "GONE."

Well! I might find that a tad depressing, considering we're planning to add another child to our own family—but lucky for us, we don't have a boat. WHEW, EVERYTHING WILL BE JUST FINE THEN.

MUH! MOO! MA!

If Riley was a nightmare last night, he was the sweetest of dreams tonight. He was utterly charming, and spent his time before bed reading a book with me and crawling into my lap for hugs. JB said, with no small degree of wonder, "It's like he read your blog."

So that's good news. I suspect he might be working on a bothersome new tooth—he's been gnawing his fingers during his more dramatic breakdowns—and maybe that's contributing to some of his behavior (god help him, if he inherited even half of my screwed-up orthodontic genes he's probably growing a molar out the roof of his mouth right now).

Thanks once again for your helpful and supportive comments. I've seen some nasty sniping directed at women who write about motherhood online, insinuating that we're all attention whores who exploit our kids for the sake of entertainment. To that I say, well no duh, but you're forgetting the part about how we can also take comfort from each other and learn from each other's experiences. Please!

In other subjects, did your kid ever go through a phase of being obsessed with the moon? Riley gets all excited over pictures of moons, and when he sees the real deal up in the sky he goes downright batshit, yelling "MA! MOO! MUH!" over and over and pointing frantically and generally being a pint-sized freak about it. Like this:

I was thinking of buying this for his room, but I'm afraid it would COMPLETELY BLOW HIS MIND.

Do you know of any kid's books featuring moons? I mean, other than Goodnight Moon, which we already have (not a great bedtime book, really, because of all the yelling, gesturing, etc). I'm thinking a book of moon pictures might just be my ticket to Favored Parentdom.

At loose ends

I've mentioned before that Riley tends to prefer JB's company over mine—this has been the way of it for quite a while, and I've mostly made my peace with the fact that I am second fiddle for now.

Lately, though, I'm starting to think we have a problem. It seems like Riley has become more and more attached to JB, to the point where I am a completely unacceptable substitute. If JB is around, then JB is who Riley wants, and if JB makes himself briefly unavailable, then we're in for a full-scale meltdown.

Tonight I picked Riley up from daycare, and he was in a great mood all the way home. When we got to the house, JB hadn't arrived yet, and Riley and I played in the driveway—I blew soap bubbles for him while he shrieked with joy and yelled "Ba boll! BA BOLL!".

Then JB pulled up, and I was forgotten. When JB took a minute to move some stuff from his truck into the garage, Riley burst into ear-splitting tears, and when I tried to comfort him he swatted me.

Later, JB said we should try and break the habit, and so he refused to read Riley's book for him. "Go to Mama," he pleaded, while Riley shrieked and sobbed and whimpered "Dada, Dada, Dada" over and over.

I picked him up, and he thrashed in my arms, trying his hardest to get away from me and back to his dad.

(Hoo, boy. I knew I wouldn't make it to the end of this entry without crying.)

I told JB to go ahead and leave the room, and I took my wailing son into his bedroom and did his normal bedtime routine, while tears streamed down his face and he went into full-fledged screaming hysteria (hiccuping, choking, totally unfocused and out of control). Finally he laid on my chest, his body quiet but still crying, still moaning "Dada, Dada".

I put him to bed and he cried for another ten minutes before the room finally went silent.

This behavior is absolutely breaking my heart, but if I put aside my own feelings, I'm still concerned—we both are, because this isn't a happy way to parent for either of us. JB doesn't want Riley to glom onto him all the time, because it's exhausting for JB. Neither one of us wants to repeat a night like tonight.

I have absolutely no idea what we should be doing to improve the situation. JB thinks we should "force" Riley to go with me when he's screaming for Dada, which I'm willing to do only if it will actually help—because having your own son flipping out and crying while he's enduring the horrific burden of being near your side instead of his father's is . . . well. It fucking sucks, pardon my french.

If any of you have dealt with something like this, I sure would love to hear from you.

Does not compute

The definition of insanity:

Dealing with THIS all weekend . . .

. . . and yet somehow not throwing this out the window:

WHAT. ARE. WE. THINKING?

Attendance mandatory

Your comments on Riley's daycare injury were really helpful for me, so I'd like to thank you once again for taking the time to share your insight. It is always, always appreciated.

:::

The other evening Riley was in a particularly tired, cranky frame of mind and we suffered through about an hour of increasingly fragile behavior (where the slightest frustration or gentle breeze immediately resulted in a complete and total meltdown) before taking him to bed, where he punctuated every normally pleasant end of day activity—pajamas, diaper change, soft lighting and family hugs—with a series of horrible screams, the kind of sound you might hear if you looped the Psycho soundtrack with someone methodically scraping a blackboard to pieces.

After we put him down and tiptoed away, JB and I looked at each other and simultaneously puffed our cheeks out. "Can you believe," JB said, "we just . . . deal with that?"

He meant that not in a "we should really be beating the child with large metal batons whenever that happens" way, but in an observation of the relentless nature of parenthood. One minute everything is smiles and sunshine, the next there is screeching. Whatever it is you might like to be doing—relaxing after work, having a stress-free dinner, surfing the web—is trumped, wholly, by a mercurial creature with an iron set of lungs.

Parenthood in three words: you must attend. No matter how exhausting it is, or boring, or irritating. If I had to say what the hardest part of being a mother is, that would be the blue ribbon winner right there. You must be present, you must deal with it, you must attend. Day in and day out, and not just when the boy is giggling and making motorboat noises while twinkling his eyes at you like the charming urchin he can be, but also when he's a rotten little monster who should be fed to hungry wolves.

When you step away from your life and peer in, just for a moment, isn't it sort of amazing that you're doing this hard-ass job? With no smoke breaks or vacation time or out-of-office lunches? JB's right, can you believe what we're dealing with here?

I think we should take more time to be proud of ourselves. We should turn down the guilt and pressure, and focus on our own accomplishments. Did I make it through the day without screaming a bad word in the presence of my small child? GOLD TROPHY, PLEASE.

I believe strength is an inevitable byproduct of parenthood. Our reserves deepen, our patience grows and our hearts expand. Because here we are, attending. All the time.

Things that go bump in the night

Yesterday when I picked Riley up at daycare I found him curled against a chair, a book propped on his knees. His brow was furrowed and he was flipping through pages. It was an utterly charming image, and for a moment I basked in our good fortune to have found a daycare where he is obviously thriving and learning. Then he looked up, and I saw a lump on his head the size of a cantelope.

"Hi," said one of the younger teachers, her face clearly worried. "Um, Riley had an accident today."

Apparently he slipped and fell against a table or possibly hit his head on a toy on top of the table, they weren't sure. The daycare had filled out an incident report, which described what they knew about the accident and their actions afterwards (taking him out of the busy environment to be soothed, putting ice on the swelling), and I felt okay about it. Kids fall. I've seen him fall a million times at home, and it's just our own luck that he hasn't smashed his face against the pointy glass TV stand, or the unforgiving brick hearth.

JB felt differently about it. When he got a look at the giant, tender bump on Riley's forehead, he was downright pissed. In his opinion, the daycare people should have been watching Riley better. He brought up the few other times Riley has come home with small bruises, and wondered whether there are too many kids for the teachers to properly manage.

I feel so weird that JB is concerned and I'm not. It seems like I should be the one flying into Mama Bear mode, and yet while I wish I could make the boo-boo go away (the swelling has gone down but a large bruise remains) I just don't feel like anything out of the ordinary happened. I don't know how anyone could keep a toddler under such strict observation that they avoid all accidents. Could Riley have hurt himself like that at home? Absolutely, I don't have my eyes on him every minute of the day.

I guess it's the fact that it happened without one of us being there that bothers JB. We don't know exactly how it happened, because we didn't see it ourselves. It's impossible to know for sure whether it could have been avoided.

What do you think? Would you be angry at your daycare if your kid got hurt there?

Boo boo what?

Damn, you people are nice. I swear I wasn't fishing for compliments on that last entry but you sure did make my day. Okay then, we'll keep on keepin' on with the frequent posts, and maybe I'll sneak in some bonus weekend extras too. Thank you so much for all your lovely comments!

:::

We started calling Riley "Suctopus" when he was a newborn, primarily because of his tentacle-like waving appendages and the sucking-mouth thing all babies do (I loved it when he sucked in his sleep, making that little tok-tok-tok sound), and boy has it stuck. We still use that nickname every single day, as in "Jeeeeeesus, the Suctopus was a real pain in the butt all morning long."

Variations include Suctopod (I don't know), Fatopus (when he puffs out his belly), Badtopus (a Badtopus pushes the DVD buttons even though he's been told NO 34612 times), and Smartopus (Smartopuses are clever enough to know which of the forty jillion truck pictures is the skid steer, although they still reliably smash their head on the dining room table).

I even find myself using suctopus as a common noun for babies and toddlers. "Aw, look at that suctopus over there."

We also call him The Boy, Rye-back, and although I don't normally get too insipid with the baby talk, my own personal pet name for Riley is . . . okay, this is embarrassing . . . Boo Boo Bunny. Yes. Example:

Me: "Who's a Boo Boo Bunny?"
Riley: "Boo boo ba!"
Me: "That's RIGHT, you're my little Boo Boo Bunny! Who's a boo boo boo boo boo boo bunny? RILEY is!"

*collective horking sound from readers*

Anyway! What goofy nicknames did you give your kids? Surely I'm not the only one who has saddled my child with such ridiculous monikers. OR AM I?

Market research

I have some kind of boring questions for today's entry, so let me try and partially make up for the lack of exciting content with some cute toddler photos:

Ahh, there we go. Now, on to the yawn-inducing but important queries, starting with: how often do you read this blog?

I ask because I'm wondering when I should be posting updates. ClubMom only requires me to post three times a week, but I tend to update more often because 1) I hardly ever run out of things to say, which is maybe a nice way of saying I can't shut up EVER and 2) I don't want you to get bored with a stale page and wander off elsewhere never to return. Sob!

So help me fine-tune my blog performance, will you? How often do you read? What days are you more likely to read (weekdays? weekends?), what times of day? Would you prefer less frequent, longer entries (heh, dirty); or the opposite?

I get a lot of enjoyment out of this particular blog, but I want to make sure you guys are digging it too. Let me know, and thanks in advance.