coasting

When I'm going about my day and thinking about things, I find myself often thinking "oh, I should write a blog post about that."
Why, then, is it that when I sit down to write, I haven't the faintest idea what I wanted to write about? Several nights in a row now, I've sat her looking at the blinking cursor feeling like a character in a movie about a writer with writer's block. (I still can't decide who would play me. Preferably someone not skinny. That doesn't leave a lot of options.)

Really, there is nothing profound happening lately. Robbie's doing quite well, really. He's finally picked up a few more words, and his receptive language is growing my leaps and bounds. Really, he communicates very well for a kid with less than 10 words. If he wants me to do something, he just grabs my hand and puts it on whatever he wants. Pressing a book in my hand to be read to (God, I *LOVE* that. Love, love love.), pressing his sunglasses or socks (or just one sock :sigh:) or shoes wanting me to put them on him. If a toy won't work quite right, he shoves that at me, too. It's particularly adorable when we're playing and he grabs my finger and pokes it into his belly or neck to be tickled more. The kid REALLY likes to be tickled.

His gross motor skills are continuing to improve. He can climb up a few stairs now and has even attempted going down them while holding our hands. (He goes down them the right way, too, not crawling down.) He still isn't really standing up in the middle of the room much. I've seen him do it twice, but most of the time he tries.. tries.. grunts..tries.. then gives up and crawls to the nearest piece of furniture which he can touch with one finger and magically stand up just fine.

He HATES grass. If ever I want to take a picture of him standing still, I can just put him in the grass because he refuses to walk in it. Daycare has been working on him and so have we, but every day, it's the same thing. Stand him in the grass. Then drag him around forcing him to take a few steps or fall down. He grudgingly takes a few steps, but at the first opportunity he heads straight for the sidewalk, taking huge wide steps as though he were walking through quicksand. I used to tell David that he and Robbie could go camping together, I'd be at home in the air conditioning. At this rate, looks like Robbie might be home with me.

He's still growing well. His last GI check-up he was 23 pounds 10 ounces and a little over 31 inches tall. Still a peanut on the growth chart, but inching slowly up it anyway. He's now tall enough to hit the lever on the water dispenser in the fridge door. Thank heavens for whoever thought to include a lock-out feature.

Healthwise, he's been good. He still gets every cold that goes around plus some and he still wheezes every single time, but we've been able to manage his symptoms at home (with nebulizer treatments). He's only had one ear infection since the tubes went in and it cleared up quickly with just five days of ear drops. He's been having allergy issues, which suck. He blocked his tear ducts and had an eye infection a few weeks ago. But again, some drops and he was good as new.


Eating is about the same. He eats better at daycare than at home, but still maxes out at about 8oz of purees each day. Still drinks pretty much nothing. He'll let me give him medicine from a dropper, and follow it up with some water, but it's like that's part of his evening routine. He doesn't want to drink for a dropper any other time. Last week he got really hot outside at daycare and came in and willingly drank maybe an ounce of water from a sippy cup (with lots of encouragement to watch the other kids) but it's not really been repeated. I keep a sippy cup filled and handy to him and he'll play with it, but not drink from it. If I give him something without a stopper, it's great fun to pour the water out and then splash in it, but let's not get crazy and put any in our mouths, okay?

I've been trying to add some duocal to his food this week for extra calories, trying to bulk him up just a little bit, but it seems to be aggravating his reflux. He hasn't puked any more than usual, but I can see the reflux bothering him a lot more than usual. Where he normally would just puke mid-play and never bat an eye, now he'll groan a bit and lay his head on my shoulder and vomit all over both of us. Or he'll burp loudly and painfully, swallowing hard, clearly uncomfortable. Since he hasn't puked more, I am hoping to give him a full week of the duocal to see if symptoms improve, hoping his guts will get used to the corn (FREAKING CORN) in it, but I'm guessing that we'll give it up next week. Hoping to find a calorie additive that isn't corn based.

Mostly we've just been living our lives. I don't feel like I get to spend enough time with him since I don't get home from work until after 6 and he goes to bed at 9, so I try to sneak out early at least once a week so I get to pick him up from daycare. I love being the one to get him. He's always so happy to see us. Instead, I get the drop off where he's whining and clinging to my leg. The last few days he's been declaring "all done" and going to the door like "let's get out of here, Mom." He really does like daycare and has fun while I'm gone, but I know he hates seeing me leave. It breaks my heart a little every morning.

He is really in a mommy phase right now. It is sometimes exhausting because I literally can't do anything in the house without him wanting to be picked up and held every few minutes, but I wouldn't trade it. He went through a few months of really being about his dad, even shoving me away if I tried to sit with him and David. So I'm enjoying being loved again.

Really, life is good right now. Never perfect, but good. I couldn't love my kid any more. He's happy and healthy. As far as I know my husband doesn't have a stash of women on the side, which seems to be the thing to do these days, so I think we're in good shape.

The next few months will hopefully bring some good drama to our lives, but I'll discuss those events at another time. (No. I'm not pregnant.) For now, I'm just enjoying coasting.

--Trish

P.S. To those bloggers who I normally keep up with, I'm sorry. We've been slow at work for months, so I had plenty of time to keep up with everyone, but we've actually started a new project and I'm swamped (which is a good thing!) but I'm SO far behind on blogs. I'm scared to even see how many I have unread right now. I will catch up. I swear!

P.P.S. Okay, I checked. 624 unread blog posts. God help me.