And then he turned 5.
Happy Birthday to my sweet sweet baby. As you told me this morning, I love you as much as a thousand outer spaces, and outer space never ends.
Category Archives: Prevention
The Marathon of Travel
My kids have always been great travelers- but every time I fly I brace myself for something to happen, since children are so unpredictable.
Everything has always been fine, even when we had some outside drama, like the time the gate agent told me I couldn’t fly with my 16 month old lap child because she didn’t believe he was under 2 and I had no proof. I had flown with a folded up copy of my older son’s birth certificate since he was 2 months old, yet I was never asked to show it so I didn’t think to take one for my 2nd baby. Moral of the story? Always take some proof of your baby’s age if you’ll flying with him on your lap!
Everything worked out that trip- aside from my minor heart attack, as we assessed worst case scenario (drive back home, get birth certificate, take a later flight) but finally we called a supervisor over who confirmed my son was not yet two, by his lack of speech. Phew. Note to self, always carry copies of birth certificates.
Then there was our direct flight from Austin to NYC- what could go wrong? It was a direct! Well, due to some mysterious events, we were diverted to Baltimore for FIVE hours and they tried to make us stay on the plane the whole time. Since we had no food and I had a rambunctious 13 month old, they reluctantly let us off (due to the new FAA rules that I just so happened to know about) but in a last minute effort to try to get us to stay on the place, the flight attendant told me we might not be able to get back on the plane. We decided to take the chance.
All in all it was an 8 hour delay. We could have flown to Hawaii in the same amount of time we were on that flight. But my boys did so well!
I’m always exhausted after traveling, and my kids have not yet melted down on a flight, or thrown a tantrum at the airport. They are always shockingly on their best behavior, so I wonder how I would feel after traveling if they acted appropriately for their age.
On our most recent flight I was prepared for the running-a-marathon like feeling I usually have when a seemingly cosmic joke was played on me.
My almost 2 year old wanted nothing to do with me, would not sit in my lap, nurse upon takeoff, let me give him candy, nothing. As long as he was in his dad’s lap, he was happy.
Then another crazy event took place- my 4 year old fell asleep in the middle of the day on an airplane! This child cut out naps at 2, and does not randomly fall asleep ever. Not in a car, not on a plane, not while watching a movie, not while being read to, NEVER. What can I say? He loves life and does not want to miss out on a single thing. I like to compare him to Leonardo DaVinci, who pretty much never slept.
What was I to do- I had just downloaded “The Paris Wife
Well apparently I had two hours of time and space to myself, so I excitedly cracked open my Kindle and started reading.
That lasted about one second before my Kindle started flashing on and off, and then turned itself completely off and reset. This continued for 10 minutes and every time I found my place again and read one or two lines, the same thing would happen.
Seriously? Cosmic joke.
So I put that away, and decided to do the crossword in the airplane magazine. Alas I had no pen, and crayons do not write well in tiny squares on glossy magazine pages. Oh well, I couldn’t really even stretch my brain enough to access the trivia I have stored…
So there I was, with nothing to do but wonder if my new non-toxic deodorant was working. I wasn’t quite sure it was until I realized the plane was full of teenaged boys on a rowing team.
How To Remove a Tick
A friend and I once joked that we love all things natural, it’s nature we can do without. Of course this was after a particularly long hike on a hot day with our four children 3 and under, where we had encountered all sorts of “interesting” things.
And when we were wondering what all the little yellow things were in our hair, we were still holding it together. It was when we realized they were worms that had fallen from the trees that we high-tailed it out of there.
As the dowager countess of Downton Abby so eloquently put it, “That’s the thing about nature. There is so much of it.”
Yes.
It is often so breathtakingly beautiful.
In some places, ticks come with the territory.
I made it through my first tick incident, and can now check “removing a tick from my toddler” off of the list.
And I’m quite certain I will not use the phrase “full as a tick” ever again.
After I discovered the tick in my sweet baby’s hair it looked like a scene straight out of The Internship, as we stood in the bathroom and my sister-in-law googled what to do and my mother-in-law and I tried everything she said as quickly as she read it to us.
My sister was there too, and said she wanted to come in but had no idea what to do and didn’t want to add to the chaos.
Then my brother-in- law (who has four kids) casually walked in, grabbed a pair of tweezers, and took care of business. Aaah. Crisis averted. Until I stayed up all night researching ticks, tick bites, diseases they carry, etc. Never a good idea.
Here’s what I learned post traumatic tick incident:
Don’t follow all the old wives’ tales such as smothering them with petroleum jelly or nail polish, and don’t try to burn them with a match. (Again, a movie came to mind. City Of Angels with Seth asking for olive oil, rubbing alcohol or a match, and Maggie running around saying “We can’t just be burning tick heads!”)
Try this first: Saturate a cotton ball in liquid soap, place it on the tick for 30 seconds, and when you take it off hopefully the tick is on the cotton ball.
If that doesn’t work: Use tweezers and grasp as close to the tick head as possible, making sure not to twist or pinch too hard. Quickly pull the tick out.
3. Thoroughly clean the area with rubbing alcohol
4. Put the tick in a plastic bag and freeze it for 2-3 weeks. (Gross) If a fever or a rash develops within the next 2 weeks, head to the doctor’s office and take the tick with you. (again, gross.)
Every time I opened the freezer I was faced with that little pest. And if you know me personally this will come as no surprise, I got a magnifying glass and tried to identify the species of the tick and decipher approximately how long it had taken up residence (based on how full it was). I did this more than once.
I kept a very watchful eye on my boy, and thankfully we are well past the two week mark. But now we all know how to remove a tick!
You Know You’re Getting Old When…
Today at lunch my 4 and a half year old was talking about “the 90s,” asking if we had to do everything by hand.
I had never heard him refer to a decade before, so i asked, “How do you know about the 90s sweetie?”
“I just know way back in the 90s there was nothing electric.”
Ah yes. The olden days of the 1990s. Before the turn of the century.
And then:
“Can we go back to doing laundry the way you used to have to do it in the nineties with a bucket of water and a washboard and that wringing thing? That way is so much more fun.”
The Happiest Place On Earth
“When I turn 5 will you cry?
Because when I turn 5 I’ll be grown-up. And when I grow up I’ll be a construction worker and a band guy during the week, a detective at night, and then work at the hospital on the weekend.”
What will you do at the hospital?
“I’ll try to make all the kids there laugh by telling jokes, I’ll also do magic tricks for them. And I want to look inside bodies to see bones and stuff.”
My son. The magician-musician-comedian-surgeon-detective-construction worker.
So I followed up by telling him what I wanted to be when I grew up.
When I was little I wanted to be a teacher during the day, a waitress at night, and work at Disneyland on the weekends.
After defining a waitress and explaining what Disneyland is, he observed-
“Mom- you didn’t get to be that when you grew up. Maybe when I’m 5 and you don’t have to take care of me anymore you can.”
At first I said, “you’re right, I didn’t.” But the more I thought about it I realized I’m a waitress 24/7, am definitely teaching now, and am considering homeschooling. I am exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up- during the week.
As for Disneyland on the weekends, it’s all a matter of perspective. After that little chat with my son I have a new goal for our household. And not only on the weekends, but all the time.
Making our home the happiest place on earth.
A friend’s recent status update read “I wonder what would happen if I woke up tomorrow morning thinking….I GET to mother my little ones, instead of feeling like I have to mother them??? This is a good thought for me!”
And then I heard JJ Heller’s song “I Get To Be the One.” Which includes the lyrics:
Well hello,
Little baby.
Your eyes have never seen the sun
You should know
Little baby
That I am the lucky one
I get to be the one to hold your hand
I get to be the one.
Through birthdays and broken bones
I’ll be there to watch you grow
I get to be the one.
Perspective matters. I need to change mine on a daily basis. And since I only have a few more months before my big 5 year old strikes out on his own, I will make every moment count.