Me Time

Tooth rot and other fun parenting issues

Right. So I know I promised a post all about the big homecoming, but some other stuff has happened, so we'll deal with that first, k? k.

Jonah has bottle syndrome. Follow the link. It ain't pretty. Just before I left for the US, I noticed a brown mark on one of his front teeth. I knew immediately what it was. We've been giving him formula in a bottle since he was 11 months old and I stopped breastfeeding. He refuses to give it up and even now, at age three, some nights, he asks for 3 bottles and finishes them.

But when I noticed the mark, it was too late to do anything - I was practically boarding the plane. So, like the sterling mother I am, I asked Scott to keep an eye on it and to phone the dentist to find out what we could do about it.

The dentist advised fluoride. We never got that far, and by the time I got home 10 weeks later, some of the enamel had chipped off one of his front teeth and the same thing was starting on the other.

I was so worried, I froze. You know when you can't stop thinking about something, but you're so beside yourself that you're paralysed? Yup, that was me. I convinced myself our dentist would say the teeth had to be pulled and the thought of my gorgeous boy without front teeth just killed me.

I let it sit for a full month and finally, today, I took him to the dentist.

I wish I'd done it earlier: the teeth are vulnerable, says the dentist, but all he needs is 1mg per day of flouride and kickass toothpaste twice a day. We have to watch out for gum boils (eewww), but other than that, we need to just keep them clean and keep an eye on them.

YAY! No more visions of my baby with a toothless grin. Life is truly good.

And in tomorrow's post: why you should listen to your instincts when you have a random thought about allergy meds...

Shriek

Got home yesterday afternoon and hugged Jonah, only to find he had a fever.

My internal dialogue went thusly:

I’m going away next week for 10 weeks. Jonah’s getting sick. He’ll probably need to see a doctor. He’ll probably be admitted to hospital. I’ll be in the USA and my baby will be lying in a hospital bed without me.

I mentioned that, right? That I’m going away for 10 weeks?

Long story, so I won’t go into it all, but I’m leaving on the 19^th of Feb and returning on the 3^rd of May. Shall be in Illinois, then Seattle, then North Carolina, then San Francisco, then North Carolina again and then home.

I read an article recently about travelling and it offered a great tip for helping your kids conceptualise the amount of time you’re going to be away: you make a paper chain with a link for every day you’ll be away. They get to tear off a link every day and count down to when you return.

I made one yesterday. It stretched clear across the lounge.

So I’m feeling a tad hysterical.

Hence my mental freak-out.

Excuse me while I go breathe into a paper bag.

 

First Day of School

Yes, I KNOW it's practically the middle of the year already, but I've only now managed to pull myself together sufficiently to download these photos. Here are my lovely children on their first day of school for 2009. It was Hannah's first day in Grade 1, hence the extra of her.

Scuse me while I have my little moment

I had a moment last night.

I got the great news just before Christmas that my hard work had paid off and I'd been chosen to go on a training trip to the USA this year.

It wasn't supposed to be great news. When I applied for this whole process, I decided that if I was chosen to do the trip, I'd refuse, citing the 6 week period as too long to be away from my family. But lots of conversations and soul-searching later (and after some truly wonderful advice from my friends over at MommyWorks), I decided to go for it. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I'd be a fool not to accept it.

And then I got the programme. And it said that the total period I would be away was 10 weeks. 10 weeks. Not 6. Two and a half months.

Oh. Hell.

By then, I'd accepted and everything was in the pipeline. No turning back.

Just to keep things really interesting, I woke up at 3am the morning after finding out wondering when last I'd seen my passport. Hmmm. I got up and went to the file where we keep all our Important Papers. Sure enough, there in the appropriate place were passports belonging to Scott, James and Hannah. And mine was missing.

What was I saying just now? Oh yes: Oh. Hell.

I've turned the house upside down and still, no passport. Fast-forward a few days, and my amazing boss has faxed off a kick-ass letter to the Great Bureaucrats in the sky (or something) and I received a reply today that they're doing something about it. So I might just get the passport in time to leave.

Anywaaaaay. Back to my moment: Scott and I are training Jonah to sleep in his own bed. He's going on 18 now (ok, 2 and a half) and he's still sleeping in our bed. The whole baby-in-the-bed thing is getting a bit old now. So we've I've decided to take it in turns to "be on duty" and train him. Being on duty means that you get up a few hundred times a night and soothe the traumatised child attempting to sleep in a foreign bed.

Last night, Scott was on duty. He duly got up when Jonah cried. I also woke up, as I always do when Jonah cries, and listened. He was hysterical. Calling my name and really beside himself that I wasn't there.

And that's when it hit me with the clarity of a clear thing: I don't want to go to America. I want to stay right here and be with my baby.

Scott, unable to calm him down, brought him to our bed. The moment Jonah was in the bed beside me, he placed his hand on my back. And I thought: This is all I want. Not trips to America, not accolades from work, not more training. Just the feel of my baby's hand on my back.

When I woke up this morning, I realised I was probably being a tad irrational last night. Yes, he was upset that I wasn't there, but no, he wouldn't have collapsed if Scott had persevered and put him to bed in his own room.

I'm still pursuing the training trip. But WOW - what a conflict of interests. This is the hardest thing I think I've ever done and the biggest decision I've made in ages.

It's the end of the holidays

...not quite, but it is for me. I go back to work tomorrow.

I'm so very glad to be able to type that. I've loved my time with the children. Really. Seriously. Loved. We've done so many fun things that haven't cost a lot of money and I think we've all grown a bit closer.

But.

It's definitely the end of the holidays. Not following? Let me clarify by giving you a run-down of what happened today:

I woke up to Jonah screaming for a toy gun (yes, don't ask - it's my dad's fault) (hello dad! waving!) that James and Hannah were playing with.

MYYYY GUNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

It took more than 2 hours to clean and tidy up before leaving the house. I had a vague notion that in order to once and for all bring order to James's room, I needed to get to a particular furniture store to buy a chest of drawers. So off we went.

We arrived at said store to find it had closed down. Brill.

We then drove to a huge shopping mall. Again, vague notion that chest of drawers would be there somewhere.

Jonah ran around like an animal that had been caged for days. Hands flapping, he'd run ahead, then stop and stare at something in a shop window. Then, when he realised we had walked on without him, he'd run to catch up, screaming:

WAIT-A-MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Which is charming. In a not-charming kind of horribly cringe-worthy way.

We found no chest of drawers. Wait: I lie. We found the promise of one. What do you think of this?


It's not cheap. But it's pretty. Which is what matters, right? They didn't have one set up, but the lovely shop lady said they were going to assemble one later that day. I got all excited, then realised that it was maybe a bit of an impulse buy and decided to discuss it with Scott before getting out the cheque book. Because I'm sensible like that.

Anyway, we shopped pointlessly for things like hand soap and yoghurts. I tried distracting Jonah from his manic running by buying him an ice cream. Biiiiig mistake. In a matter of minutes, it was dripping all over the mall floor. We had to go outside, prise it from his fat li'l fingers and clean him up. Which was fun. In a not-fun, excruciating kind of way.

We moved on from there to a bit more pointless shopping, until, at 10.58, the children could no longer wait for lunch. Actually, I lie. Jonah couldn't wait for lunch. His refrain at this point was:

I WANT A BURRRRRGERRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently Jonah doesn't know the meaning of the phrase 'inside voice'.

Off we went for our burger. Which went swimmingly, if you ignore the fact that Jonah wanted all the happy meal toys for himself:

MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and then dropped his burger on the floor as we left and screamed:

MY BURRRRRRRRGERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Yes, it's definitely the end of the holidays for us. My dad arrives tomorrow at the crack of dawn. Ok - at around 7am - to look after all three children until Friday while I go to work. Then on Monday, holiday care starts again. Woot!

Work, I never thought I'd say this, but I MISS you!

Merry Christmas!

Why I love my boy

Seriously: could this be any cuter?

Talking to Hannah, Part the Second

Hannah: Mommy, how old are you?

Me: (*Shoulders slumped*) 39

Hannah: (*Sharp intake of breath*) Mommy! That means you're almost 100!

Thanks, luvvie. Always good to get a boost like that so early in the morning.

That's not MY child

Do you ever look at your children and think, "I have no idea how they got like that."

I'm not talking about those lovely "I produced a prodigy!" moments when they suddenly display an incredible aptitude for numbers.

No, I'm thinking more of the times when you wish you could stare off into the middle distance and, with a superior flick of your fringe, say to whoever is in the vicinity: "I have no idea whose children those are. Revolting, aren't they?"

I had one of those moments earlier this week.

It was late afternoon and we were all at the osteopath. Which sounds kind of "out there" but really, it's not. Jonah's had chronic constipation for most of his life and I've decided to take him to an osteopath who claims she's had great success in curing constipation. She does nothing more invasive than massaging Jonah's tummy, but it seems to be working.

But I digress. There we were: James, Hannah, Jonah and I in the osteopath's office and at one point, here's what was happening:
1) Jonah was whining (no tears) to get off the osteopath's bed, despite my desperate pleas for him to stay there and not waste my R270,00.
2) Hannah was jumping up and down and running around the bed, beating it periodically with the palms of her hands and singing at the top of her voice.
3) James was alternately grabbing the toys we were using to try to distract Jonah and saying loudly, "Mommy, I'm thirsty", while looking pointedly at the osteopath's juice bottle on her desk.

I could have crawled into a tiny hole.

I love them dearly, but sometimes, I wish I could send them back to where they came from.

Talking to Hannah

On Friday, Hannah showed me a spot on her forehead. When I looked at it closely, it seemed like a pimple. I was a bit confused that my 5 year old would have a pimple, but, given my attentive style of parenting, I instantly forgot about it.

The next morning, she woke up with 'pimples' all.over.her.body. Chickenpox pimples, to be precise. Poor kid: she spent the weekend feeling rotten and doing a little itchy dance every hour or so. We dosed her with an oral antihistamine and dabbed an antihistamine cream on her spots. She was sick too - a temperature, a cough and a sore throat.

On Sunday evening, she asked to sleep with me in my bed, "because it'll be more itchy if I'm alone". Later that night, when I came to bed, Hannah sat up in bed and said,

"It's illegal to skateboard naked in the country."

"And back."

And then she went to sleep again.

In the split second that it took me to remember that she'd watched The Simpsons Movie that day, in which there's a memorable scene with Bart skateboarding naked through his town, I believed Hannah to be either very insane, or very sick.

Thankfully, she's neither. Just a little crazy.