July 19th, 2006

A Very Good Day

No child care! On purpose! And none showed up! Yay!

Okay, so what actually happened. I drove R. to work, then Teddy and I went to Meadowbrook for the tots lesson. He is starting to voluntarily put his face partway in the water, so I'm being more cavalier about splashing him. But best of all. . .

He tolerated a shower!

Okay, not very exciting for most of you, but this is the kid who screamed bloody murder the first few times he was in the shower, and was so perturbed by the shower he'd scream when _I_ was in the shower and he was outside watching, even if his papa was holding him. Lesson learned: if Teddy sees other kids doing something, he'll find a way to be okay with it. Either that, or enough exposure finally did the trick.

He napped in the car, there and back, which sucks, because he wouldn't nap at home until 5. Who knows if he's down for the night (implying being awake for good some time around 6 a.m. Ack!), or if this is just second nap and when he gets up he'll be awake until 10 or 11 tonight. We'll find out. But at least he was in a good enough mood to play, and after I got some lunch we went and did the grocery shopping. NOT on foot (I am not completely crazy; it's kinda warm out there). I tried sitting him in the cart. The last time we tried this, he bawled. This time, apparently he's a-okay, super cool, looking around and flirting with everyone. Excellent. Got the groceries, got down to the car, decanted the bags into the plastic bin (which does not fit into the cart with the kid in the seat; grrr), kid into car seat, drive home. Here's the tricky bit: got the bin onto the folding hand truck, picked up the kid (while wearing backpack), got us into the elevator lobby. Once there, put the kid down, and he very helpfully walked into the elevator, out of the elevator and down the hall, and even was patient enough to let me unload the groceries into appropriate locations.

Wow. A Very Good Day. He's only 11 months old. I've escalated my goal for him. I used to say I wanted him to be able to bring me beverages and prepared snacks when I'm nursing his younger sibling (this would be no earlier than when Teddy is three, if it happens at all). I'm now shooting for can make me an omelette for breakfast.

One downer this morning: he wanted to be held while making breakfast (he _really_ likes to watch cooking, and his papa was getting an extra hour of sleep, after keeping the kid happy while I caught an hour of uninterrupted sleep), and managed to lay fingers on a hot lid. He didn't like that, and his finger tips were a little red. I gave him a piece of ice to hold after failing to get him to hold his hand under cold water. After that, he was very slow to touch anything, including the food on my plate. We live and learn, and I think he now groks hot, whether or not he knows that word yet.