Stop, you're making me blush...

So I was at the dentist the other day, getting a filling replaced and having X-Rays done. My dentist irritates me for one simple reason - they are very chatty. Dentists should not be chatty. Their main job involves having their hands in your mouth. How are you supposed to respond??

Regardless, my dentists (and assistants and hygienists) all think that it's totally normal to try to carry on a conversation with you. This makes most appointments twice as long as they need to be. And it causes some very awkward moments when they say weird things to fill the silence.

I was told that I am the best X-Ray patient ever. I don't know why. Because I can hold still? I do not understand how someone can mess up having teeth X-Rays done. But the fact that I can contort my mouth and jaw and hold them in the same uncomfortable position for a set period of time can't be a BAD thing, right? (wink wink, nudge nudge)

I was also told that I have lots of saliva, which isn't a bad thing because it protects my teeth. This I have no control over, but at least now I know where Sir gets it from.

I totally have the glees.

So, if you know me you may have gathered by now that I am not the hugest fan of my MIL. She's irritating, passive aggressive, and weirdly obsessed with my husband (her son). She blames me for taking him away from her. Seriously.

I remember the first Thanksgiving after our wedding, we were with MIL, her sister, and her sister's husband. They were asking the generic questions to me about my family. I believe they asked about my brother, and I responded with something about how he was still living with my parents at the time. MIL proceeded to say (in a BABY TALK voice) "I wish Mr. Ryan would move back in with me!" (And yes, she really does/did call him "Mr. Ryan." She tried to call me "Miss Kerri" a few times, and I told her to can it.)

Ryan, to his credit, got all uncomfortable and said, "Mom, I'm MARRIED." She gave him a blank stare. I don't think she understood where he was going with that. But then, this is the woman that has poster-sized photographs of Ryan hanging up in her bedroom.

But anyway, back to my glees. Now, we hadn't really spent much time with MIL lately. She had babysat for a few hours a few weeks ago, but otherwise I hadn't had to see her since Christmas. Yay! But I grudgingly agreed that she could come over the other day for a little while to visit and see Sir.

She shows up, Sir takes one look at her, and bursts into tears. He is WAILING. He wouldn't let me put him down. If I did, he would start crying and follow me around. She couldn't TOUCH him. So she starts making the excuses. "He must be tired." Me: "Actually, he just woke up from his nap and ate lunch. He was in a great mood all morning." MIL: "Well, he's just shy. Babies are shy." Me: "James would leave me for the barista at Starbucks if I looked away for a minute." Which is true, Sir loves strangers. He thinks they are awesome.

MIL harrumphed, and then after about 20 minutes of her pouting and making snarky passive aggressive comments, when it became glaringly obvious that Sir had no intention of going anywhere near her, she left.

Totally have the glees. And I MAY have picked Sir up and whispered "Good job!" in his ear as she was leaving.

I figured everyone could use an updated picture of Sir. Please to enjoy.

Must be nice on that pedestal...

Sanctimommies. They're everywhere. Just when you think you're safe, they pop up and make you feel like shit for trying to do the best thing for your child.

Sir had his 15 month check-up today. He got his MMR and chickenpox vaccines - he was such a trooper! I was hoping they'd tucker him out and he'd have an extra long nap, but no go. At least they didn't make him that cranky.

Anyway, he's clocking in at 31 inches and 20 lbs even. He's a string bean! This was the first appointment where his doctor started to express some concern about his weight. He dropped percentiles slightly, from the 10th to the 5th (thereabouts, I don't really pay that much attention. I look at the pretty curve to make sure he's staying steady.). We discussed his feeding issues.

And that's the thing. His issue is just that he doesn't eat much. I wouldn't call him "picky," exactly. To me, picky is when your child won't eat anything orange, or wet, or only eats mac and cheese with peas, not broccoli. Sir will try pretty much everything. The problem is that he only takes one or two bites before he's done. Sure, there are a few things that I can usually count on for him to eat more of, but they're not exactly balanced, and it's not like he ever even eats tons of those foods.

So, the AAP recommends 40 calories per inch of height for toddlers. That would put Sir at around 1240 calories per day. I find this mildly ridiculous, but whatev. The point is, on a "good" day, I still don't think Sir ever makes it above 900. So, I decided to ask around for ways to sneak Sir extra calories.

I belong to a birth board on a well-known online community, and I asked about putting heavy cream into his milk (not entirely replacing, but supplementing a little). I got several responses from people saying they had heard of it, and offering other suggestions. Then came the Sanctimommies.

You know, the mommies who are apparently so perfect that their children poop gold nuggets, and slept through the night at 2 days, and walked at 4 months, were speaking full sentences at 6, and their lives are SO PERFECT that they work a full day, come home and cook dinner in heels and then proceed to give their husband a BJ every night without so much as smudging their lipstick.

So I get the speeches about how sneaking calories in doesn't teach children healthy eating habits, and I must be doing something wrong if there's no underlying medical issue for Sir not eating a lot of food (to which I say "COME ON! He's not even 3 feet tall! How big can his stomach possibly be?"). And I have decided I hate the "It all evens out" argument. Maybe for some it does, but not for Sir. It's not evening out. He eats like a bird. And while he's perfectly healthy and happy now, I'd like to head this off at the pass before the day comes when he's NOT healthy.

I was getting the "trust your child to do what's right for them" lecture. And I thought to myself, when did that become the thing to do? When did we, as parents, as the supposedly more mature and responsible individuals, decide to hand the power over to our children? Isn't my job as a mother to decide and do what is best for Sir? He's 15 months old. He would chew on his dirty diaper if I let him. I hardly think I can trust him to realize what a healthy, well-balanced, nutritious diet is. I can do my best to provide him with balanced and healthy options, and make sure food is offered at appropriate intervals. But if he is choosing not to eat enough to sustain his growing body, does it not then become my duty to do whatever it takes to do it for him?

Awkward moment of the year...

I'm at my OB-GYN's office this morning for my annual exam/pap. The doctor and I chat for a few, then she gets down to business.

Legs are spread, speculum is inserted, and she says.... "Hello, cervix that wouldn't open!" (Pretty sure it's not going to answer you, lady!)

Um, she wasn't even the doctor that examined/delivered me last year. They gave me Cervadil last year and then decided half an hour after that that my platelets and liver were not doing well and that there wasn't enough time to start an induction and I had a c-section. Did they all get together and discuss my closed cervix last year?

It's either that or there was a note tucked up in my lady bits alluding to this fact.

At least there wasn't an echo.

That New Baby Smell

I loves it. Not the smelly lotions or detergents, but straight-up clean baby. It's intoxicating. I could sit and smell Sir for hours. Creepy much?

Or I used to. Because now he's lost that new baby smell. And now, at any given moment, he is more likely to smell like Cheerios and apple juice. Which isn't necessarily a BAD smell, it just isn't the same. And it reminds me that Sir is growing up, against my express wishes. I mean, I thought we discussed his growing. And I thought we were on the same page, meaning he wouldn't. He seems to be ignoring me. A sign of things to come?

Vacation Chronicles

This is way late. We've been back for almost a month. It just took me a while to recover. But now that I have, I bring you... THE VACATION CHRONICLES.

Ryan got sent to Switzerland for a week for work. We decided he would take a week of vacation, and we'd all fly over for 2 weeks and make a nice family trip out of it. We got Sir his passport (he is 6 months old in the picture. It's good for 5 years). We purchased tickets. We figured things out.

I was surprised that Sir was fairly reasonable on the plane. I tried like a madwoman to get an infant dosage for Children's Benadryl, but no one would give it to me, since it has a heavy sedation effect. No shit, people. I don't plan on drugging my baby every night, but I figure spending 8 hours on a plane is a special occasion. So, no drugs. He slept most of the way anyway, had a short fussy period about halfway through. There were a handful of other small children on the flight, and naturally we were all within a few rows of each other. It was a domino effect. One baby would get fussy and set all the other babies off. Luckily, Sir is cute and no one blamed him.

Sir has also decided that the flight was the perfect time to begin to refuse nursing. I could not convince him to nurse. Not the hugest deal in the world, I packed a few bottles to take with me, but have you ever tried pumping in an airport bathroom? Or even better, the airplane bathroom? It doesn't work. I tried. I couldn't relax. So by the time we got to the hotel in Switzerland I was tired AND had rock hard boobs that deserved their own graphic novel depiction.

The first few nights were hairy. Sir could not wrap his head around the time change. So at 1 am, he was wide awake and HUNGRY for dinner. Oh, and did I mentioned cranky? Yeah, we figured that out the first day when I looked in his mouth and found a new tooth.

4 days into the trip I woke up with a stuffy nose and scratchy throat. Great, a cold. Just what I need. DH was working all day, leaving me alone in a foreign country to wrangle a cranky Sir and only CNN International to keep me company. No problem, I can take some Sudafed and power through. I am Mom, I can do it.

No. That was apparently not enough challenge, because I also woke up with a fire in my crotch. Yes, it's true, I have my very first yeast infection. My joy knew no bounds.

Also no problem, you must be thinking. Go get yourself some Monistat! Well, I tried. Went to the pharmacy, fought my way past the 3000 square feet of makeup and perfumes, and found the 2 aisles dedicated to maladies. I spend about 30 minutes staring at what I can only assume is the feminine products section (everything is in French or German, neither of which I speak).

Now here is my dilemma. I am loathe to pick something off the shelf willy-nilly. I'm afraid I'll end up sticking Ben-Gay up my hoo-ha. At the same time, I don't want to try to ask the 20 year old "pharmacist" with microscopic pores and a body that would make Gisele Bundchen jealous what I need to buy for a yeast infection. If she can't understand what I'm trying to say I would end up miming it out in the middle of the store. I don't even know how to mime "cottage cheese vag."

So I go home, spend another night with horrible burning, poke around on Google for some French translations, and try again.

Success! I am pleased to note that 2 days before we went home, I was cold-free AND cured of the yeast infection. Sir was acclimated to the time zone.

Unfortunately, then Ryan caught the cold. And when he's sick he's about as useful as a genital wart. And in 2 days time we would hop on the plane for another 8 hours to come home. And I was pretty sure Sir was cutting another tooth (he didn't, it was a tease). And possibly also catching the cold.

Oh, by the way. The Swiss version of Monistat 7? $26. I decided it was worth it. I almost bought a pack of 30 Breathe-Right strips for $30 before deciding that was NOT worth it.

And I got all excited when we got to Zurich and there were about 12 Starbucks all over the city. And then I ordered a venti latte and almost passed out when the barista demanded $8 from me.
And then I wondered how they can call it a "venti" with a straight face in a country where Italian is actually an official language.