The Small Family     

Wow, can you believe we’ve almost made it a year? I have to admit, during those first few months, I began to wonder whether we’d make it with our sanity intact. But, we have…or we will have come next weekend. At this time last year, we were trekking down to Santa Cruz for Bill and Sarah’s wedding, hoping that I wouldn’t go into labor three and a half hours from home. Lucky for us, Mr. Theo held on for five more days before he decide enough was enough, and he kicked through the bag of water and jumpstarted things. And how neat that Bill and Sarah, whose wedding was our last real pre-baby outing, are now expecting their own little one! Theo is not-so-secretly hoping it’s another boy for him to play with….

 

Anyway, we’ve had a relatively busy week. On Tuesday, Theo and I met Janeane and Emma for a mall stroll. Both kiddos got a little antsy after awhile, so Janeane and I decided to stop at one of the play areas in the mall. I wasn’t sure whether I’d let Theo down to play since he’s still pretty little, but when we got there, I saw that there were only about 10 other kids in there, so I figured that it was a good trial run—not too many kids around to trample Theo. And what do you know—he loved it! It’s basically a big, padded play area with lots of big things for kids to climb on and things for them to play with. Theo was particularly enamored of a big spinning wheel toy mounted to one wall of the play area. For the first few minutes, he just kind of looked around in awe, taking everything in, but after that he seemed to forget all about his mama and crawled all over the place. Which made me very happy—since Chris and I were both pretty shy kids, I’m always kind of hoping that Theo won’t take after us in that regard. So I was glad to see that he’s comfortable enough to stray away from me and go play on his own. In fact, he was so comfortable that I had to retrieve him a few times when he crawled out of my line of sight, intent on his next great adventure.

 

Wednesday was Chris’s day off. Normally these days off are meant for me to work and Chris to care for Theo most of the day. But this week, I was relatively caught up on work and had a photography assignment (landscapes) to shoot, so we decided to use half the day to drive up to Daffodil Hill. It’s a working farm about 90 minutes from here, up in Gold Country. Every year for a few weeks, when the daffodils are in bloom, the farm opens to the public so people can enjoy the bulbs. It’s rather remote and peaceful, so I thought it would be a great place to shoot some landscapes. And it was…but not without chaos.

 

The problems started when we got about an hour into our drive, and Theo got hungry. I suddenly realized that I had carefully packed everything into the car…except a bottle and formula. YIKES! (I won’t tell you how much “I’m a lousy mother” self-berating I did over that…who forgets their baby’s food, for heaven’s sake??) Lucky for us, we were nearing a small town that has a tiny grocery store, so I ran in and bought a can of Enfamil soy formula and a bottle. The problem is, Theo couldn’t tolerate Enfamil when he was a baby—he had the same problem with it that he had with all other formulas except the one we finally found (stomach discomfort, rashes, etc.). But Theo’s current formula is only available at Whole Foods markets and over the Internet, and we were 20 miles from the closest Whole Foods. What’s a mama to do?? So we decided that it was as good a time as any to try Theo on some Enfamil soy and see whether he’d outgrown any of that sensitivity he used to have.

 

Well, it was only one bottle, so it’s hard to say…but it seemed like he did pretty well with it. He had a bit of eczema the next day, but that’s nothing new…he gets eczema patches on a regular basis, so I can’t say that it was the Enfamil. It could’ve been something completely unrelated. And other than that, he seemed to do okay. So we’re hoping he is starting to outgrow some of the food issues he had as a wee one. If he’s like his mama (and like many, many other kids), he will continue to outgrow these issues as his digestive system matures. So, fingers crossed…but it’s looking good. I’m certainly not about to switch his formula completely, but it’s nice to know that one bottle of it didn’t send him into a tizzy.

 

Anyway, we reached Daffodil Hill, which was lovely despite not having a ton of flowers this year, and I took my photographs. Then I handed the camera over to Chris so he could have some fun, too, and Theo and I went and sat down on the grass on a blanket. I figured Theo might like some crawling time, but I was unsure of what he might think of grass—he’s never been on it before. He seemed fine with it. He patted it rather curiously with his hands at first, and then he proceeded to crawl all over the place in the grass and dirt, having a marvelous time.

 

So marvelous, in fact, that he had the mother of all tantrums when we left. He started fussing as we walked to the car, and he fussed when we started to drive away. This was to be expected—we figured he was probably a little tired (despite a 30-minute nap on the way there) and would fall asleep within minutes, as he often does in the car. Nope. He screamed frantically for 20 straight minutes as we headed down the mountain. The nearest town was Sutter Creek, and he was screaming so frantically that I was afraid to stop anywhere but a town. We’re no strangers to tantrums from Theo, but they usually last maybe 30 seconds or a minute at most. Once he realizes that we’re ignoring him, he quickly gives up and moves on to something else. And he usually isn’t squalling at quite the pitch he was in the car, so of course I thought, “Oh my gosh, what’s wrong with him? Did he get bit by something while playing in the grass? Is he having a reaction to the Enfamil?” Nothing we could do while driving calmed him down. By the time we got to Sutter Creek, 20 minutes later, Theo was still squalling, Chris looked so tense that I thought one word or touch would make him shatter apart or something, and I was pretty frantic with worry that something was really wrong with our son.

 

Um, no. He was just mad. We got him out of the car in Sutter Creek, and the screaming stopped immediately. He sniffled a bit as we walked up the street, but when we went into a little café that had a kids’ play area with some toys, he turned positively cheery, playing with some large dominoes and beads and chattering up a storm to himself. And so, we had our first glimpse of what toddler Theo might be like. And oh, it was enough to put some fear in us! Good lord, I didn’t think an 11-month-old could sustain a tantrum for 20 straight minutes—especially in the car, which he normally loves. Ack.

 

Thursday’s outing, thankfully, went better. Theo and I went to a local Mexican restaurant to meet up with some

Sac State

friends and their kids: Janay and Belen (age 2 ½), Tina and Benson (age 4 weeks), and Rachel (without Miss Lizzy, age 16 months, who was home with an ear infection). Theo was very good in his high chair…talkative and rather noisy, but cheery and good. He stayed that way for an hour or so, then got bored but had fun exploring a stone fountain right next to our table. All in all, a very pleasant outing. Funny thing: Benson was exactly the same weight as Theo when he was born, down to the ounce! Two inches taller, though—he was a skinny guy, Tina said. What a shock of hair he has—so cute! I can hardly believe Theo was ever that young.

 

Friday night is usually Date Night for us, but Chris had his Fantasy Baseball draft, so Theo and I hung out and took a walk while Chris was on, as he puts it, “a conference call with a bunch of drunk, loud guys.” But, he’s happy with the team he put together, so I guess it was time well spent even if it was on the phone with a bunch of drunk guys! He won a bit of money last year that covered his buy-in to this year’s league, so I’m hoping he’ll be similarly lucky this year!

 

Saturday and Sunday had two purposes. First was scouring consignment shops (and a sale) for Theo’s birthday present. He has plenty of toys from Christmas, so we thought instead of getting more toys for him, we’d get him a little Theo-sized play table that he can put his toys on. We’ve noticed that he loves anything that’s just his height, like the open dishwasher door, a small piano toy we bought him some months ago, a bench we have in the family room, and any of those toddler play-tables that they sometimes have at kid-friendly stores. He is happy as a clam with a couple toys or some spoons and a “just his height” table. And thus our idea was born. Problem is, such tables are very expensive. I found a nearly perfect one at a consignment store…but it was sold already. And the new ones run a couple-hundred dollars, which was more than we wanted to spend.

 

So, nearly foiled, we came up with a new plan: Chris is going to build Theo’s table for him! Which I think is actually even cooler, because someday (hopefully) Theo will treasure the table that his daddy built for him with lots of love. So, we went to Lowe’s and got the materials, and Chris will be working on it this week/next weekend. I can’t wait to see the finished product!

 

Getting said supplies was a bit of a challenge, though. In our excitement with this grand plan, we forgot one key thing: We have very small cars, which hold even less cargo when there’s a baby and a car seat in them! So, we bought all the materials, got Theo strapped in the car, and then realized that ooops…this was going to be a challenge. Theo ended up surrounded by various building materials, and Chris sat in the passenger seat with his knees up to his chin so we could adjust the front seat to a position that everything would fit in. Thank goodness we live less than five minutes away from Lowe’s, as we ended up with a piece of dry-erase board (for the tabletop) in front of Theo, and thus he was totally blocked from our view. It was almost like one of those privacy panels they have in limousines, only made of dry-erase board! Theo, for his part, thought it was quite fun. We could hear him kicking the dry-erase board and giggling all the way home.

 

The other part of the weekend was Auntie Tanya and Uncle Steve’s visit. They were up here looking at houses, and so we got to see them both Saturday and Sunday. How cute the boys are together now! They babble at each other while they play…it’s just so neat to watch! And both of them are like little blind men, carefully patting each other’s faces as if to try to learn each other that way. It’s really cute….

 

Speaking of baby developments, Theo surprised me this week. For a while, he has been saying something that sounds remotely like “doggie,” but I couldn’t be sure. But when I took him out for a walk Friday evening, we came across a small Maltese puppy, and Theo exclaimed, “Doggie!” clear as day! I guess he does indeed know that word. And in not-so-enchanting baby developments, Mr. I’m-Obsessed-with-Toilets found a fun new trick. This morning, he crawled into my bathroom, pulled something out of the garbage can, and threw it in the toilet. It was not just toilet paper (I’ll spare the details), so to avoid costly plumbing bills, I had to fish it out. Thank goodness there was nothing else in the toilet at the time, but those of you who know me well can probably imagine the “Ewwwwwwww!!!!!” I let out as I attended to that task!

 

So that wraps up our week. Next week I should have a lot to tell, since next weekend is Theo’s birthday, and were having lunch with some friends, and Billy and Sarah are supposed to come by for a visit midweek. Until then…