Bathing & Books

We have a bath time ritual in our house every night before bed. I know many parents of young children do this, but we didn’t do it with the squeaker. He just took baths whenever we thought he needed one. But I started bathing the pipsqueak every night when he was about four months old because his eczema was so itchy, and a bath followed by a good slathering of aquaphor seemed to make a big difference. It turned out that both of us really liked the routine. It signaled to him that bedtime was on the way, so I didn’t end up plunking him in bed out of nowhere, and it meant that I got to take a freshly scrubbed, sweet –smelling baby to bed, instead of a baby with oatmeal in his hair and dirt-smudged knees.

In those early months, I would put the pipsqueak in his plastic baby tub and rinse him off. Now it seems so long ago that he was that tiny and helpless. He sits (and sometimes stands) in the tub on his own now, often joined by big brother, and the two of them will play together or separately. He’s usually quite happy in the tub, but he doesn’t like getting out and being dried off. As soon as I get him out, he starts shrieking “Escape! Escape!” because he wants to run around the upstairs, naked and giggling. The squeaker thinks the whole thing is hilarious – he calls it “the show” and runs around with the pipsqueak making loud “whooping” noises. I have to chase, pounce on, and dress the pipsqueak pretty quickly or else he’ll pee on the floor (accompanied by a mournful little voice saying “Pee...pee...”). In the middle of this chaos, I am left wondering why I thought this routine was conducive to settling down for bed.

Then it’s time for a book, which the pipsqueak has mixed feelings about. Only in retrospect do I appreciate the squeaker’s deep and early love for books. At six months, he would rest quietly on our laps while we read to him; he listened carefully and studied the pictures. At age two, he listened to long chapters from Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I didn’t try to read him the whole book, but he liked the chapter about the spiders. Because the squeaker is a very wiggly, high-energy kid, it did not occur to me that he had an unusual ability to absorb reading.

Now, maybe it’s the pipsqueak’s who’s unusual, but somehow, I don’t think so. He likes books OK. He’ll sit and page through them himself, and he’ll point out things in the pictures. But he doesn’t settle down to listen to a book in that uncanny way that the squeaker had. He thinks certain books are very funny, and he’ll be very engaged when you read those books to him – but briefly. Well before you get through the book, he’ll cheerfully say, “All done!” and try to close the book. Lately, we’ve been reading Goodnight Moon every night, and he does seem to enjoy the rhythm of the text. He likes the cow jumping over the moon and he really loves the clocks (the kid has a thing for clocks), but he is always very happy when the book is over and he gets to snuggle in, nurse, and sleep.

Like most parents of more than one child, I marvel at how very different my two little boys are. No one is the world is as genetically similar to the squeaker as the pipsqueak, and yet they are very different little people.

Car. Wash.

Though we don’t watch any TV, we do have a lot of DVDs. Some are movies; others are TV shows that ran on public television. The squeaker rarely saw anything on the TV before he was about two and a half. The pipsqueak gets more screen time because he’s around while the squeaker watches his favorite movies and shows.

The pipsqueak has been in the room while the squeaker has watched DVDs about predatory dinosaurs hunting and eating one another. He’s also played happily with his blocks near the TV while the squeaker cheered Steve Irwin on in his pursuit of dangerous crocodiles. He’s seen roaring Tyrannosaurus rexes, fierce (cartoon) battles, and various monsters. You’d think he’d be a fearless little thing.

Just don’t take him to the car wash.

This past weekend, we noticed that our minivan wasn’t quite the color it was when we bought it, so we decided it was time for a good wash. We took it to one of those car washes that you drive through while various hoses spray water and soap all over the car, power wash it, rinse it, and then dry it. The squeaker finds the experience mildly interesting. The pipsqueak, on the other hand, was petrified.

His already very round blue eyes grew even rounder as the machinery of the car wash started up, making all kinds of industrial noises and admittedly looking a bit menacing. When the loud spraying started, he panicked: “Hug! Hug! Mama!” So I had to get him out of his car seat and hold him, while he trembled on my lap the entire time.

But now he has a story to tell, and his limited narrative skills are apparently no barrier. Though he does not use phrases yet, he can string single words together without any grammatical glue in order to tell his story about the car wash: “Car. Wash. Loud. Scared! Seat. Mama. Hug.” And there it is: the whole event in just seven words. I couldn’t have told the tale any better myself.

Night of the Hermit Crabs

Lately, the squeaker has been carrying around the shell from his deceased hermit crab, Donald. (Donald was so named after my husband came home from the pet store after purchasing everything the two new crabs -- a gift from the grandparents -- needed. He exclaimed that with the price tag for their new home and new stuff, we might as well call them "Donald" and "Trump." The squeaker thought those names were perfect, so they stuck.)

I don't think the squeaker was deeply attached to his crabs. In fact, I'm not sure he's been entirely consistent about which crab passed on and which remained. Sometimes it was Donald who we found that evening, limp in his cage, and sometimes the squeaker says it was Trump. More than anything, I think he liked their shells, because the squeaker is a collector, and among his collected items are many shells (and bones...and shark teeth...but I digress).

Anyway, this weekend, the squeaker has been clutching the empty shell the deceased crab left behind. Curled up in bed last night with his papa, he said, "I really miss Donald. He was such a nice crab."

He gave a big sigh, and continued wistfully, "I just wish he was a zombie." The visual associated with that is just too delightful; I think my husband nearly choked in his effort not to laugh out loud. But the squeaker was deeply sincere.

Nursing pipsqueak

The pipsqueak is still an enthusiastic nursling. I am surprised when I hear stories from moms whose little ones willingly relinquished the breast during their second year. Nursing is still a very important part of the pipsqueak's routines.

When he wants to nurse, he'll pat my chest and say, "These. These." (I think it's hilarious that he uses the plural. Accurate, but amusing.) He also says, "Nurse?" The squeaker called them the "nee nees," and while the pipsqueak sometimes does, too, he's more likely to use "these." He likes to nurse sitting up, with his head resting on my arm, or, if I'm reclining, on my chest. The milk flow isn't what it once was, and sometimes he'll stop nursing and exclaim in frustration, "All gone!!" But it really isn't -- I think it just ebbs and flows. If he gets really annoyed, he'll say "Other side!"

It's clear that some people think it's crazy to be nursing a toddler, but most of these people are very misinformed about what nursing involves at this stage. They are generally thinking of what it takes to nurse a newborn -- nursing around the clock, every three hours, with nursing sessions that can take up to an hour. Nursing a newborn is an entirely different experience from nursing a toddler. The pipsqueak only nurses for a few minutes at a time. It's a more emotional experience than a nutritional one, though it continues to have nutritional benefits, too. He'll nurse at naptime and at bedtime, and he still nurses a few times at night. He especially likes to nurse in the early morning hours. There is some disruption in my sleep, but it's minimal. Neither of us needs to wake much to nurse, and it's cozy for both of us.

I almost never nurse him anymore when we are out and about. He's generally too busy exploring the world, and he doesn't even think of nursing. On the rare occasion that it does come up, we'll seek out a quiet corner. It seems to be his way of retreating when the adventure of exploring has become too stressful or too prolonged. He seems soothed by snuggling close to me and nursing quietly.

The pipsqueak doesn't like breakfast, so he won't eat no matter what I give him. This means that by 10 am or so, he's quite hungry, and he begs to nurse. This is the only time I really find it irritating because we're usually busy doing something, and he wouldn't need to nurse if he hadn't refused breakfast. Sometimes I make him wait until naptime, but he can be very pathetic about it, patting me and sobbing. I'm not sure how much breakfast really matters, so sometimes I relent. The nursing relationship is, after all, a brief one. Though I nursed the squeaker until his third birthday, he remembers nothing of it now, which seems a bit sad.

Many-Layered Squeaker & the Agreeable Pipsqueak

This is a story from the kiddies’ grandma from before the squeaker got sick:

On one of these warm June days, she took both boys to a nearby playground. The squeaker has a swing set of his own, but he loves playgrounds. He particularly likes to pretend that he is a dragon leaping around on the playground equipment, and sometimes he’ll chase other kids around, snarling and holding up his hands like claws. When we are lucky, the other kids will think this is a great game, and they will either become a fellow dragon and join him in snarling and jumping around , or they will let him chase them while they shriek with glee (a response that the squeaker is happy to imagine is dragon-induced terror). When we are not so lucky (which is more often the case), the other children either back away anxiously, or, even worse, regard him as some kind of fruitcake who might not be all there mentally and thus choose to ignore him entirely.

So on the way to the playground, the squeaker’s grandma said that he was not to play the dragon game that day because she just hates to see him alienate other kids. He was sad about this and sank into a mopey little silence. Then, just before they got there, he brightened up. “Hey, Granny K, I know what I’ll do,” he said. “I’ll be a dragon who is pretending to be a little boy. That way, no one will be upset about the dragon.”

And so he was. A little boy pretending to be a dragon pretending to be a little boy...

The pipsqueak’s latest word is “OK,” which sounds more like “otay.” He uses it all the time now, and I find that it causes me to wander traps that seem to please him immensely, though he doesn’t quite plan them that way. He’ll point at the cookies and say, “Cookies?” which makes me laugh and say something like, “You want cookies for dinner?” And then before I can continue with, “No, we’re having lasagna,” he’ll look thrilled and say, “Otay!!”

I know, I know, I’m such an amateur. And I set myself up for this response over and over again, all day long. I’m just accustomed to being able to ask him questions that seem communicative but that are in fact meant to be rhetorical, because he hasn’t answered them in the past. By restating what he wants, I suppose I’m trying to model what he seems to want to say. (This makes it sound way more thought-out than it really is, but I’m just now thinking through exactly why I ask him these questions.)

Anyway, he finds it delightful that his every wish is parroted back to him, and that he need only say “Otay!” if he can just get his meaning across. Of course, then he is crushed when I explain that he can’t have the cookies for dinner, or go outside at that moment, or drop his toys in the toilet, or color on the refrigerator, or whatever, because didn’t I just ASK him if he wanted to do that??? Sigh. All my own fault.

As a side note, the squeaker seems to have recovered from his illness at last. He finally began to seem like himself again on Sunday evening. I think that was the first time in almost a week that he began running around the house with a foam sword, making “ching! ching!” noises as he whacked things. And he spent the afternoon setting up his dinosaurs outside in the grass and building them a swamp. The slow return to normal has been such a relief. I don’t know if he really had swine flu or not. It is widespread in our state, and our county has been hit hard. But in the absence of a test, we’ll never know for sure. The squeaker’s papa has had some of the same symptoms, but his recovery was much faster; he was only ill for about 48 hours. We don’t know if it was a different virus or if his adult body just handled the same illness differently. The pipsqueak has a bad cough but has never been lethargic or cranky. It has all been very odd, and not much fun at all.

Oink Oink

I’m pretty sure the squeaker has been suffering from swine flu this week. We went to a birthday party for his cousin A last weekend, and while he was there, his cousin J was not himself. The boys are three months apart and usually play well enough together, though they have very different interests. But J was not interested in playing at all. In fact, he spent most of the party in his room in bed, with the squeaker trying to get him to play until he finally gave up.

The next day, my sister-in-law let us know that J was vomiting, and that his odd behavior at the party was likely because he was getting ill. I knew we were in for it, because the squeaker had spent almost the whole time with J. Still, the squeaker was fine on Sunday, and Monday, my husband played hooky from work and we all went to see the Pixar film “Up.” That day, the squeaker seemed a little tiny bit “off.” He was a little whinier than usual and seemed a little disconnected. We went out to dinner that night, and he was perhaps more subdued than usual.

The squeaker started throwing up around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning, and he was sick all day. He couldn’t even keep water or soda down. He was completely miserable – fever of 102, chills, lethargy, body aches. He curled into a little ball on the floor and stayed there whimpering. He would throw up every hour, leaning over his little bucket and sobbing, “What’s happening to me??” It was very pathetic. We had to put a pull-up diaper on him because he didn’t seem to know when he needed to go. All day long, he watched movie after movie, sipping soda and iced tea. Wednesday morning was more of the same; by afternoon, the vomiting ceased, but he still had all the other symptoms. More movies all day Wednesday. Late Wednesday evening, his fever finally subsided, and he seemed perkier and more himself. But he was still very lethargic. Thursday, he seemed a little better, but still very sick. Since he had eaten nothing since Monday night’s dinner, I was going to make pancakes in an effort to get him to eat something, but he begged for turkey on toast instead (including a plea accompanied by complete collapse into sobs on the kitchen floor), so we made a quick trip to the store for turkey, and then he ate a very small amount – maybe five bites. Still, it was something.

This morning I am back at work. I was going completely stir-crazy, which is unusual for me since I am pretty happy to stay at home most of the time. But having a sick kid totally consumes every moment. I had to listen for those little sobs so that I knew when he was hunched over his bucket, ready to throw up. And he was lonely and wanted company all day, which isn’t so easy with the pipsqueak’s needs. The pipsqueak was not sick, so he needed his usual meals and nap and diaper changes. Plus, I can only take so many movies in succession!

Since he’s been improving a little each day, I’m hoping he’ll be OK today with his grandma. Probably she’s better at caring for a sick kid than I am anyway; indulgent mothering isn’t my forte. When I’m sick, I like to be left alone, and that’s my instinct for others who are sick, too – but it didn’t work well for the squeaker, who wanted companionship, and who couldn’t meet his own needs at all because he is so little.

I figured this was just the typical stomach virus that kids get, but after a little research, my husband and I thought it could very well be swine flu. There are many cases in our area right now, and the squeaker has the exact symptoms, down to the sustained fever of 102. When my husband first suggested swine flu, I said I thought it was unlikely because influenza viruses don’t typically include diarrhea and vomiting, but my husband said the swine flu does, and he showed me the list of symptoms. We called the pediatrician to be sure we didn’t need to do anything different from what we were doing, and he said that while swine flu sounded like a distinct possibility based on his symptoms, the only way to be sure would be to have him tested. We didn’t see the point of that – swine flu is less dangerous than seasonal flu at this point in time – but we are watching him carefully for signs of respiratory distress because of the risk of pneumonia.

Anyway, he is not oinking, so that is good. Hopefully, he will be the only one in our household who gets it. Our pediatrician did say that if swine flu becomes more virulent this fall, those who’ve already had the milder form circulating now may have some protection against the stronger virus. So that is the silver lining, as it were.

Hug!

I just came in from feeding the goats with the pipsqueak. He loves to feed them. Tonight, he also enjoyed chasing them around the pen with his little arms out, while saying "Hug! Hug!" The goats were not interested in a squeeze, however. The pipsqueak looked disappointed.