Too Smart for My Britches

We had another busy weekend in our household. First of all, we took Fenn back to the doctor on Thursday and found out he has another ear infection. (Or maybe the first one never completely cleared up.) So here we go with round two of antibiotics... and the inevitable diarrhea. Oh joy! On Friday afternoon, my parents (G-ma and G-da) were coming into town. We also had another Front Yard Friday social to attend at our friends' house next door. We went ahead and took Fenn with us since he wasn't contagious and seemed to be feeling good. My parents stayed at the house to rest after a five hour drive to Knoxville. As usual, we had a great time and a huge turnout. Fenn got to meet Jack (just 5 weeks old), who lives across the street. Looks like we'll be continuing the socials into the fall because lots of people are interested in hosting.

On Saturday night, we decided to take my parents out for dinner at a local Italian restaurant, Naples. Things were going great until......another INCIDENT happened.... again. I had just changed a poopy diaper and then our food arrived. Being lulled into a false sense of security... I was thinking we had averted any catastrophes (of the poopy diaper kind) and would be able to enjoy our meal and get home. Fenn was sitting in the highchair and we were almost finished eating, then Dan happened to reach behind Fenn and put his hand on Fenn's back. And there IT was... poopy had squeezed out of Fenn's diaper and was all up his back. We grabbed Fenn out of the highchair and headed for the bathroom, leaving a trail of poopy behind. (That's why you should clean those seats before you use them!) This time I needed Dan's help, and it didn't matter if he wasn't supposed to be in the women's restroom. We stripped Fenn down and got him cleaned up. But this time, I didn't have a change of clothes with me, so all I could do was rinse out his clothes and put them back on him. The shorts weren't too bad ~ I just rinsed the waistband and put them back on, but the shirt was another story. While I was rinsing out Fenn's shirt, Dan walked out with our shirtless, wet shorts baby to tell my parents to ask for the check. When I walked out with Fenn's shirt, everyone was staring at Fenn and Dan! Once again, the "Clampetts come to town". We put the half wet shirt back on Fenn, paid the check, and went home. Another lesson learned: ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS pack a change of clothes for the baby!

Once again, our perception of what is "normal" (for our lives) is changing... hence, the name of my blog. First of all, Fenn assumed the crawl position (with a little help from G-da) for the first time... so he'll become mobile really soon and we'll have to "babyproof" the house. Secondly... For the most part, Fenn has always slept well at night. Over the last few nights, he has started waking up a couple of hours after going down for the night. Well, this just happens to coincide with when we are trying to go to bed ourselves. He's fussy and wants to be picked up. We'll get him back to sleep (either by picking him up or by just patting his back), but he'll wake up again within 30 minutes or so. This would go on until about 3:00 a.m. Well, the first half of the night is mommy's shift... so I have basically been getting up every 20 or 30 minutes for the first 4 hours of each night. This is NOT good sleep! After 3:00, Fenn would at least sleep until around 4:30 and then until 6:00 (his usual wake up time). Last night, we tried everything we could think of. We checked his temperature and gave him some Tylenol. We thought maybe he was a little gassy and gave him some Mylicon drops. We changed his diaper because it was a little puffy. We thought maybe his ears were hurting and put some ear drops in them. But he still cried whenever we put him back in his crib. Then we tried letting him cry it out for 5 minutes or so. A couple of times, he would stop crying and drift off, but then he would wake up and start crying again a few minutes later. So we decided to do a little experiment. We broke our rule about putting him in our bed. But we knew that if he stopped crying once in our bed, we would have our answer. We would know he was fine and just wanted to be near us. And that's exactly what happened. He went to sleep and was good the rest of the night. So, that's why I say our "normal" is changing. Fenn is getting older... and wiser. He's a smart cookie and is learning how to manipulate Mommy and Daddy. Not to worry... we're pulling out our "artillery" and will win this battle... somehow!