My Day Off

Landon's daycare was closed today for teacher training, so I took the day off to pretend to be a stay-at-home mom. All I can say is it's a darn good thing I work.

I had some warning that the day might not go so well. Landon is getting six teeth- four molars and two incisors, and spent at least 50% of his awake time on Saturday and Sunday screaming and writhing on the floor. We tried motrin, teething gel, popsicles, frozen waffles, sing-a-long videos, walks outside, trips to the park- absolutely anything to decrease or distract him from his pain. And despite the limited success of our attempts, I remained optimistic about our Big Plans to head to the "Baby Bloomers" program at the Austin Children's Museum this morning. I was sure that all the other kids and activities would distract him from his teeth. And they did to some extent- he had lots of fun throwing plastic fruit across the room while exclaiming, "A BALL!" and even more fun carefully walking up and down the curved staircase (because we don't have stairs at home or anything). He enjoyed story time but got a little freaked out at music time when a nearby kid kept banging a set of cymbals near his head. After 90 minutes and a whole package of graham crackers he threw a fit when I wouldn't let him steal a handful of mini rubber ducks from the gift shop- so we made our exit, with me holding him sideways around the middle as he screamed and kicked.

The rest of the day involved no napping and lots of screaming. My insomnia has come back with a vengeance and I don't think I've gotten more than six hours of cobbled together sleep a night for the past week- so that, plus the screaming, resulted in one of the top 5 worst headaches I've ever had and I felt like I was breaking apart from the inside. My beautiful, quiet office - even with its mountain of work - has never seemed so good.

There were some sweet and funny moments, but they were notably all after 6 p.m. when I would have been with him anyway. We've been working on body parts and just today mastered the belly button. With the size of his belly, it's very hard for him to find the button when he's sitting down- he has to pull up his shirt, flatten his belly with one hand, and feel his way around with the other, it's hysterical and he gets so excited when he finds it. The nose remains his very favorite part and he loves to point to other people's and yell "Nose!" with a big smile- he seems to be continuously delighted that everyone he sees has one. I showed him Rosie and Tex's big noses and he thought they were very funny- he kept touching his little nose to theirs and cracking up. And despite my splitting headache, exhaustion, and nearly overwhelming frustration only moments before, I laughed too- and felt my heart swelling with renewed love for that giggly little man.

But that's not to say I'm not still really looking forward to going back to work tomorrow.