The Small Family   

This week’s blog title is due to both the weather (blah, rain!) and the “storm” of chaos this week. But first, let’s start with the good stuff. As you probably read in last week’s blog post, we expected Theo to cut a tooth within days of the posting. Well, he cut not one, but two beautiful teeth—one on the top and one on the bottom! So he is a toothless wonder no more. And ugh, teething is not fun. Grandma Kathy thinks she feels another bump in there too, which is entirely possible, so we’ll see whether another tooth is soon to follow. I can’t believe that people started telling us he was teething when he was a mere three months old...and he is now nearly ELEVEN months old and just cutting the first teeth! It has been a long eight months of drooling and chewing on everything in sight, I tell you...

And now, on to the chaotic week wrap-up... Monday was my photography class, which I always enjoy. We got our next shooting assignment: still life. Before Monday, I thought of still life as a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers, but I now realize it can be a lot more creative than that, so I’m excited about it. I actually set up a makeshift studio in our kitchen Thursday night and got some possible shots, which you’ll see in this week’s album. Monday was rainy and icky, so Grandma Diane and Theo didn’t get to take their usual walk to the park while Grandma babysat, but they had fun anyway. I got a favorable report on the little monkey, who is always angelic for his grandma. (I think he saves his grumpiness for Chris and me!)

Tuesday I attempted to go to the doctor with Theo in tow, which was quite an experience. Actually, he was very good...two hours is a long time for a baby to hang out in his stroller and be hauled around in the car. But still, it was an interesting challenge to talk to the doctor while Theo protested loudly and struggled valiantly to escape from the confines of his stroller in a tiny exam room with lots of fun things to see. Long story short: Apparently I’m still sick but was too darn busy to know it! I went in because I was having bad dizzy spells and some chest pain that had been hanging around for weeks. The chest pain is essentially tendonitis, I’m told—I strained the tendons between my ribs on one side from coughing so much when I was sick about six weeks ago, and that type of strain is slow to heal because you’re using that area of your body all the time (to breathe, obviously). So, grin and bear it...and ice it or apply heat as needed. But the dizziness turned out to be a result of having a bunch of fluid built up behind one eardrum. Apparently one of the tubes in my ears is swollen and blocked because I still have a lot of congestion (this was news to me—I don’t feel congested anymore!), so that’s causing fluid to back up and throw off my equilibrium. So now I’m on some steroid spray to try to clear that up, and I’m really hoping that the side effect is giant bulging muscles and rippling biceps...not!!

Wednesday we went to a doctor of another sort...the Geek Squad at Best Buy to heal my sick computer! Alas, the Geek Squad doesn’t seem to have fixed my computer problems, but it was worth a try. It took about two hours for them to work on my computer, so Theo and I wandered around the plaza to amuse ourselves while we waited. We stopped at Starbucks so I could get some lunch, and Theo and I sat in there for a bit, reading a book about animals and “talking” while I ate my yogurt. When we got up to leave, I got one of the nicest compliments I think I’ve ever had...it really made my week. A thirty-ish man stopped me as I was walking out the door with Theo and said, “I just have to tell you, it’s incredibly sweet to watch you with your son. Just the way you interact with him...it’s really touching to watch.” Honestly, I think that’s one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received. (Though last week’s very nice blog tribute from Chris trumps it slightly!) I was glad to see that the love I have for Theo is apparently evident even to a total stranger. I’m not an overly expressive person by nature—Chris is much more affectionate/expressive than I am. And I always sort of worry that people won’t know how much I love them, because it’s just not something I’m good at expressing. But I guess I do show it (at least to my son), so that made me really, really happy to hear. Maybe I’m not such a cold fish after all—ha! Chris once told me you only have to watch me with dogs to see that I’m actually a sap at heart, even though I don’t show it much. Perhaps the same holds true with my baby...

If only the good feelings could’ve lasted through Thursday...tax day. Ugh! I hate tax day. Everyone says, “Once you have a child and own a house, you’ll get money back from taxes.” Everyone is wrong. I pay estimated taxes every three months so we don’t get hit badly at tax time, and we get hit every year! This year was no different. Ugh! I’ll spare you all the specifics, but I’ll just say that it’s in the five figures. OUCH! So much for replacing our ailing refrigerator. Or my ailing computer. The good news is that we suspected this was coming, so we had set aside some money. Not quite THAT much, but we’ll make it up. Such is life...we had hoped that the money we set aside could be used to pay down a bit of debt we’ve been working on, but I guess it’ll go to the darn taxes. UGH!

The good part of Thursday was that we got to see Auntie Lynnanne before our tax appointment. Chris, Theo, Grandma Diane, and I all went to Auntie Lynnie’s house to visit with her and then we all went to lunch before the appointment. (We all use the same tax person, so my Mom’s appointment was scheduled for right before ours.) Auntie Lynnie got to see firsthand how stubborn and strong-willed her nephew is! My sister has a brick fireplace at her house, and Theo was determined to play on it. Since he’s still not always steady on his feet, I obviously didn’t want him playing on a bunch of bricks. So, I kept moving him back to other parts of the room, telling him no and trying to distract him. Ooooh, was he mad! The first few times he just looked a bit indignant and crawled right back to the fireplace. Then he started kicking his feet in irritation when I’d move him...and then crawling back to the fireplace. So I started using myself as a barricade...I sat in front of the fireplace so he couldn’t get to it. No luck—he crawled right around me. So then I sprawled out in front of it, to make a bigger barricade. He started head-butting me to try to get to it, and then crying when it didn’t work. Finally, after I had moved him maybe 10 times, he laid down on the floor and wailed, kicking his feet and protesting angrily. Needless to say, we all found this rather amusing (because at this age, his impressive temper is still quite funny), and Auntie Lynnie couldn’t believe how strong-willed her nephew is! (It should be noted that she has four kids of her own, some of whom were more strong-willed than others, so if she is impressed by his will, you can take that as a pretty good sign that he is, indeed, a rather stubborn fellow when he wants to be! His Grandpa Tom says he’s like the first Theodore Small, Theo’s paternal great-grandfather and namesake: a temper when he doesn’t get his way. I suspect Grandpa Tom may be right, although I never met the original Theodore Small!)

Friday brought the near death of my cell phone. I was still pretty depressed about the taxes on Friday morning, but it was a beautiful day out, so Theo and I walked over to Starbucks, which normally would cheer me up a bit. And it did, until I picked up Chris’s latte off the bar and promptly spilled it all over my cell phone...and all over Starbucks. I was completely mortified...not to mention inwardly groaning that I had managed to murder my phone. Or so I thought. It has been intermittently dying and coming back to life since then, so I’m hopeful that it will soon be out of the woods and working again. I think Chris is secretly hoping it will die so he won’t feel so guilty about having murdered two cell phones himself in the past year. (Evidently they aren’t made to withstand the washing machine. Who knew?! Ha!)

We went over to the Farmer’s Market in Davis on Saturday morning in search of some good organic produce for Theo. We try to stick to organic produce because we’d really prefer not to give him fruits and veggies sprayed with pesticides if at all possible. The only problem with this is the limited availability of some types of organic produce. You can pretty much always find organic apples and zucchini and squash, but finding organic peaches or pears or the like can be much tougher. The Farmer’s Market turned out to be a bust for organic produce (everything is out of season), but we did find some at the Co-op market in Davis. So, over the next few weeks, Theo will get to try turnips and beets, which I’m sure will get us an “ICK!” face when we give them to him.  We also bought him some more plums, which he loves...and he better, for the amount they cost at this time of year!

Interestingly enough, this week’s food (peaches) is probably the only one that Theo has immediately taken to. Our Theo tends to be quite the picky eater, which is kind of odd given that neither Chris nor I is particularly finicky about food. But Theo will make the “Ick, stop trying to poison me!” face about any food on the first bite...even apples, which he loves and eats every day! I don’t know if it’s a texture thing or just habit or what, but he always acts as if we’re poisoning him when we first give him a bite of food. But not with peaches. He didn’t get overly excited about them, but he also didn’t act like we were feeding him strychnine. So that’s a good thing. I was kind of prepared for the worst with peaches, given that two of my friends didn’t have much luck with them. (Janeane has a priceless video of Emma’s first time with peaches, and Katherine posted a hilarious video some months back of trying to get John to eat peaches, whereupon he slumps dramatically in his high chair, fusses, and makes the sign for “ouch” when she tries to give him a bite of peach. Too funny!!)

Sunday was the big day, though...cousin Nik’s birthday party! Nik is turning 1 on March 5, so Tanya and Steve had a party for him on Sunday. We drove down just for the day, but what a day it turned out to be. It was rainy, which never makes for the most pleasant 150-mile drive, but that was okay. As usual, Theo slept on the way down, so it was a calm, pleasant drive. Until I got out of the car in the Smalls’ driveway and noticed that one tire was looking rather flat. I bent down to take a closer look and noticed a large, lovely split in the tire. Uh oh. We decided it was not a good idea to drive 150 miles home (in the rain and after dark) with a tire that might blow on the freeway, so we called and found a tire place open on Sundays and arranged to bring the car by after the party. As long as we dropped it off by 4pm, they said they could fix it that day for us. So, we changed Theo at the Smalls’ house, let him crawl around for a bit, and then headed over to the party, which was being held at the Williams Elementary cafeteria. (Grandma Kathy teaches at Williams, so Tanya and Steve were able to use the cafeteria for the party.)

One thing we’ve learned about our little boy is that although he is great one on one and in small groups, he doesn’t always do so well in crowds. It’s hit or miss these days...sometimes he does fine, but if he’s tired or not up to par, he can get upset when there’s too much chaos. Tanya and Steve have a lot of friends and family who wanted to celebrate Nik’s birthday, so it was a pretty big group—maybe 40 or 50 people. And Theo completely lost it...he started fussing and I tried to get him to nap in the Ergo carrier (which he will sometimes nap in), but that didn’t work. I paced for probably half an hour with him, trying to get him to settle down and nap. And he’d relax and settle if I paced in an area with no people around, but once I walked back to the main party area, he’d get rather agitated again. It was raining outside, so I couldn’t really go out there with him. After half an hour and with Theo showing no signs of napping, I finally decided to try to feed him. That didn’t go well. Basically, everything we tried backfired, and he ended up going ballistic. He screamed bloody murder for the better part of an hour. Luckily, Kathy was able to let me into the teacher’s lounge, so Theo and I hung out in there, and Chris joined us after a few minutes. Theo spent most of his time in there screaming frantically too, and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. (Luckily, I don’t think anyone from the party could hear him, since we were behind closed doors and the lounge was a bit removed from the cafeteria.) I figured it was a combination of teething and being in a crowd, but I wasn’t sure. As it turns out, I think that’s indeed what it was. Although we felt bad about leaving Nik’s party a bit early, Chris and I finally just headed back to the Smalls’ house, where he would drop Theo and I off and then go take the car to the tire shop. Theo shrieked in the car for several blocks, then fell asleep. We got him into the house, where he slept for about 20 minutes. When he woke up, I cringed, thinking, “That’s not a long enough nap. Let the screaming begin...” But, to my surprise, he was happy as a clam just crawling around the Smalls’ house, investigating things and playing. My sweet, happy little boy was back, and the screaming, frantic, inconsolable baby was a mere memory.

And so, we are left to think that our gut feeling was probably right—the chaos of a crowd of people was probably too much for him, and the fact that he’s teething probably just made him more agitated. We felt so bad for him, though. The poor little guy was just inconsolable. We haven’t seen him so upset since his first three or four months, when he had a LOT of days like that.

But, I’m pleased to say that the rest of the day went reasonably well. We visited with Grandma and Grandpa for a while and ate dinner with them while we waited for the tires to be put on and aligned. And a pair of nice guardian angels (in the form of Grandma and Grandpa) gave us a gift before we left...the gift of a pair of tires. We are very grateful for their help, since we took a few financial hits already this week, and were sort of wondering where the money for the tires was going to come from.

At any rate, that’s our week in a nutshell. It’s late and I’m sleepy, so I’ll sign off for now. With a last “Happy Birthday Nik!” that is. You’ve come a long way in a year, little nephew...from a tiny, fragile bundle of less than four pounds to a healthy, happy 20-pound boy who gives his cousin a run for his money. What a year it has been!