June 20, 2001
6/20
Hello all! Lots of stuff has been happening.Let's see, we'll start with Joseph. He's walking!!!! My little boy has learned how to walk. He's very tall for his age, as well as being heavy weight wise (to match his height). He was having trouble with his balance. Well he's walking now. Last Saturday I took him to his first session of Gymboree. He loved it. Except he's not a nice little kid who does everything the way all the stuffy little moms want it. In other words, there's this section where the leader brings "Gym" out (a cute huge clown) and sings songs. Well, Joseph refuses to sit in my lap and do the hand motions with me. No. He gets up and toddles over to the leader and puts his hand on her shoulder and sits there while she sings. The other mothers kind of watched me with daggers. Instead of sitting quietly with his mommy watching the bubbles, he crawls around and rubs his head on the other kids. These are his "kisses". He gently rubs his forehead on yours. It's kind of like eskimo kisses. Then when we were in a circle playing, he found another mommy he liked, went up to her, rubbed his head on hers, and then kind of leaned in to her and layed his head on her shoulder. That mommy's little boy freaked out, 'cause his mommy was giving out love. It was a very interesting outing. The mothers were looking at me like I couldn't control my son. When the truth is, how and I supposed to keep in on my lap singing "the wheels on the bus" when there's a perfectly wonderful clown to dance with? How can I keep him from giving out his love to all those wonderful little people he's so in love with? And excuse me if my son is terrified of the huge parachute that's 1000 times his size flying up and down making mommy dissappear. Like I said it was an interesting outing. Anyway. He's also using a sippy cup. Of course there is only ONE CUP he'll let near his mouth. We had our first full body spaghetti experience. We are now in a biting phase. He doesn't bite people like other children. He bites people like mommies that are trying to put PJs on a child that doesn't want to go to bed. He's eating more big people food. I'm a little worried though. He took a fall off a step in my parents house. He's now favoring one of his legs when he walks. I couldn't find anything that hurt, or seemed swollen, or bruised, or broken. So, I'm waiting to til tomorrow to see if he still favoring it after a night of rest. If he is, I'm going to have to take him to the doctor 'cause that's just not right.
I think I'm finally getting the hang of this stay at home thing. I've got the house to a point where I can just take a little time in the morning to clean up, and then I can do whatever I want for the rest of the day. For right now, that means decorating the house. Later it will mean my school work. I'm currently on the bathroom. There was much cursing to be heard from that particular room yesterday. I was attempting to put up a 78" border yesterday. It didn't work. It didn't work at all. I'm hoping that since Jay doesn't work tomorrow night he can help me tomorrow during the day. If the border will go up, the bathroom is going to turn out EXACTLY as I pictured it.
There are certain things that are hard. If Joseph is having a bratty day, then it rubs off on me. I have certainly had my fill of whine on some days, where I just want to hand him to Joseph and say "Here. He's YOUR son." For example, tonight I had to call Jay into the bathroom to get the child to open his mouth up to brush his teeth. He doesn't listen to me. Is it always this way? The child is only 14 months old. How does he know all this stuff. Things like: You can yell in mommy's face, bite, smack, screw your face up in discust at sippy cup/food/toy/cracker/toothbrush/kisses - however the instant you hear "Jooooosssseeeepphhhh.... You mind your mother" from the other room, you must cease and desist. Why can't he just stop when I give him the firm, no nonsense "no" the child rearing books say?
I think I need another book. I'm now to a point where I am kind of out of my league. He's starting to do things I'm not so sure of. For example, The child won't eat any grown up food put in front of him. But darned if he doesn't try for our food, on our plates. With these HUUUUUGE puppy dog eyes like we starve him. But he'll eat his baby food. How in the world do I get him to eat what we give him? I need a manual.
