one and a half years

i know we're not all at exactly the same point, but most of our kids are turning 1.5 around now. it's amazing, isn't it, how much they and we change in 1.5 years? as usual i have nothing profound to say, but i am just bowled over.

And It's Only 7 am!

This morning, Gavin:

1. woke up at 5:00 am
2. woke up with a big bruise on his face from hitting it on the crib rails.
3. has had a bit of "intestinal distress", and managed to poop through his p.j.'s for the second morning in a row.
4. is suddenly VERY mobile, as if overnight, and is crawling all over my not-quite-babyproofed kitchen.
5. is cranky because of waking up so early, the big bruise on his face, having diaper rash from all the pooping, and being carried out of the kitchen.

Is there such a thing as a Coffee I.V.? Or at least a Coffee Patch?

This I Believe

This is what I submitted to NPR's "This I Believe":

I believe that motherhood is so much harder than you can understand until you become a mother for the first time. No amount of babysitting or other experience prepares you for the real thing. I believe that hormones push us to reproduce. The same hormones later make us forget how difficult it all was, particularly at the beginning. Years later, all the older generation remembers is how easy and rewarding it all was. Of course being a parent is the most rewarding thing I ever expect to experience – seeing your child smile for the first time, start laughing, learn to sit, crawl and walk. How I enjoy hearing my 3 ½ year old son tell me about his day, tell stories, sing, try to teach me what he learned at daycare that day…

I think it’s important to share the beautiful things to look forward to when having children, but more so I believe it’s important to share how difficult it all is at the beginning. Maybe then mothers would share their difficulties more freely, feel less alone, and reach out for more help. And maybe, just maybe, it won’t be quite as difficult.

I Found the BEST Revenge

Thank you to all the mommmas who commented on my extremely depressing entry of late. Thanks to whomever rounded them all up, too!

It was nice to read all of your thoughts. :) It made me feel less lonely about it.
Of course it helped just to write all of that down...so I've had better moments with Owen since then. I've even started a new mantra:

"I'm bigger than you. I'm a lot older than you. Don't mess with me kid." It's rather empowering when staring down the monster in my toddler. :)

I've also found tremendous joy in exacting my revenge through tickling! If I tickle him until he falls down laughing and snorting!!!! I somehow feel amazingly refreshed and satisfied.

The next time you are feeling fairly full of rage with your toddler...try this tickle revenge. It's sweet justice.

I would like to see your scrubbing bubbles and Benny HIll and raise you one plastic bag over my son's head.

So that is what those warning are about?!? As Mike keeps saying "we were right there and it was only for a second," YEAH but Oren still managed to take the contents out of a plastic bag and put it over his head. I ran to him and ripped it off his head and out of his hands.... OY!

Oh and just for fun, Oren took his wet hands and tried to pull out a cord from an electrical outlet.

He laughs in my face when I try to teach/set boundaries/repremand him!

Just sharing....

Carly

End of the Happy Phase

For awhile there, I was thinking that I could go ahead and get rid of this blog. I was feeling pretty great about being a mom...about my year-old son...who seemed to be doing well. Our transition to day care went well. A walking and talking Owen was certainly much easier to deal with than the crying infant Owen.

Today marks the exasperation point of what has been building for about 2 months or so. Today, Owen bit the hell out of EJ, a 9 month old who is quite innocent in the adventure..just sitting there, playing with a toy.

Owen grabs EJ faster than lightening, pulls his head to his mouth and chomps down with 7 1/2 of his 11 teeth. He left a fairly ugly and certainly large red mark on EJ..complete with blood bruising..but managed not to break the skin.

I was mortified, embarrassed, sad...just beside myself. It's not the first time he's done it.
This is my son.
This isn't anyone else's son.

Lately, he flings his body all over the place in anger..or defiance...or willfulness. He seems much more like a 2 year old..complete with tempertantrums. When he doesn't like something, he becomes a ragdoll...falls to the floor, or when carrying him it becomes like holding jello...arching his back, shrieking, wailing, and in general a positive joy to be around. But only for me or my husband. I actually enjoy taking him to daycare..I'm free and ....he behaves "fine" for them. I hate that.

And what's been building over the last 2 months is my aggravation and hatred of his acts. I can't seemingly control them, and consequently, I feel out-of-control and resentful. All over again. It likens to my experience with my colicky, whiny, crying baby boy of 6 months ago. Those were the days when I would put the screaming monster in his crib..let him cry for what seemed like hours...and was probably only 45 minutes while I showered and tried to wash motherhood away.

It's back. That feeling of needing to escape this thing..this monster...this crazily independent little boy who exasperates me to no end...and makes me wish I had some other kind of life. Motherless is the appealing version. Free.

I feel badly for all of this. Guilt streaks through me...constantly. I am not the Mom wishing for another baby...ready to try for #2. I am the mom who wonders why I ever wanted kids in the first place...wondering "why me?" far too often. I am the mom who experiences dread when he wakes up from a nap. I am the mom who wonders: "What's wrong with me? Why don't I love this? Why is this so hard for me and easy for others? Why is he like this? What do I do about this now?" Today I win the Mother-of-the-Year award for being alone in this realm...being afraid to verbalize that I'm not feeling very good at being a mom...that maybe I hate it.

I win.

In case you thought the Mother of the Year Award was still up for grabs, I have bad news for you: I've won. It's not even close. The winning event took place Saturday morning when I turned my back for three seconds and turned back to see Talia, holding a can of Scrubbing Bubbles, hands and mouth covered in the aforementioned bubbles. I screamed, ran over, grabbed her, washed her mouth and hands repeatedly with water, nursed her, fed her food, gave her sippies of water and milk, and spent time on the phone with Poison Control. Turns out Scrubbing Bubbles in some nasty shit. Sorry girls, you lose.

PS: This took place not 24 hours after Talia hit her head at the JCC and got her first bruise. Ugh.

PPS: Wait, looks like someone out there still sucks as a mother more than I do.

Honorable Mention???

OK--so this is my first time posting. I hope I'm doing this right.

Not sure if I'd win the award, but maybe an honorable mention. I have two boys: matt (5) and sam (2). They can get pretty crazy before bedtime and Sam had been sleep-deprived all week (birthday, ear infection, crazy two-year molar neverending torture). They were dancing around and playing and Sam seemed to be going in fast forward. It was hilarious. Plus my parents were over so the kids were also in giddy show-off mode.

Being the weirdo I am, I went online and within about a minute found the Benny Hill theme song. It seemed to fit perfectly. I put it on and we all laughed as my kids ran around in a psychotic frenzy.

They next day they were both begging me to put on the "funny" song. So I happily obliged. It's just a harmless instrumental song, right? They don't know that the show it comes from was a perverted little British guy that ran around groping women. I put the song on the iPod and it started a heavy rotation in our home. But Matt can read AND work the iPod so within minutes he started referring to "Benny Hill" and how much he likes it. I'm just hoping that he doesn't go to school and tell his friends, or worse, his teacher. "Hey Mrs. Hooven. At our house we love Benny Hill." Yikes.

Not sure if this one can be undone. We'll just have to hope it runs its course for a while and then we can phase it out. But I have to admit, I don't want it to go. There's something about that song. It doens't matter what kind of day you've had. Try it. That song will make you laugh, or at least bring a smile to your face. It's pure silliness. I told you I was weird.

There are other Moms of the Year out there!

If you read the BabyCenter blogs like I do (some of them are good, some are terrible), you might enjoy this thread about stupid mommy-brain moments.

A Zen Story

To piggyback on Amy's last post... there are good days and there are bad days.

On the eve of Oren's birth I am thinking about this past year and am in awe of how many changes we have made individually and as a family, it is stunning and almost too much to digest. I am looking around the living and dinning rooms right now and even those two rooms have undergone significant rearranging (just tonight we rearranged the dinning room so that Oren has room to play and move about - sorry tall people the chandelier is more exposed and prone to more head banging)! Oren is now in daycare and while I look for work, I am working on my own professional development (info to be revealed soon).

I think as many of us are approaching the year mark, we are figuring out how to create our "new normal." But didn't I just reveal the indigestible changes that our little ones have brought and will continue to bring about? I did! So moral of my story... there are good days and there are bad days... but the days pass and we might as well keep growing (babies and moms too!).

It gets better

Sending your child away from you, eventually starts to feel okay if all the pieces are in place:

1. trust in the care providers;
   
2. his happiness and well-being;
3. and contentment with my own job.

There might be other factors, but at the moment, these are enough to keep us going.
:)

Feeling like a Fraud

Just for the record....I came home after talking with Carly about how positive I'm feeling about daycare and how it's the right choice for us....and promptly began to feel horrible about leaving Owen and not having him with ME.

I ended the night with myself crying silently as he fell asleep nursing. We had, yet again, a single-mommy night (Ryan working late), a miserable time trying to eat dinner, (he has been refusing vegetables and slimes everything all over his hair and face and in his ears), he was horrible in the bathtub (he keeps trying to stand up, slips, gets mad, and starts all over again), and then he cried the entire time changing him into pajamas and getting ready for bed.

My brain KNOWS that this is the hardest time of day for him because he's tired...but it's not really FAIR that it's the time I get to spend with him.

Right now I'm feeling very sad that I didn't have much energy when I came home today....that I didn't have much patience either...and that very soon,
all day...
I will spend more time with other people's kids than I do with my own.

That last realization is enough to make me throw up.

Things I'm learning about daycare: Part 2

1. He has started to understand that I LEAVE him for awhile, and when I see that realization on his face, it's NOT fun.

1b. The quicker I leave, the better it is for him.

2. Leaving your child makes you feel strange inside. A cross between hungry and empty and broken-hearted.

2b. Daycare is just the first place I will experience this feeling. My colleague told me she has the same feeling in the bottom of her stomach. She just moved her daughter into her dorm room for her first year at college.

3. Eventually, the daycare staff will grow to love him. I'm starting to see them enjoying him and waving to him as he leaves. It makes him smile...and that feels good to me. He is building a relationship with them, I am building trust in them, and this even MORE reason to choose a place with low turnover rate in staff.

4. They think of great things to do with the kids! I hadn't thought of having older kids blow bubbles towards him..he LOVED it...and I hadn't thought of having him listen to a book on tape. They told me he actually listened and looked at the pictures for awhile! I am having fun imagining him "dancing" to the music with the other kids. He loves watching the big kids too. Daycare will be much more fascinating for him than I am.

4b. At the end of the day, no matter how interesting it has been, he will always want me.

Ode to Car Keys

Someone, please, explain to me why chewing on metal car keys is bad? Because, right about now, it's a lifesaver.

I have just enough energy to sit and check my email...and the fact that he's entertained himself with my car keys for 25 minutes now is heavenly.

He could poke himself in the eye with them as he thrashes them around? They might have germs and all kind of gross stuff on them? He could cut himself?

Eh.
Whatever.

(Postscript: I wrote this last night..and this morning I spent 27 minutes with Ryan, SEARCHING for my keys. They were under a toy. I just answered my own question as to WHY it's bad to play with keys.)

dear LORD

If I were a religious sort, I would probably fall down upon my knees and PRAY for some transcendental power to bestow upon me, the strength to play with my son after a full day of work.

LORDY.


This is hard.

I'm propping my eyelids up with toothpicks just to see if Owen is still within my "catch-him-before-he-chokes-on-that-piece-of-(fill-in-the-blank)" range.

"no crying" makes all the difference

I love those days when it feels like ABSOLUTELY nothing went wrong, nothing is bad, things are funny, everyone is smiling, and life is good.

I suppose I could have vented about green beans smeared in Owen's hair, the fact that I keep forgetting to put a bath mat in the tub and he keeps slipping, or maybe that he pulled an entire plant and dirt down all over the floor and carpet....but I honestly had to SEARCH to find those things in my brain.

Today was a great day because he went to sleep without crying, we had a great time as a family today, and he's so darn CUTE.

It's amazing how good life can be when he doesn't cry a lot. I think that makes the biggest difference in the whole world.

Yay for a day of no crying!

Feeling like I am not cut out for this....

So as Oren is rapidly growing, physically and mentally, he shifts through new phases. It always takes me a while to catch on to what his needs are (even though he is definitely trying to let me know) through screaming usually. Through out the year I made sure to change up his environment, activities, rearrange toys/books/food etc... now he is becoming mobile (sort of) and I am not sure what he needs and how to provide it for him. I think he is frustrated with scootching but has not figured out pulling up, cruising or walking but clearly wants to get moving. (Side note: why can't I make paragraphs in this thing?!?) I keep having this thought "well, at least soon he will be in day care and they can give him what he needs since I can't deal with it or haven't figured out how." I hate it! I hate that thought. I want to give him everything he needs, I don't want to have the feeling of relief as it is someone elses problem now. I don't want to feel like a part time parent or like I am giving up on him. That is how I am feeling. This sucks right now.

Mark this Day

Owen took his first steps today!

He was in the kitchen of my neighbor's house and I was coming in after being gone for a few hours. He was cruising along the cabinets and then walked 5 steps to my legs. I was so flabbergasted, I couldn't say anything..I stood there with my jaw dropped, staring. My neighbor and her two daughters didn't see it...they were busy preparing lunch! So, in my excitement, I made him do it over and over, and over again!

Maybe now that he got this out of the way, he will focus on not mauling his friends and pinching their eyes out! For the record books, he is 8 months and 5 days old.

Now....do I call and tell my husband, or do I wait and have Owen do it for him? I'm torn. Half of me wants to call right now and share the news...but I'm not sure how I would feel if it were me.
Oh...I can't decide!

But wait! I'm Sister of the Year, too!

I am going to visit my sister, mother, aunt, and grandmother this weekend. My husband can't come, so Talia and I are traveling alone. I was guilted into going and do not look forward to the trip in any way.

My sister, being as she is energetic and single and 29, is borrowing a jogging stroller from a friend so she and I can run a 5K on Sunday morning with Talia in tow. That I'm doing this at all is a martyrdom situation - I don't want to do it but she does so I gave in. Talia will freak out if she has to spend an hour in the stroller, and I'll end up pissing her off by stopping in the middle of the run.

My sister was shocked and annoyed ("bamboozled") when I told her that, no, we cannot leave Talia with my mother and aunt for two hours to get massages between the 5K and the party my mom and aunt are hosting in Talia's honor. My mother simply cannot handle watching Talia for two hours while prepping a house party. Frankly, she cannot watch Talia awake at all, and she admits as much. This is the same woman who literally had a panic attack trying to feed Talia three spoonfuls of baby food a month ago because it was getting on her chin, and I was standing five feet away!

So my sister is mad, and I'm flabbergasted that she thinks a nine-month-old can be shlepped from a 5K to her grandmother's house to a party. Bamboozled. Is there a special Sister-of-the-Year award, too?

52 proven stress reducers

anyone look at amy's links list to the right of this post? it's great, particularly the list of stress reducers. how sensible and easy to implement they are! they're going on my fridge asap.

New Mantras

I like Lydia's:

"We raise them to leave us." (Or something like that....it comes in handy when I'm feeling fairly sad about leaving him at daycare.)


I'm also enjoying this one:

"They don't have to love him like I do to take good care of him."

guilty

I'm feeling slightly guilty about this fact:

I replaced our plastic water bottles BEFORE I replaced Owen's baby bottles.

I still haven't replaced his bottles, but I will avoid drinking out of the Nalgene now.

(Anyone else SICK of this bisphenol A topic? I am.)

I could make myself feel better about this guilt-issue by remembering that on airplanes, they make you put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting a child.

Things I'm Learning About Daycare

1. If putting your child to sleep by letting them fuss or cry by themselves for a few minutes is your only (non-driving) way to get your kid to sleep....daycare will not be fun for the teachers or your child (They don't have a quiet, dark room to put him in, he is constantly around others and they can't let him cry too long.)

2. No one has any answers for me about how to get him to fall asleep by voluntarily putting his head down and sleeping.

3. You have to buy extra of everything to keep at daycare; If you have "just enough" for yourselves at home, it won't be enough. (extra bottles, blanket, clothes, bibs, food, crib sheets, diapers, etc)

4. Your child may not eat/drink the same way at daycare as he/she does at home for you.
(I.E. consumed 1/2 of what he normally does.)

5. If the teachers look tired when you pick up your kid, but say that he "is adjusting," assume that he was crying all day very similar to your worst day ever. If he's hoarse when you pick him up, this is further evidence of his "adjustment."

6. The teachers may appreciate cookies, but they appreciate you picking him up early, even better.

7. Things happen. If he falls down for you, he's going to fall down there too.

8. They don't care if shows up in his pajamas.

9. The ratio is not one-to-one anymore. Now, there is a poor, underpaid soul who has to deal with your child AND at least 3 others who may or may not share the same temperment. If he is crying more, it might be because he can't be held or picked up as often anymore.

What goes in...

What goes in...must come OUT.

I had the worst diaper blow-out of ALL TIME today....this AFTER EJ had a wonderful diaper explosion..at the cloth diaper place...except mine was in a pampers paper/plastic diaper.

First of all...I think it's important to mention that he was saving up all the morning pooping until after he got home from daycare. I mean there was SHIT LOADS of poop.

Secondly, the pampers diaper acted EXACTLY like a sliding board for all the transitional icky poop..it went right up his back into the onsie.
This was reminiscent of breastmilk poop explosions....but a lot SMELLIER.

I was trying to take off his onesie and I didn't REALIZE that it had gone up the back...until it was too late and I smeared it all the way up his back and into his hair. It was the most disgusting poopy diaper change since the day at Suburban Square when Carly helped me change him because he exploded there.

Wow. It was so disgusting, I picked him, the poopy diaper 1/2 atttached, and the onesie hanging by one arm...and plopped him right in the tub. He had SO MUCH poop still on him that he created a big huge poopy smear in the bottom of the tub.

It was FANTASTIC...and I wish I had my camera...because he had peaches/banana/oatmeal smeared all over the front of him...and green poop all over the back of him.
Thank goodness for bath tubs and the luxury of running water!

Dog for SALE...very CHEAP

After getting Owen to sleep, (by nursing him..the ONLY way that worked after rocking, bouncing, singing, etc.) for a nap, Roscoe decides to bark loudly at the imaginary threats lurking in our house.

#@%*ing DOG.

Owen woke up screaming...(after sleeping 15 minutes), and I have been unable to get him to go back to sleep. Yet, he is so tired, because when I brought him downstairs to rejoin the world and play, all he did was cry.

So, I'm listening to him scream in his crib from downstairs.

I'm wondering how long I'm going to have to pay for the 3 day-trip to Indiana.

What else is a well-intentioned mother to think?

After reading about 6 or 7 articles about bisphenol-A (after seeing a report on ABC news about dangerous plastics and baby bottles), I found this quote in most of the news reports:

"...the panel expressed 'some concern' about the chemical and noted that people may want to reduce their exposure."

(Baby bottles with the chemical appear to include Playtex, Avent, and all other major brands we buy.)

(The panel does not support a ban on this chemical in plastics..but CA is trying to pass legislation and the ecological groups do support a ban.)

Well...Jesus....when every single source (even the industry-biased ones) indicate a possibility of affecting a baby's genitals and reproductive functions and says to "reduce exposure" what ELSE am I supposed to think?

The "Science Now" journal suggests that it is unlcear how the FDA or other organizations will react to the report.

I wonder how many other moms and dads saw the TV report saying that "baby bottles may be dangerous" and are now FLIPPING OUT about the prospect of their daughter's menstruating at age 8 and their son's balls shrinking.

I'm not sure ABC News and like organizations are ready for the panic that JUST MIGHT ensue.

Roscoe VS. Owen

It's official! Owen has tied Roscoe-the-pug in IQ points! He's finally catching up!
(While it's doubtful that Roscoe will ever be able to "clap," we're always hopeful.)
Today they were playing "tug-of-war" with Roscoe's rope!

Roscoe still has a slight lead...but here are the stats:

Trick Roscoe Owen
crawling 0 1
walking 1 0
lying down 1 1
sitting 1 1
standing 0 1
clapping 0 1
waving 0 1
"potty"trained 1 0

On Command:
"give me 5" 1 1
"give me 10" 1 1
"roll over" 1 0
"sit" 1 0
"clap" 0 0
"come here!" 1 1

Totals: 9 9

Narcissistic Mommy? Maybe!

I just read this article about "Mommy Literature" in an online version of Newsweek. It's interesting...but it doesn't go anywhere in particular, other than to say it's not an interesting genre to read. (Like this blog... hee hee.)
The author does justify "mommy angst," tells us we have more time to worry about our parenting choices than our previous generations and therefore, more time to decide if ours are the correct choices. She also says that the choices, the minutia...it's all uninteresting to read about. Important to us at the time...but not interesting.
To some degree, I think she's right. When I go back to work, I'm not going to care, or have time to ponder about diaper choices, discipline strategies, organic or non-organic, or even wonder about the most efficient stroller.

I do wonder if I could have spent these 8 1/2 months worrying about other things...(or even better...not worrying at all) but it also seems like a rite of passage to contemplate all the choices, dangers, and parenting styles. Even if it only means that I end up being in the same middle ground I find myself in on just about every issue in existence.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yummy Vs. Slummy: And the winner is ... who cares? We've become narcissist mommies, obsessed with our parenting choices and defensive when confronted with others'."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20121799/site/newsweek/page/0/

Two a.m. Wake Up Call

Last Thursday, Julia and I drove to Ocean City, MD to visit with my friend Kim who was staying there with her family. Kim, who is not married and has no kids, said that she would be happy to share a hotel room with us for the night. I reminded her that even though Julia is normally sleeping through the night that anything could happen and that she often screams when going to sleep. "No problem," answered Kim. "I'm used to it since my sister has three kids."

Julia went to sleep easily and I marveled at how peaceful she looked sleeping in her pack-n-play. How sweet, I thought to myself.

It was sweet until she woke up crying at 2 a.m. Since Kim was sleeping in the next bed, I picked Julia up right away. She stopped crying and I held her in my arms as she drifted back to sleep. I knew that she would wake up and cry when I put her back down because that's what she always does. But she usually falls asleep a few minutes later.

"Waaaa, waaaa!" As expected, she cried right away. I knew that she could see me in my bed so I turned my back to avoid eye contact. (Does that sound mean?) I also tried pulling the covers over my head. She'll stop soon, I told myself. Well, twenty minutes later (I know because I looked at my watch) she was still crying and soon someone knocked on the door. Am I horrible for letting her cry that long? I honestly thought that any minute she would fall asleep.

I ignored the door but instead picked Julia up again. This time I nursed her, she fell asleep and then woke up AGAIN when I put her down. But I let her cry it out and she fell asleep shortly thereafter (what I thought would happen the first time around).

Besides me being up for over an hour in the middle of the night, we had a fun time at the beach. But I'm not sure that Kim will be eager to share a room with us again any time soon.

Do Babies Like Coffee?

Yesterday I was at our new house with Julia, meeting more chimney contractors. I had her on the porch in her portable high chair and left her briefly to walk inside. When I came out, her tray was completely covered with coffee and she was playing happily in this newfound liquid. Her shorts were soaked too! She obviously grabbed my coffee cup after I walked away. Thank goodness I always drink iced coffee! (Not because of Julia, just because I have always loved iced coffee).

Mom? Where's the nipple?

I am continually reminded that I should be working on the belly flab around my belly button. Not because it looks like a donut now (it used to be flat). Not because it looks like chicken skin, all loose and wrinkly. Not because my pants are a wee bit tight.

No. I am reminded because Owen very often confuses this flabby middle section for a boob and tries to latch on to it.

Humiliating.

Ouch

For REAL now....
Someone should really watch me a little more carefully because apparently I am an unfit parent. (Not to put the blame on anyone else...this is TOTALLY my fault. But honestly....)

I totally dropped Owen from off of my lap today. We were looking at the pictures in a catalog that came in the mail and I don't know what happened.

I don't know if he arched away from me, or if I was moving him around...either way, he ended up falling off my lap backwards and hitting the back of his head on the floor. (Carpet on top of hardwood..but still! I heard the thud! It took his breath away...then the screaming.) I felt SO bad.

I must be the clumsiest momma around. Poor Owen is getting the brunt of this and I feel horrible.

I know kids get bumps and war wounds from increased mobility...but honestly, I think my heart breaks every time it happens and it's most likely my fault.

He's fine.
But HONESTLY. I don't know what's wrong with me. If anyone has any clues from observing us, please let me know. He cannot continue to be battered like this! HELP!

The Hair Factor

I just have to laugh....whenever Owen crawls over to Ryan...he pulls on his t-shirt and chest hair. Ryan lets out a scream of agony...and Owen laughs!

This makes motherhood a little more amusing :)

A moment's peace...PLEASE

I'm so glad that Ryan is taking Owen with him to Home Depot this morning.
I hate to admit this....but...well this is the forum for it:
I'm so tired of seeing Owen.

He climbed all over me for the 5 hours of travel yesterday and if he climbs on me this morning, I might just flip out.

(The trip went extremely well..and Owen was an angel. But, WOW, it's good to be finished with traveling.)

Air-head

Approximately how many times can you bump your baby's head on an airplane (the seats, the overhead storage compartments, the doorway....) before the passengers and crew decide you are an incompetent mother and take the baby away???