November 28, 2012

There are a few things I know about my day even before I get out of bed in the morning.

I know that I will probably crush a few Cheerios on my way to the kitchen, bathroom, living room... really, any place in our small apartment.  I know that if I try to clean up the Cheerios that Ryan spreads around, I will have to touch all the soggy ones that fall out of his mouth.  Some how there are always soggy Cheerios no matter how long it's been since Ryan was eating them.  Soggy Cheerios get stuck to pretty much everything that touches them, and so I also know that if I accidentally kneel in one, it is forever imbedded in my pants.


I know that as a mother, I have social duties to make certain comments to passersby who mention things about Ryan.  For example, when someone says, "My, he's getting big!", I have to say, "Yup, he's growing like a weed." or "Yeah, it's hard to believe."  Or someone will ask, "How old is he now?"  And I will say, "10 months already."  That person will almost always say, "It goes fast doesn't it."  Every mother out there knows about these social interactions and how annoying they can get.  What's nice is when someone asks a question or says something that is kind of out of the blue.  The other day, we were standing in line at the store and someone asks to see his teeth.  It seemed pretty random to us.

I also know that I will always be greeted with smiles and giggles when I get him from his naps, his Taylor Hall doll will be on the floor and Ryan will be standing in a corner of his crib talking to himself.

I know I will call Ryan by various other names, such as Sleepy-potomus, hungry-potomus, Collapsable Fink (It's a Dr. Seuss character), Walk-a-potomus, Mr. Bug, Bug, Stinker, and whatever else comes to mind.  It might become a problem when he starts talking and doesn't actually know his own name but for now, he just looks at me and smiles and that's all I care about.

I know that no matter how quiet people think they are being, they are still always too loud.  I know that as soon as I lay Ryan to sleep I'm on edge because 7 people have the potential to ruin his sleep.  The preferable decibel for every other person on the planet is 0.  I know that very little upsets me but if you wake my cranky, finally sleeping boy I will huff and puff to myself and complain to Tyler and my sisters.  I wont actually say anything to the person making the noise though, which is silly and pure nonsense but I'm non combative.  It's something I'm working on though.  A few nights ago, our upstairs neighbor kept me awake until 12:45 and by that time, I was too upset from being awake so late that I couldn't fall asleep.  And when she finally stopped opening and closing drawers, all I could hear was the peaceful sound of Tyler breathing, which of course drove me crazy.  I tried sleeping on the couch away from Tyler but then a slow ferry went past and those things are loud at 3 in the morning.  I did finally fall asleep and then Ryan decided he was going to wake up at 3:37.  Basically, it wasn't a good night but to get back to my point, I actually sent her a text message asking her to keep it down that late at night.  And it worked.  She's still super loud but I think I can hear her at least trying to be quieter.  It's tough though because these apartments weren't made with a great amount of skill so every step she takes it squeaks like crazy, and of course when she turns the water on, the water rushes down the walls in Ryan's room.  There isn't anything we can do about that though.

Today was a good day.  Ryan got 2 quality naps so I got some down time.  I'm reading a good book so it's nice to have lots of time to sit.  I made swarties hash browns for dinner and I sliced my palm with the grater thing.  That hurt and continues to hurt every time I move my hand because the wound kind of opens a little every time I do something.  Ryan didn't enjoy his portion of dinner so I gave him crackers and peanut butter instead, which he then smeared in his eye causing him to cry.  I cleaned it out but he just smeared more in there.  I just put him in the tub and rinsed all of him at the same time.  The problem with doing that is that the bath water turned mirky and brown so I'm not sure he actually got cleaner.  It's more likely that there is now a fine layer of peanut butter all over his body instead of just his arms, hands and face.

We are now just relaxing, finding ourselves mysteriously hungry even though dinner was really filling. We might both read our books tonight until bed time.  Is there anything better then a really good book? No.  I don't think so.

Sonja