The Crash

 

It's been an interesting weekend. Saturday we headed out for breakfast at Denny's. Pike was perky and happy most of the meal, devoured his chocolate milk and had a touch of pancake and bacon to wash it down. All normal. Then we headed for the grocery store. On the way we had a mild puke incident. It wasn't much, and we chalked it up to stomach upset getting into the car so soon after eating. 

Bad move.

In the store, Pike threw up. He threw up once in an aisle (partly on my, though thankfully mostly on my jacket). We rushed to the bathroom (the Thanksgiving shopping was almost done by then) and quickly got washed up. Then, as we stood waiting for Wes to finish checking out, he unloaded again. Like a baby volcano, he puked a little bit on me and on him. Okay, I could deal - I asked the checker for some paper towels, and he got them for me without missing a beat. As he was passing them to me, Pike unloaded a further stream of puke.

We finally managed to get us and the groceries into the car (by this I mean Wes managed everything except Pike since Pike and I were already fused together with his cold, wet vomit). We'd given up on cleanliness at that point and started for home as quickly as possible without getting pulled over. Naturally, Pike puked again on the way home. Oh, hey, there's that bacon. I totally wasn't hoping to see that again. We declined to stop and instead sped toward home.

The evening was, at that point, filled with restless, fussy baby moments and sweet, cuddly, watching Peter Pan baby moments. In the end he fell asleep on Wes' shoulder while we were all on the couch (he literally hasn't done that since he was less than a year old), and got put to bed. When Wes and I were finally going to get some rest ourselves, we hear Pike in his room sounding upset and go in. He's asking for a diaper change - the diarrhea has started.

At that point, we gave up. We got Pike cleaned up and asked him if he wanted to go back to his bed or sleep with us. I should explain here that Pike usually sees our bed as a place to play. Aside from a few naps when I was on maternity leave and he slept on my chest, he has never slept in our bed. We've offered before, but he gets in our bed and wants to play, not sleep. Last night, he sweetly asked for mommy and daddy's bed, and we all piled in.

Granted, for quite awhile he was restless and tossed and turned. Finally, he settled on the H position (where he's the crossbar between mommy and daddy, this time with the head on daddy and the feet on mommy's throat), and got some sleep. Which was disturbed by him waking us to get his diaper changed again. We did that, he wanted to get up and play (and put on make-up, but that's a whole other story). Finally we settled down, and Pike spent most of the rest of the night with his head on mommy, his feet on daddy, and the puppies sandwiched in around all of us. Since he had a fever this was something like sleeping with multiple irons under the covers - alternately a blessing and a curse.

For all the trials and tribulations, having Pike snuggled in next to us was a truly adorable experience. An experience that necessitated a nap for mommy and daddy today to catch up on missed sleep, but still pretty awesome.

The First Cut

I'm actually back dating this post so that it posts the day it happened: the first haircut. Yep, we finally gave in. Pike was having to push his hair out of his eyes constantly, and it was bad enough that even he was asking for a hair cut. We scheduled the cut with Gail from SoHo Salon, the wonderful lady who does my hair.

I think what surprised me most (and Gail a little too) is how well behaved he was. As you can see in the picture on the left on top (we were waiting to go back for the cut), he had rations for the journey in the form of apricots, apples, and goldfish. We come prepared. Don't get me wrong, he was wiggly as all get out, but he was happy for the most part. Until the end when he got bored, he sat like a good little boy and just wriggled his head and ate his food. 

As usual, I'm a very proud mommy. And, of course, I got to go home with the most handsome boy in the place - no matter what length his hair is.

Toads & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails

Cute toad is cute, originally uploaded by Marji Beach.

Pike met his first toad this morning. It had been raining gently overnight, and there was a little toad hopping away from the driveway when I brought him out to get in the car. I scooped it up (okay, after chasing it down for a minute... they hop fast) and showed Pike. He seemed amused by my excitement if not by the toad itself. I think I was grinning like an idiot, so he felt that it would be polite to grin back.

Then I washed my hands up and got us on our way, but it was still super neat. I kept toads in a pen in our backyard when I was little, so they're one of my favorite kinds of critter :)

Pike's First Meal (5 Month Update)

Monday night, Pike had his first solid meal. Okay, well, snack. I think more rice cereal ended up on his face than in his mouth, but it went fairly well. He wasn't disgusted, and by the end, he was swallowing at least some of it.

As of Sunday, Pike is officially five months old. I can hardly believe that. I know all parents say that, but it's just crazy. I guess we got a head start on the "oh my god" portion of aging since he was almost a month old before he ever came home, but it's still nuts how fast the time goes. He's getting bigger and stronger every day.

Slowly Pike's starting to figure out scootching. It's now crawling yet, and he doesn't go far, but he's definitely starting to wiggle himself forward when he really wants to, and he's putting together that he can interact with things on his Jumperoo. Soon I suspect he'll stop just staring at most of the things he finds interesting and wanting to grab them and probably eat them. Yay?