Dec
15
The more of your comments I read on the issue of Small Children and Weddings, the more I became filled with a righteous fist-pumping sort of “YEAH THAT’S WHAT I BE TALKIN ABOUT” sort of fury, and when JB finally arrived home from his endless, snowy drive back from Bend on Sunday I practically kneed him in the balls as soon as he walked in the door and demanded to know what the hell he’d been thinking, the whole internet thinks it’s bugfuck crazy to bring a baby and toddler to a formal evening wedding.
I didn’t even really need to plead my case, as it turned out, because in the hour or so before Dylan’s bedtime the combined force of both children, excited by Daddy’s Triumphant Return from Mancation — Riley chattering nonstop and running back and forth in little demented circles, Dylan screeching and trying to climb up his pantlegs and leaving snail-trails of snot all over JB’s shirt — wore him out so thoroughly all I had to do was lean over and say, “This? This is what I’ll be dealing with, as the officiant says Do You JB’s Brother Take This Woman Etc and the room is filled with a hushed, reverent SILENCE. While wearing an EASILY-STAINED DRESS MIGHT I ADD,” and he acquiesced.
The plan is to secure a babysitter for the entire event, excepting a potential brief cameo appearance before the ceremony for the beshitted photos — although I’m lobbying for an entirely childfree evening because, among other reasons, I think certain people are forgetting that the wedding and the photos are about the happy couple getting married, not so much a stand-in opportunity for a family Sears portrait studio visit.
The way things are going, Dylan won’t be very photogenic anyway. Not only is he kind of blotchy and scaly from having his nose wiped every two minutes all day long (an activity he enjoys every bit as much as I do, which is to say oh my god with the flailing and back-arching and squealing), but his face is banged up from 1) falling cheekfirst into a tile step on Saturday, and 2) well, this happened yesterday and I’m still kind of recovering, but basically I put him in the carseat on the dining room table, unbuckled him, turned for one second (I know! OH I KNOW) to help Riley with his coat, and baby and carseat pitched forward and fell all the way to the hardwood floor. It all happened before I could even take a breath, it seemed, and suddenly he was sitting upright next to an overturned carseat and screaming like hell, a red bump rising on his forehead and abrasions across his cheek.
Oh the poor kid. First there was the Stroller Tipping Incident, and now this.
And then, just like a couple hours later? I was on the phone with JB when Riley came running up to me howling in dismay, his mouth full of orange mush, and after a panicky flurry of making him spit in the sink, rinsing out his mouth, and wiping his tongue with a paper towel, I determined he’d reached into a drawer that has been known to contain M&Ms and popped a small round object into his mouth, only it wasn’t a piece of candy, it was a fucking MOTRIN.
So! A banner day yesterday on the parenting front. I have now cleaned out the drawer o’ accessible drugs, vowed never to put the carseat on a table ever again, and watched in the mirror as five million new gray hairs sprouted right before my eyes.
Dec
13
In the last few days Dylan has not only ramped up his crawling skills to oh-shit-time-to-babyproof-everything speeds, but he’s become obsessed with pulling himself upright on whatever object is at hand. Once he gets himself in a teetery, wobbly-knee’d standing position, he’s clearly thrilled beyond measure — as evidenced by his overjoyed DER DER DER DER sounds and beaming, pure-sunshine expression — but his grasp of all the various motor functions necessary to accomplish this task without collapsing facefirst in a skull-shattering kersmash are unpredictable at best, so I have to hover nearby, Maternal Eagle Claw at the ready.
I had forgotten how exhausting this stage is: the rampant, deadly curiosity, combined with a half-assed sort of mobility that requires constant vigilance. He spends his day trying to open drawers, push buttons, pull up on unstable furniture, gnaw poisonous substances, plummet off high surfaces, slip under the bathwaters, choke on tiny plastic toys, wrap himself in power cords, and sweep glasses off tables, and he never stops ever. He never just sits still any more. Consequently I can never sit still either, and I often feel like I’m mired in some hideously challenging yet monotonous video game where I must fend off an endless stream of pixellated dangers and if I take the time to blink then GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER.
This does not bode well, I feel, for JB’s brother’s wedding in late January, which the children are expected to attend. And when I say “expected”, I don’t mean the bride or groom particularly care whether they are there, I mean my dingbat husband and his parents want the kids to come, for reasons which remain confusing to me but apparently have something to do with being in the photos. I have strongly advocated against bringing them if we can figure out a good alternative solution, because my GOD, it’s a WEDDING, and an evening wedding at that. JB is the best man, so I’ll pretty much be on my own when it comes to keeping both kids quiet and still during the ceremony, which what the hell, someone draw out the logistics of that for me, because outside of canvas restraints and a blow-dart of phenobarbital I can’t picture how it’s going to work at ALL, and I don’t know what kind of crack JB’s smoking if he thinks the kids will cooperate for some nice sit-down formal photographs, have we learned NOTHING from history here, and seriously, it’ll be late and the boys will be cranky and psycho and Dylan will be braining himself on everything in sight and Riley will probably be doing the thing where he waits until there’s a moment of total silence in a public area before loudly asking me about the mole on my neck or maybe even musing at top volume about the mystery of why I don’t have a penis and he does, and am I ALONE in thinking this is just a really, really bad idea and we should hire a babysitter for the evening instead?
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