Because I'm a Pansy Princess

OK, no, really, am I being ridiculous, here? Yesterday at the UPS store, Teddy was sitting on his bum on the floor at my feet, quietly playing with his shoes (?) while I sent off all the Mother's Day gifts, plus a couple more packages (it was taking a while, and he was being VERY manageable, for which I am grateful, since it was naptime...) A woman came to stand in line behind the person behind me, and walked up to Teddy, telling me how cute he was, and started running her fingers through his hair. Luckily, blessedly, THANKFULLY, this did not set him off, as it could have, since he was so tired (last errand of the morning, I was really pushing to get it done), but it still really bugged me. I was polite to her and thanked her for the compliments, had Teddy thank her, too and finally was able to leave.

I was thinking about it off and on later, and I realized why I was bugged, and there are a couple reasons.

First, one never hears of someone just going up to people and starting to touch them unsolicited unless the touched person is a) pregnant, or b) a baby or a toddler. In the first case it is flat out rude, and not only because the area being touched is usually the stomach. (Why anyone would ever think that any woman wants to be touched on  her stomach by a complete stranger, whether she's pregnant or not, is totally beyond me, but anyway.) (Note: this never actually happened to me. A stranger did ask me if she could touch my stomach, and I couldn't help it: I looked at her like she had three heads before saying, "Uhhhhh, no?") In the second case, well, maybe it isn't "rude" (in my opinion, it is), but it is certainly a bad idea. The baby could have stranger wariness, and the last thing any mom needs is someone setting her baby off in public. Maybe the toddler is being taught to not allow people he doesn't know to touch him, and he could start shouting "Bad touch Mommy!" or something. (Or maybe, as in this case, Mommy is reminded to start teaching her toddler to not allow strangers to touch him. After yesterday, I'm considering training him to bite....no, not really...!)

Also, not to be all "our children our are speshul friends for us to nurture and protect their widdle feelings" about it, but, it really does seem to me that it's kind of disrespectful to run your fingers through a strange child's hair when you wouldn't (I assume she wouldn't, anyway) do the same to a strange adult..

What do you think? What would you have done or said?

Also, a portrait of a boy and his hair:

The Starter's Pistol

This space has been years in the making: pondering off and on, plotting here and there, planning what I want to accomplish, how to get there, why I want to do it. But then I realized that the only thing that was REALLY holding me back was my fear that my life as a stay at home Mom to a toddleby was not coherent or cohesive enough to "translate well" to a "web presence". Which is a ridiculous hangup to have, since my goal is not at ALL to be any sort of "presence" other than one that is more readily searchable - for myself- than Facebook notes and links, which is where I currently store all my "inspirations" and "notes of note". This very first post, which was originally a family wide email, illustrates this PERFECTLY. When I FINALLY "birthed" this space this past week (and the moniker "endless yattering" will be explained in due time. I hope), I had planned to tweak the template, poke at the profile settings, figure out the commenting and privacy, and pretty much take my time with all the stage setting before I launched a brilliant, poignant, pithy FIRST POST, which would be the epitome of Who I Am and Why I Am Here. And then last night happened. And I composed the above mentioned All Family Email. And then I blew off my friends tonight, vaguely citing that we had "an eventful evening last night", so we "need to lay low tonight" as an excuse (which they, because they are so gracious and understanding and kind, did not pry further into). And then I figured I owed them an explanation for SURE, and that the explanation was kind of a Big Deal, so maybe it should also be mentioned publicly. So I started yet another Facebook note. And I thought, "NO. Life with a toddleby is NOT coherent or cohesive or tidy. This happening is pretty much the most appropriate way to kick off this new space: with a bang."

Welcome to our life with a toddleby, plus other various interests and pursuits.


Since his last ER visit was the night after he was born, hanging out with the wonderful nurses and doctors at Sierra Vista in SLO ("because they have a NICU" was pointed out to us, cue my freshly postpartum WOW-head-explosion), our darling son must have thought he was about due for another. At 7 o'clock on Wednesday night, our  little Teddywas standing on his garbage truck, like we tell him not to do a hundred times a day, and it rolled out from under him and he fell, banging his head on the tile floor (SPOILER ALERT: he is fine), like he does a hundred times a week. We gave him arnica topically and orally and he nursed and seemed ok (eyes equal and reactive - I check after EVERY fall, no sluggishness other than what he'd already been displaying due to his lack of a nap). But an hour later he was still complaining of pain "OW, wight HEAH", pointing to his head bump (enter Children's Tylenol), and an hour after that he started vomiting. (Mama deal-breaker alert.)

So we took him to the ER here in Templeton, and they were not busy so we were seen right away. The doctor agreed that his eyes were fine, his sluggishness could be exhaustion, but, like me, he was worried about the vomiting so they told us we could (of course) *choose* whether to have a CT scan, keeping radiation concerns in mind. We chose the scan.  Because he had thrown up a total of four times before being by seen by a doctor, they gave him a meltaway Zofran (which he then threw up) while we waited for CT. (Side note: I was slightly annoyed that the nurse just walked in and popped it in his mouth without *really* asking if we wanted it. We *had* already noted that he has no allergies to "medication", but still... She mentioned that it was flavored, and I'm guessing that it was a nasty poisonous artificial flavor, but, HEY, I'm the person that let him eat a whole slice of birthday cake with his lunch, AND he practically cracked his head open on my watch, all on the same day, so I recognize that I'm not really in a position to be nitpicky...)

I guess NONE of the departments were busy, Praise the LORD, because we were taken back to CT within twenty minutes of the order being put in, at about 10:45 pm (Teddy initially chose to have me stay with him in the CT room but then when he was on the table with the apron on him, he said "Mommy, I scared" and I pretty much folded like a cheap fan, so Matt took over.) Matt stayed with him while I watched the tech run the scan, and it was super fast, not nearly the fifteen minutes he'd asked us to hold Teddy still for. Matt talked to him throughout the beeps and flashes of light, and by the time it was over, Teddy wanted to come back and do it again sometime (um, no thanks!). The results came back great: no fractures or interior bleeding, so he was good to be discharged, and he fell asleep as soon as he laid down on the bed, clutching the little stuffed dog the nurse gave him in the exam room (they are made by volunteers, and if we didn't take it, they'd have to throw it away, for health reasons of course). So, that was our Wednesday night: ER visit number two, hospital number two. Let's hope this little guy doesn't decide to take a tour of ALL the emergency rooms in the county...

(My poor, sleeping post-CT baby, and his brave strong Daddy.)

He is completely fine today; we went to the beach with a friend and he and his little friend chased seagulls and had pulling contests with the prime sand toys. He had a great nap, and is merrily eating his dinner, chatting garrulously with Daddy about his fun day. God is so good to us.