The Mess. And the Rest (Plus One Swear)

Week Thirty-Nine/Fifty Two

"A portrait of my child(ren), once a week, every week, in 2014"

 

So he's my baby. He's the last (yes, I concede defeat and there will be no more littles running around underfoot) and so ya know...I'm still shoving pacifiers into his mouth even though he hates to use them. I'm still trying to get him to take a bottle when I'm not around, even though he's been drinking out of a straw/sippy cup for months. I still rock him to sleep. I still hold him while he sleeps. I still awkwardly smell his head and try to rub my face with the back of his hand. I've made up his "toddler bed" but know damn well he's sleeping with me for a good long while. Like years. I am  decidedly happy to coast ever so slowly towards true toddlerhood. I'm clinging to the words infant and baby, and when someone asks how old he is and I tell them...sweet sausage on a stick help them if they tell me he's big. Cause he's not. He's my baby.

 

However. The eating. It took him forever how to figure out how to, I don't know...swallow food. For months he balked at baby food. Then for months after that he balked at regular food. He didn't start eating until late in the game. I've had to pull over on more than one occasion to scoop bagel out of his throat cause he just can not figure out how to bite, chew, swallow. Food is still cut into tiny bits for him. Generally he eats with his fingers (holy Moses save me from the mess) and usually almost never ever spoons food into his own mouth. Developmentally I have no idea where that puts him, and I could give precisely no fucks. But for the love of Christmas Cats it would be so effing sweet if I could just hand the kid a cheese stick. Or a banana. Or a French frigging toast stick. Or I don't know, something that gets squirted out of a pouch. I've got other mouths to feed, my own being one of them. So when it comes to food...I'm pushing. I'm hoping. I'm praying that sooner rather than later he'll be mixing drinks and baking pies. But for now...bananas. This is pretty much how he does bananas.

 {the mess}

The good thing about bananas for lunch...is they happen right before nap. Something else I will be clinging to by the way. Because sanity.

{the rest}
 

  *Also, he figured out how to climb out of his highchair this week. Good thing he figured it out while I was paying attention to him. Back to buckles.

**Also again. Five times. Five different times he has gotten out of the bath and we haven't put a diaper on him right away. And five different times he's peed on the floor. How many times before his father and I learn? More than five I guess.