The Rose's Grove

We survived Baby's First Camping trip this weekend, although it was, in some ways, a bit of a doozy.

First, we had to run a few errands on the way and drop off keys with some friends so they could look in on Theoden while we were gone, give him his meds and all that, and while we were doing that L started getting fussy. I gave him some crackers, but then when we got to the friends' house he thought we were going in to see their kitties and got upset when we didn't take him out of his car seat. Then Google directed us north, which was odd, since we were quite sure we were meant to be going south, but given where we were we thought it was redirecting us around some bad traffic to a faster route to the 5. By the time we figured out that was not the case and that it was trying to direct us up north to catch a ferry we did not have reservations for, L was bawling and I had to pee, and we were closer to home than where we were meant to be anyway, so we just went home and gave him a real snack in his high chair, had a bit of a snack ourselves, hit the bathroom, reset, and got back out on the road.

Then Google kept trying to direct us back north to the ferry. Every three minutes. For, like, half an hour. "There is a faster route..." Not if you take into account that the ferry isn't always right there waiting to pick up a single car and rush to the other side, idiot! We could not convince it to stop telling us this. It was deeply annoying and the best thing I could do was stab the "No thanks" button as soon as it appeared so that The Boy didn't have to deal with it and we had to hear as little of the message as possible.

Eventually Google figured out it would take us longer to turn around and go back north to the ferry than to continue onward, so it shut up and we had some peace for a while... until we got close to our destination, where my dad had said we would encounter a QFC where we could pick up some food and call them to see if they needed anything. Except the QFC never appeared. It later turned out that he'd just assumed we would go by one of two available and functionally equal routes, but while we were trying to figure this out, we thought we hit a stick and dragged it for a bit. Then we got to the welcome center at the campground, and while we were in line... the driver of the car behind us came up and told us we had a flat tire. Great. That pinned all of The Boy's Saturday morning on getting the donut spare onto the car, driving to the nearest town with a Les Schwab, and buying new tires... oh, and practically the first thing my stepmom told me was that she'd hurt her back and wouldn't be able to pick up or carry L very much this weekend. This after my dad had promised me when I agreed to this trip that he and my stepmom would take L as much as possible (he said basically the whole time, but I knew that wouldn't be happening...) so that The Boy and I could actually rest. Ha. Oh, and then that night L woke The Boy up at 2am whining because he was cold, and then put The Boy's arm to sleep and the rest of him not so much to sleep for the rest of the night. So.

Anyway. After all of that (and me having a near panic-attack the first night because I was stressed and peopled out and uncertain about whether L was warm enough and and and and and...), we did have a pretty good time. Some of Dad and Stepmom's friends turned out to have a granddaughter the same age as L who they were missing and so took especial delight in spoiling and snuggling him sometimes when Dad and Stepmom weren't doing so, L got to go on a boat for the first time and didn't get scared at all (or test his life jacket, thankfully), tires were replaced with minimal fuss, and although neither of us got much alone time to relax except for an hour I spent in the tent with L while he was napping, we did still have fun. My younger stepbrother even dropped by for dinner, flying in to the local small airport on his plane, which was nice because it was the first time he's gotten to meet L. The second night I had The Boy sleep in the parents' RV, and although L woke up at 9:30 with a nightmare or something we had a pretty good sleep together in the big bed, and he let me sleep until 5 and then doze until 6:30, so that wasn't so bad.

L picked up some exciting new words over the weekend, too, namely "bed," "beer," and "butt monster," which mostly sounds like "buh mama" but which I am delighted by. I'm less delighted by "beer," which he's very clear about, given that he was excitedly pointing and shouting it at the grocery store on our way home and... come on, kid. We drink maybe one drink a night two or three nights a week, but you're gonna give everybody you meet, now, the impression that we're alcoholics. I'm fine with having the kid who shouts "Butt monster!" and "EEEWWWW!" because I feel like that gives people a realistic impression of me as a parent. "Beer," not so much. Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

Tomorrow is L's birthday, and I've made a lemon cake with lemon curd filling, and will do up some cream cheese frosting for it tomorrow. The frosting will either be plain or pale green, I'm not sure yet. Will probably decide based on whether I like the color that it comes out as plain.

My neck and shoulders are in a pretty much permanent state of aching, tightness, and knots right now. Have been for the last week and a half. I wake up with neck pain, and it stays through the day, progresses into my shoulders, and then I go to sleep with it. I am unsure how much of this is carrying an increasingly heavy toddler, how much of it is chronic bad posture and a recent complete lack of exercise that doesn't involve chasing/herding/coaxing/watching a toddler or pushing a stroller, and how much might have something to do with sinus pressure and/or possibly my long-overdue impacted wisdom teeth pressing on... things. I don't even know what. Who knows what those bastards are up to. (And, yes, I have a referral to an oral surgeon literally on my desk, buuuuuut, to return to an earlier theme, I am the primary all-day caregiver to toddler, so getting put out of commission for oral surgery right now is not exactly top of my list of convenient things to do.)

It is not the level of pain that requires drugs. It is the kind that means I spend a lot of time trying to stretch, crack my back, massage out my own muscle knots, and wear a hot pad around my neck and shoulders.

Anyway. I aten't dead. Occasionally remember to even check this thing.

Edited to add Okay, I had the husband give me a back/neck massage, which definitely confirmed the oh-shit-knots situation, and I did some strategizing about what the problem(s) is(/are) and how I can fix some of them. I can't help the fact that I spend a lot of my day looking down at L and bending slightly to hold his hand, or carrying him. I can set my desk (which has been in sit-mode since we moved) back to stand-mode, which I have done, and focus on scrolling so that I'm reading or writing or editing or whatever at actual eye-height rather than down, which, due to the afore-mentioned downturn to my head because of baby, I'd started to get in the habit of not doing. I found myself reading at the bottom of my screen a lot, and that's bad. I can also just try to focus on my posture in general (which I've been trying to do, but not consistently), try to stretch in the morning and at night, and see about scheduling a real massage for once our vaccines take effect. So... gonna see about doing all of that. Because yeouch.

So, I've been trying for a while to get L to give me things when I ask for them. He will show me his toys ("Yellow bunny! Hop hop hop!" I gamely announce as he smacks the wooden puzzle piece of a yellow bunny against my face...), but no amount of "L, can I see your ___? Where's ___?" worked.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon I asked, "Where's your red ball?" and he picked it up and handed it to me right away, whereupon I threw an absolute party for him, exulting, "Yes! Red ball! That's your red ball! Good job, buddy, good job!!!" and so on.

So, trying to build on yesterdays's success, today I asked for a toy that has been one of his favorites for basically his entire life, a little stuffed bird with crinkly stuff in it that we, in our typically creative way, have always, as long as L has been alive, called Crinkly Bird.

"L," I said, "where's Crinkly Bird? Can you show me Crinkly Bird?"

L looked around and very proudly picked up... the red ball. And handed it to me.

"Oh," I said, trying not to be too visibly disappointed. "That's your red ball." And I picked up Crinkly Bird. "This is Crinkly Bird," I reminded him, because apparently the last thirteen-and-a-half months of referring to Crinkly Bird, who was once his absolute favorite toy in the whole wide world, by that name have meant nothing, and neither did yesterday's success at identification. I had a brief moment of "My god, what if he's not learning? What if he's never going to get it? What if I'm doing all of this wrong, or if he just isn't capable? There are dogs and parrots who can identify and retrieve 200+ named objects, but my baby, an actual human being, apparently thinks his red ball is the answer to all queries."

But repetition is how things learn, so about ten minutes later I checked that the little wooden puzzle piece of a blue dog was near him but not the current focus of his attention and asked, "L, where's your blue doggy?"

He looked around, picked it up, and handed it right to me.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the huge fuss I threw over the red ball, combined with the fact that I like to play with the red ball while he's not paying attention to me, convinced him that I REALLY like his red ball, and... somewhat confused the issue, perhaps. Or maybe he thought 'where is' meant the red ball. I don't know. It's gotta be really hard learning language as a concept rather than just learning a specific language. And, as The Boy pointed out, dogs and African Gray parrots are generally held to be as smart as human three year-olds, not fourteen month-olds...