Harrison Bought a House

Such a busy time in our lives, sorry for not updating recently.  We close on our new house on Friday and are thrilled to be moving!  I really can't get out of the 2nd floor apartment fast enough.  And as if I needed further motivation, we have become infested with tiny ants in the past few days.  We thought it was limited to the kitchen, where they have been helping themselves to fresh baked loaves of bread, dog food and some delicious leftovers, but no...Peyton saw one on the shower head today.  Good.  Drown, you stupid freeloaders!  So the ants go marching onto the list of things I won't miss in four days.  Other items include: having to move the coffee table against the couch to have room to spend time on the floor with Harrison, thus trapping anyone on the couch and making it impossible to walk through the living room without walking on the coffee table (which I have done) or doing dancer-type leaps over Peyton while he plays video games (which I do beautifully).  Also not going to miss the ethernet cable which runs from our closet, down the hall, over the half wall in the dining room and into the living room.  If I ever trip and fall with Harrison in my arms, I will sue the person responsible, which will be counter-productive, as we share a bank account, but my point will be made nonetheless.  I will not miss lugging 80lbs of anything up our hot staircase, which we have had to curtain off ghetto-style in order to not send our $275 electric bills into the $300 range. I will not miss vertical blinds, parking 30 yards away, never checking the mail because it's too hot, and having to drive somewhere to pick up deliveries.  All of these things can go to hell.  I also will not miss Zoe.  What?  Who said that?  Peyton, are you typing right now too?  I do not wish her to go to hell, though.  She probably already thinks she's there anyway.

Other changes we have made: We traded in Harrison for a baby who can sit up and it's been a dream...just lovely, I tell you.  We named him Harrison as well, so there shouldn't be any confusion.  New and talented Harrison is also eating from a delightfully healthy and 100% organic menu of avocados, bananas, carrots, butternut squash, peaches, pears, zucchini, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, brown rice and oatmeal, and soon to include mangos.  I, as the acting chef of these delicacies, find them all to be quite delicious and so does New Harrison, who gets a little fussy if you don't feed him at the quick pace he desires.  When he isn't eating or sitting up, he is trying his hardest to crawl, but just isn't quite there yet, much to my relief.  Besides the part about him just growing up so fast, I'm really just not ready to go into 24/7 chase mode just yet.  However, he is really cute when he tries, and has started to do a little thrust-and-grunt move which he thinks is helping.  It's not.  But it does help me laugh!  Here's a video:

Harrison's New Moves

Over the weekend, Harrison also discovered the art of throwing a fit for no reason.  Up until now, we could brag about how he never cries unless he's tired or hungry or not feeling well.  Lol. And lol some more.  He now has made the connection between crying and getting picked up, and therefore spend about 90% of his waking time this weekend in our arms, while we decide how we're going to handle this in the future.  For now, if we set him down right in front of us, and make sure he's still touching our leg or leaning on us, it's not good enough.  He can and will throw himself at us with arms outstretched and burst into tears.  It's just sad and cute enough that it works for him at the moment.  We'll have to do something soon, though.  The kid's heavy!  Throw in a double ear infection though, and he can have whatever he wants for a few days.

Yeah, he's probably going to end up a tiny bit spoiled.  And yeah...I'm probably not too worried about it.

It's too HOT to be pleasant!

Normally I would feel compelled to consider my audience and turn on my brain-to-mouth (or in this case, brain-to-phalanges) function, but I just don't feel that way today.  Whatev...it's my blog.  You're lucky I even just bothered to look up the correct spelling of phalanges, to be honest.  Saved myself some real embarrassment though, I must say.

So chalk it up to PMS or lack of sleep or something, but I just can't get it up for anything this week.  I don't feel like working, exercising, being nice to people, or functioning in any capacity that could be deemed necessary.  Needless to say, it's really not a good time for my bank to choose to F with me (and yet they have), for the hospital to ignore my requests to file Harrison being born with our insurance (morons), or for me to have to pick up my glamourous cube dwellings and move them to a back corner where I will be surrounded by...OMG...there are no words for these people, why would I even try to explain it?  My days will now be filled with comments about my unmarried status, Loudmouth complaining about everyone else being loud, and Afroduck calling Obama her "boyfriend".  Geeeeeeeeez, it hurts to think about!  I was just telling Peyton that I don't know how I could get through my day without the option of visiting Harrison whenever I feel like it and I think that little perk just became incredibly huge.  Who knows?  Maybe daycare will have to change our enrollment to "part time" due to all the hours I will soon be spending down there taking care of H myself.

Just to get it out of my system (which is running on fumes right now), I'm going to create a quick bitch-list, and then hopefully go about my day feeling a bit more calm and maybe even motivated.  (motivated to nap, maybe...)

1. I had a dream last night that people were assuming horrible things about me because Peyton and I aren't married and asking me questions about how old Harrison was when I abandoned him and who was going to act as his mother since it obviously wasn't going to be me.  Thanks, two hours of sleep, for filling  my head with that crap during the only period of rest I got the whole night!  So why wouldn't my j-ass co-worker choose today to make a similar comment to my face?  In real life?  Do you like how I hyphenated j-ass?  I shortened it, but left the ass word.  Nice, huh?  What a dick...

2. Here is me being sensitive about yesterday's Galleria incident.  If you're going to off yourself, do it in the privacy of your own home and don't throw yourself into a sea of ice-skating children!!  WTF! The off-the-charts selfishness of this one just KILLS ME, and I also have now lost my desire to go near the mall for a while since I have other things I'd rather have filling my head than the image of a bloody ice rink and crying babies.  (If they decide to go with the "he fell" version of the story, which I'm sure some ambulance-chasing lawyer has already approached the guy's gf about) then I will take back my rant.  But he didn't fall.  Just so you know.

3. I really am sick of it being this hot.  I mean, come on already, this is just stupid at this point.  And just to give me something else to be pissy about, there are idiots running around Dallas stealing air conditioners for the metal.  They stole ten from a church...and someone else stole some 70-something year old lady's from her house and she died from the heat.  PLEASE God, give me a stack of free passes to Hell so I can hand them out.  I'd be SO good at it right now.  Just one less thing for You to have to worry about anyway, what with American politicians giving you the middle finger every day. You deal with them, I'll deal with the local scum.  Deal?

4.  Coffee no longer tastes good to me.  This has been going on for close to two weeks and you would not belieeeeve how pissed I am about it.  My teeth are now permanently clenched, which feels amazing.  Not to mention the fact that it could very well be part of the reason for my delightfulness over the past couple of days.

5.  This is the at least the seventh blog entry I have written this week, and the only one that's getting posted because it's also the nicest.  You should have seen my rant about the stupidity of a little product called BinkySpritz.

And now it is time to go visit Harrison for the second time today.  There will probably even be a third.

Reason, Season, or Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you figure out which one it is,
you will know what to do for each person.
When someone is in your life for a REASON,
it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty;
to provide you with guidance and support;
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.
Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.
Some people come into your life for a SEASON,
because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person,
and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
— Unknown


Thank you, Jamee T., for sending me this today.  I really needed it!  It helps me to sort through a lot of mixed emotions I've been having lately, which is no small task.  


Since Harrison's arrival, I've been getting pretty picky about who is in our lives.  Clearly, drug-addicts, child-abusers and the sort need not apply.  But there is this other gray area that I'm trying to wade through, and I'm not sure where to draw the line.  Sadly, even family is included in the gray, and it breaks my heart.  For them, more than for myself, but most of all, for Harrison.  He is such a wonderful baby and his personality is really starting to shine through and there are people who simply are not interested, and it's sad to me. They are missing out on so much and there are no re-do's.  I've been reaching out to the people that I feel should be, need to be, or I thought would want to be a part of his life and I'm really surprised at some of the results.  There are people in my own family who will never even meet him, and others who will only meet him once.  I'm not talking about distant relatives either.  No, "distant" would never describe someone who grew up in the same house as you, now would it?  As far as friends go, I've never expected my baby to become the center of anyone else's universe - you'd only get in my way, anyway.  But the feeling of being shut out?  Not something I expected.  


So lately, I'm a little hurt and wanting to react, but trying not to.  I'm not ready to end any friendships over it.  But I guess what I am ready to do is start figuring out which category people fall into and reset my expectations accordingly.  


In the meantime, my very best friends are living under my own roof, which is more than I could ever ask for anyway.

The Tiredness Just Never Ends.

I just did something that I've been doing a lot since Harrison was born...I wrote a whole blog entry and then deleted it because of how all over the place it was and the complete lack of sense it made.  I used to be able to just rattle off whatever was going through my mind, do a quick spell check and post.  Now I have to proofread everything very carefully and ask myself if anyone other than me will have any idea what I'm trying to say.  My brain has been partially deactivated, and I'm just now starting to realize what a huge effect that has on things.

You know what's really helpful in keeping yourself on top of things and getting through every day more or less unscathed?  Sleep.  You know what simply is never going to be in full supply again?  Sleep. You know what pregnant women THINK they are missing out on and look forward to being able to do again?  Ha! Sleep. Uncomfortable as it may be, pregnant sleep is still much more effective than post-pregnant sleep. And guess what?  You're not going to be doing much of it for a very, very, very long time.  Even when you do, and your sweet little baby is doing you the gigantic favor of sleeping through the night, you'll still wake up every time he makes a sound.  Or maybe he won't make a sound.  That will wake you up too, because WHY ISN'T HE MAKING A SOUND?  And let's just say that everything falls into place you both get a full eight hours one night...or even two or three nights in a row.  It's simply not enough to make up for all of the sleep you have lost over the last few months.  Not to mention the fact that once he's sleeping through the night consistently, it becomes ten times harder to get up with him on the nights he wakes up for whatever reason.

Yesterday, we left the house for thirty miserable minutes to go buy Harrison some new clothes.  It was 174 degrees outside, I felt sick as soon as I shut the front door behind me, and twelve seconds after Peyton put the car in drive, Harrison started crying.  As I reached for something to soothe him, I realized that I had just walked out the door with my purse in hand and nothing else.  My purse, mind you, contains absolutely nothing of importance.  You would think that after five months of practice, I would have the simple step of "pacifier - check" down pat.  Or that maybe, care and concern for my baby would lead me to grab a bottle of something for the car ride, what with the death-heat I was dragging him into and all.  But no...my brain had shut down for the day at around three o'clock and this was well past four.  Poor Harrison. Poor everyone involved, really.

This is how life has come to be and I am trying my best to accept it and to put steps in place to make sure I come across as a functioning human being.  For example, it just took me six tries to type the word "functioning" and three of those attempts resulted in an offensive word.  Sending emails has become a scary thing.  My grammar and spelling skills are half what they used to be, which is awesome, since that's one of my biggest pet peeves.  I've come to work with half my make-up on, I frequently leave my lunch in the microwave for half an hour or more, I get up from my desk to go to the printer, and do three other things instead, none of which involve the printer in any way.  Which is fine, because half the time, when I do make it to the printer, I get there only to realize that I never hit "print".

Sad to say, I'm averaging eight hours of sleep per night.  But the nights that I sleep for eight straight hours without waking up are few and far between.  Who knows when I'll finally catch up from that first month, when I only slept eight hours total.  I would love to not know what three o'clock in the morning looks like, but it has actually become very familiar, although we are not friendly with each other.  It's also quite possible that eight hours is just not enough anymore. Taking care of a baby, as fun as it is (and it really, really is) is absolutely exhausting.  Magical too, though.

My advice for anyone who is pregnant right now:
Get a pregnancy pillow. Now.
Start writing everything down.  Your memory is NOT coming back.
Sleep when the baby sleeps.  Every. Single. Time.
Do not get a video monitor.
Daddy can do the dishes and the laundry.
If you can take a two hour nap while the baby sleeps on your chest, do it. No one is getting spoiled. Trust me.
Cry-it-out is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
And I hate to admit this one, because I was 100% opposed to the idea...get the baby into his/her own room as soon as you can.  You're going to jump out of bed every time you hear a sigh while they sleep in your room.
Keep the monitor turned down low.  You need to hear, "AAAAAAHHHH!" You don't need to hear "Eh."

Not to scare anyone of course.  Babies are, after all, the best reason to lose sleep there is. And brain cells.

Home-Hunting

We are house-hunting for our first house as a family, and it’s starting to hit me just how important this is.  Without sweet baby Harrison in the picture, it would be all about floors and room dimensions and fixtures and lighting.  It would be about finding just the right house to suit our taste.  He brings to light, however, that there is an entirely different angle that has to be considered as we search for our new place to live.  It’s something intangible that we can’t just list under our “needs” and “wants”.  Likewise, it’s something I can’t even really put into words. We are not just looking for a house for Harrison, we are looking for a home.  But how will we know the difference?

Growing up, my parents moved us around much more than I would have liked, and it never felt like we stayed anywhere long enough to feel attached to the place we lived.  Once, we did live in a certain house for about three years, and it came the closest to being a home to me, but once again, we moved away.  I’m not really sure what it was about that house.  I remember the day we moved in, I counted the steps from the doorway of my bedroom to the kitchen table.  It was seven.  Every day after that, I made sure to get myself to breakfast in seven steps or less.  I practiced jumping from my bedroom door onto my bed, without having to touch the carpet, which was actually lava, so I could live to see another day.  My closet door opened just the right way so that the light from it would shine on my bed instead of towards my door, allowing me to stay up late reading well after bedtime, without getting caught.  In the long, skinny bathroom with the tub at the end, my best friend and I shampooed the floor and flung ourselves to the other end, slipping and sliding into the door.  There was a big bay window at the front of the house, where we always placed our Christmas tree, and each room of the house led to another, so I could literally run laps around the inside of the house if I felt the need to, and I often did.  That was the house where we brought home my new baby brother, and hung framed paintings I had made on his walls.  I learned to do (and hate) my own laundry, and also learned that valuable lesson that dish soap and dishwasher soap are not the same thing.  Outside of our house, the streets were hilly and perfect for bike-riding adventures.  Every friend I cared to have lived within riding distance, and the neighbors without children would let us use their pools during the summer if we didn’t feel like going all the way to the yacht club.  Yes, that house was the closest to home I have ever been, and it has now been twenty-three years since we moved away, and it’s a place I still drive by every time I get the chance.  It has even been for sale a few times and my heart would race at the possibility of getting to live there again, but it would never be the same now. 

I want what I had in that home for Harrison, but I want it for much longer than just a couple of years.  So now, when we walk into a house, I try to picture all of the memories that will be created there, all the magic that will happen, all the growing up that will take place…and it has nothing to do with anything but a feeling, I guess.  Also, some practicalities, like “will we have plenty of space to bake cookies together?” and “will Harrison be able to sneak out of his bedroom window someday?” (every kid needs that option, no matter what you say.)  I try to imagine him waking up on Christmas morning and running to the Christmas tree…should he run down a flight of stairs?  Should the tree be next to a fireplace?  Will there be plenty of kids on the block so he can share his new toys?  Can the backyard be another world if it needs to be?  Is there at least one overgrown yard, hiding a run-down house so he’ll have a place to be the subject of his scary stories?  

These are all important things to a kid, things I lost too soon and never got back.  Part of keeping our house a home will fall to us, his parents, but part of it will just already be there, in whatever house we choose, waiting for Harrison to wake up its magic and bring it to life. 

No pressure.  

Harrison This, Harrison That...

I have a friend...scratch that...HAD a friend who recently made me lose steam for blogging about Harrison.  Within an hour of my last blog post, she deleted me as a friend on Facebook and then got all passive aggressive and pretended it was an accident.  It was pretty gross.  So I'm just going to start this one by saying this:  


If you have any problem with my happiness...get lost.  If you feel like I'm undeserving of what I have...get lost.  If you resent me for having what you want...get lost.  If you can't handle me bragging to the world about the most perfect human being ever created...get lost.  If you consider me going on about how great my life is now a "rant"...you get the idea.  


And now that we have that out of our systems, I will go back to yapping about my child anytime I feel compelled to, and now happens to be one of those times. 


Harrison Peyton Ker...ooooh, you silly little man.  Who told you it was ok to grow up this fast?  I'd like to have a talk with them.  Within the past three weeks, he has taken to rolling over (both ways), holding his bottle himself (sometimes even using his feet), watching grown-up movies with mom and dad, recognizing certain people, reaching for us, and last but not least...."eating" rice cereal.  If you can even call it that. 


Here's my new diet plan.  Harrison taught it to me.  I'm going to strip down to my undies, grab a bowl and a spoon, and feed myself tiny spoonfuls of goo, letting at least half of it dribble back out of my mouth and into my lap.  That way, I get to taste all the gourmet delights that come my way without having to deal with the calories.  And if someone could just have a bubble bath ready and waiting for me when I'm finished, that would be pretty special.  Harrison is not a rice cereal fan.  I think he's starting to get used to it, but I read that babies sometimes have to try something fifteen times before developing a taste for it.  Awesome.  Only nine more feedings until he makes his final decision.  I think it looks like paper mache paste, and could care less if he ever wants it, but we keep trying to do what the doctor says.  Listening to him is starting to feel like listening to your parents tell you what to do.  You know they know best, but it doesn't make following directions any less annoying.  Most of his instructions are met with an internal response by me of, "Ugh! Whatever....fine."  On the outside I just smile and nod.  But in two months, when he asks how the rice cereal went, I may pretend it was great and that we didn't start vegetables three weeks early.  


Also on the list of new activities is giggling.  Harrison is now a pro at laughing, but seems to prefer to save his energy for when daddy is acting like a goofball.  Which is a lot.  YouTube video to follow shortly.  But be warned...Harrison laughing is the best thing in the history of ever, and all other things in life may seem to fall short after you experience it.  How's THAT for bragging?


I'll leave you with some photo evidence of foot-assisted bottle-holding, in case you thought I was kidding.  

The Grass is Greener Over Here

"Families with babies and families without babies are sorry for each other."  ~Ed Howe

Ain't that the truth?  I remember reading this quote when I was single and had plans to stay childless forever.  I saw screaming kids go running from their mothers in the mall and would take comfort in knowing that would never be me.  I remember sitting on the patio one night with Peyton and high-fiving each other for not having kids and getting to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.  Kids, to a person without them, especially to someone who doesn't want them, look like nothing more than an unpotty-trained obligation.  They look like a commitment too overwhelming to ever consider, and a lot of the time, they look dirty and gross too.    

All of those things are true.  

What the people without children don't understand though, is how wonderful all of that stuff is.  I don't get to go to happy-hour anymore, because instead, I have to come home to an adorable baby who is bound to be doing something new and unexpected today, and needs me to take his picture.  I used to look over at mini-vans at red lights and feel so badly for the women driving them.  Poor ladies not only had to put up with incessant yapping from the back seat, they had to drive a nerdy car too.  Lucky me.  Sitting in my convertible by myself, listening to whatever I want to.  Now, I play songs by Moose A. Moose for my four month old, who probably doesn't care what's on the radio, because I like the songs.  

Everything I do for Harrison, right down to cleaning poop from places I didn't know poop could go, makes me ten times happier than anything I ever did for myself.  As I sat in the massage chair getting a pedicure the other day, I grew increasing more frustrated with how long the woman was rubbing my legs before painting my toenails because I just wanted to get home to my baby.  Who even cares if my legs are massaged?  What I have to go home to now is more rewarding and exciting and fun and interesting and fulfilling than anything my life every provided me before.  

I've been on both sides of the fence.  The thing is, people who don't want kids can always change their minds.  People who have them would never want to.  

I don't miss happy hour.  And there's beer in the fridge.

Sometimes Reading is for Stupid People

Since baby Harrison has come along, time has become so much more precious than it used to be, for many reasons.  Every minute of the day is like money being spent, and naturally, we want to spend it on things we want and need, not the things that don't matter.  


For that reason, I would like to say, that if the book I am currently reading was an actual book and not a downloaded iBook on my iPad, I would throw it out the window right now.  I have spent five-hundred pages of my life (which equals who knows how many hours) getting into this dumb story about this girl trying to figure out what killed her brother and a few other people in town.  A murder mystery, right?  Not so much.  Some idiot character in the book actually saw her brother get killed and just didn't want to tell anyone (until page 502) because it turns out, he was eaten alive by a walking corpse wearing a 3-piece suit in a cemetery.  Are you f*&!ing kidding me?!  There is a giant pile of laundry in the corner of my bedroom that needs folding!!  Oh, and by the way, he was gay and dying of AIDS but was scared to tell ya, lady.  THAT'S the part of the story she found unbelievable, by the way.  "But...why didn't he just tell me he was gay?"  Beware the FREE DOWNLOADS on iBooks.  When was the last time you walked into a Barnes & Noble and were just handed a book?  "Here.  Free of charge.  Our gift to you."  NEVER.  I should have thought of that two weeks ago when I started this..."novel".  NOTHING worth having is ever free.  


"He looked back as the creature popped out one of Nick's eyeballs, devouring it with what looked like an insatiable hunger."  


There are no words...


Anyhoo, that wasn't even going to be my point, but this just happened to me last night, while Peyton was out of town and my time was therefore all-the-more precious.  There are no less then nineteen other things I could have been doing that I would not be embarrassed to talk about today.  Now I've totally forgotten what I was going to say in the first place - which adds about ten minutes to the amount of my life this book stole from me, because that's how long I just wrote about it.  Sheesh.  


The good news is, this led me to discovering an app called Overdrive Media Console, which allows you to download eBooks and audiobooks from your local library for free.  So next time, I won't have to worry about the cost of a book, and can just read something worthwhile instead.  


Seriously...he got eaten alive.


I'm so sorry, Harrison.

To Sleep, Perchance to Somethingorother...

Why is it that the good days fly by while the bad days seem to drag on forever?  When Harrison is in a great mood, feeling well, sleeping lots and smiling even more, it seems like the day ends all too soon, and we wish he'd stay awake just a little longer so we can enjoy him for an extra hour.  


However, when Harrison is pooping all over his jammies, peeing on the wall (or my hair), throwing up on the outfit I just put on him, trying to throw himself out of the bathtub and waking up every hour...those days last centuries.  Which means we have been living the past three days for nearly three-hundred years, which is exactly how old and tired I feel today.  


I remember my uncle sitting at the head of the table a few months ago, almost a year ago, about to toast us on our pregnancy and telling us, "You're going to be so tired you'll think you're going to DIE."  He said it with a lot of feeling, and I now know that when I'm telling someone the same thing someday, it will need to be said with all the same drama, if not more.  Because the words are simply not enough.  


I don't have much else to say today, I think I've made my point.  My brain can't be asked to come up with much more right now anyway.  You pregnant people out there - sleep now and ignore the discomfort you're feeling in the night, because it's heaven compared to what your nights will be like soon!


And to my sweet little Harrison...if you promise to do all your business on the inside of your diaper today and to save all your sleepiness for tonight, Mommy will buy you a puppy.  


Which reminds me, pregnant people...if you have a dog, get rid of it NOW.  More on that later.


This too shall pass.  For now, I'm looking at pictures of H sleeping to remind me what it looks like.  

Taking a Deep Breath...

There is a baby at daycare that does not like to be held.  His name isn't Harrison. (Not AT ALL)  It's Brayden.   Brayden doesn't get a whole lot of attention, from what I've seen, probably because he doesn't require it.  When Peyton and I first heard that this baby was the complete opposite of Harrison, we thought, "Oh, what an easy baby he must be!"  But that really only lasted a couple of seconds.  Harrison may want to be held all the time, but so what?  Someday, he's not going to want to be held, he's going to want to go running as fast as he can in the opposite direction of us, giggling devilishly.  I can already tell he's going to be that way someday.  The kid can't wait to move. So if he wants to be held for the next 2-3 years, I'll oblige.  I'm not spoiling him, I'm letting him know he's secure, I'm comforting him, I'm making him feel safe and loved, and if it makes him one of the "high maintenance" kids at daycare?  Again...so what?  We are paying them quite a bit, after all.  And every morning as we walk down the hall to the back of the daycare where the infant rooms are, everyone looks up to say, "Good morning, Harrison!"  Teachers I've never even seen in his room before.  Yesterday, when we picked him up, he was in a different classroom with the babies that crawl and being held by one of the teachers (from a different room) who loves Harrison so much, she comes to hold him every chance she can get.  Harrison is spoiled everywhere he goes, I guess.  


I could complain about having to get up with him last night to suction the snot out of his nose so he could breathe, or about how we have to drop him off in a classroom with the older kids while he waits for his teacher to arrive, and the older kids pester him.  I could freak out about them giving him the wrong formula yesterday morning and probably making his tummy hurt.  But the fact is, Harrison demands a lot of attention, and they are doing their best to give it to him.  He's going to get sick no matter what daycare he attends, he's going to be around kids who don't have me and Peyton as parents (and therefore aren't as cute...or clean).  He's going to have good days and bad days, fussy days and playful days.  It's all going to be ok.  He was fed the wrong formula because we walked in and told two people who have never fed him that he needed to be fed, and we did nothing to clarify what he eats, or to help get his bottle ready.  We just expected everything to go perfectly, and forgot that Harrison is not the only baby at daycare.  We said he would be hungry soon, and they jumped on the task.  


We almost lost our minds a couple of times, with two of us taking care of one baby.  These ladies have been nothing but patient and loving to every baby in Harrison's room, and there's two of them taking care of nine.  We don't have it so bad.  We just need to relax and learn to trust.  


In the meantime, I'm going to continue to do most household tasks with a baby in one arm, and to just smile when they tell me Harrison doesn't let them hold any other babies.  I bet they don't even want to.