Another "random updates" post!

Still thinking a lot about the unschooling convention, and James has started a blog post of his own, but he hasn't finished or therefore published it yet. I have a feeling my parenting, at least, is changing a bit (or maybe drastically). I fear that I am becoming a dirty hippy, but we'll see. It might be a change for the better.

In other news: Mal's ear infection from before the get-away barely had time to heal before he started getting sick again. Last night was the worst, so we took him to the doctor for a follow-up today. If he hadn't had the ear infection, I might have let it go longer, but I've learned that when I get to the point of "I don't want to be around my child one more second" phase, it probably means that a visit to a medical professional is in order. Fortunately, eyes, ears, nose, throat, and lungs are all clear. Unfortunately, Mal has a killer cold and we just have to wait for the post-nasal drip and cough to clear up. He slept about 5 hours today, so hopefully that's helping him. I really hope he sleeps tonight; I didn't get much in the way of shut-eye last night, and I could use the snooze.

It's weird: the antibiotic we got wasn't properly reconstituted and had only 14 doses instead of 20. Maybe it's not such a bad thing that we're changing pharmacies soon.

Last week, something interesting happened. It was about the same time we received the cool "textural" toys from James' mom. One of the toys is just a jean pocket with a little purple bear inside. Mal will play with the bear, then I'll put it into the pocket and ask, "Where did the bear go?" More than half of the time, he'll look into th pocket and try to pull out the bear. (The rest of the times, he's already moved his attention to something else.)

So, about the same time, I had hopped into the shower and James was watching Mal. It was around the time he had started getting sick again. He was not happy that I'd left him, and even though James was hanging out with him in his room, Mal was fussing and crawled out of the room, through the living room, to the washing machine, and then started pounding on the bathroom door. I was in the shower so didn't answer, so he just sat there in the hall, crying and pounding on the door.

Sad picture, but... We have object permanence! Yea! That's a huge milestone! He did the same thing today, when I'd stepped out to use the restroom. This time, I hadn't properly latched the door, so he was able to open it and crawl in crying. This boy loves his mama.

We sign our lease three weeks from tomorrow, and will give ourselves a month's overlap to move slowly to the new place. I'm ready for more room, James and D are ready for more privacy in terms of their "offices," and Mal doesn't care as long as I'm there. Heck, he'd have lived at the cabin, happily. That loft was like the world's biggest playpen, and we were in it with him!

We've started getting ready by starting to pare down things. One of the things we'd talked about doing was getting rid of our bed frame and putting our mattress on the floor. It's just one less thing to move, it eliminates the temptation to stash a bunch of worthless crap under the bed, and for now, it makes it less nerve-wracking when Mal is sleeping near the edge. We implemented that pretty much the day after we got home, and we're love it! The bed it a lot firmer on the ground, and now that the rollers are gone, I don't hate the wood floor as much.

Interestingly (to me), after we decided to do that - but before we did it - I came upon this website called Bedstart. It is about making your little one's bedroom baby-friendly by putting the mattress on the floor and having everything at his level. To that end, we sold Mal's crib over the weekend and it feels like his room is huge! We also got rid of one of his "floor" toys, and his lamp. The lamp I love, but he constantly wants to play with the cord and pull it over on himself and crinkle the paper shade, and the point of Bedstart is that the whole room is free for the kid to play in.

Something I'd never thought of before was that, say Mal wanted to go to sleep on his own in the middle of playing. He'd have to pass out on the floor because he can't climb into the crib. This allows him to get "into" bed if he wants to. I know, I know. Stop laughing. It might happen sometime. Anyway, I like the way it looks and "feels." A lot more comfortable.

He's having fun!

That said, this poor kid is 7 months old and some change and has never once "just" fallen asleep. There's always something. He just can't transition into sleep without motion or nursing. Everyone assures me this will change eventually, and I trust them. To a point. I am hoping, mostly. Sooner than later would be awesome. For now, we're just keeping on keeping on.

I need to write a letter to our landlord. We are hoping they'll let us out of one month of our lease here. On Monday and Tuesday, TWO PEOPLE walked into our house and neither of them was a delivery person! The first was a guy who thought we were an office and wanted to lease the space (there is a sign in the yard). The second was a lady who thought we were the leasing office for the apartments across the street. And that sweet lady just needed someone to talk to, because after James walked her out, she kept chatting for about five full minutes. "That place across the street, I applied for a job there once. 'Tiff's Treats.' I thought it was dog treats, but did you know what they sell cookies and ice cream?" Huh, yeah; we've heard.

I know, I know (again). We need to lock our door! Well, we do. But sometimes, we're in the process of bringing in groceries, or I've just wheeled Mal in in his stroller and we need a quick diaper change, so I skip it for the moment. I'm guessing this won't be an issue at our new place.

Neither will the chronically slow drains. We have to plunge the toilet and the bathroom sink at least once a week because they get clogged and back up. I had to run the dishwasher four times last week to get it to drain. They've done some work on the lines outside, but apparently there are roots in the line and they keep growing back.

Finally, having stuff out in the kitchen (on baker's racks, due to no storage space) is getting dangerous as Mal has become mobile. He pulled three nested glass storage bowls off into the floor the other day, but fortunately they didn't shatter. The sound scared him, so maybe that thought will stick and he won't try again.

More later or I'll never post this. :)