Ups and Downs... and Back Up

Mal has been teething and probably in a growth spurt pretty much all week. He's also uber-mobile, and our house has no boundaries (storage with doors), so I spend a lot of my life trying not to be too distracted to notice that he's tearing the book cover for "Texas" by James Michener (too late) or eating weather-stripping a cat pulled off of the back door (also too late) or getting into the litter box (just stopped him) or eating cat barf (yes, it happened; I thought, looking at what he was putting in his mouth, that it was cardboard from the scratching post... and, yes, I let him eat that because I'm tired).

This morning, Mal had a full one, going to the grocery store, skipping his 9:30 nap entirely (which he does about half of the time now) and then going to brunch with James and me. He finally fell asleep around 11:30 and napped on the bed for a good half hour while I got some stuff done. Then he was up, and he wasn't too happy about my changing his diaper. He literally went into hysterics, which he does as I'm trying to fasten the new diapers pretty much all of the time. This set *me* crying because sometimes the cumulative months of fussiness just get to me, and that was one of those times.

But then...

Lately, the valleys tend not to precede the peaks by too much.

Someone wanted to come see the house at 3, then they wanted to push it up to 2:30, which we learned at 2:23. The whole family went outside to walk to the bank and to get bubble tea. On the way, it started pouring rain. We got our drinks and it had lightened up just a bit. Actually, I hadn't gotten a drink and wanted to go to 7-11 for a soda refill, but it was still coming down pretty heavily.

We walked home, Daphne came inside, and it had all but stopped raining, so James, Mal, and I went back to 7-11. Just as we rounded the corner about half a block away, it started POURING. James and I got caught in pouring rain once before, when we'd biked to Kerbey Lane and had to ride the 3/4 mile back home shivering in the driving torrent. We darted into 7-11 in high spirits, including Mal, who was soaked despite my having lowered the stroller's "awning." James noted that we could have gotten our umbrellas when we were home, but I think the boy would have gotten wet regardless.

After I got my drink, it was even worse! You couldn't see across the street for the sheets of violent rain. We stood inside the door and waited about three or four minutes when it dialed back to just raining heavily, and we took off.

I'm sad to say that James let rain get on my cup of soda. I don't think he respects me at all.

It was flash flooding on our way home. Pouring buckets, thundering, the whole deal. We got even more wet and hit the porch giggling. Mal had a great time. James and I always have a good time. I asked Daphne if she'd been laughing at us when the storm kicked back up, but she was gaming and I don't even think she noticed.

So I took Mal into his room to dry off and to take off his onesie, which was like a wet rag. James brought me a towel, and after I'd wrung some of my hair out, I brought Mal into my room so I could change clothes.

I was trying to put on a sports bra and tank top, but even though I'd toweled off, I was still pretty damp. I elicited James' help in getting the sports bra untangled in the back, and by the time I was ready to pull it down in front, Mal had crawled over, pulled up on the side of the bed, and latched on standing up. I guess he just saw "nursies" and figured it was time for a snack.

James and I laughed *so* hard. Mal did, too, although he wasn't sure why we were tickled; he didn't care much. But in that moment, all of the stress from earlier today melted away and I could see our way through. We're getting there.

Good thing for those moments, too, because the rest of the evening was pretty difficult! Well, Mal was kind enough to take a short nap when my best Vegas friend Adrienne called while I was making dinner (I wore him) then after our nice chat, he woke up probably too early and was just a cranky mess when he wasn't distracted by James or me. I got really close to giving him a suppository because of how he was straining a few times, but he seemed to be more comfortable during the five minute window of feeling better I gave him, so I dodged that bullet.

In other news, I've eaten all of the things the past two days. I don't think I mentioned it, but that thing that stops when you're pregnant and then for a while when you're nourishing your baby returned last month, in all of its glory. Today, I thought about it before my weepy incident and did after take a few left over "happy pills" from the postpartum days. I am still sitting here having polished off the rest of the bag of Trader Joe's unsweetened and unsulfered freeze-dried mango slices and fantasizing about the left-over cinnamon toast popcorn I made a couple of days ago (alas, the M&Ms are gone, and it's only popcorn now).

My Facebook feed overfloweth with friends posting pictures of their kids' high school graduation. Meanwhile, here in my world...