Flat as a Pancake

I am a mother.  By definition, that means that I am a woman.  A chick.  A dudette.  A girl. 

I now have a son.  And I am learning a whole lot about the male species that I never knew.  I am apparently much, much more naïve about penii than I ever knew.

After 5 months, I’m mostly used to what happens down there in the nether regions.  That is, until this week.  Until a very, very cold afternoon when I was changing a diaper.  The daycare folks had said that he loves being naked, which is true.  So when it was time to put on his jammies, we had a little semi-naked play time with him in just his diaper.  We played “flying baby,” a game in which we soar over the kitties (much to their terror).  We had some belly snorgles involved, you know, blowing on the baby’s bare belly to create huge fart-y sounds and a tickle for him. And then it was time to change the diaper.

I have watched Seinfeld.  I know about shrinkage in cold temperatures.  But there’s shrinkage and then there’s “There Ain’t Nothin’ There.”  I actually stared, slack jawed at my son's naked body.  In the place where there should have been my son’s, well, son-ness, there was NOTHING!  Absolutely nothing!!!  Flatter than a pancake!  It looked like a belly button, but it wasn’t on his stomach.  In fact, look at the back of your hand.  Notice how flat it is?  That's what his diaper area looked like. 

HOLY CRAP!  I’m thinking! What sort of disease is THIS!?!?!  I mean there was nothing there.  Folks, if that was how everything had looked when he was born, I would not have believed this was a boy. 

Dave wasn’t home yet or I would have called him in to get a dude’s perspective on what was going on and to see if we should call the doctor.  I also realized it was a poopie diaper (which I didn’t know while we were flying over the kitties and may have explained their scampering out of range).  So I had to clean the other Nether Regions before I could return to check out what was happening in the place where nothing was happening.  To be honest, I was hoping things would just resolve themselves on their own. 

But no, everything was still flat.  So, I did what I had to do.  I poked it.  I poked my son’s son-ness and it popped out.  Thank God!!  It was back to the regular it’s-cold-in-here shrinkage I was used to.  We avoided the surgery I had imagined to correct this problem.  (But God help my poor son if he ever reads this blog.) 

Looking back, I now understand that there’s cold, and then there’s, coooooooold.  It was a lot colder in his room than I realized.  

Step Forward on Sleep

On a much more normal note, we had a step forward in sleeping last night.  He went to sleep at 7 which is his normal bedtime.  He did not do that willingly last week.  He woke up at 8:15 for a little snack, and then woke up again at 9:00.  I knew he couldn’t be hungry, so I tried some of the Sears’ advice to get him to go back to sleep:  patting him, cooing to him, leaning over beside him in the crib.  The fussing continued, although, at a less rate.  And then I sang a lullaby. 

HOLY FREAKIN’ COW!!  It worked like a CHARM!  He immediately stopped fussing, assumed the sleep position (head thrown to one side), and his eyelids began to close.  I was dumbfounded!  Who knew that lullabies really worked? I sang the lullaby not more than 10 times and he was OUT!  I thought it was all propaganda.  But no!  It works and at least one person in my family now appreciates my singing. 

We also celebrated that he slept through until 4:00 this morning.  He awoke with a hungry cry, we took him to bed and all of us slept well until 6:00.  There’s something magical about 4.  Bringing him to bed before 4 feels like he’s not sleeping, but bringing him to bed at 4 or after feels like he just woke up early. 

I’m betting that two more nights of this and he’ll be back to 10 to 12 hours of sleep.  YAY!!!!

8:40:24 AM