Sidewalk Chalk
Today Sweetpea and I sat on the sidewalk in front of a stranger's house and put nuts in a bottle.
We had only just emerged from a week in seclusion when Sweetpea's runny nose turned into a raging cold which made her cranky as hell and so blocked up she refused to eat. Sweepea is a mere 19 pounds soaking wet so not eating shows pretty quickly. I hated to take off her clothes and feel her thin frame against mine, her arms around my neck, head on my shoulder. Guilt went south replaced by grim determination not to lose my cool when she dissolved into one of the many temper tantrums that came along with feeling crappy and not being able to rail against God, Jesus, and bad germies. She was also pissed because she couldn't pick and choose what she ate or tell me what she wanted in more specific terms than the sign for "eat" or "drink". She strained the limits of her basic sign-language vocabulary punctuated by a lot of pointing episodes which were fruitless because when I actually picked the items up and gave them over to her she pushed them away.
Like her adult counterparts, Sweetpea wanted stuff to eat that made her feel good in said crappy state, or was sweeter or salty enough to taste. But since she couldn't tell me exactly what she wanted I kept cutting up fruit, cooking vegetables, opening jars of babyfood, pureeing stuff only to have her take one bite and turn her nose up at a second. I felt very, very bad for her and very, very bad for myself. I had picked up her cold and my head was about the size of a pumpkin.
She did keep making the sign for 'hungry' and 'more' so after a day of trying to feed her meals (which were thrown away) I resigned myself to putting as much variety in front of her whenever she asked for it and hoping for the best. I also tried everything I could think of to get fluids in her - want the penguin sippy cup, love? Juice? Popsicle? Chicken soup? Everything worked once, or maybe twice if I was lucky before some mysterious process in her brain told her to move on.
The tantrums were unexpected. I guess now in retrospect I would be as crabby as she was given the options and the condition of her sinuses. I tried to comfort her through the first couple of them and then realized that she just wanted to have a good cry (who wouldn't?). Ten minutes, maybe fifteen tops and rolling around and pounding her fists alternately into the carpet and in a dramatic gesture, wringing her hands in front of her face, then she would stop suddenly and be all smiles. Go figure.
We had only just emerged from a week in seclusion when Sweetpea's runny nose turned into a raging cold which made her cranky as hell and so blocked up she refused to eat. Sweepea is a mere 19 pounds soaking wet so not eating shows pretty quickly. I hated to take off her clothes and feel her thin frame against mine, her arms around my neck, head on my shoulder. Guilt went south replaced by grim determination not to lose my cool when she dissolved into one of the many temper tantrums that came along with feeling crappy and not being able to rail against God, Jesus, and bad germies. She was also pissed because she couldn't pick and choose what she ate or tell me what she wanted in more specific terms than the sign for "eat" or "drink". She strained the limits of her basic sign-language vocabulary punctuated by a lot of pointing episodes which were fruitless because when I actually picked the items up and gave them over to her she pushed them away.
Like her adult counterparts, Sweetpea wanted stuff to eat that made her feel good in said crappy state, or was sweeter or salty enough to taste. But since she couldn't tell me exactly what she wanted I kept cutting up fruit, cooking vegetables, opening jars of babyfood, pureeing stuff only to have her take one bite and turn her nose up at a second. I felt very, very bad for her and very, very bad for myself. I had picked up her cold and my head was about the size of a pumpkin.
She did keep making the sign for 'hungry' and 'more' so after a day of trying to feed her meals (which were thrown away) I resigned myself to putting as much variety in front of her whenever she asked for it and hoping for the best. I also tried everything I could think of to get fluids in her - want the penguin sippy cup, love? Juice? Popsicle? Chicken soup? Everything worked once, or maybe twice if I was lucky before some mysterious process in her brain told her to move on.
The tantrums were unexpected. I guess now in retrospect I would be as crabby as she was given the options and the condition of her sinuses. I tried to comfort her through the first couple of them and then realized that she just wanted to have a good cry (who wouldn't?). Ten minutes, maybe fifteen tops and rolling around and pounding her fists alternately into the carpet and in a dramatic gesture, wringing her hands in front of her face, then she would stop suddenly and be all smiles. Go figure.
posted by vallie at 11:26 AM
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