Documentation of fatherhood insanity: Week 35: Nanny-less!!!

Things I have learned:

Danielle brought home a product the other day called “Boogie wipes”. I’m not making that up.

We practice walking with Sammy all the time – recently he’s started trying to take these giant steps, wide, thunderous steps - I call them Sumo steps. No complaints from the neighbors yet. And yes, they are effective.

Sammy has an official arch nemesis. The aspirator. He goes to war with it routinely (and loses).

Now that Sammy has mastered holding his bottle while eating he’s started to show off. He’s now all about the one-handed beer bottle style chug.

Sammy actually got us a Chanukah present last Saturday: He slept until 9am. Yes, 9am. Again….9am!!!

Big Boy car seat quandary #33: What to do when your child falls asleep in the car after not napping all day and you are trying to let him sleep longer by waiting but you know you are going to have to pee soon. I gutted out a painful half hour before finally waking him up.

Most useful iPad function yet: Having Sabbah and Savtah entertain (read: babysit) him while “facetiming” on the iPad. This actually worked for about 20 good minutes!

Ok, we’re back to the teething. With no teeth. It has dawned on me that Sammy will be teething forever whether the teeth come through yet or not. I really loved waking up at 4am 2 nights last week, unable to calm him down. Even worse is knowing that milk will get him back to sleep but you don’t want to get him in the habit of feeding in the middle of the night again! Hello Baby Tylenol, pleasure to meet you.

After a week of blaming Danielle’s eating habits as the reason for Sammy not liking veggies (she hates them too) I had to admit I was wrong. I have deduced that Sammy has decided he no longer enjoys being fed by us (most of the time) because he’s a big boy!

How did I figure this out? I learned that I could get him to eat if I let him feed himself with the spoon. Now, this is all well and good most of the time, though it requires an insane amount of concentration and coordination on his parents’ part to ensure that he doesn’t grab the part of the spoon with food on it. When that happens, he will squish it around in his hands, put it in his eyes, hair, ears, nose all in an attempt to feed himself with his hands. He’s used to eating puffs and cheerios so mushy food has posed a wee problem. See evidence below of the “Great Spinach disaster of 2011”.

Sammy loves Nora, our 3 year old neighbor. He saw a picture of her on the fridge the other day and tried to hug it!

You know that scene at the end of Star Wars where Luke blows up the Death Star by firing a missile out of his X-wing into into the small hole that magically causes the whole thing to combust? Well the other day I felt like the death star as Sammy torpedoed my wide open mouth with a lovely cough. I did not combust. Yet. It would be worth it if Sammy had the force.

Teething is messy. I actually had to change my shirt the other day because there was so much drool on it.

Sammy can survive daycare. Our nanny got sick last week and our young Padawan was thrust into a new world of strangers (all loving) and new kids. While this might have been a tough transition for him I’m pretty sure his only thought about the change was “oh”.

Sammy will probably grow up knowing it as Ryan Seacrest’s New Years show.

Sammy, meet chicken. Chicken, meet Sammy’s mouth.

We really miss our nanny. Dear lord, that was tough!

General Mills will probably make its annual earnings numbers based solely off Sammy’s love of cheerios.

A big thank you to our babysitter extraordinaire this week, Aunty Monica.

Important statistics we are tracking:

- # of times Sammy ate chicken this week (and LOVED IT): 3

- Number of cheerios eaten: WAY too many to count

- Number of New Year’s eves that Sammy slept through without caring: 1

- Percentage of cheerios in mouth (instead of floor): up to 70%!

- On a scale of 1-10, how gross is it to find chicken stuck to your son’s pants, hands, face and all over the floor: 8.5

- Number of times someone put a Jets hat on Sammy (despite them losing!): 1 (and we’re sure he hated it)