writing in my head.

Lately I've been compiling my thoughts as I go through my day, always with the intention of sitting down and writing. It never quite happens that way.

This very minute, I'm at the dining room table with Ryan. He's trying to eat his breakfast. I'm typing and watching him at the same time because I'm afraid to take my eyes off him. He's got a knack for throwing food on the floor just as it gets mushy enough that, when it falls, it collects every single piece of lint or doghair that it can. And when that happens, I can't quite reconcile the 5-second rule in my mind. So I watch and I wait.

He's become a bit of a mystery to me. A frustrating eater. He will not eat fruit - every time he tries (read: every time I pry his pursed lips open to try and feed him a spoonful), he convulses dramatically and resembles this guy. If you're lucky, he'll give you a ten-seconds-later delayed reaction. It's comical.

In addition to no fruit, he seems to be refusing anything that he can't eat himself. It's precious and cute and all of those mommy-words, yes - but when he's not quite able to coordinate his brain and his hands to actually get food into his mouth, it's frustrating. I feel like he hardly gets anything to eat. When Dad gets home at night, or when Sophie's being entertaining, I can usually distract him enough to get some jarred food into his belly. But it's tough.

I've come to the conclusion that even if there's nothing to worry about, I'll still worry. The kid is a chunk and he's happy and he sleeps relatively well. I should just chill out.

This whole tooth extraction thing threw me for a loop. I had to talk myself down from freaking out as I drove to the dentist's office on Tuesday. Being a parent has been trying (duh?!). I know the same will be the case for Ryan, and it's just that Ben is older - but we've had to - for his own good and health - inflict pain. The tonsils and adenoids, the ridiculously archaic extraction of teeth... There are some days when I wonder what his conversations with the psychiatrist will be like in 20 years:

'... they shoved tubes down my throat, and up my nose, and gave me terrible haircuts for the first couple years of my life... and then they burnt my hands and made me get surgery, and then after the surgery they pinned me down every 4 hours for this terrible medicine, and THEN, when that was all over, they yanked two of my teeth out of my head!'

But I digress.

Ryan's freaking out so I have to tend to the hungry baby who won't eat.