Everybody Needs A Holiday

So far Peter had experienced only a couple holidays of note – 4th of July and Halloween being the only ones marked by social gatherings (true, he was around for Mothers Day and Fathers Day, but he pretty much slept through those). Thanksgiving, though, was his first of The Holidays. Crowds of family and piles of food. Fun for everyone, right? Peter, though, had a problem. He was tired, cranky, and perhaps worst of all for him, constipated. In fact, he didn’t relieve his colon until late Friday afternoon. Visiting his mother’s side of the family resulted in frequent appearances of The Lip – the tremendous thrusting out of his lower lip indicating he is not a happy camper, which is frequently followed by an unhappy cry. We think the reasons for his behavior, aside from being tired and constipated, are that he woke up in his car seat at the party, which was loud and crowded. He’s at an age where he’s becoming more aware of the things and people around him, and being suddenly in the middle of 15-20 people overwhelmed him, especially when he was the center of attention. Earlier in the day he was in better spirits when he was visited by his Aunt Sarah, but at that time he was in his house and he was in charge, so while he wasn’t terribly perky, he was at least able to enjoy himself a little.

Friday for him was spent recovering and relaxing (not shopping at 4:00 AM), and by the end of the day he was able to overcome his physical condition and fill up several diapers, copiously. Following his relief, he had about an hour’s worth of ecstatic energy, and then crashed like Britney Spears in court

Saturday would be a test for him. We had been invited down to Chicago for his cousin Amanda’s 16th birthday party, to be held at a restaurant in Chinatown. First of all, he had never left the state of Wisconsin, nor had he been in his car seat for as long as it would take to get him to his destination. Would this be a problem? Would Cranky Pete be joining us, or Nice Guy Pete? Both Peter’s Mom and I were nervous, to say the least. Fortunately, it was the good-natured fun-boy who drove down to Chicago with us. He slept most of the way, but he had some toys in his seat in case he woke up. One of them is a toy remote control we got him to try and get him off the TV’s remote that he loves so darned much. He didn’t like it at first, but since then has accepted it somewhat (even if he prefers the real thing). The toy remote makes noises when you push the buttons, and it has 3 different language settings depending if you hit the “Hello”, “Hola” or “Bon Jour” buttons. So you can get it to say “one, two, three…”, “uno, dos, tres…”, or “un, deux, trois…” in addition to the three greetings. Anyway, we’d be driving along thinking Peter was asleep and suddenly we’d hear this voice say “bon jour!” And then “bon jour! Bon jour! Bon jour!” So, he kept himself occupied pretty well.

We arrived at the restaurant early, but his Grandma, Uncle Mike, Uncle Joey, Cousin Elana and Cousin George were already there, and it wound up that everyone came in in stages so Peter was eased into being in a large group. And aside from moments of fatigue (only a few appearances of The Lip) he was pretty much a happy, charming lad. I think it helped that he wasn't the center of attention and he was able to observe somewhat passively for most of the evening instead of actively participating.

In other developments, he’s working on getting his butt up in the air for proper crawling. Up to this point he’s done a commando-crawl, but using only his left leg and right arm to propel himself. Now he’ll get up on all fours and rock back and forth a couple times. So he’s building up the strength and coordination to do an actual by-the-book crawl. We’ll see how long it takes for him to put all the pieces together. But we know once he does do it he’ll be flying all over the place.