This time of year, when the days offer up more and more sunlight, I enjoy sitting in my front yard in the evening. There is a family down the street who’s routine includes a walk around the block. It’s fun to see the youngsters taking in the world around them, shyly saying “hello” to everyone, and asking Dad all sorts of questions. They seem to be growing up right before our eyes. This little guy learned to walk earlier this year. Just look at him now.
Finally, I sit down to chip away at the required reading for my next teacher training and my efforts are completely derailed.
YaYa’s only request was for help with his closing paragraph. It seemed simple enough. We opened the document together and I began reading what he had so far. The collection of thoughts were stitched together like a quilt made by a young child. I put down what I was doing and began helping him tighten up his thoughts, reinforce the seams, and add the clean hem that would serve to give his paper that pulled together look from the ground up.
Like these kids, the week of teacher training is whooshing past. Similarly, the experience has been filled with an overwhelming amount of stimuli (i.e. color and texture). I can’t believe the training is half over.
We are so blessed to have the great outdoors. It is a huge playground for us to play in.
Memories of the newborn stage have made their way into my awareness. You remember the stage. Right? The days of sleeping when they sleep — or risk forgoing any sleep at all.
Back then, however, sleep was met with silence. In the here and now, YaYa’s sleeping is met with coughing and whimpering. YaYa does the coughing (CONSTANTLY), while I do the whimpering. Every night this past week, I stumble down the hall at night to find my baby is burning up with fever and, quite possibly, it is too early for a dose of acetaminophen or ibuprofen. We are BOTH worn out.
It’s been 7 exhausting days of this and things are getting worse as the days go by. At 2 am, YaYa’s temperature was 103.4 degrees fahrenheit. I gave him a dose of ibuprofen, some cough medicine, and sent an email to his doctor. The waiting is over; it’s x-ray time!