Tom's brother Rob (a.k.a. Uncle Rob) visited from Texas over Memorial Day weekend, and we all had a great time!
This bike ride was the source of half of an important lesson I've learned over the last week. The lesson boils down to something like "When Mommy is in doubt, the skepticism is probably justified!" Both these little stories just go to illustrate how something that perhaps should have been obvious wasn't quite obvious to me, and I learned the hard way that the little nagging doubt in my mind was really a red flag for something my brain was just too dense to fully realize without concrete evidence. Ready? I'll start with what happened during our biking adventure.
We biked deep into the state park near our house. We stopped by a lake to take a rest and let Rowan out of his stroller for a while. I held his hand (yes, just one hand now!) while he walked around the grass. We hit a spot of grass-less ground, and Rowan wanted to sit down. I let him. He picked up a couple of rocks. He did not put them into his mouth; he tapped them together and laughed. I looked away for a moment and said to Tom, "Isn't it amazing how he doesn't put everything straight into his mouth anymore? He has really started exploring with his hands." In my mind, I questioned, "Wouldn't he put that rock straight into his mouth if given the chance?" Anyway, we played for a few more minutes, walked around some more, and finally started to load Rowan back into the stroller. We got him all strapped in, put the protective screen down, and I noticed Rowan appeared to be moving his jaw around strangely. My mind hollered, "You dumb woman! He DID eat the rock!" Surely enough, a quick sweep of the mouth brought out a rather large rock, which Rowan had obviously been working on for quite some time! Thank God he didn't choke on it or hurt himself...it's just one of those lessons hard learned, I suppose. And funny overall.
Now, this next one is even funnier since it involves no risk of injury to babe or mother. It happened a few days before Uncle Rob arrived. Rowan had come down with a little cold, and Mommy caught it the next day too. We got home from a doctor's appointment, I was sick as a dog, Rowan had fallen asleep in the car, and I just needed to put a clean diaper on him and then get him into the crib so he could continue his badly-needed nap. I laid him on the changing table and realized to my great dismay I had forgotten to get more diapers from the basement, so there were none there. The diaper bag was out in the car. Whichever of those choices I went for, it would involve waking Rowan up because I couldn't leave him there on the table unattended. But in the cabinet of the changing table was a package of Little Swimmers, size 3, left over from last year. They would still fit him, I knew, and although they were expensive compared to regular diapers I was desperate to get something dry on his butt and then put him to bed. So I used the Little Swimmer. "What part of this was raising red flags?", you might ask. This part: ever since we first used a Little Swimmer, I was puzzled by how a simple and inexpensive garment could possibly distinguish between urine and pool water. I mean, how could these things soak up urine but be smart enough not to soak up pool water, thereby weighing the baby down? (And in case you didn't know, the ballooning diaper is the precise side effect the Little Swimmers are meant to avoid). The red flag was, "These Little Swimmers can't possibly be that smart." Now, back to my story. After a good 2-hour nap, Rowan woke up. When I got him from his crib, I learned the red flags had been well-founded yet again. Little Swimmers do NOT hold urine while allowing pool water to pass through! Little Swimmers don't hold ANY water!!! I may as well have covered Rowan's rear in a paper towel. His entire body, and his entire crib, were soaked! Sick as we were, I will have you know Rowan and I both enjoyed a good laugh about that.
From now on, if Mommy thinks something is too good to be true, that means it is. :-)
