Alexander’s Four Days Alone with Mommy

Andrew left town last Thursday to go to a “conference” in Mecosta, Michigan. Thus, Alexander and I were without the man in our lives for four days. I don’t know how single parents do it, especially with more than one child. We faired fine, but it’s all those little things I missed. It’s that one extra thing Andrew does when I call for help. “Oh my gosh! This diaper is so bad can you come get!” and “I’ve had enough with this child’s whining can you take him with you for a bit.”—Those little things.

I kept Alexander moving and hopping this weekend. Here are just a couple of our adventures.

Alexander discovered the joys of the spray park on Friday evening. For those who do not live in Texas where its hot 75% of the year—a spray park is a big glorified sprinkler. He wasn’t too sure about it at first. I held his hand and walked him up to one of the fountains to put his hands in it. The wind was blowing, so the water felt a little colder than usual. He thought that was interesting, but he was a little scared. So being a good parent, I picked him up by his hands and swung him through the water. Now he was all wet and bawling. I left him there cold, wet and scared to go sit on the park bench. He came stomping over to me, arms out stretched and a little shrill scream. I wrapped him up in his towel and he was content to people watch.

A little later he burst out of his towel and started yelling, hello to the baseball players in the field behind us. They were too far away to hear him. Then Alex proceeded to run up and down a little grassy hill. That was pretty fun for him. Another little boy, who looked about 2 years old saw Alexander doing this and joined him. Alexander thought this was great fun having someone following him. They began a game of chase and follow the leader. The other little boy wasn’t afraid of the water and led Alexander right into it. I think by this time Alex was feeling hot from all his running around. He enjoyed running through the water with the other little boy. From then on, Alexander was hooked. That night I had to dragged him away kicking and screaming--literally. We went to the spray park two other time during the weekend and he knew not to be afraid of it.

Finally, Sunday we woke up and Alexander was calling to me to come get him. We keep our bedroom pretty dark so I could not see very much. I went to the crib to pick him up and said, “Oh, you smell gross. Did you have a pooh-pooh?” Then I saw the back of his head and immediately turned on the light. He had dried vomit from the top of his head all the way down his back, and there was vomit all over the crib bedding. He had vomited sometime in the night and never made a noise about it. He probably just rolled over and went back to sleep. I was quite alarmed. I rushed him to the bath, because he smelled pretty bad and I have been extremely sensitive to odors lately. I washed his hair three times and after the bath it still smelled like vomit. I got him dressed. He wasn’t acting sick. We went to Wal-mart to get some pedialyte and applesauce. I kept him on the “Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast” diet all day. I made him banana bread for dinner. He thought that was nice. He seemed a little extra tired all day, but he didn’t vomit again—there was a little stinky diarrhea. We skipped church, because I didn’t want him spreading whatever it was to the other kids and he needed to take it easy.

I was pleased to enjoy Alexander's many hugs and kisses all weekend long. It was definitely a more strenuous weekend without my handsome, loving husband around.