Mommy Milestones

Yesterday's post was all about the milestones Vivienne us passing as she heads into this 10th month of her life.  Today I passed a few milestones of my own in my current life-stage as "mother of toddler."  First, I finally went shopping in a real, big store with my kids, thanks to my friend Katie and her van.  We've taken them to small stores before and department stores and even the one and only mall in Kaoshiung, but today, Katie, Jonathan, Vivienne, Stephen and I made a Costco run.  This is the first time I have actually been able to put my child in one of those little kid seats in the front of a shopping cart that I remember so well from my own childhood.  (Sorry.  No pictures.  Not only does Costco have  a big "No Photos" pictograph out in front, but I also decided toting a camera along would be a little much.  Oh, sometimes I really do wish I had an iPhone instead of an iPad -- but not usually.)  

Vivienne stuck to the stroller, but Jonathan did quite well in the cart.  The only thing he wasn't too sure about was the ramp-style escalator to get from the basement to the first floor.  He kept pointing to the floor, looking at us nervously, and whimpering.  While there, we picked up a large jar of animal crackers, something I have been meaning to do for a while ever since seeing them at church.  When Jonathan saw them it led to my first time opening a box of cookies and giving some to my kids before paying for them, for me, a strong mark of being a mother to a small child.  I still remember where the small boxes of animal crackers were in ShopRite in Edison circa 1985 -- last isle, opposite the refrigerated shelves where the yogurts were.  You know, those little red boxes with a string attached for carrying them that had pictures of animals in cages on a circus train.  I remember my mother would often let my brother and I pop one of those boxes open (or a box of chocolate wafers of similar dimensions) and let us eat them, later paying for the empty box.  It was such a lovely mixed feeling of the forbidden and the allowed.  The coolies weren't technically ours yet, but mommy said it was OK so it must be.

Later on in the evening I took Jonathan and Vivienne out in the double stroller and went into the nearby department store to change his nappy and look at a few things.  There I got to do other classic mommy things like watch my son throw a fit when I stopped letting him play in the sink (it was a pretty awesome Jonathan-sized sink, I must admit) and bribe him with candy (but they're vitamin C gumdrops made with real juice, so it's not quite candy, right?) and wrestle him into the 5-point harness (he was in no condition to be allowed the freedom of no shoulder straps) -- and then watch the moody little thing happily coo and giggle the whole way home.  Daddy came to meet us and we went to a late-night noodle and dumpling shop for some fried rice where I had my toddler drop half a cup of juice on my foot/sandal for the first time while out.  What a squishy walk home that was. 

But that was nothing compared to the sensation from the last milestone of the evening -- being absolutely covered in vomit when I picked him up while he was crying a little after bedtime.  (No, he was not sick -- just a bad combination of eating a fair amount today, a night-time bottle, a burp that went wild, and sobbing to get out of bed in the middle of the night.)  I've had him vomit on himself and bed before and had to clean it up, but that was nothing compared to this head to toe baptism.  (Oh, when counting my blessings I definitely include the fact that neither of my children have been particularly inclined to throwing/spitting up so far.)  Actually, we sort of lucked out.  Recently, Jonathan has taken to stripping his sheets and the waterproof cover off his mattress in particularly strong bursts of exuberance, and one such burst had hit him while getting settled down for the night this evening.  I had already redressed the bed once today so told Stephen it was his turn.  He skipped the waterproof cover, saying, "He's not going to throw up or pee on his sheets tonight.  He almost never does."  So it's just as well he waited until mommy picked him up to let it all fly.

Mommy, Jonathan, and Baby Giraffe all went straight into the shower, clothes and all (for those of us who wear clothes.)  I am afraid of the precedent set tonight of bathing/wringing out and drying baby giraffe.  He's already getting rather fragile and he has a lot of years where he's needed for comfort before he can retire, but that was one doudou in need of a bath.  However, it was all worth it when I left him for (the second time of) the night, calmed down, cleaned up, and happily hugging his rather soggy best friend.  I love being a mother of a toddler.

Jonathan's best friend helping him calm down from the trauma
of having to be put to bed the other night.  Both were a bit more
damp the last I saw of them tonight but just as sweet.