Coffee was good. Lily Ruth loves our neighborhood Starbucks :-)
You can't tell from that picture, but she dribbled coffee down her top... oh, did I mention that she really likes coffee? She does, and I'm up for Mother of the Year. I gave her the first sip to 'prove' to her that she wouldn't like it. Total backfire. At least I drink half-caff... that helps, right? :-P
Since we seemed to be on a roll, I decided to go ahead and go to the store. Once there, my darling one insisted that she needed to walk. A first for her as she tends to act overwhelmed and shy when we're in any place that busy. The walking was going o.k. until we got to the rice aisle. She overbalanced while holding a large bag of rice for Mama, and sat down hard. This was apparently the last straw for her. I had no idea that we were millimeters from a meltdown, so I was taken by surprise when she used her very loudest cry and deployed her fattest tears. I scooped her up, and thought that I had calmed her down. We made it one aisle over, and she began hitting and scratching my face. I pulled back, and before I could even reach for her arms or tell her 'no', she went into full-on meltdown mode - screams, tears, red face, clawing, hitting, spitting, snot, the whole nine yards. It was stunning. A truly magnificent effort. I finally calmed her down with a sotto-voice rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and we hot-footed it to the checkout line.
Once we were home, I dropped the groceries in the kitchen, and made a beeline for the bedroom. It was obviously nap time. Before we could crawl into bed, I needed to potty. I set Lily on the floor of the bathroom and went about my business. She was ticked, and started to employ her favorite face banging technique - *whack*, 'did that hurt enough to cry? no?', *whack*, 'how about that one?'. Since the pediatrician (and others) said not to stop her from doing this - in fact, I'm to ignore her - I did just that. I let her have at it until I was ready to leave the bathroom. I scooped her up, grabbed a clean diaper and went back to the bedroom to change her and lay down.
She was ticked about the diaper change, so there was lots of squirming. This kept me from noticing the blood right away. It wasn't until she had gotten blood all over her face, hands and the duvet cover that I saw it. She had finally gotten up the nerve to bang her face hard enough to make her mouth bleed. It was gross. I knew what was happening almost immediately, but I had no idea what to do! She didn't want me to rinse or wipe or sponge or dab, and by then she was 'spitting mad', so blood was FLYING EVERYWHERE. Ya'll, I did not expect to rinse coffee and blood out of my one-year-old's clothing today.
I finally just got into the bathtub with her. Initially, that just pissed her off even more, but after some in-tub nursing, and some quality time with the drain stopper, she felt better. It was back into bed for us...
Now she's napping (on the boob) and I'm blogging. I really need to pee again (stupid coffee), but I'm not about to risk waking Sleeping Dragon to make that happen.
Motherhood is not for the faint of heart, guys.
*edit - IT HAPPENED AGAIN! After her nap, I tried to dress her. She twisted away and accidentally whacked her face again!!! Holy Bloody Day, Batman! It was just as dramatic as the first time. This time I called my grandfather (the retired gum surgeon). He came over and checked her mouth. He says that she'll be fine - just sore. She tore her frenum (the piece that connects your upper lip to your gums), and her mouth is swollen. She's currently camped out on my lap with a never-ending supply of juice cubes to keep the swelling to a minimum.
*sigh* I'm knackered. I need my own staff... and a martini...
beautiful picture!
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