Texas recently woke up with his eyes matted shut by layer-upon-layer of yellow-green goo. For those of you who shared eye make-up in middle school you know this ailment as ‘pink eye’, as a mother of a tiny tot, I now know it as conjunctivitis. My pre-teen exchange of Max Factor mascara and resulting eye irritation in no way prepared me for the horror of seeing my temporarily blind son looking like his eyes had sneezed all night.

A valuable parenting lesson that you learn by about three-months is that a sand crab could conceivable walk out of your child’s belly button and it would not surprise your pediatrician. But I must admit that conjunctivitis was quite unsettling to me.

While calming my charge as he rubbed and pulled at his eyes, I worked to dislodge his crusted lashes with a warm wash cloth. After my task was complete much to my temporary dismay and consequent joy he giggled then smiled ear-to-ear and said ‘Banana’?

Now that is resilience! I must admit that it took me much longer to get my appetite back.

Texas’ school was accomodating enough to begin the process of teaching him baby sign but without letting me know – which turned into kind of a little game – for two weeks my son pointed his plump little finger at his plump little palm and looked at me with a strange little look – and for two weeks like a trained seal I would laugh and do it back to him….not knowing until another parent pointed out that he was actually signing ‘more’. Since then it has been a rollercoaster of innuendo and second guessing each and every sniffle, toe tap and blink.

Is he saying something to us?

He just rubbed his knee – get the book out and look it up – quick he could be hurt!

Some times I think he might just be messing with me now – like he has caught on to the idiocy of the whole thing and it throwing me off his scent with random foot waves and arbitrary finger-pointing.

My favorite is the new afternoon teacher at his school who will proudly show for me how he can sign things like ‘please’ and ‘no’ – words that he mastered some months ago and is now oddly being encouraged to stop speaking and simply sign instead. Looking forward to moving onto really important signs to come  like – baboon and discotech.

Texas newest response to ‘ I love you’ is ‘I know’….the kid can’t say the dog’s name, use a toilet or peel his own banana but he gets that he is loved and that whispering is reserved for really important stuff.

…so this morning I am getting dressed and my tiny charge is licking the full length stand-up mirror in my bedroom while dancing around and occasionally saying ‘no no’ to the dog who is still sleeping in his crate (because it is 5:45 am) and I realize I cannot find two matching trouser socks (absurd name for women’s socks in my opinion). Here is the rub, to hunt for more socks (which are likely in the dryer downstairs) means that I have to transport the wiggling-mirror-licking-dog- commandant down the stairs and conceivable back up (which is no small task even after 6:00 am and a cup of coffee)….so I put on two ‘almost’ matching socks, load him up and make the trek downstairs without even looking in the crappy dryer for a matching pair. It is all about picking your battles.

So I have every faith in the fact that my tot watching baby Einstein is somehow better than him watching a fly on the wall or the three stooges, however, I don’t understand the creepy bear. Being the neurotic new parent of an only child I of course previewed the DVD before subjecting my tiny test case to it…..I get it the music, the motion, the low-key-no-sudden-moves-anti-over-stimulation, but that bear?

It’s true, my tiny prodigy can’t get enough of the weird lady’s hand opening and closing doors and the surreal 1940s style cone puppets  bobbing up and down to Beethoven but why? I am sure that there are numerous lengthy answers to my question in line with attention span and developmental stages but I have to be honest, the first couple of time I watched the video I actually worried that it might make my kid kind of a dullard. I mean there is something to be said for actually hearing voices and seeing face but again, I guess that is what infants and toddlers get in spades before there are mobile – a bunch of loud mouth floating heads hovering over them all the time, in which case the random cone puppet and train on the track are probably kind of like a little vacation.

Recently I have been concerned about not feeding my tiny charge perfectly well-balanced meals. I let him eat animal crackers and sometimes don’t have a fresh veggie with every meal….so I was starting to go down the ‘I cannot believe anyone let me have a baby’ route in my mind and then came across this little gem.

Is that bell pepper in there with the olive and celery? WOW….this was probably the highlight of some poor 1960 toddlers vegetable intake for a week – and it came with lime flavoring and tomato wedges. I might not feed him organic fruit at every meal but I am not sending him to bed with a belly full of gelatinous slime covered green olives!

Anyone else as offended and disgusted with the new Huggies ‘jean’ diapers as I am? I mean really…..this is just opening the door to all those people who already push the limits of appropriate public baby attire and dress their poor one year old in a onesie to leave the house. Trust me people, taking your toddler in public with no pants is like taking your great-grandmother to lunch without her dentures….she gets a pass because she is old as the hills but no one wants to stay for dessert. 

My Life with Texas is an adventure. Early mornings and tiny pats on the back. Crayon bits in baby teeth and the smell of lavender. Laughing until I cry and crying until I laugh. This blog will help me keep an accurate account of the sometimes insane, usually confusing and often absurd life of a new parent.