Back to Normal...Whatever That Is

Tim went back to work this morning for the first time this year. He started vacation Christmas Eve and had to take only 3 vacation days to have all 17 days between then and now off. It seemed like a no-brainer. We got the playroom 99% finished - and in fact we've moved toys down there and it's in use, it's just missing a few little stretches of baseboard. Because cutting and attaching the baseboard makes Tim say naughty words under his breath. Apparently it's more challenging than one would think at first blush. He also spent the weekend protesting that he didn't want to take a ride on the cart, so that might have something to do with it as well. (Honestly, they could have used him as a template for the next walking dead movie - he was incredibly ill.) (Today he is mostly better.)

So this morning the doodle and I tried to figure out what our days looked like and we did a little of this and a little of that. Laundry, playing, reading, so forth - the usual. Then we bundled into the car to run two quick errands before his 3 year old well baby appointment (well big boy? or do we just go with check up at this point?) The nurse practitioner seemed very nice and asked him lots of questions, like "What do you like to do with mommy?" to which he promptly, and without any thought, remarked "Drink." Not "Play". Not "read". Not any of the things I could come up with that we actually do together. (Not that there haven't been occasions when I've sat with him and had some water while he slugged back a juice box, but honestly? That's the highlight of his life? Drinking with mommy? And he couldn't add in the age appropriate liquid that is consumed?)

When the inquisition portion of the toddler check up was finished (he did well and is "very verbal and easy to understand'), she looked in his ear and not a second went by before she said, "Oh! You have an ear infection." Then she looked at me with raised brows,"Did you know that?" No. No I didn't. It does explain recent crankiness. But honestly. There are symptoms for ear infections and he has none. Fever? Nope. Tugging at ear? Nope. Cranky? Ok, ok, fine. He's been cranky - but there are 2 new points of a back molar poking through his gums and I attributed the cranky to that. Cause cutting teeth would make me cranky. And when I asked him if he hurt (when trying to figure out the cranky bit) he said yes and I said where and he opened his mouth and pointed at his gums. So again, the cranky was really easily attributed to teething. Except of course that he has an ear infection. (Perhaps if I wasn't drunk all the time, I would have figured it out? The NP did give me a look that insinuated that idea.)

So we came home (with a stop by CVS to get amoxicillin -- which my spell check does not like but none of the alternatives are what it is...we did not happen to pick up an armadillo, amontillado, or tamoxifen at CVS) and I tucked him in for a nap with his next dose of Tylenol and I came downstairs to feel small. Which, now that I think of it, is pretty much the definition of normal around here.

It did finally occur to me that we play tea party when he's in the bathtub (because it's the only place I deem it safe for him to get to pour actual liquid into actual cups - and given how much spills, it's good that for now that's the rule) and then we pretend to drink the tea and get more. I'm guessing this is what he had in mind. It makes me feel much better on many levels - the least not being that it is actually rather fun. We have snooty tea drinking accents and we cheers and it's really rather delightful...there is much giggling. And that's the definition of normal around here that I prefer. Given how much we laugh, I can't be doing it all wrong.