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04/05/2005
Leading with his chin
I've been carrying Charlie around a lot in the past few weeks, either in the sling or in my arms across my chest (if his mouth is jammed up against my armpit the pacifier doesn't come out so often). The good news is that he's gotten so used to being jounced into relative calm by my clumping around the upstairs -- eight laps with detours into every other room is a quarter mile -- that sometimes he stops screaming and heaves a big sigh of relaxation as soon as I pick him up crosswise.
The bad news is that his head sticks out. Our house was custom-built for a small man, we're told, and the doors are not very wide. The hallway is narrow and has sharp corners. Every time I go through a door, carrying Charlie point foremost, I'm half sure that this is the time I'm going to thwack his little skull. No matter how I angle my arms, Charlie is in the lead. It doesn't help that I've rammed my own shoulder or hip into a doorframe more times than I can count when I wasn't carrying the boy.
Thus far I've avoided disaster by fixing my eyes in terror on the clearance between Charlie and every bit of molding or sheetrock that threatens to clobber him as we walk. Gives an extra hitch to my steps that no doubt helps keep him disoriented and docile. As long as I never gain any confidence in my ability to keep him out of harm's way he should be fine. At least until he starts running into walls and doorframes under his own power.
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Maybe you could get him a helmet.
Last night I was trying to ease my toddler into his crib, and I did fine through getting out of the chair, disentangling myself from the blanket, and walking across the room. I was sure I was home free until I slammed his legs into the side of the crib.
Oh well, you're supposed to put them down awake at this age anyway.
Heh. My husband's favorite story to tell of his babyhood is when his mom brought him home from the hospital and smacked his newborn head on the doorjamb of the front door.
It's really priceless to see the indignation on his face and watch his mom laugh.
Charlie's a beauty. Good job mama & papa.
Why don't you go through doorways sideways? Not that I really know if that would help...Sorry...I just woke up and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
Don't know what to say about your doorway issue. But on the pacifier side of things I'm wondering if you've seen or tried a pacifier clip. It was a lifesaver w/my first who was quite colicky. There is basically a small clip that attaches to their clothing and then a short strap w/velcro that threads through the pacifier ring. That way when it falls out, it is still attached to their body, not dirty, and very easy to reinsert. Just an idea to throw out there. I think you both are doing a great job!
Did you ever read the Bad Mommy Confessions thread I had on my site (http://moxie.blogs.com/moxie/2005/02/bad_mommydaddy_.html)? Half of them were about slamming your kid's head into the doorjamb, and I know the other half were just because some of us did it so often we didn't even remember it.
When he hits 9 or 10 months old he'll start bucking around like a horse whenever he's on your lap, and will clock you in the chin so many times you'll have a perma-bruise under your chin. So just think of it as advance payment for future services he'll render.
*puts football helmet on list of things to buy charlie*
I thought that was how we got the knots in our head. If he doesn't have knots, won't he be mocked by the other kids in school? Isn't it sort of your moral duty to give him a few good ones? And anyway, I thought all children were made of rubber and only turned to flesh when they hit 7 or so.
The first thing he will do under his own power will be to fall off a bed or a couch. Did my daughter do that? Of course. Did I manage to prevent future occurances after the first one? No way!
In the next few months, you will:
Whack his head into the door jamb
Allow him to roll off of something high
Just barely snatch a lit candle/sharp knife/cup of coffee/loaded pistol from his grasp (OK, maybe not that last one.)
Feed him a spoonful of food that is WAY TOO HOT
Cut half his finger off while clipping his nails (if you haven't already. I did it at the hospital. They still tell other new moms stories about me and Lily and the gushing blood).
In the next few years you will:
Shut his fingers in a door
Trip over him and knock him senseless to the floor
Let go of his bike right before he hits an enormous pothole, after promising not to let go (did that today. Sam may not get back on his bike again this year.)
Let his head go under in the pool.
Zip his penis in his pants after he has pooped in his underwear and you've taken them off and you don't have any others, so he's "hanging loose".
Think of it as the school of (very) hard (oops) knocks.
It will hurt you more than it does him. Well, except for the penis thing.
Thanks for a great, honest blog.
I swear Oldest must have thought his name was
Oooh Sorry -- cause every time I put him in his carseat I banged his little head on the doorway of the car.
Oooh Sorry! I'd whisper over and over again.
Oh my goodness, I did the same as blackbird with my son. He still fears me putting him in the car, haha.
We barked the boy's head on a door-frame at three or four weeks of age. It's a rite of passage. As it were. He's none the worse for it now, as far as we can tell.
Kate and Blackbird...me too. I swear everytime it happens, some random parking lot person sees and gives me the death stare.
And I applaud KJ's list- the only one I haven't achieved yet is the zipping one, but my brother did that, so it nearly counts.
I find I get the same result if I sit in a firm chair near the edge with my knees together. baby is lying on his side with his feet at my stomach and head extended over my knees. my hands loosely cradle his head and a thumb holds the pacifier. then i swing my knees from side to side, faster the more upset H is.
but if i want to make a phone call, i strap on the bjorn and march laps around the house!
I can't believe i'm sharing this horrible story with you but here goes; The other night my nearly 2 year old was swinging his plastic fireman's helmet around by the straps. My newborn was sleeping on his boppy on the floor directly under him and i warned and warned him not to swing it next to the baby. Finally i had to take it away and thinking i would put it out of his reach i placed it on the handles of my eliptical machine- about 5 feet up. Sure enough, that stupid little plastic helmet came crashing down 2 seconds later and slammed into my newborn's head. Good thing he was on his stomach or his face would've borne the brunt. Talk about feeling like a bad mother. Ugh. My two year old was all : Baby, ouch! Mommy!
If kids are too smart, they end up being miserable.
That's what I told myself after each mother-induced brain injury.
de-lurking to say - you almost certainly will thwack hiim on the head with a doorway one day. Probably not for a while though. I and most of my friends managed to wake our sleeping 1 to 2 yearolds like this (or in some of thier cases prove that their child was unwakable). By the time it happens you will most likely be more able to be horrified for a second then shrug and get over it as soon as you see they are actually ok. I still get doorway virtigo while carrying DD through doorways though and she is three.
Umm...been there, done that. She SEEMs fine...
How about smash his head into side of car everytime you put him in his car seat...or, my personal favourite, throw up into the pointy bottom of the chandelier when trying to get him to laugh? Yup, child abuse.
Heather Ann, I thought you had made your child throw up on the chandelier, and I thought that was pretty obscure. But now I get it.
I remember a dad on a flight with his crying baby. He finally got the tot to calm down. When the plane landed and it was time to disembark, he, in a fit of pride and fatherly strength, hoisted the boy up onto his shoulders and BANGED his head right into the ceiling of the plane.
Oh, how that kid wailed. George and I could not stop laughing!
Just wait until he starts to walk. He'll give himself brain damage! My son once fell while walking down the sidewalk. His little round head hit the sidewalk forehead first and I swear it sounded just like a watermelon thunking. The sound was AWFUL and of course he wailed! When learning to walk he always had at least one bruise on his little head. He is fine now. Actually I've been told by his pediatrician that he is so advanced he's scary! Maybe the head bashing helps! ;)
I love that you know the mileage of your upstairs. My son also needed to be carried around in the sling endlessly to get to sleep. We have an old house that's too crowded with bookshelves, especially near the door frames. He got lightly bumped once or twice, nothing terrible. You'd be surprised how negotiating those angles and corners becomes second nature after a few hundred thousand times around.
But the head-banging while putting him in the car? Never figured out how to prevent that...
C LOVES to whack her head into the door jam. I swear to christ she sees it and she goes "Oooh, time to fling my head back!"
You've got to work on your sidle, Paul! :)
Oh pshaw - no worries. My mother tells me that she must have whacked my head on doorjambs at least half a dozen times before I started walking on my own. (And no doubt several times after that - we are not a terribly coordinated family.) Just so you know, I manage not to drool on myself too often.
On the other hand, Mom STILL feels guilty about this 29 years later... heh. Good luck.
Just wait - mine put "blankies" over their heads and ran into walls all by themselves - over and over... I was seriously worried I'd given birth to slow children who didn't learn from their mistakes. Heck, they are now "above average", so watch out!!
Skulls are tough. Don't sweat it.
I loved KJ's list. Yes, I have done all of them except the zipping. But, my only boy is still in diapers. The first time I wacked my oldest with the doorway I thought I would die. The red welt that it left behind taunted me. The worst mothering moment for me was when my 18 month old son fell down the front steps onto his face. He was trying to walk down them by himself and I was going to let him, but my four year old daughter couldn't believe I was letting him go and tried to "help" him and accidentally pushed him down the stairs. AND I yelled at her like it was her fault. So there I was with a bleeding boy and a hysterical girl. Not a nice moment.
Lurker De-Lurking...
I got cocky about my "doorway" skills and when my boy was 10 months old...I wacked clean into the moulding. I was traumatized more than my little hardhead was. Believe me, I sat on the floor crying while he tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.
Ps...I didn't post to your last entry because it was filled with wonderful advice and wow...I figured you'd never get to it. My son is 12.5 months and still has terrible reflux. I don't have any assvice. Just that its hard and try to keep your chin up. You're a wonderful mother and you & Paul are such an amazing team as parents.
I admire you greatly.
you'll be fine...it will be like getting the first ding on the new car. after the first time, you'll be much more careless.
My worst was the clipping off the tip of her finger (okay so it wasn't THAT much finger). I started running around like a psycho looking for a bandaid but didn't want to leave her at the changing table. And I was screaming "She's bleeding, she's bleeding!" My husband got out of bed (the changing table was in the bedroom, hello 1br apartment). And he took over and I all collapsed on the bed in a fit of tears saying over and over that I was a bad mother.
I felt SO SO BAD.
But since then the little goober has run into nearly every single solid object known to man under her own force. We like to joke every time she does it "There goes the SAT score!"
Wow, and such maneuvering on so little sleep. I am impressed. And just think of all the exercise you are getting. I am sure you're cutting a fine figure these days.
I've done the doorway thing several times in aidens 6 months, the car door thing a million times with my 3 yr old stepson, but nothing is as horrible as the big nasty bruise on my poor babies forhead that he inflicted opon himself. 6 months old, I wouldn't call him coordinated, but I give him hard plastic rattles that he shakes violently and either slams them into his head, or into his thigh. He lets out this horrible wail, then goes back to beating himself with the rattle. Half the time, he doesn't even notice when I catch his head on the door jam. I wouldn't worry too much about doing it, it happens.. They are resiliant little creatures.
My Mom is getting on in years and it a bit heavy besides....I tell you this because as a result of the above she has an uneven gait that my newborn daughter LOVED! It would sooth her instantly, like your obstacle course movement with the door frames. Another move that my dd loved was I'd hold her like you described holding Charlie then I'd twist my torso one direction then the other as fast as I could stand. It used to put her to sleep so well, and its waist trimming for the adult as well!
"When he hits 9 or 10 months old he'll start bucking around like a horse whenever he's on your lap, and will clock you in the chin".
For the past month he's been trying to climb my chest every time I lay him down there when he's not quite finished eating. Thump. Thump. Thump. I think I'm learning to put him on my shoulder instead.
(As for the car seat, I can't say how many times having the handle up has saved me from smooshing Charlie on the way in or out.)
Ohmigod, I just found the picture gallery! He is so utterly adorable! Thanks for putting those up! (But except for the RSV shot pic, we don't get to see what you're tangling with on a daily basis in terms of the misery. I guess those aren't totally Kodak moments, but the pictures paint a very different scenario than your words....) Anyway, he is a total sweetie and I hope you get to see more and more of those moments VERY soon.
You have NO IDEA how many times I THWACKED my daughter's head into a door jam when she was a baby... poor thing. She's 8 now, and so far so good, no permanant damage :)
A bit of assvice -- trim their fingernails and toenails while they sleep. It sounds a bit off, but it works. They don't move around nearly as much when they are sleeping, thus, less of a chance of cutting off a fingertip or little toe!