Growing a Pumpkin Patch is Hard Work.

NOW you tell me!

"Children are a gift from God.  They are not to be mistreated - or tied up."

Aw, crap.

This deserves a whole new category...

So, on Saturday, Chris and Adam and I met my cousin* at Chris's office to sign the loan papers for our new house.

(Did I tell you that we're moving?  No?  Hey!  We're moving!  In 34 days!)

We were sitting at a large conference table and Adam was on Chris's lap.  Adam has hit that age where anything he sees must get to his mouth, STAT, and as a paper coaster was within his reach, he was happily munching on this coaster within seconds.

"Hey Chris," I cannily observed, "Adam's chewing on that coaster."

"Oh," he replied, "babies love coasters!"

He said this so matter-of-factly that for a minute, the statement "babies love coasters" sort of made sense, like when someone says, "Geese fly south for the winter because they like the mojitos in Miami," and for a minute, you're all, "Oh, well, duh.  OF COURSE - the mojitos in Miami are excellent," and then a minute later, you're all, "Wait - what?"

Right about the time I started to think, "Wait - what?" my cousin, who is the mother of two-year-old twins, and therefore is a keen observer of anything a small child in her vicinity is up to, said, "I think Adam ate some of that coaster."

Sure enough, one corner of the very damp coaster was gone.  Chris swept Adam's mouth, which was free of coaster debris, and since Adam was happy and chatty, we figured that he was fine and that any coaster remnants would probably pass through his system without incident.

About five minutes later, Adam started to cough.  At first it sounded like he was growling - he's been on big growling kick for the past two months, but then his little face turned red.  And then, our sweet little boy threw up for the very first time. 

Like any baby, Adam has had his fair share of spit-up.  Sometimes, like when we first started nursing and my letdown was especially enthusiastic, he'd spit-up a lot of... whatever spit-up is.  This, though, was different.  This was projectile, and more importantly, this had sound, and where spit-up usually ends up on the front of Adam's shirt, this stuff ended up on Chris's feet.

Sweet Adam had no idea what was going on, and his little red face looked very confused for a moment, until he hurled again.  The product of this hurling was indeed bits of coaster, and after one more hurl, he was coaster-free and happy as a clam.

The funniest thing about this story, really, is that of the two of us, Chris is by far the more responsible parent, and for him to be all blasé about Adam's coaster munching was definitely more in keeping with my personality.

 

(*My cousin is a fabulous mortgage... lender? broker? arranger? I don't know what the term is, but if you live in the ATL and you need a mortgage, she's great.)