Family Update: Part Drew

I think we've survived the worst of what Drew has to dish out. He actually manages to be helpful sometimes, and often, without being asked. For instance, we change quite a few poopy diapers in this house, between my two little guys and Bryan. And for anyone who has never changed the diaper of a one-year-old, you need to understand that 12 months is the age at which children decide that laying still for 36 seconds is not high on the list of fun things to do, and that flipping over and arching their backs is a fantastic way to set off Mom's temper. Drew does not put up with that garbage, so anytime he sees me settle in for a round of diaper changes, he runs to sit at the head of whichever child is being changed and holds their arms flat to the floor. If they squirm at all, he puts them in their place with a, "No, no, Baby", or a "No, no, Bry-Bry", depending on which kid it is being mutinous. Mostly, I think he enjoys helping in this regard because he gets to pin the kids down without me telling him off for it.

Nap-time continues to be a bit troublesome. Drew definitely still needs an afternoon nap, because he falls asleep at about 5:00 without one, wakes up at 7:00 and thinks he gets to stay up until midnight that way. (If Dad is home, he does get to. Andrew is under Drew's complete control. Drew gets away with things that neither of the first two did, simply because he never fails to scream shouts of joy and take a flying leap into Daddy's arms every evening when Dad comes home from work.) The downside of nap-time for Drew is that when he wakes up, he usually behaves like a cat who's been dumped in a tub full of cold water. He is ornery, he screams at everyone, he can't decide if he wants to be held or left alone, whether he wants a drink or not, he rolls on the floor, thrashes around, is completely inconsolable...and then he snaps out of it, just like that, and wanders off looking for a snack or a toy to play with as though nothing ever happened. Every time this happens, I loose a year of my life.

A few days ago, Drew came down with a little cold, and last night it seemed to reach it's zenith. He cried a lot in his sleep, coughed so much that I was going insane along with him, and needed his nose wiped every other minute. Remind me to thank all the people who decided that children's cold medicine was unsafe for 2-year-olds, because letting them suffer through sleepless nights seems such a better way to handle things. So at about 2 AM this morning, I decided that Drew, who was sleeping next to me, was ready for another dose of regular Tylenol which would do nothing for his coughing, but would perhaps ease the aching that was surely coming from his ribcage after all that hacking, and possibly sooth any sore throat that he might have. The problem is that Drew hates medicine of all sorts. Even the yummy, grape flavored chewable Tylenol that I would buy and eat as a treat if they ever sold it in non-medicated form. So I brought one grape chewable tablet in from the bathroom and tried to push it past Drew's lips, which, even in his sleep he had clamped shut to prevent me from medicating him. I pried his lips apart and pushed the tablet past his teeth, and no sooner had it hit his tongue than he had it pushed back out and it rolled off his cheek and onto the pillow. Urg. So I pushed it in again, and out it came again. Much like a whack-a-mole game, we continued this process until I was done being the sympathetic mother of an ill child and shoved it to the back of his throat and then pushed on both the top of his head and his chin to prevent him from being able to open his mouth and expel the tablet again. All the while, Drew never opened his eyes.

As for Drew's vocabulary, we can now understand quite a lot of what he says. He will ask for "juice", and then, because "juice" to Drew is anything and everything liquid, we have to go through the painful process of listing all the kinds of "juice" we have on hand. "Water? Milk? Orange juice? No, you are not going to get a Sprite by jumping up and down and whining." He usually settles for milk. Drew also says things like, "It's boo-i-ful!" and "Mooo-oooom!" and "I wanna go ou-side." He has several standard phrases. If I walk into a room and discover a new and particularly grievous mess has been made, (usually one which involves scattered spices or broken dishes), I will stare for a moment, freak out a little, and then utter a slow, "Oh. My..." And Drew will finish it off for me. It's a shameful thing, but live with us for a week and you'll then understand how swear words kind-of become the substitute for beating the life out of a child. I'm working on it.

This afternoon, Joel and Briana came over for a snowball fight and a visit. After dinner and baths came the standard pillow/sword/make-shift weapon fight that always accompanies the closure of Joel's visits and sends the kids into a kind of adrenaline fueled frenzy which keeps them from sleeping for hours. Well, at some point during the war, Joel scared Drew enough that he came running over to me and was jabbering on about Joel something or other and a what-not, with eyes like saucers and a huge smile stuck to his face. So I told Drew to go scare Joel back. So he charged to the end of the hall, squealed and maybe threw something, and then hollered, "I hit him right in the nuts!"

They just grow up so fast, don't they?