Alternate title: In which I pretend I am a real photographer because I have a tripod and a timer.

Alternate alternate title: Lots of pictures, few words.

The misery in our house continues, to the point when I call the nurse line at my ped’s office, hoping she could write me a prescription for magical baby pills that stop screaming. Or maybe just some Valium. For me, not the screaming child. They had me bring Baby Evan in for the fastest appointment ever (total time from my phone call to home again: 23 minutes) and confirmed he has no ear infection or secret broken bones or prehensile tail growing out his diaper and it is simply teething. Really painful teething, but teething none the less.

In an attempt to distract both of us from some of the misery, I decided to play photographer up at the rose garden. For some reason our town is called “The Rose of New England” (because…people in Connecticut can be kind of prickly and intimidating? We’re all special snowflakes? We smell very strongly?) It’s really a lovely little garden and would be a beautiful spot for a small June wedding, unless of course you wanted people to actually attend, as there is no parking and no seats. Still, pretty flowers!

Baby Evan was fairly cooperative – if adamantly opposed to wearing shoes of any kind – and we had a pretty good time. I even like most of the pictures of myself! Truly a remarkable day here in the Davis household.

The quote is *almost* by Emily Dickinson, only her version is "There came a day at Summer's full, entirely for me". It's not a particularly happy poem, so I don't know who chose/changed it.

That yellow rose is called "Julia Child", which I think makes it my favorite.

We’re currently going through a delightful and exciting stage of development called “I’m 14 months old and I hate everything”. It main consists of Baby Evan hating things and making his hatred known in the loudest, screechiest, most ear-splitting way possible. Things Baby Evan currently hates include:

1. Diapers
2. Getting dressed
3. Being told not to hit people
4. Being told not to throw things
5. The floor
6. Sleep
7. The cat
8. Shoes
9. Hats
10. Sunscreen
11. Water, especially the river, especially people going swimming in the river
12. Children
13. Any food besides the one specific kind he wants at that exact moment but has no clear way of communicating what that one specific food is
14. The world “no”
15. EVERYTHING ELSE

I think I could deal (if not exactly patiently and lovingly) most of the time if we could get back to the happy place where Baby Evan sleeps 7pm-7am with one early morning feeding. I’m not even asking for him to sleep through the night. I just need him to get more than 8 hours – for EVERYONE’s sanity. For the last week we’ve done our normal bedtime routine at 7:30 or 8:00 pm and then fought a screaming child for close to an hour before giving up and letting him come back downstairs to empty the cabinets and torture the dog for another hour until the face-rubbing and whining reach epic proportions. We considered having him asleep by 9:30 on Sunday night a victory…only to have him wake up for the day at 4:45 am. Last night was another “victory” where he only whined for a few minutes before passing out and AGAIN was up at an ungodly hour.

E and I are understandably exhausted, not just from our own lack of sleep but from the mental strain of a crying, unhappy child we cannot seem to comfort. We spend hours every evening having the same discussions over and over: Do you think he’s teething? He must be teething. One year molars you know. Do you think he’s hungry? What else can we feed him? He must be too tired to sleep, poor thing. Should we just bring him downstairs? I know we don’t want to but what else can we do? It’s probably his teeth. I’m clinging to the hope that it’s just a phase, a temporary setback before he goes back to the good sleeper (relatively speaking) we’ve had for the last 6 months. Either that or I’m selling him to gypsies. Do they still take babies?

The only other possibility – although it sounds sort of crazy to me – is maybe he’s having nightmares or bad dreams or terrors. I don’t know if that’s the sort of developmental milestone a baby grows into around the 1 year mark and I have no idea what to do about it. What does a 14 month old even have nightmares about? A sudden peanut butter shortage? Losing his last sippy cup? The passage of federal legislation making shoes mandatory at all times? Whatever it might be, my only hope right now is to fill his life with so many happy thoughts and new experiences he forgets all about it. Maybe there’s a circus I can take him to. That sounds exciting. And also like a good place to find some gypsies.

Surprisingly, this month-day didn’t come up too fast. I’ve been saying Baby Evan was 14 months old for a couple weeks until I remembered May came after April and it wasn’t yet June and the number after 12 is 13. It’s understandable I’d have some trouble, seeing as how I’ve only know my months and numbers for the last 26 years or so. After the immense excitement of Baby Evan’s 1st birthday party and all the traveling we did in May I somehow expected the time to just fly by, when instead it dragged on, rich and full and slow like molasses. But now my baby is officially 14 months old and we can barrel on towards our next month-day.

14 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
• Eats with fingers – Yes! Food! He puts food in his mouth!!
• Empties containers of contents – Any container of anything ever.
• Imitates others – Seriously one of the most fun milestones, since now you have the power to make the baby do all sorts of funny things. We have a new game that involves smacking ourselves in the face. It’s a lot cuter than it sounds there.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
• Toddles well – Unstoppable.
• Initiates games – He initiates games with the dog all the time, especially “I’ll hold your tail while you try to run away and we’ll see how long it takes for me to fall down” and “sit still, you’re a chair!”
• Points to one body part when asked – NOSE!
• Responds to instructions (e.g., “give me a kiss”) – Oh he responds alright. Unfortunately, most of the time when I ask he throws himself backwards to avoid having to give kisses. Although he has no shortage for his father. He also knows “no” “don’t touch that” “stop” “not yours” “danger” and “hey cut it out!” I’m kind of exhausted.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
• Uses a spoon or fork – He could get a spoon in his mouth but not without getting most of the food on his face or shirt.
• Matches lids with appropriate containers – No. But then again, I care barely do that.
• Pushes and pulls toys while walking – Yes.

Enjoying his stash of things he's not allowed to touch.

Pretending to be Daddy.

Why are you bothering me? Can't you see I'm on a call right now?

One of the rare moments he's climbing it the correct way.

I do it all by myself!

Hi mama, whatcha doin? Whatcha doin' mama? Whatcha lookin' at?

Love my doggie. Dog dog dog dog dog.

Ooof, being 14 months old is exhausting. Time to lie down.

Alas poor Nuby cup, Baby Evan loved thee well. But now the time has come to go to the great dishwasher in the sky, to join in drippy celebration with others who have gone before. Where juice and milk flow in abundance, and no one every throws you on the floor. Farewell dear Nuby, for although your life has been far to short we know it is time to part because….

…THIS? This is just unacceptable. Spill-proof my ass. Piece of crap.

So finally, at almost 14 months, my child officially eats solid food. All my fears about poor oral motor skills and gag reflex and allergies and exclusively nursing until he was 8 proved to be just normal first-time mommy induced panic and now I can go back to freaking out about the important stuff, like why doesn’t he say “mama” more often and will he grow up to be a serial killer because he likes to stand on the cat?

Baby Evan’s new and somewhat sudden interest in real, human food has left me woefully unprepared to offer healthy, age appropriate choices. It’s incredibly embarrassing to realize the only food in our house is stale bread, frozen pizza rolls, ancient cans of soup and fourteen kinds of cheese (which happens to be one of the only foods Baby Evan is still totally uninterested in) while Baby Evan whines and signs “food food food food foooooooood”. And even when I do have apples and Cheerios and yogurt and wheat bread and raisins and four dozen other things to offer him, all Baby Evan wants is cookies. Or french fries. Or jelly beans. Or one of the other terrible, horrible, no-good-for-babies things I’ve fed him over the past six months in a desperate attempt to find ANYTHING he would eat. It’s a lucky night when we’re having chicken or pasta or salmon or something I can offer him without the horrible guilt brought on by food coloring and corn syrup.

How did I end up doing this so wrong? I’ve seen plenty of news reports about childhood obesity. I scoffed at the idea of french fries being the most common vegetable in a child’s diet and swore “not MY child”. I know intellectually how important it is to start good habits now, but then suddenly it’s time to eat (breakfast, brunch, mid-day snack, lunch, early afternoon snack, etc etc etc) and all those good intentions fly right out the window. I am failing.

It’s crazy to realize feeding my child is turning out to be my greatest parenting challenge to date, especially since I thought I got the baby-feeding thing under control when Baby Evan was 4 months old. Wasn’t breastfeeding supposed to be the hard part?

Moms (and childless healthy eaters), how do you do it? How do you make sure your kids eat real, healthy, non-processed crap more (or at least as) often as they eat junk?