Little Bunny Foo Foo

Earlier this week I spent some time going through my posts from Jackson's first year. I wanted to look at his pictures and compare his infancy to Annabeth's. I realized a few things in reading those posts. For instance, Jackson was about 2.5 pounds heavier than Annabeth at 4 months and an inch longer. They rolled over (tummy to back) at about the same time. Jackson took his sweet time doing the back to tummy roll and Annabeth is doing the same. By now Jackson was already showing signs of teething. Annabeth is not really.

Poor Annabeth - she's already been sick so many times. I guess that's the lot of the second child. Jackson's first sickness was at 7 months old and he came down with it on the morning before his first airplane ride. That probably worked in my favor since he's much calmer when he's sick. But Annabeth has had one cold after another. She was a little warm and fussy on Sunday and by yesterday she was coughing and sneezing non-stop. She has not been nursing well this week. I can't tell if it's because my milk is running low or because she can't breathe through her nose. Ever since Memorial Day, I've been really nervous about my milk drying up. I've been working on making sure she's nursing enough times each day. Since she sleeps 12 hours at night (don't hate me), it would be easy to drop to too few daytime feedings to sustain it. Today I realized that the drop in supply may be hormonal. Hopefully that's all it is. Regardless, it does not make baby girl happy.

So I've had two sick kids this week with completely different things. Jackson's was so weird because he had every sign of the stomach virus, but no vomiting. He even leaned over the bowl, cried, shook, and sweated, but nothing came. I think he just fought it so hard. That day he was the most pitiful I've ever seen him. He laid on a blanket on the floor for hours. He's been getting a little more energy back each day. I will say that he's been very easy to deal with. Today he was almost normal. But when I grab his little hand, there's still not much strength in his arm. Bless his heart.

Reading my old posts made me feel like such a loser blogger. I was much better in the past. I swore I wouldn't post again this week until I had something "good." But I've got nothing! Nothing, I tell you!

Well, I do have one thing. Jackson got this water-filled, squishy toy from my aunts on Sunday. The next morning he squeezed it in such a way that it made a weird bubble along a seam. He brought it over to me and said, "Mommy! This look like my bunny!" Sure enough, it looked like a set of hiney cheeks. I laughed so hard I nearly fell off the couch. Are you confused? Maybe I failed to mention that four generations of my mother's family have referred to the private parts as the bunny.

Really, who am I to change things? How arrogant would I be to think I could improve on such a longstanding child-rearing tradition? No pun intended. That's a lie. I totally meant it. If "bunny" was good enough for Minnie Ola Roundtree and Aletha Green, it's good enough for me. When my kid yells out that his bunny itches in a crowded elevator, I will thank my lucky stars that my mama raised me up right - and her mama before her, and her mama before her. Don't worry, they didn't leave us completely in the dark when it came to anatomical correctness - we always knew we had a front bunny and back bunny.