Friday, March 15, 2013

Who's Afraid of the Echo Bush?

I had an OB appointment to get to this morning, and I've been feeling pretty good the last couple of days, so I planned to go on my own. I did make it there, almost on time, but not before encountering a couple of setbacks, the first of which was Michael's morning poop explosion. The mess was widespread enough that it required not only a shower and outfit change, but also a change of sheets, which was forgotten until moments before I was to walk out the door, and Michael was to go down for a nap. I therefore not only ended up leaving a good 20 minutes later than I intended to, so that Tom would have time to get Michael napping before I left, I had to stop for gas on the way, and make about three left-turns to get back on track afterwards.

While I was marginally surprised to see that my blood pressure reading gave no indication of my harrowing morning, I was not surprised to hear that there have been no changes to report over the past week. Honestly, the contractions have been dying down for the most part, and I'm beginning to think I might actually be in for my longest pregnancy yet, after all. I'm having a hard time not getting a little depressed over the prospect (I'm not sure how much longer I can stand feeling like a ticking time bomb), but at the same time I recognize that a lot of things are easier now than they will be afterwards.

When I returned home, I learned that he had been able to complete a few baby-proofing tasks during Michael's nap by distracting Abby with an episode of Dora The Explorer. However, she apparently had not finished the episode, because she got to a certain point and began to throw a fit. When he started it up again, the same thing happened, so he put it aside for the morning. As he related the incident to me, Abby walked up and said what sounded like, "Abby doesn't like the ekoboos." We had no clue what she was talking about, but figured it must have been something she'd seen within the episode, and had perhaps been afraid of.

Our theory was proven when I gave in to Abby's pleas of "Dora, Dora!" after lunch. Forgetting about the morning's conversation, I told her that we could watch the episode she'd started to the end, and that would be it for the day. Not five minutes into playback, Abby began to screech and cry. I looked over at the screen to see Dora and Boots approaching a large bush with a face drawn on it, and tuned in just in time to hear Dora exclaim, "That bush says everything we say!"

I paused the show. "Abby, are you afraid of the talking bush?" I asked. "Abby doesn't like the talking bush," she wailed. And then it hit me. A bush that says everything you say. An ECHO bush. Abby doesn't like the Echo Bush. Yeesh.

Needless to say, that was the end of Dora for the day, and I made a mental note to Google this sinister Echo Bush character to determine if he's a regularly appearing character on the show. Thankfully, it seems that he's only in one episode: El Coqui. It also appears that Abby is not the only fragile innocent to be scarred by his terrible machinations. I ran across a cute little blurb, written by another blogger, detailing her young daughter's first introduction to the Shrubbery That is Evil Incarnate.

So, yes, my daughter is afraid of a talking bush. But here are some things she's not afraid of, sadly:

  •  Climbing down out of the crib. She made another attempt today, but somehow fouled it up, and was discovered by Tom, screaming and hanging halfway off of the changing table. Thankfully, we now have a gate, which Tom has installed at the top of the attic stairs.
  • Pulling things down on top of herself. I had not one, not two, but three big scares yesterday when Abby successfully pulled the changing table in the basement down onto herself (thankfully it is a very light piece of furniture, and it hit some interference with a box that was stowed beneath it as it went down, so no injuries occurred), then later attempted to pull down the gate that bars her way to the laundry room, and finally, her play kitchen. Tom's baby-proofing project of the day today was tethering the changing table and another rather lightweight shelf to the wall. We're still figuring out what to do about the kitchen, since it's not actually up against a wall, but rather, the back of a bookshelf.
  • Copying her brother. He's actually the one who inspired her to pull on the changing table in the first place. He's already clearly displaying a penchant for getting his sister into trouble. Last night, she began rocking in her booster seat at the dinner table, and when I asked her to stop, she defiantly proclaimed, "Michael's rocking!" But the real kicker was this evening, when Michael threw up everything he'd eaten for the last three hours or so, and Abby decided that she wanted to do the same. Thankfully, she doesn't know that gagging herself would have given us a more realistic reenactment, but she did chew and spit out her food onto the floor in loving imitation.

Speaking of the vomiting incident, that's one mystery we're still trying to unravel. We don't think it's a brand-new virus, or even a resurgence of the current one, given that it didn't seem to bother Michael much at all as it was happening, and it didn't affect his mood afterwards. Like Abby, he was clearly in a lot of pain and discomfort during his bout with the stomach virus. I'm inclined to think that it was the bite of crabcake that Tom slipped him during dinner. He spit it out in disgust, but I imagine that he still managed to ingest some. Now I'm wondering if this means that we have a shellfish allergy on our hands...

Of course, it's all further confused by the fact that I gave him almond milk for the first time today, so that he could drink something other than Pedialyte for a change. However, not only am I pretty sure he's had almond products before with no issues, he drank the almond milk at 4 pm and threw up at 7:30. Can an allergy take that long to make itself known?

Just one more development to stress this poor, tired mama out. At least this icky day is nearly over now (having begun in poop and ended in puke), and I can grouse about my troubles in peace.

2 comments:

  1. Used to be afraid of it when I was a little kid. I would have to leave the room prior to its appearance or skip the episode overall if I knew it was gonna be on.

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