i was not prepared to sit down with eli to watch sesame street today and find Elmo checking his email. the song has also changed, but the over all feel of the show was still there just a lot less 80's like than i remembered. i started losing my mind last night. it was like week 3 of motherhood all over again. eli and i both have a cold, but it's a pretty nasty one. and i've been sucking the snot out of his nose all night for 2 nights and refilling the humidifier and then worrying about him and not being able to fall asleep.  but then last night he fell asleep drinking his bottle so i put him to bed and he woke up 20 minutes later crying. then i had to rock him to sleep and he woke up again 20 minutes later. this happened about 5 or 6 times. needless to say it is very tedious to rock a 25 lb baby in your arms when your pregnant belly is in the way and your lower back is already hurting. i started to have a break down... lack of sleep, baby who never cries crying his poor little eyes out, me blowing my nose and waking him up, me coughing... ugh.
my eyes hurt. he seems much better today, but my immune system hasn't had a chance to do anything for me because as my mom would say i've "been burning the candle at both ends" i think i'd like to add that i have also been burning the middle parts of the candle along with both ends. anyway i am one of those unlucky few who cannot fall asleep for a nap no matter how desperately tired... so here i am on xanga.

well it happened.
i got to call 911 and be the lady crying on the phone and panicking as blood gushed out of her baby's mouth.
i was having a cup of coffee and tweezing my eyebrows at the kitchen table before church (my natural eyebrows are quite offensive and irreverant in the sanctuary so it was a must), when Eli slipped on the floor and fell the length of his own height... no big deal. i ran over to get him up but i noticed his cry wasn't the same as usual when he falls. he was sort of freaking out and arching his back and coughing and wheezing and then i noticed blood trickling out of the left side of his little mouth.

you can guess what happened in my body in that second. blood pressure through the roof. adrenaline bursting out of my veins, pulse racing, sick to my stomach as i questioned whether there was a cut on his toothless mouth (how would that have happened just slipping?), or if he had punctured a rib into his liver and was having internal bleeding. his crying wasn't letting up.

 i had had foreshadowing of this about an hour earlier, a "premonition" if you will. Caleb had to work so i put Eli in his crib with his favorite toy while i hurried up and took a shower. the whole time i was in the shower i kept picturing Eli standing in his crib and then slipping and banging his head on this hard plastic toy and blood gushing out of his head. So when i got out of the shower i ran into his room to check on him and he, of course, was fine. so an hour later when there was blood dripping from his mouth i was already in the subconcious mindset of needing to call 911.

i ran around the house trying to find my phone with Eli crying and gasping on my left hip. i finally got them on the phone and told them my 9 month old fell and i don't know how, but blood is coming out of his mouth and i can't see any cuts.
by the time the paramedics got here he had stopped crying. they asked me if his cheeks always look like that. "yes, he has huge cheeks". they took us to the vanderbilt pediatricians to have him looked over and make sure nothing was really wrong and to find out what caused the bleeding. at the hospital the nurses took his temperature, listened to his heartbeat, weighed him (25 pounds!), and looked in his mouth with a flashlight. after a while of searching they found a tiny cut at the top of his upper lip inside his mouth (where that little peice of tissue connects your gums to your lips). i couldn't believe how small the cut was. his little sweater had blood all over it. after a cherry popsicle, and a phone call to daddy at work we were on our way home. i checked the clock and it was already an hour into the church service so we stayed home and watched the Muppet Movie and i let Eli have his paci all day. i told him if he were a little bigger i would have stopped and gotten him a happy meal like my mom always got me after going to the doctor.

well, that's the news from lake nashbegone, where all the men are hicks, all the women are trying to be something they saw on lipstick jungle, and all the children are below average (except eli).

sonny started crawling and is still crazily easy and amiable. i havent seen a stranger who didn't turn their head to see him, and i feel guilty around friends with babies because their relatives flock to Eli because he is the best behaved and best looking, and he looks you dead in the eye and gives you a big toothless smile or purses his lips together and smirks to make you laugh. caleb mentioned sending his photo to a baby magazine or something but then i pictured hollywood calling and wanting him to be in "Honey, I blew up the Kid again" and then his whole life being ruined by the Gommorah of fame and deceitfulness of riches.
him crawling makes my life easier actually because he is highly entertained by himself. he can play with the refrigerator magnets or crawl around under the dining table, or play with caleb's banjo, or turn knobs on the amplifier or sneak under his crib, or poke his finger into the VCR... it's a whole world of exploration.
the hard thing is knowing whether or not he is intentionally pinching people and dogs. he just grabs with his fist and his little finger nails sometimes dig you. he never looks like he is doing it on purpose like the way one of my neices used to get a sneering look in her eye right before she'd pinch your cheek. Eli appears innocent, so i just say "No" and push his hand away.
someday i wont have to guess if he's being naughty.

not much is new besides eli pulling himself up in his crib.. he'll be walking in no time, and still no teeth. so all those people who said he was teething for the last 6 months... you were way off. ha. not even a red gum.

i'm reading "All The Pretty Horses". the same guy wrote "No Country For Old Men" which is the last novel i read all the way through. i'm in the middle of a million books but none of them are for fun (which is why i am only in the middle of them). i definitely recommend reading No Country because it was way good, especially if you are above 45, i think you will love it for the monologues at the beginning of each chapter by the sherrif. the book really changes a lot of how you view the characters.

anyway i'm gonna go finish reading it now so i can see the movie.

buenos noches