Task management

When I was in the Air Force I had a really good handle on task management. There were several times that provided great experience in this field. Today blew me and my task management skills out of the water.

Today had been a frustrating day. Jackson refused to take a nap any longer than 15 minutes and hadn't slept real great last night either. (Just to include you...Jackson just spit up on his crotch while studying his feet. Had to pause for clean up.) Well I decided to put Jack in his jumper for a few minutes so I could clean up some bottles and get sooomething started for dinner. (Emphasis added to demonstrate a total lack of ideas). Less than 5 minutes later I come around the corner into the living room to see (and I'll do my best to describe this accurately and in great detail) Jack jumping in a puddle (yes a puddle) of his own runny poo. The poo has run out of his diaper, out of the jumper seat, and down his leg. You would think after that long distance travel there wouldn't be much that made it to the floor. Think again. Also important to note is that we have put a couch pillow beneath said jumper to help Jackson reach the ground. It apparently got covered in poo, became slippery, and exited the scene stage right. I honestly had to say out loud to myself..."Ok. What do I do first? Pick one thing, focus on it until it's done, and then you can pick another one."

SO I picked Jackson up out of the jumper, smearing poo on every thing along the way, and carried him upstairs. Seconds before depositing him onto the changing table a little 1/4 cup of poo slid down his leg, splashed off my bare foot and hit the carpet in his room. Again at this time I had to say out loud, "Focus on one thing at a time. Clean the child off first." I would've taken him to the bath tub, but after doing that once I learned that poo is not easily cleaned out of the bathtub either. Long story short, the involved paraphernalia are in the washer and I've put away the carpet stain cleaner I never thought we'd use again after house training the dog. I'm quite confident there is still poo in a few cracks of both Jack and my's bodies...but we'll get it later.

Moments of Mayhem

Things have mostly settled down here in the Scarbrough household. Jackson has been doing really well...he's working on saying "Goo" right now. That may sound sarcastic, but I'm actually serious. Up until now he's just "Oooh"ed and "Ahh"ed, so a consonant thrown in IS actually a challenge for him. Isn't that the life? Even though things are going swimmingly and we're in a definite routine, we still encounter moments of mayhem. For example...

Jack usually wakes up twice in the night. Once between one and three and then another time somewhere between five and seven. He then proceeds to sleep for another hour or two before waking up for the day. (I know...please don't hate me. I'm so lucky to have a good sleeper!) Every once in a while he decides he doesn't have need for those last few hours, so I'm careful to keep him in the dark and not talk to him that last time he's up in hopes that he'll stay groggy and go back to sleep. To help in that process I always change his diaper first and then feed him so he can relax and start drifting off while he eats. Well, this morning I forgot. I toyed with just leaving him in his diaper, but it seemed like it might be leaking a little. So I bit the bullet and decided I'd stop feeding him and expect crazy screaming for the few seconds it'd take me to change his diaper. I raced him up to the changing table, started taking his diaper off with one hand while getting a new one out with the other and then I actually looked at his diaper. Full from front to back with poo. Old poo. He'd just been an angel and slept for 6 hours straight, so who knows when this poo occurred, but it was dried on to his bits already. These are the moments of mayhem. I'm standing in his room without a light on (to help him stay asleep) while he screams bloody murder because I cut him off from his breakfast (to help him stay asleep) and we're both covered in crusty bits of baby poo (that has nothing to do with him staying asleep). I turned the light on.

He's all clean now and currently practicing falling asleep on his own. The Dr. said to start trying to put him down when he's drowsy but not fully asleep so he can learn to sooth himself to sleep. I was pretty skeptical, but we did it last night and after about 15 minutes (without ANY crying! just goo ing to himself) he fell asleep. And so we begin our "work week". Happy Monday everyone!