the winter of our discontent

January sure has been eye-opening for us as parents of a toddler. The notion of cabin fever has reached a whole new level. Clearly the weekends stuck inside of our 1920's colonial are making Paudie insane. And us as his parents. He has so much energy and there is really no place to go. When it is Monday morning and we take him to daycare he's all, so long morons.

Making matters worse is the fact that master Paudie has been sick and/or teething for about a week now. The night time screeching is almost more than I can handle. I sit there as it's 2:45, 3:30, 4:15 listening to him basically drag his nails down a vocal chalkboard and think, this could be worse. You are not in a tiny hospital room dealing with a living nightmare. That is my benchmark for a lot of things in life. But it's hard. When he is happy, he is sooo happy. When he is unhappy, there is no consoling him. He has been like that most of his life but the delta between his highs and lows right now is quite remarkable to me. It's like he has a split personality. I figure, or perhaps hope, that once he can speak things will get easier - yes, there will be tantrums but I truly look forward to the day he can tell me if it's his teeth that hurt or an empty tummy that is causing his dismay.

Of course in the midst of our angst we have booked tickets to Florida as well as Ireland. During his manic episodes this week I can't help but let my mind wander to the behavior on an airplane. I know, it will probably be fine and I am just an ameteur but come on, can you blame me? Um, remember last year's medical emergency on Flight 132 to Shannon Ireland that cause Paudie's now seemingly benign Goosebay breakdown?

I need to post some photos. I know. We have made some recent home IT infrastructure improvements that should facilitate posting.

Oh, something else I should mention is that Paudie has added 'Go Diego Go' to his expanding vocabulary. Not sure where it came from as to the best of my knowledge, he does not really watch the show. He's more of a Curious George fan. But if the TV is on and Dora appears, all you hear is 'gogeigodo.' He also has become quite skilled in identifying dogs. Cartoon, real, drawn... he's all about them. I think one is in our future, perhaps this spring. Let's face it, the boy needs a playmate.