Laugh Until You Cry... Or the other way around

This week has already been full of funny and interesting stories. I will share two of them with you.

Jonathan has found his voice and likes to use it often. Babies should seriously come with some kind of diagnostic or instruction manual. (Is that what people mean when they have their placentas "read??") I've read the books, heard the experienced advice, and I think I'm half decent at figuring out what's wrong when he cries. Mommy instinct or something. But lately I swear he is just "expressing his opinion" as his grandmother Suzie calls it. I wonder where he gets his opinionatedness from... Hmmm... ;)

Naptime fussing seems to be a preference of his, and I just got back from trying, once again, to calm him down so he can sleep. My go-to line is, "Jonathan Miller, it's time to sleep so we can grow big and strong." Apparently he wants to stay very small and weak. I walked into his room and patted his back, and it felt a little cool in there to me, so I decided to cut the fan off. Pretty much every electrical appliance in our house has some quirk. All the lights flicker (I like to think of it as the special "candlelight" setting), our dishwasher takes like five hours to run a cycle, and the microwave sometimes turns on by itself. Well, the fan in his room isn't controlled by a switch, so you have to pull the little cord thing, and every time you do, it feels like the whole fixture is going to come tumbling down. So I carefully pulled the cord but accidentally pulled it once more than I meant to and it turned on full blast (don't you hate when you do that?). So I gave it one more good yank, and off came the little pully-cord thing! So I was standing there with a screaming baby, the fan cord in my hand, and a thunderstorm booming outside. It was a most appropriate time to take a (very) deep breath and sing that song from my childhood, "Have patience, have patience, don't be in such a hurry..." It sounded better when the turtle or whatever critter on my video sang it.

Jonathan has been doing pretty well during church, and I haven't tried to put him in the nursery. Assuming all would go as planned [cue uproarious laughter], we decided to do the same thing this past Sunday. On the way out the door, I asked myself, "Should I bring the diaper bag?" And answered, "Nah, he'll just sleep the whole time like usual." Well, what did my adorable son decide to do? Yes, that's right, he did not sleep. So, not wanting to be disruptive, I quietly scooted out with him and decided to take him to the nursery. I pretty much threw him into the room and hurriedly said to the sweet ladies working in his room, "I'm so sorry, all I have is his paci, but he should sleep the whole time and you won't need anything." I guess I was just flustered or nervous because I'd never left him in the nursery, but I went back to my seat and tried to be a confident mom. (You definitely have to pretend these things sometimes.) About 30 minutes later, I checked my phone to see how much longer I had to worry if he was torturing the poor nursery workers and I had a text from one of my friends who was watching kids in another room. She said Jonathan was fine, but he had a blowout in his diaper and it had gotten all over him and wanted to know if it was okay for him to stay in his clothes. Being the experienced moms that they are, I don't think it bothered the ladies keeping him too much, but of course it felt like an epic Mom-fail to me. I rushed back there after church was over and found him, perfectly content, and wearing a borrowed diaper from his baby buddy John. Thank goodness for our sweet friends at church. :) I vowed to them and myself that I would never be without his diaper bag again. Pinky promise.

Being a mom for just over 7 weeks has required a good bit of humility, a sense of humor, and truckloads of patience. Maybe that's why God decided for me to become one earlier than I planned... :) And even if my Jonathan Jr. screams through his next 23 naptimes, I don't think it could make me love that little booger any less.

In his vintage little john-john outfit that he "christened" in the nursery.

"What, Mom? How could you ever be mad at me?"