The Ukulele Story

I have more than willingly allowed my mother-in-law to come see Ben, under the requirement that she remain on her medication and continue seeing her psychiatrist. She was doing great for a while. Stopped plopping down on my floor and dumping her purse all over. Stopped squeeking (because she is not allowed to scream in my house) unintelligable phrases to show how excited she is that there’s a bird outside. Lately, though, it’s started getting strange again.

While being pet by my mother-in-law as Ben napped on my lap, I noticed a curiously filled pillowcase sitting on Ben’s swing. I didn’t have an opportunity to ask before my mother-in-law skittered over there to grab it. She fiddled with it for a moment and, I shit you not, pulled a ukulele out of a pillowcase. A ukulele. Out of a pillowcase.

I’ll wait while the strangeness soaks in.

My mother-in-law was a little annoyed because Ben had been napping for about 30 minutes. “Is he going to wake up anytime soon so I can play for him?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t napped this morning so I’m going to let him rest.”
“I wish he was awake! He’d love this! I WISH HE WAS AWAKE! Can I play it and maybe it’ll wake him up?”
This is where I look horrified and Eric’s aunt says, “I’m sure he’ll love it another day. He’s napping.”
“CAN I WAKE HIM UP?”
“Um, well…I…” My need to be polite in front of company superceeded the needed to tell my mother-in-law that she was batshit crazy.

And then, she began to play and sing.

Seriously. She played the ukulele and sang, loudly, in an attempt to wake Ben. Her fingers were slipping off the ukulele, she was trying to play that thing so forcefully. She was quite cranky when, at the end of her song, Ben had done no more than snore. He hadn’t even wiggled slightly. At this point, I called victory and expected to move on.

I was premature.

Another song began, more loudly. Another wailing on the poor ukulele in an attempt to wake Ben. I looked around at the rest of the room, just to see if anyone else had the “I can’t fucking believe this is happening” look I’m sure I had on my face. I found Eric’s aunt and dad staring at the ground (”We are not related” faces), his cousin with his hand over his downcast eyes (”I cannot be related”), Eric averting his eyes in any direction but his mother’s (”I’m not here, this is not happening”) and his uncle fast asleep, his head all the way back on the couch, mouth wide open. The man.was.out. I immediately wondered if I might be on candid camera or in a new National Lampoon’s movie. It was surreal, to say the least.

At the end of the second song, there was a bit of discourse between his aunt, his mother and his cousin. His aunt and cousin talking gently, his mother…well, not.
Mother-in-law: “WHAT’S ANOTHER SONG?!”
Aunt: Tom (cousin) liked that dog song when he was little. What song was that, Tom?
Tom: I don’t know.
Mother-in-law: “DOG?” She begins singing some random dog song.
Aunt: “No, no, that’s not it. The dog song. Tom, you remember.”
Tom: I don’t know.
Mother-in-law: “DOG?!” Another random dog song.
Aunt: “No, no! Tom, what was that song?”
Tom: I have no idea. I was like 3.
Mother-in-law: “DOOOOOOOOOG?!” Seemingly begins singing the correct dog song and the aunt joins in. “No! That’s not right! Stop!” Because, apparently, the aunt was not singing in the correct key or the correct words and the ukulele was not quite in the beating position yet.
They started over. They sang different words through a dog song, mother-in-law as loudly as she could. Tom looked horrified. Eric’s dad stared at the floor. Eric stared at the ceiling. His uncle snored. I tried not to get up and run Ben out of the room, hollering, “These are not your genes! You are not destined to become this! YOU WILL BE NORMAL!”

After the dog song failed to wake the sleeping baby, mother-in-law shoved the ukulele back in the pillowcase and grumbled, “He’s going to sleep all day. We’re going to go.” I was grateful. I loved his aunt, I loved his cousin, I love his dad and his uncle was a great guy, too but his mom is such a bundle of nervous energy that it’s really hard to enjoy time with her. Especially when there are people around that she’s hoping to impress, she seems to lose all semblence of sanity.

Just as I was saying good-byes and thanking my lucky stars that the day had ended, my mother-in-law proceeds to proclaim, in obvious hopes that everyone would hear, “I hope you let us see him again!” Wow. Well, you know how much I love the whole victim act! Of course you can come over again! Since I’ve been such a racuous bitch and have allowed you to come visit whenever you express an interest, you can totally come over even sooner to try to wake up my baby with rabid ukulele sing-a-longs, feel me up and then throw guilt trips at me as you leave! I’m so excited, I could vomit.

And, my poor husband’s response, in his ever so sweet, avoidance sort of way, to the entire incident? “That was my ukulele.”

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It’s Strategically Placed Mess

I didn’t want my dear friend to feel alone. Children falling off of things happens to all of us. Luckily, they’re resiliant little buggers.

On Wednesday, I was putting a screeching Ben into his car seat, which I had (against all advisories on the car seat itself) on top of the couch. As Eric walked into the living room, trying to clear a small path through the piles of fabric on the floor, he grumbled, “Maybe we can take a half an hour when we get home and clean up the fabric from the floor?”

As I turn to give him a dirty look (again, GO SMART MAMA BRAINS!), I hear a THUMP! Ben had fallen, head first, out of the car seat and off of the couch onto…THE GIANT PILE OF FABRIC ON THE FLOOR.

Best reason to never, ever clean again.

Or, you know, not turn my back on Ben when he’s on the couch by himself.

I’m going to go with the no cleaning thing.

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First Serious Fall

Ben had his first serious fall today. Scared the shit out of me and his father and nearly killed his great-grandma.

We were going into Sweet Tomatoes for Eric’s early birthday dinner. Eric jumped a puddle. Grandma, never to be outdone at 82, even when holding Ben, decided to try herself, too. She missed the step and went face first into the concrete. She managed to land on her knee first and block Ben from the ground with her arm but she did fall on top of him.

Talk about a “What the hell do I do” moment. Do you grab the baby or worry about the old lady on the ground? Eric grabbed Ben, I asked grandma if she was okay. I actually think I yelled it at her because I was freaking out. Grabbed a screaming Ben away from Eric and took him a few feet away to make sure he was okay and kill him with hugs if the fall didn’t do it first.

And here is where I see blood and my heart stops. “He’s bleeding!” Grandma is still on the floor. Dad and grandpa and some passerbys are trying to help her up. Mom scurries over, takes one look and says, “He bit his lip. It’s okay!” Me? Pale as a ghost, Eric says, and I was trying not to cry. “He hit his head! Check his head!” grandma tells me from the ground. I check his head, it’s fine but I’m convinced there’s internal bleeding or something horrific.

Grandma gets up but is sick to her stomach and her knee & neck hurt. I want to leave and go home. Mom makes us go in and eat. Well, everyone else ate. I just sat there trying not to puke as I looked at his perfect little lip swell to the size of a marble.

Grandma was worried everyone hated her but we got past that. She’s got neck & knee pain while Ben’s a happy camper. His lip swelling went down but he does have a little red spot on the back of his head that’s worrying me. It’s not swollen but it’s definitely there. I’m now not going to sleep tonight for fear that he may just stop breathing at any moment and I’m really not even kidding about that.

New Rule for this family: No one carries Ben outside of the house except us.

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