I found this in my inbox:

not sure what is better…that the winery is 15 minutes away or that I can get my very own souvenir wine glass…

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I want to thank all of you who commented below. It was a nice combination of coddeling and tough-love. Sometimes a mom just gets hit with several things in a row; add in a cup of sleep deprivation, and off the handle she flies! I truly appreciate the support and the love and the “quit being a baby” and letting me vent without ignoring me. I do feel a lot better.

On another good note, we got Cooper’s blood results and all is good, save for one test that indicates that there’s some inflamation going on somewhere. Considering he was busy rashing-it-up while we were at the lab getting the blood drawn, I’d say we’re safe to ignore those results. Also, found out that even though he is the spitting image of Justin, that child has the exact same blood type as me. Phew! Glad I passed something good onto him (since the hands I gave both my children will be the bane of their piano-playing existence).

Poor Cooper. He’s had a really rough day. He got up and played in his bed like usual. I gave him his sippy cup of milk and got ready for work. At 8am, I started getting him dressed. As I leaned over to throw his jammies in the hamper, he leaned forward and flipped head-over-heels off the end of the changing table (the opposite direction of where I was leaning). He landed partially on the diaper pail before rotating further and landing on his back and shoulder (well, the rest of him hit the floor, but that’s what landed first). Even though I had one hand on him, that one hand wasn’t enough to stop him. As I watched that 5-minute-long split-second where my baby was tumbling onto the hardwood floor, the phrase “ohmigod let him be okay!” went through my head about 16 hundred times. I couldn’t go after him fast enough…and although I’m not even sure his legs even hit the floor, it seemed an eternity passed before I could get him scooped-up into my arms where I did a quick check for blood or bones sticking out before bursting into tears, too. I tried soothing him with his binky, a snuggle against my bare skin, his sippy cup, and even his magic blue blanket. Nothing seemed to work…he’d calm down a second, then start up again. I thought for sure that he sustained a serious injury and started bawling again, whimpering “sorry” over and over in his ear, thinking surely if I called the pediatrician one more time this week, they’d commit me to the psych ward and stamp Munchausen-by-Proxy on my butt.

I carried him into our room to get the phone to call the doctor. As I re-situated him in my arms and tried to dry our tears a little, he spied both of the dogs (who were hovering) and started laughing. And I mean belly-laughing. What did I do? Started crying again. Then, while he was occupied with laughing hysterically at dogs doing nothing but sniffing him, I poked and prodded him really good to see if he flinched or showed any signs of pain…none. I eyed him suspiciously to see if he’d vomit or if his pupils were dilated or not reacting correctly to light (or the lack thereof). After a good half-hour, and with a heavy, guilty heart, I brought him to daycare. I let the teachers know of his acrobatics and that if he even seems slightly fussy or anything to call me that very second.

I never got a call and when I picked him up, he was proclaimed “fine” and “happy” and “begged mercilessly to be walked all over the infant room”. I was warned, however, since he seems to be pooping the rest of that roseola virus out of his system, that he has one.wicked.diaper.rash. I looked at his daycare summary sheet and saw that between the hours of about 9am and 6pm he pooped FOUR TIMES! And it wasn’t diarrhea. Add in that he pooped first thing this morning, too. And yesterday he was also a crazy pooping machine…from 3am (when he got me up Sunday night) until 8pm on Monday he pooped 6 times…three of those were between 3am and 9am. Even though those wonderful ladies that love my baby were extremely diligent with the Desitin ointment, since he kept pooping over and over and over, it was never on his butt long enough to do anything.

So we get home, we eat (I won’t post about how Gavin and I had Cheerios for dinner…yeah, Gavin Trauma, except that he loves brinner). I start getting Cooper ready for bed, and when I opened his diaper I was shocked at how red his poor bottom was! He’s always been more prone to rashes, ever since we had Thrush, but this was bad (and I have to admit, when I sent him, his bottom was looking a little rough, but I was more concerned about his head to get too crazy over a simple diaper rash). Take a box of Crayolas, find the red crayon, and there you have it. Poor baby. This rash is so bad that when I wiped him, he screamed in pain. I tossed him in the sink with some baking soda in it (it works on yeast/thrush rashes…totally safe for baby), but he wasn’t having it. Even though I made the water a little cooler than his normal bath water, I’m sure it was a bit too warm and caused more pain. At that point, Justin was able to help me manage him and snuggled him in a towel while I got his diaper, jammies, and Boudreaux’s butt paste out. I asked Justin to not set him down until I was totally ready. He nodded and confirmed, “you want to do it big, fast, and once only”.

I squirt a huge glob of the butt paste onto my finger, he sets Cooper down and pulls up his legs, and I start quickly (but carefully!) smearing the paste on his butt, fully expecting more shrieks…instead, he calmed down. Guess it felt alright on his poor bottom. Once I put the diaper on, though, more painful screams. I quickly get him in his jammies, singing, dancing, anything to distract him. Then I finally stick that bottle in his mouth. Silence, save for Cooper’s rapid drinking noises. Enter additional guilt and self-loathing for not just keeping him home today because holy crap he fell off the changing table and I should’ve kept him home for proper mommy-observation, and then I could’ve been way-super-diligent about the rash that was trying to get ugly. And cue the tears…again.

Instead of being ridiculously grateful that Cooper seems fine considering his fall, and that we’ve battled many a worse diaper rash without batting an eye, I’m just completely guilt-ridden. I should’ve known better than to lean away from him while he was sitting up, even though I had a hand on him. I should’ve called the pediatrician right away to bring him in to make sure he was fine…have him gone over with a fine-toothed comb. I should’ve kept him home to monitor him…or that rash. This is all self-induced second-guessing…no one has ever said anything negative (to me) about my parenting or caretaking of my children, yet this is what goes on in my head.

Add in that Gavin has been struggling with a stutter that has gotten very noticeable in the past 4 or 5 weeks (particularly when he’s tired). Prior to that, he’d have the occasional stutter that seems fairly common in toddlers and preschoolers…they’re still learning how to wrap their mouths around words. But now, I am not exaggerating, it took him at least 15 seconds to spit out a word the other day. Once he finished his sentence, I heard Justin sigh with relief and I announced, “I’m calling the county on Monday.” I’m not sure what precipitated this change in his speech patterns, but of course I feel that I failed him along the way. That if I had really really really tried to breastfeed him, instead of giving up in frustration after 6 weeks; or if I somehow begged, borrowed, and stole so that I could stay home with him and caught it earlier; or if we had contacted the county sooner about his speech delay; or if once we had contacted the county that we followed-up properly and on-time instead of letting other things get in the way; or if I hadn’t glossed over his speech issue, thinking he’d just grow out of it and had just listened to Justin who was throwing a fit about it. Now my funny, bright little boy struggles to say words that he’s not had an issue pronouncing a month or so ago. And each time that he restarts a word or his sentence, during each stutter, my heart leaps up into my throat and then drops to the bottom of my stomach with a thud.

After 138 comments (holy cow, people!  I’m not sure I’ve ever got that much in all my other posts combined), sorting the comments by Silver or Gold, and running a random generator I finally got the winners…

The winner of the gold set of jewelry is Audra Marie from A Dash of Sassitude!!!

The winner of the silver set of jewelry is Alaina from Reflective Ponderings!!!

Ladies, congrats to you both…be sure to email me at jewelry@colleenrummel.com with your mailing addresses so that I can get your jewelry sent out to you!  Thanks to EVERYONE that participated…I’m STILL trying to visit all of your blogs.

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And just for a little fun…no one will actually win anything besides my undying love and affection and fidelity…but it should be interesting to find out what all of you think.  So…what’s wrong with this picture (no, really I want to know):

I am totally pulling a Burgh Baby’s Mom and not writing. But I have a good excuse…we had a community yard sale on Saturday (and a Goodwill Drop-Off run after that). Sunday I was doing mad laundry and cleaning up my closet (seriously, I took 95% of its contents out and went through them, straightened them up, and put them back). Today I need to go through and sort the comments from my Bloggy Giveaway so that I can try to announce a winner later tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. So here’s a fun pictorial…or at least I think it is.

Not sure if the rest of you are as easily amused as I am, but for some reason, these pictures make me laugh each and every time I see them. In fact, I sometimes start giggling in anticipation of a funny picture. Enjoy:

cannot wait until they’re teenagers

I can seriously quote like half the script to this movie

my husband and my oldest…not my house…it’s never been that clean

I love me some Steve Martin…especially old stuff…although he had me in stitches in “Pink Panther”

never thought folks would be so happy to be married

this is still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, especially since Carol didn’t do this in rehearsal, so it was all Harvey could do to keep a straight face

even my dog sticks her tongue out at me!

Demon Flying Baby! (a.k.a. “fun with Photoshop”)

you are looking at THE angriest toddler…even with a lollipop in hand, he is in a complete rage…we’re guessing from those muscles that it’s ‘Roid Rage

UPDATE: apparently I’m a loser and didn’t see that Justin posted a bunch of pics from this weekend…included are a few more that are pretty stinkin’ funny…just click on the thumbnails to see a larger version (roughly 400×600), then click on it again for some full-screen action. Yes. I am a BIG dork…*sigh*.

…and then you turn yourself around…that’s what it’s all about!

 Oh.  Wrong funny words inserted into that song.  Sorry.  After all the craziness of “guess that rash” and nearly retching from “scary-ass rash” Google searches, I’m feeling a little slap-happy.  Well, per the pediatrician, Mom’s guess what correct…Cooper’s got Roseola.  A mild, generally pointless viral rash.  Side affects include keeping creepy folks from touching my kid while waiting for the elevator in the building that houses seventeen-hundred other doctors’ offices.  Also makes the eyes of new parents of a 3-day old baby bug out like a bull-frog and shift to the other side of the elevator cab.  I was amazed at how well that new mommy moved with only being 3-days post-partum.  Since they were probably exhausted and such, I was nice and said, “it’s not contagious.  And your baby boy is gorgeous…congrats.”  That at least seemed to take the fear out of their eyes.

Here’s some shots of the roseola rash…still just on his arms, legs, and a little on his face.  Honestly, I couldn’t tell it was on his face because he’s been doing a lot of face-plants in the carpet with his crawling/monkey-walking experiments (monkey-walk=on hands and feet).  My subject was not very willing to sit still and my camera was not willing to pick up the redness, and my poor photo-editing really didn’t help showcase the rash well, either.

you can kind of see it on his calves

aahh…you can’t really see it here, but it does showcase his beefy thighs nicely

you can see it a little on his forearms

and this just shows what a fan-freakin’-tastic mom I am…
no, seriously, I walked away to put his dishes in the sink, grab our stuff for the trip to the pediatrician, and he was OUT!