Innocent 'till Proven Guilty

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in bed (because that's the most logical place to do homework) writing my paper when the mattress started shaking on the box spring. It bounced, it pounced, it shook about. This is who I blamed.

I had my reasons. See, he was not helping me much with my homework. What? The computer screen is on Facebook and you think that's not related to Salman Rushdie and his Pakistani political thematic devices? Shut up! I was on a break! Anyway, Homer felt it was his responsibility during my painful hours of research to continualy drape himself over whatever I was reading or typing and purr to no end, or eat my pen. So, when the earth began to shake yesterday, I thought he crawled into the box spring under the bed and found a new way to irritate me from underneath the bed instead of atop it.

This guy didn't even wake up for our quake yesterday. He's a good sleeper, eh? But, he looks guilty with those 'tickers anyway, huh? 'peaking of 'tickers...we got another referral for 'peech therapy in from the doctor. He thinks Collin may need to get some help finding the letter "s" when it hides before hard consonants. I say more power to 'peech therapy! It'll be nice to go to school instead of 'cool and to go upstairs instead of up'tairs. It's cute and all to listen to little munchkin talk, and he talks pretty eloquently for his age. Half the time I am afraid of the day when he doesn't talk like such a cute little baby; but, I don't want my future space shuttle pilot to talk about his 'pace mission to mars with his other 'pace shuttle pilots. That would just be too silly.

Also to be kissed good-bye according to the doc at our well baby visit (fingers crossed and another referral to another specialist)....

Collin's gross toenails! Hooray! I've been complaining about his gross toenails EVERY doctor visit since he was born! Does anyone else's kid have this problem, or just mine? His big toes and his second toes have nails that are really, really thick and they grow up and out instead of straight. The doctor said babies are sometimes born that way from being squished and curled in the womb (as if it's our fault for not providing them larger accommodations) and they usually straighten out by their first birthday. Kind of passed the deadline there.

So, he's got to go to a dermatologist to make sure it's not some weird, long-named thing that they don't have to fix. Why can't they just call stuff easy-to-pronounce, logical descriptions like, "gross toenail cooties?" He's already had an ingrown toenail (ewwww) that hurt him a lot because they are super hard to cut (it has nothing to do with his squirming). This has lead to the now, traumatic toenail clipping parties we have that involve stradlling the boy and holding him down until child protective services knocks on our door and asks why there is a child screaming, "YOUR KILLING ME! STOP! I'M DYING! IT HURRRRRTS! NOOOOOOO!" Gross. Can you believe that this face can be gross?

I can. Maybe it's because I'm his mother. So, it amazes me how many doctors it takes to keep a kid running. Pulmonologist this month to talk about (gasp...asthma...everyone cross your fingers that it's not asthma), dermatology to get rid of toe ick, and speech again. This kid better be an orator for all the speech therapy he'll have gotten. I think we might be being picky now but for how awesome it worked the first time, I certainly can't say no. He's more verbal than a lot of kids way older than he is. Besides, every time we drive by the building, he still says, "Can I go play with Amber?" Sure, Collin! Let's go!