Kaden 10 Months

I wrote this when he was 10 months, which was like two or three weeks ago.  I had planned to take some pictures of him and then post it.  But he fell and got a big cut so I was waiting for the stitches to come out.  Now he’s been a bit sick and so he’s cranky, snotty, and his eye is red.  So no pictures.  I will get some for 11 months, and then lots for 1 year.

10 months old!  He loves crawling all over the house, pulling books off of shelves, dumping out tubs of toys, grabbing Kylee’s glasses or hair bun (will grab hold of her lower teeth in order to pull her closer so he can get her glasses or hair), eating snacks…  He LOVES when Daddy comes home.  He hears Ryan’s voice and he immediately starts begging for him.  If Ryan doesn’t come right away, Kaden loses it.  None of our babies have been such a Daddy’s boy.  He actually pushes me away sometimes when Ryan is holding him and I try to take him.  They have a pretty cute relationship.  And I don’t mind that he wants to spend lots of time with Ryan.  He also LOVES when Kylee plays with him.  Especially his ball-popper toy.  It’s SO cute.  He’s a squealer, and he flaps his arms around and gets so excited.

He also likes to fall over.  That poor head of his!  I get that it’s large.  It must be hard to hold up such a big noggin’.  But the kid is killing me with how often he TRIES to fall and bang his head, and how often he actually DOES bang his head.  He’s like, already accident prone.  He’s plenty capable of sitting up well and not falling over, but occasionally he just falls on the hard wood floor and bangs his head.  Plus he’s standing a lot now so when he first was learning that, he used to twist around on one foot and fall.  He fell from the counter once.  That was horrible.  But there was only a small red mark and he calmed down rather quickly so I don’t think it did as much damage as it could have.  But worst of all, one of the worst parenting moments ever, happened this week (Sept 14^th).  He lunged off my lap in the bathroom and smashed his head on the bathtub, which happens to have a metal rail sticking up for the sliding doors.  It was ugly.  There was blood.

We took him to Community Care for stitches.  It was not fun.  He’s such a sweet boy, he calmed down on the way there and just hung out while we waited to be seen.  But once the nurse started messing with it, he got pretty upset.  She put numbing ointment on it like three times and had to wrap the gauze around his head.  He didn’t like it.  But that was nothing compared to us pinning him down for 15 minutes while the PA shot him with lidocaine and then stitched him up.  SO sad.  Poor, poor Kaden.

Seven stitches later.

He seems to be doing well.  I’m trying my best to keep him from injuring his head further, especially in the same spot.  But he refuses to be careful!  He wants to stand all the time and he’s not good at it.  He cruises along the fireplace, which makes us all nervous.  He wants to pull things down on top of him, like the broom, or my shoes on the shelves in my closet.  I hardly dare let him out of my sight!  He’s been standing alone for longer periods of time and I swear he wants to start walking soon and I’m not ready.  I need some bubble wrap for his poor head!  Or maybe the fireplace needs bubble wrap around the sharp edges.  Do you think that will work?  I just know he’s going to toddle over to it and trip.  I’m paranoid!  None of my other kids ever got injured, or scared me this bad.  Why is he different??

When he got hurt and Ryan and I were upset and getting ready to leave, Sadie got really upset.  We left Kylee in charge and took him to Community Care.  We got home about 10pm after stopping to pick up his prophylactic antibiotics.  Kylee had gotten the little ones to bed and was down in her bed too.  But this is what we found in the living room.  Dylan and Sadie had worked hard to make something that Kaden would enjoy so that he could feel better.  There were Puffs hidden everywhere as well as lining the blanket.  The note said “for Kaden”.  Those kids are so sweet.

I finally put the rest of his decorations up in his room.  I’m not sure why it took me so long.  It was a quick job.  I think they’re pretty cute.

This was taken just before he hit his head, so it’s the last picture of his face unscarred…  He loves to climb in the shower with me.  Even when I'm in a hurry and don't really want him to.

I know kids get scars and it will probably heal pretty good so you can’t see it much, but I am really, really sad that his perfect skin is now scarred up and it’s my fault.  If I had just kept a better hold on him.  Now I’m trying so hard to keep him from hurting himself, but he wants to stand on his own and pull himself up on all sorts of things and I am scared.  I keep having visions of him toddling around and slamming his head into the fireplace rock.  I want to wrap bubble wrap around it all.  That’s reasonable, right?