Stubborn as an Steven Edward

I left the "an" in the title because all I did was substitute one noun for another and I didn't think I should change the indefinite article.

First of all, who knew that kids before the age of one were stubborn. I've watched many parents attempting to convince their children to do things. Often the child would win and I would say to myself...obviously they made a mistake earlier in the parenting that set them up for this moment. When the child has a tantrum and the parent can't control them, obviously they didn't discipline early enough. When a child refuses to eat the parent obviously didn't make them eat the right food early enough. These are all parenting mistakes, right?! Well...ha! My how the tables have turned.

We have the sweetest child...everyone remarks. He has such a sweet disposition...they all say. Well yes, you're right...but he also has a crazy stubborn streak. From looking at all past generations I have come to the conclusion this must be from the Breedlove side of the family because NO ONE on my side has any trace of such a trait.

It all started when he didn't want us to feed him a cheerio. After all, it is a finger food and he would only eat it if he could feed it to himself. If I put one in his mouth he would actually pull it out so that he could put it back in himself. It continued as he refused to take any form of medicine. It takes at least 2 people to force feed him anything. In fact, sometimes 2 people and an ER nurse (who is sure she can do it by herself) are quite unsuccessful. It continued as he decided not to take anything off a spoon. He would scream and moan for 30 minutes straight. But if you take the same food and tear it into bite size pieces he was fine. Or actually, if I put his spoon on his tray with food on it, he would pick it up himself and put it in his mouth. It continued as he decided that he would try spoons again, but only if they are adult metal spoons. None of those silly rubber coated baby spoons for him! In fact, he is now to the point where he only wants to eat from an adult spoon if you are not holding his feeding bowl. Can we say irrational? Who would have thought that I would have an irrational child. Go figure. One could conclude that the antibiotic that he is on (which he will be done with on Thursday) which causes vomiting and diarrhea, may also cause stubbornness. But this may also be a Steven Edward trait that existed as he cried for 1 hour and 45 minutes before he fell asleep on his own as an infant. Not sure-but I may be seeing a trend.

Our Seinfeld Episode

We currently live about 8 blocks from the restaraunt they use in the sitcom Seinfeld. So, in the very obscure instance that I am flipping through channels and see an episode, I feel this bizarre, compelling force to watch. I have really enjoyed this new hobby, so a friend of ours gave us the first 2 seasons on DVD. It really has no plot. Each episode is different and it is basically satirical one line humor about society. Each has a title and is about a funny or peculiar incident that all of America has at one time or another had to face. I have decided that our week this week would make an incredible Seinfeld Episode. It will be called, "The Ear Infection."

It all started in Asheville - we went for Steven Edward's 9 month check up and it turned out he had an ear infection. This has been a fear of mine as a mother, since he seems to have an incredibly high pain tolerance. I feel like one day I will wake up and my son will be deaf from an ear infection that was never detected.

Well, he finished his 10 day antibiotic and by the end he started running a small fever. We, as any good parent would do, looked for any signs of sickness and concluded that he was teething. This has been our diagnosis every time Steven Edward has been fussy over the past 6 months. It should be noted here that my son has gotten two teeth this week. So we monitored the fever but didn't really worry. Then Monday night, Steven Edward woke up screaming with a 104.1 temperature. We freaked out and called everyone we have ever known who ever had children for advice. Being our first child, we wanted to poll all of our friends on what they would do, because we honestly had no idea of how to handle the situation. After a long frantic discussion we decided to take him to the ER.

We arrived to a waiting room that was relatively empty. There was a crazy homeless man taking shelter from the cold whom I (out of foolish southern politeness) accidentally smiled at. He took this as his cue to become obsessed with our son. He started announcing loudly to the room of people that, "that baby is just fine, he is just acting this way because he knows what's coming. He knows there is another on the way! Right, dad - we all know." He then proceeded to discuss my son's weight with the room. "Just don't over feed them and don't over gas them. That's the problem and the doctor will tell you the same thing. Too much food and too much stomach gas." After this small humiliation we found out that Steven had yet another ear infection. We asked the man checking us in if there were always crazy people in the lobby, to which he responded, "Of course! It's New York City!" Other notable craziness involving the ER included a man explaining the many addictions he had to a local nurse (um...including cocaine) and a sleeping doctor (who happened to be examining our son)!

This time they put him on a much stronger antibiotic which, according to the instructions, may cause vomiting in the first couple days. Oh...and it does. It is almost as predictable as shaking a bottle of seltzer water before you open it. One hour after ingestion...well you understand. The most comical episode occurred last night while my husband was in class (shocker, right). I have gotten pretty good at anticipating the blow and this time I was a little quick on the draw because I got in there just before the explosion. Upon picking him up, he covered my shoulder, back, and that's right...my hair. I did the only thing I saw as an option - I got into the bathtub with my son and bathed him while attempting to wash out my own hair. This is not quite the end. Just as my husband got home and I was rocking Little Steven to sleep after his evening feeding, that's right....spew number two. This time I (according to my husband) used a choice word and cried to the elder Steven for help. Since I was unable to distinguish the new accident from the wetness of the last shower I was forced to jump into the shower again - this time quite alone. My husband rocked our son to sleep and the doctor called and told us we're doing the right thing, because based on his actions the medicine is working. We currently have an appointment tomorrow to assess the progress. Oh, the blessing of children. The rest of this week I will have my hair in a pony tail and use disposable diapers.

Go Giants!

NFC CHAMPIONS!!!! In spite of all the doubters, Eli has led the Giants to the Super Bowl! I'm gettin a T-shirt!

A Week With No Classes

So this was our last week of break and we were able to just be together in the city before Steven's classes start. We have had lots of time relaxing and have seen a couple of the museums that we wanted to see.

THE FRICK
On Tuesday we went to the Frick Museum. It was originally the house of Henry Clay Frick, who was one of the Robber Barons along with Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie. He used his money to collect art and when he died they turned his home into a private art museum. It is filled with paintings by Vermeer, El Greco, Rembrandt, and other well known painters. You would recognize lots of paintings. They have most of the original furnishings (similar to the Biltmore, since it was during the same era) and the size is great, because you can actually get through the entire museum in an afternoon. Unfortunately they didn't allow any cameras so we only have this shot of the outside.


TOYS R US
Okay...so not as impressive as an art museum. On Wednesday we went to Toys R Us to ride the ferris wheel. It is the largest Toys R Us in the world and the ferris wheel is inside! Unfortunately for Steven Edward we got stuck with the Barbie car.




THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (MOMA)
Then today we went to the museum of modern art. Apparently I missed the memo that in order to look at modern art you in fact need to BE modern art. Everything (and everybody) in this place was "modern." Even the bathroom locks weren't normal! Did we really have to go that far? I went to this museum out of obligation. I mean...I live in New York and it is free for us since we have student IDs, so we very dutifully gave an afternoon to the museum. There were definitely some things that I found a bit odd. Some of it is....um....creative. And some of it I had a hard time even calling art - we could even be a bit optimistic and say I didn't "understand it."

For example, this tent with lights on a stack of twigs, or this suspended green helicopter

or this wheel sitting beside the wooden thing with a long log jutting out of it.

Or this explanation of the painting to the right, saying that the artist just drizzled paint using his brushes and sticks, or sometimes even just directly out of the can.


But overall I do have to say I was very impressed with the MOMA. I really enjoyed the top floor. They have lots of Picasso, Monet, van Gogh, Cezanne, and Matisse. I actually really enjoyed this museum! I enjoyed the good modern art as much as I enjoyed the Vermeers! Here are a few of my favorites....

"Starry Night" and "Olive Branches" were really neat to see. If I hadn't seen them in person I wouldn't have realized the size of van Gogh's brush strokes! It looked like he just swirled it on the canvas and created this amazing picture! That is something that you don't get when you look at the prints or posters that have been recreated.




The lilies by Monet took up the entire wall of a room. It was hard to imagine how long that would have taken to create. I went away as equally impressed with this museum as I was with the Met. But like the Met it was huge, so we will have to go back on another day to see it all.

Kent

Kent is the eldest son in the Steven A. Breedlove family. Of his own diagnosis he is in need of his own blog post. To appease this desire I am posting on Kent from the view of a marry-in. Evidently Columbia University also thought Kent noteworthy because they named a building after him. This is proof.

1. The first time I met Kent he was walking on his knuckles screeching like a monkey.
2. For the first 1.5 years Steven and I dated he affectionately called me Sportly Courtly.
3. I have more pictures of him with his shirt off flexing his muscles than any other male Breedlove.
4. He is incredibly good at making my son laugh, especially when he spins him in a full 360
while a disapproving mother watches.

5. His love language is definitely touch - so I have seen him beat all his brothers on numerous occasions "lovingly." This picture of him wrestling with his wife was taken over break...along with this one of his son wrestling Steven Edward (some things seem to be generational).

6. He believes a person should only own 6 t-shirts...including undershirts! Therefore he ends up wearing his brothers' and father's clothes on vacation!
7. Speaking of clothes...he has (since I have been a part of the family) convinced both of
his brothers to buy at least one piece of clothing from him...neither of which I've seen either
boy wear.
8. He is capable of returning any item to any store. In fact I have seen him return something
to a store that they didn't even carry...he convinced them they should start carrying it.
9. Since I have used the words convinced in the last 2 points, it seems pertinent at this point
in Kent's post to tell you that he is a rather successful lawyer in Calgary.
10. He is also a slight beer snob! This picture of him with his Colt 45 says it all.

11. He is the husband of a beautiful wife and two great children whom he loves.

Back In The Saddle

So after 3 weeks of traveling our family is back in NYC again with a little time to rest here before classes start in a week. It is amazing how Steven Edward remembered our apartment and routine as soon as we returned home. He was so excited to be back in his familiar space! Our time with family and friends was great. So you may ask...what did you do for 3 weeks? Here we go...

We first went to Greensboro where my family is from. My sister was there with her husband and her 2 children along with both of my parents. Steven Edward learned to love dogs there and spent majority of the time chasing my mother's poodle while cackling hysterically. It is so hard to only see family at these breaks but it makes for sweet times with each other's children. We spent Christmas there before we headed down to southern Alabama to spend time with Steven's family.










So we packed up our potentially marriage-wrecking amount of luggage and headed down to Alabama with 19 other people, 14 adults and 5 children. All of Steven's family was there and we had an amazing memory-making time (isn't that what it usually is with that many people in one place?) with lots of cousin fun. The kids had a blast playing with each other and Steven Edward was enthralled with his older cousin Joseph. That was one of my favorite parts and will always bring up sweet memories. And evidently my brother-in-law Kent is worthy of his own post...so I won't elaborate on him here at all.















Then we headed back to Asheville for our last week of vacation. We were blessed to have a house to stay in all to ourselves since our friends the Dellingers had just moved into their new place, and they graciously offered us their old one. Unfortunately our entire family got sick so our time there was very quiet and restful. We weren't able to see everyone we wanted, but the people we did see were such a blessing to us. Two of my girlfriends (Bethany and Beth) and I were able to put together a shower for our dear friend Jenny who is due in a matter of days and her reaction made it priceless. Overall it was a sweet time.






And after a month of collecting new things, we added 2 pieces of luggage to our name and my mother is mailing us a box. I can happily say my husband laughed about it (after the plane took off and he was sure they wouldn't kick us off due to weight restrictions and after we repacked one bag in the check in line because it was $50 overweight!) and we are still happily married. There is nothing like packing to test a marriage!