Lucky number 7

Emmett has been a little cranky of late. Well, there are a number of things that go into this: he is on about day 12 of a runny nose/cold thing that has converted into a cough, he is covered with quarter-sized dry skin patches that look somewhat like ring worm but which the doctor guessed were either contact dermatitis or psoriasis (I might be wrong on the last term...I get eczema and all of those others confused), but the real winner is that he has a new tooth coming in to join the other six that have gotten quite used to life in Emmett's mouth. I guess I have put too much in that sentence so I will elaborate.

Emmett has had a coldish thing for a while with accompanying runny nose. Emmett hates having his nose wiped. I don't like wiping Emmett's nose as Emmett puts his hands to his face to block the nose-wiping which causes his mucous to go onto his sleeves, hands, and cheeks. Andrea doesn't like Emmett going around with mucous all over his face, which is what happens when she is at work. No one is happy. Actually, Emmett is not unhappy about the cold, the cough, or any other nose ailment except when it comes to having his nose wiped. In fact, when we were riding on the bike a few days ago he was forming a large bubble at each nostril with each exhale and I am pretty convinced that he was really enjoying himself.

The spots don't seem to bother him. He has them mostly on his back, arm pits, and elbow pits (the cubital fossa, for those curious---I was, and the doctor was able to name it for me), but they don't seem to be causing him any discomfort or itchiness. The only thing that has been strange is that he has been grabbing at the hair at the back of his head as if trying to pull it out by pulling it over the top of his head. I hope this isn't his way of trying to scratch his back. Now I am worried.

The new tooth has caused some unhappiness in the young one. Teething didn't seem too bad for the previous, but this one has seemed tougher and is taking a long time to do more than just break the surface. Emmett has just been a little whinier than normal, but it is pretty amazing that all it takes is a trip outside for him to forget all of his teething worries.

Other than these three, things have been going well (well, except he woke at 5am yesterday---that is no fun). He has been mostly happy, and it is kind of funny how excited Emmett gets about the little things---for example, water. When Emmett is excited he bounces up and down, and if he has been eating and one of us gets up to get him a glass of water, he gets very excited and starts bouncing around on his chair---I hope he views a fresh glass of water with the same excitement for all of his years. He has actually been drinking pretty well of late, not biting the glass or chewing the water so much and not coughing because it goes down the wrong tube. He also gets excited about certain foods. Tonight it was oranges, and the moment I grabbed the orange out of the fruit bowl he started going nuts and continued to go nuts while I peeled the orange, got the knife, and sat down to take the membranes off of the orange (choking hazzard---he only has six teeth and a little nub of a seventh, remember). I don't know that I had taken the membranes off of each section of orange before, but I now know why I don't do it very often: they are not always that easy to remove; the juice of the orange gets all over my hands, the knife handle, the table, my arms; and the process is very, very slow. What is funny, though, is that you can take a monotonous, semi-loathsome task, add a bouncing, excited near-11-month-old who can't wait for the next freshly-de-membraned orange, and you have a pretty enjoyable evening.