Day 140: A Steady Cold Drip

We are in semi quarantine. Much like the good idea/bad film Quarantine we find ourselves locked away, dramatically fighting off a vicious virus and wondering if we will ever make it out of this alive.

Atom was the first to fall to what appears to be some kind of super cold. Being as this is his first cold/illness we are all scrambling to make sense of the situation.  If only his wee little vocal chords were working in cahoots with his frontal and temporal lobes surely the case could be cracked with some certainty.

I will try to walk us through the series of events here in an genealogical manner in hopes that someone else might be able to pick up the sleuthing for us after I surely succumb to this unstoppable force of evil.  My wife has already fallen (and we all know my immune system is no match for hers) and that can only mean one thing: I am next.

Day 135:
Atom went to a family party
- He begins to act cranky while listening to pleasantries and platitudes
- We note his uncomfortableness as a by product of the East cost humidity that assaults ones skin from roughly 8 months out of the year
- We give him a bath and forget about it

Day 136:
He once again seems "off". He is basically phoning in his tummy time.
- We shower him with love and talk to him endlessly, asking him repeatedly what is wrong.

Day 137:
- Next day he wakes up with copious amounts of dried alien mucus all over his face. Alarmed we search for other signs of alien abduction. We find nothing.
 - Our only option is to go to the doctor and see if they have any ancient magic that can rid him of this germ-atic invasion
- Armed with steam baths and facial tissue we set out to tackle this unholy intrusion together.

Day 138:
- More of the same. My courageous in-laws, throwing all caution to the wind, help watch him during the day. We continue to ask him repeatedly "What is wrong?" He is still not talking.
- 3 days in and more heart breaking confusion on his face than any of can handle and the now Sharon starts to show symptoms. Their combined moaning is enough to melt an ice cube.

Day 139:
- Wheezing reins supreme in our house. Atom is utterly befuddled by his predicament.
- He has brief moments of cleared passages but then quickly falls back into mucus mania.
- My wife has somehow not only claimed all of Atom's symptoms but added some new ones to mix

Patient Zero has yet to come out the shadows and reveal him/herself to us. We are too deep at this point to maintain our constant mental line ups of all of the suspicious customers that have come in and out of our life in the last week or so. But know this...(Sneeze)....we WILL find YOU and we will make sure you get your COMEUPPANCE.

Day 137: Situation Anticipation

It has been a pretty exciting week around here. Atom finally met my dad in person (not just through video chats), his front arms got strong enough to do mini push ups,
his legs continued to work towards mastering crawling, his wobbly neck got less wobbly, seemingly hundreds of diapers were changed and he added anticipation to his mental repertoire.

It really is amazing to see him make the connection of established behavior (and at times, new behavior) with an emotional response. He has always been a stand-up comedian's best friend. Smirking, chuckling and all out belly laughter spew from him with the same frequency of his other bodily functions. He confirms our secret suspicion that we are truly gifted comedians that really never got our shot.

Now this behavior seems to work best with my wife and her material but I am confident that I too will be able to eventually win him over. As much as I would love to be invited to sit down at Jay's desk after a killer set...seeing the huge gummy smile, and uninhibited joy on Atom's face as he anticipates his next laugh would truly be a heart warming triumph.

I know exactly how it would play out because it happens in the reverse almost every day with Sharon playing the lead role. In my scenario Sharon would be doing something in another distant room as she hears Atom roaring in joy down the hall. The laughing is so contagious that she can't help but smile. Her smile will continue to grow until it strains the very fabric of her face. Maybe even one of the many deer pooping in our yard at the time will stop, feel overcome by hearing such a magical melody and decide to do his business elsewhere. Sharon will be driven into the room and witness a beautiful give and take. Me repeating my hilarious fart noise and Atom anticipating it each time with little jolly jubilant jewels.

Until I am lucky enough or good enough to illicit this response I will just keep working on fart noises and dream about the future.

Day 129: WiggleWorm becomes an InchWorm

A horned chameleon, a three-toed sloth and a Corgi all probably can cover more ground than Atom in a race but who cares about them. Atom, or at least the back half of him, definitely has things to do and places to go.

This week Atom has been focusing his efforts into motion. Not merely rolling back and forth (that was so last month) but in a linear fashion. Place him on his mat and no sooner does he flip over but, in a manner that would make Fred Flintstone proud, his legs start to pedal. With mighty grunts and a silva slickened street ahead he begins his journey. A journey that takes him through his mat's jungle landscape, a monkey here...a jolly Sun there, and usually into our oh so chic Shag rug.

Start Shag Rug/Fad rant...

A shag rug seems cool when you don't have kids but when you have do...starts to make one feel oh to similar to their 1970's parents. All fads should come with label attached stating the exact moment in time they were considered cool and a warning that they should be either thrown into a closet or throw onto the curb in no more than 5 years after the cool date. The closet because we all know it will come back "in" roughly 20 years later and the curb because we all know the mere act of garbage picking an item extends it cool factor by two years (4 years if you are in college).

End Shag Rug/Fad rant... 

Then we pick him up, move him back onto his mat and off he goes again. I know in some circles his technique would be considered poor form. He is more snow plow-like than a graceful quadruped but I give him an "A" for effort and that always scores high with the judges.

The problem is he isn't supposed to be trying to crawl yet. He is supposed to be just learning to flip over. Curse his over-achieving attitude! I guess that is what happens when someone is ahead of their time. Their efforts may look awkward and crude to the un-trained eye but the essence of their action appears poetic to their neophyte parent.

I know too that he isn't breaking any land speed records here but I imagine that is only a matter simple physics. Once he decides to pick up his anchor (his head) and execute a full-blown crawl, who knows what records will fall in his wake. I dare to hope we can keep up with him.

Day 122: Moments of Recognition

I am "one". You are "one". Atom is "one". All so confusing...and at first Atom could care less. Every one appeared to just be a "one" to him. All the same (aside from his Mom and their obviously special bond). He would pretty much act the same to every "one". A nurse at the doctor's office, our dwarf bunny Peanut or myself all seemed to share in Atom's limited tool box of expressions. He didn't reserve a cuddly half smirk out of the left side of his mouth for me anymore than he did for the random stranger peering at him in his car seat. We all got to witness equally his sublime but limited range of expressions.

Last night that finally changed for me. I was gone for a very long time and returned late at night to find Atom happily still awake. I peered into his crib and went through our normal greetings and salutations. "How's it going Atom?" "How was your day?" Did you poop yet?" And suddenly his eyes shifted from a general glaze to an electric blue and I was greeted with a huge gummy smile. He quickly inserted his hand into his mouth and squealed an "affirmative" to my last question and like that...we had a moment. We made a connection. I was no longer just something that helped keep his belly full and his bottom dry. I was some"one". "Someone" he recoginized. Someone that generated meaning to his greeting. Wow! I felt a bolt of pride and, much like the Grinch, my heart grew a few sizes that day. It was an incredible feeling. Never has a greeting resonnated so loudly within my soul. He could have still been in the after glow of his latest bodily function but I will always remember it as the day I became a "someone".