Splish Splash

When we had Alex, the entire hospital staff was fantastic. Except for one nurse's aide. She was generally nice, but her bedside manner was...lacking. For instance, we took our sweet time naming Alex, so for the first day and a half or so, we were calling him "LJ". My dad had been calling him LaDanian the whole time I was pregnant, so LJ (LaDanian Julius) worked as a nickname to call the little sucker until we could make up our minds about his permanent name. Back to the nurse's aide. She could not remember what we were calling him. Even though it was written on his bassinet. Even when repeating it 72 seconds after telling her. It went something like this:

Nurse's aide: "What's him name again?"
Travis/Jackie: "For now it's LJ."
Nurse's aide: "TJ?"
Travis/Jackie: "No...LJ."
~Fast forward about two minutes~
Nurse's aide: "So when was the last time you changed little MJ's diaper."

It drove me crazy.

But the bigger problem occurred when she was showing us how to give our tiny 5lb-9oz fragile, breakable, head squishable monster baby a sponge bath. I was in a state of ouchy hoo-ha, so I laid in bed and watched her show Travis. We had no idea what we were doing, so naturally Travis was nervous. He did his best and I thought he did just fine. But she scolded him more than once and at one point told him if he did it his way, he was going to suffocate our child. Nice.

Since that day, Travis has been completely petrified to give Alex a bath. And has not done so. The only real problem I had with that is Alex loves taking a bath and it is a fun time to spend with him. And because of this nurse's aide-instilled fear, Travis was missing out on a really fun time with our kid.

But then last night happened. I had a hair appointment after work so I was not scheduled to get home until after the beast was asleep. When I got home I discovered Travis had accomplished a million and one things during his day off. Then he told me that we needed to cut Alex's fingernails. Which is a task that takes two people and can only be attempted when that child is asleep. So I go in his room to get him. He has a haircut, which is super cute, and is freshly bathed. Not only did Travis manage to cut his hair, but he did it! He triumphed! He gave Alex a bath!

It was a big day in the Julius house yesterday.