June 4, 2002 - Tuesday
For a little more than a week now, laid back Jeremy has had a very much shorter fuse and we don't know why. He's fine when he's active and distracted, but letting him get bored is sure to bring on the unhappy noises. We have a few working theories, although none has played out to any degree of certainty. The first involves Jeremy's great irregularity over the last two weeks, during which time he has had a bowel movement just once. This period seems to have nearly coincided with the addition of Cheerios to Jeremy's diet, as well as a somewhat greater reception to solid foods of all types, so medical advice suggests that this may be a normal evolution in his digestive track. And, there is no indication that he is particularly restricted.

The second theory is the ever popular teething rationale for all that goes wrong with a baby. There have been times over this period when we've come close to giving Jeremy the Baby Tylenol on the assumption that he was in pain. However, he's always eventually come around to his cheery self first.

Finally, we wonder if he is simply more interested in the world around him and getting bored more easily. He's clearly on the verge of crawling and maybe he's just frustrated that he now understands about wanting to move and just can't do it. Whatever the cause, our experience with Harry suggests that these phases will, whatever they are, tend to come and go.

And, speaking of Harry and coming and going: he had a bizarre episode of irrationality and crying for about a half an hour after waking up from his afternoon theory. He actually hadn't woken yet when his mother arrive to pick him up. She waited patiently until he did a few minutes later, but from that point on it was a constant stream of dissatisfaction. She had intended to stop at the local playground for a while, a surefire good time for Harry, but he screamed his disapproval through the tears until she left and came home. Of course, when I saw him he was on to screaming about wanting to go to the playground. He also screamed about not wanting a snack, but reports of little eaten as lunch hinted that the problem might simply be a temporary lack of nutrition. And, after finally agreeing to a bread stick, then two more, and sitting and watching 15 minutes of Arthur on TV and he was back to his normal self.


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