Too Much Knowledge Can Be A Dangerous Thing

Our Myrtle Beach trip included a midnight visit to the emergency room. Palmer had been dunked underwater by a big kid at the pool in the late afternoon and came up sputtering. Then, later, he was extremely fatigued and had a weird wet cough which I convinced myself could be symptoms of "secondary drowning". He was fine. I read too much on the internet.

Sick

My poor baby got sick last month and crawled around on the family room floor wailing and doubling over for around 5 minutes.  Until....he found the football.  I think it took the pressure off his tummy.  He slept like this for almost an hour. 

Shoot That Poison Arrow

We're home today. Palmer is just not himself. He hasn't pooped since Thursday (its Monday) and he got two vaccinations this morning. The first ones he got two months ago didn't upset him at all. But he's been very unhappy all day. If he's not eating or sleeping, he's crying or wimpering. Poor baby. On the developmental front, he's doing great. He weighs 16lbs, 10oz--at the 90th percentile. He's 26 inches long--at the 95th percentile. And his head is perfectly in the middle. No big melon. No pinhead. Just right. This is normally the time that they start talking about solid food. But the new guidance is that babies should be exclusively breast fed until 6 months. So, that's what we're doing for now. But the doctor said that if he starts acting interested in our food, we might want to go ahead. Like everything else with babies, the window for interest could close.

I Object!

Connor just ran in the door (its 8:15am) to get ancilliary toys to take back to the Diaz' home where he had a sleepover last night. By now, their house is likely half full of Connor's crap. Anyway, I'm at the computer working on the blog. He sees me and gets an angry face.

"PPPPPP Puker Face? I don't like that mom. It hurt my feelings."

Turns out, now that he can read, I'm in a whole new world!

He read the entry with Danny during the sleepover and he said it made him angry--that he couldn't help it that he vomited.

"Erase it" , he commands.

So, now I am Howard Stern. How much to tell? How much to not tell?

I think my judgment has been good so far. PPPPPPPP Puker Face will remain.
I'm confident that when he's older (or he's gotten some sleep) we'll overcome the objection.

P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P Puker Face

So, exhausted after four straight days of work (to which I am vastly unaccustomed), Palmer and I tumbled off to sleep last night at 7pm. I also had a pretty profound headache and a neck spasm.

Things proceed normally. He wakes around 10pm for some yum-yum. Then, again around 12:30. Then, again around 2:30. This is the way it goes.

At the 2:30 feeding I was distressed that my headache had not abated and very thirsty. I drink water all night long, but that just wasn't doing the job. So, I ventured downstairs for a big cup of Gatorade and an icepack. Back to bed. Pack under the neck. Cup right next to me on the nightstand. Quickly back to sleep.

At around 3:15 I awake to a splashing and trickling sound. I am confused. I feel for the baby in the co-sleeper. He's okay. The sound stops. Then the sound resumes. Now, I am sure that I have somehow toppled the cup. I sit up and say to Bob, "What is that sound?". He clicks on the light.

There, in the darkness, is my big boy, doubled over, vomiting onto the beige carpet. Splashing. Trickling. No moans, no groans, no wretch. Just the horrific sound of the vile bile splashing onto the pile.

He's clearly confused about where he is. We shout, "Run to the bathroom". We shout this three or four times, after which he begins to stumble that direction, making it only halfway before a pause to splash some more onto the 100% wool hand cut area rug.

He makes it to the bathroom just in time for the event to end. Then, the injustice of a chunk of vomit hanging off his nose faces him in the mirror. Poor thing.

Bob scoops up the chunks, sprays the carpet.

Palmer lays smiling through the whole thing and gets a middle of the night dry diaper out of the deal.

Connor goes back to sleep with a bowl next to his bed.

I feed the baby again and we tumble back to sleep together as I realize that my head and neck are now fine. Replaced by the drama of parenthood.

We Are In - Fluenza

So, you know those cute pics below of us at the Red Sox game at Camden Yards last Sunday? All looks well, right? Well, it wasn't. Connor had a positive strep test and had started antibiotics 24 hours before those pics were taken. He seemed fine--as the photos seem to show. But after the game he got tired and cranky again (as he had been on Saturday) and got a pretty high fever on Sunday night. So, Monday morning I took him into the pediatrician for a follow up. It didn't make any sense to me that he'd be on antibiotics for 48 hours and still be so sick. We saw a new doctor in the practice who has the personality of a toe-nail. He basically poo-pooed me and said that we just needed to stick with the Amoxicillin and hang in there. The rest of the day was awful. He was miserable, vomiting, coughing, fever. Then, Monday night again with the awful, drenching fevers. And this is WITH Tylenol. So, by Tuesday morning I was alarmed and actually toyed with taking him to he ER, but called the pediatrician's office instead. I talked to a great nurse who agreed with me that something didn't make sense. So, I brought him back into the office at lunchtime yesterday and we saw a different doctor, one that we love, Dr. Crowley. She actually listened to me and was concerned about the fever (it was almost 102 at that moment!) and Connor's complaint of leg pain on top of everything else. So, she did a rapid flu test.

Now, I should tell you that Connor has developed over the past few months, a deep fear of the flu. All of the news about H1N1 has not escaped his notice and we've had lots of discussions about the flu, how to avoid getting the flu, etc. So, you can imagine his reaction when the doctor walked in and said "Well, we've got a positive flu test." His face literally collapsed on itself, he started to scream and cry and said "Mama! I don't want to die!!!" Ugh. Poor thing. The doctor was so nice and really handled him well. Once I explained to her that Connor was very afraid of "the swine flu" we only conversed using the name H1N1. In the end, she said that she was basically 100% sure that he, in fact, has H1N1 because he was immunized for the regular flu and virtually ALL of the positive influenza A they are seeing this early in the season has been the H1N1 strain. Thank God he didn't understand that part of it. I'd have had to have him tranquilized.

Things really got fun when the doctor told him that she needed to give him a mask to wear out of the office and that he should not touch anything. She put the mask on his face (a rigid one--not one of those cloth surgical things) and it pinched his little red eyes into slits. Which made him cry again. And he was so sad that everyone would be afraid of him in the mask. Which they were. Clearly, word spread quickly in the office because EVERYONE who worked there moved aside as we exited. The girl at the checkout counter literally THREW his sticker at him so she wouldn't come close to him. It was pitiful.

So, he's on Tamiflu for the flu and antibiotics for the concurrent strep. I called his school nurse and she agreed that it is probably H1N1 and that there is at least one other case in his school right now, also with concurrent strep. He'll probably be out of school all week. And it will be a miracle if Bob and I don't get this, too. My only hope is that I have some immunity because my mom is pretty sure that I was immunized during the swine flu outbreak in the 1970s.

I got him a little stuffed green monster yesterday and told him it was the flu virus guy. He liked that. But I could tell that he was conflicted about whether he should snuggle him (he's cute) or beat the living daylights out of him. In the end, he snuggled him. After all, its not easy being feared and hated!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is my schoompie's birthday. We started the celebrations this past weekend with a nice dinner at McCormick and Schmick's and tonite he grilled some yummy ribeyes. This weekend we'll wrap up the festivities with a Red Sox game in Baltimore. An all around exciting birthday week for our number one guy. In defiance of aging, he's begun playing softball again after a roughly 7 year lay-off. Good for him. Not so good for his right hamstring. How's this look?




That was Week 1's injury. Week 2 was a jammed finger that swelled up like an eggplant on a stick and that required a splint. No worries. These are battle scars that are earned with pride.

In order to demonstrate my devotion, I embarked on a 3 night journey to concoct a Martha Stewart dessert from her current Halloween issue in lieu of the traditional birthday cake. Here's a shot of Martha's:

And here's a shot of mine:

It was so delicious. Good choice, honey. Despite the grease fire, two dozen eggs, 3 pounds of butter, and pile of pans. Happy Birthday. We love you.

Crash Into Me

4pm phone call from daycare that Connor had been wounded playing on the blacktop. According to him, "Umm, Mom. Cameron tripped and got blood, um on his elbow and CRASH I tripped over him and BOOM my head hit the ground." That's a quality NTSB interview if you ask me.

Check out the massive bump on his forehead. He came up to my office for an hour at the end of the day and kept calling one of the women I work with by the wrong name. I asked him why and he smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and said "I don't know. Brain damage?" Nice. A wounded comedian.

Sickness and Swings

The weekend started out badly. While I was away this week, Connor was struggling with some bug. Then, on Friday night we went to see Star Wars' "The Clone Wars" and the child was drenched with sweat. Skipped T-ball on Saturday morning and went to the pediatrician instead. She says there is just a funky virus going around. So, Connor and Bob had to miss the party at the Lopresti's last night. Today, he seemed okay so we went to the Baird Boys' 6th birthday party which was fun. Ate dinner at Whole Foods and picked up the week's supply of Icelandic yogurt which I now have Bob addicted to.