Standard Momming 101

I got barfed on. At one in the morning I put a beach towel over the tiny spot that hit the sheet and went back to sleep.  Every time the kid rolled over or breathed different, I woke up and asked him if he needed to barf again.  He didn't but by 5am my tough little guy who normally rubs dirt in a wound and keeps running, was wincing with belly pains and I could feel the fever radiating off his back. So I warmed up the car and we went to the doc.  The nurse got us into a room right away because all the usual trouble makers one finds in a waiting room are still sleeping at 6am on a Saturday, leaving us lone writhing wolves, panting and half crying, to usher into an even smaller room and out of clothes (well, I got to keep mine on.) About an hour of crappy cable TV later a doctor entered in time to witness the very last belly pain of the morning and confirm I would be cancelling all plans for the day in lieu of getting pee on my hand, helping the nurse coax very good tasting medicine into a body, and the longest game of 'Eye spy with my little eye something blue that you're wearing' ever played.  Another hour, a can of apple juice, an anti-nausea pill, a Motrin, and a Popsicle went by. The kid slept and I read the entire internet on my tiny screen while sipping the bitterest burnt hazelnut coffee in Illinois. Then we went home with instructions for Acetaminophen and rest (neither for me, I'm sure.)

Did you know they have anti-nausea pills? I just always thought you had to ride it out and barf all the barfs you could barf - like a helpless shrimp, squirming on the cold tile floor of the bathroom.

Link telling you about all the things you probably don't have 

What?

Jack was ill when he was young and as a result has some hearing impairment on the left.  Nobody knows how much, it's just that the little hairs in there don't move like they should.  This could mean he hears nothing or something or everything and we just need to wait until he can talk more to find out.  The doctor said, because he can hear completely with his right ear, his language should be just fine, but the fact is Jack doesn't talk very much.  He's the second child, and a boy, and busy with riding motorcycles and drawing things, and when he does speak he's just not very good at it yet and Ella or I translate for him when we can or sometimes just take over and speak for him.  We ask him "What? Do you want?  A chip? Cheese? Toast? Milk? Grapes?" He just nods or says "Yay!" when we get to the thing.  This is exactly how not to handle things, I'm sure.

It's hard for me, because I compare him to Ella and her extensive vocabulary at age two.  I know I shouldn't.  It's apples and tigers.  Ella couldn't do a jumping jack until first grade and Jack can pedal a bike and roller skate, but life is far less frustrating for everyone when a common language is spoken.  I've heard him make all the required sounds for speaking English.  He has all the consonants and vowels in his arsenal, it just seems like he doesn't really care about it that much. Some days I'm all lax about it, figuring he'll learn at his own pace and he won't end up in first grade not being able to say 'please' and 'thank you' and other days I hear children at the grocery who seem like big kids to me and they are having a hard time speaking and I get all anxiety filled about Jack's words.  I did talk to a language specialist who wasn't worried, but that was three months ago already.  And what if, that was then and this is now?!

And now as I write this, I see how it is my primary occupation as a mother, to worry non-stop all the time to love these children and trust them to become who they are meant to be.

Jack Frost

It finally snowed.  It took all my might to wrestle Jack into a snow suit, yelling "Keep it on! Keep it on!" as he tore at the snow pants and hat and I quickly danced into snow boots.  He discovered snow packs together into little balls for throwing, in the front yard after his sister got off the bus and hence refused to come in the house.  Ella was squealing with glee and pelting me the first time I announced I was "too cold so you must be too", and on the ninety-ninth time I announced it, Jack was still working dilligently at packing snow into a small mound under his knees and smiling.  He told the neighbor kids how wonderful it all  was with a string of excited consonants and they nodded like they knew what he was saying.  I picked him up and wrestled him into the house all the while he was tearing at his snow suit trying to keep it all on.  While Ella made hot coco, he fell asleep.  That was what it was like for Jack to see real snow the first time.

Table Hammock

How to occupy a toddler for an hour with a cotton table cloth. 

How to Scare the Hell Out of a Mother

We went to the buffet Saturday night and had a wonderful time eating everything we liked up until Jack fell backwards off of his chair and whacked the back of his head on the leg of the table next to us.  Like all head wounds it bled, a lot.  I immediately put my filthy, I've been at a buffet on a Saturday night, hand on his wound to insure the most possible germs get a chance at his head but despite my efforts the doctor said he was fine.  No cracked skull, all swelling on the outside, no stitches just some antibiotic ointment and a gauze wrap around his head to keep him from bleeding on things. As you can see, it didn't slow him down at all.   When we finally made it home from the doc, to my horror, there was still at least an hour of couch jumping to be done.  

Butter

also: THIS

Lizard Hunter

Late Onset Group B Streptococcus Infection

I am a person that has to put distance between a terrible event before I can comfortably talk about it.  When Jack got sick, he wouldn't eat all afternoon.  This from a baby who never missed a time to nurse.  He was crying and crying a terrible little cry that was weak and moany.  It was Friday afternoon and the doctor's office was going to try to fit us in at 3:05.  I called twice to see if they had anything sooner, his little sounds were so torturous and two hours was too long to wait.  His fever worsened and by the time we got to the doctor I was scared.  I was glad I called the doctor instead of trying to wait out the fever. At 103° the pediatrician insisted we go straight to the emergency room.  She said the odd cry was because he was struggling to breath.  I rushed Ella into the car and drove as fast as I could three blocks and found a parking place.  Inside the triage nurse just asked us our names and ran us into the back where doctors swarmed and poked and scratched their heads.  Jack's neck started to swell up as he was going septic.  He was six weeks old.

This video is what it sounds like when a sick infant is having a hard time breathing. This was just before we left for the doctors office.  



I tested negative for Group B Strep (GBS) at the end of my pregnancy so antibiotics were never given.  In fact I've had occasion to be tested again and I'm still negative.  It's a bacterium a good amount of people carry on their skin, it's something you can get from a grocery cart, a handshake, a library book, a baby present.  Most people never know they carry it, because it's a wimpy bacteria killed by penicillin.  For babies it can be deadly.  That is what Jack had.  Babies usually get it when they are born, it's very unusual for a six week old to get it, but it happens.  Late onset Group B Strep can lead to meningitis, brain damage, hearing loss, life long handicaps or even death.  Jack escaped all of those things.  He's scrappy like that.  I stayed in the NICU with him for 13 days while he received intravenous sterile antibiotics. He responded well to them in the first few days and so doctors were optimistic.  I lived in dread of his IV falling out again.  His veins were so small and hard to find to get it back in was a delicate catastrophe of blowing out vein after vein, searching under the skin with a needle and holding him down.

Leading up to the day Jack wouldn't eat, he had a rash.  It looked like a heat rash all over his face, I called ask-a-nurse and she suggested if that was the only symptom he had that is was likely baby acne and I should just keep a close eye on it.  It was hard to tell if he was sleeping out of the ordinary, or acting differently, we just met and I wasn't sure what the usual Jack behavior was yet.  Once he was in the hospital and on the antibiotics the rash went away, almost immediately.  It wasn't baby acne, heat rash, 'stork bites' or sensitive skin, it was infection running all over his whole body.  By the time Jack got a fever, the strep bacteria was winning, his white blood cell count was in the hundreds.

This was Jack's rash

I still wonder how his stay at the hospital effected him, how it may or may not have shaped his personality or pain tolerance or zest for life. He is so much like my littlest brother who was born with a club foot and endured similar poking a prodding and even surgeries.  He's spirited and particular, funny and bright, he figures a thing out quickly and is awesomely coordinated - both Jack and my brother. 

This is strong, scrappy Jack now.

July is Group B Streptococcus Infection Awareness month, the same month Jack was born.  I'm posting this now though because it's important and I was finally ready to say it.  One in four pregnant women carry it.  All doctors here in the U.S. test for it.  It's not something most people need to worry about, just something you should be aware of.  It's far scarier and more dangerous to put our baby in the car and drive everyday.  I have only this advice, wash your hands often, if your baby is under six months old and has a fever - see a doctor right away and if you feel something is "off" or "wrong" follow your intuition, it's hardly ever wrong. 

Deviled Dish

I noticed yesterday Jack would only eat fruity Cherrios if they were lined up in a row.  He likes his food to be orderly.  Today at the resale shop, I picked up the best dish ever, for .49¢.  He ate everything on his plate.   

Remind me later to add this to my resume under "Can solve difficult problems efficiently and in a creative way."

Living in Toddler Land

While everyone else is drinking beer and cheering on our home town Hockey players, I am in the lobby holding a sugared pretzel and the hand of my son.  To his squealy delight, we are riding the escalator for the fifteenth time and flirting with the ushers on two levels, flashing them tiny smiles and bashful waves.  I can hear the crowd cheer for fisticuffs on the ice and I am getting a high five for successfully jumping at the end of the moving stair-ride.  It's odd to exist in an alternate parallel universe and when I see other parents on the same plane as us, we smile at each other in exhausted recognition.

In Toddler Land, loud noises are scary, anything mechanical and near the floor demands ample time for inspection, there are only a few good foods (cheese and macaroni and cheese,) you never have a clean shirt, and nobody speaks the language.  Time is fluid in Toddler Land; a simple wait in line at the grocery store is long enough to attempt to juggle a TV Guide, Bubblelicious and Carmex into the cart, cry about the grapes going into the bag, get tangled up in a purse strap, make new friends and wipe something sticky on the lady behind you and demand to hit all the buttons on the check out key pad.  A single stop light can last five years if there is crying involved and alternately; seventeen  hours can't possibly be enough time to play trains, nor is three months enough time to hear that one song.  Luckily the free flowing Gift Economy is solid and fueled with sticky kisses, pearly smiles and tight hugs which is why everyone in Toddler Land is rich.

Curls

I was afraid to get his hair cut because I didn't want his little curls to go away so I just cut the bangs hanging in his eyes.  Then someone mentioned "his cute little mullet" and that was the straw that broke the mother's back.  I took him to the hair cuttery while Grandpa is visiting.  Sitting in the little car went a long way and the barber was fast and efficient.  She was used to getting her photo taken and said often times she has the whole extended family circling and taking photos like paparazzi.  She did a wonderful job, the curls are still there and Jack looks less like a chubby toddling baby and more like a tall scrappy boy.

Heart Attack Jack

A fellow blogger and I were discussing the virtues of a weekly top ten feature when I jokingly mentioned I could do one called "Top Ten Most Dangerous Things Jack Does on a Daily Basis" and then I startled myself by rattling off the following list without having to think too hard about it.

#1 Try to eat tacks, paper clips, pennies, and/or staples from the desk drawer, and/or the sidewalk
#2 Roller skate on the end tables
#3 Pull the dog's ears until she gets mad and yelps
#4 Get knives out of the dishwasher
#5 Try to plug things in
#6 Reach things by standing tippy toed on the seat of his tricycle
#7 Throw a kicking, screaming fit half way up the stairs
#8 Run, laughing manically with a mouth full of food
#9 Stand up in the high chair and jump towards me trusting I will see him in time to catch him
#10 Be Jack

Of course, you may be reading this thinking "Why would you let him do those things?!"  to which I say, I don't!  The kid is fast. In the time it takes to put newly confiscated pair of scissors on top of the refrigerator, my son can balance a skate board atop a step stool to reach the car keys and hit the fun red button of car-honking. It's a diabolical thing to do to a lady who's first child has the concentration and patience of vulture.


Just last week I was in the kitchen finishing chores watching Jack play on the patio through the open door when I reached down under the sink to get the dishwasher soap.  When I stood up I didn't see him, instead I heard the side gate rattling.  I ran to the side yard and found Jack hurriedly closing the gate behind him, with his sister's two dollar allowance in his hand. Thank God he's polite enough to close the gate behind him or I'm pretty sure he'd have caught a cab to the zoo.  Let me remind you Jack is one and a half year old. (I can't even make the word "year" plural yet!)


So I try to keep a steady stream of new toys for Jack coming through the house.  It's enough to buy me time to help with homework, fill the washing machine, or chug coffee in silence while staring off into space. A new toy arrived in the mail yesterday in exchange for all those diaper reward points turned in from the club thing on the side of the box (like frequent pee-er miles.) I saved opening the box, until I needed to cook dinner, figuring the new toy would buy lots of time and dear bloggies, they sent my son this... 

No seriously, did you see that?! Oh yeah! Melissa and Doug and Huggies taught my son in less than ten minutes how to undo any lock, latch, or clip.  Thanks guys, thanks.

Oh My Darlin'

Tonight I was peeling another clementine for Jack when he started playing with the peel.  Because he has the ability to find the most dangerous thing in the room in three seconds or less, I was powerless when he maced himself in the eye with the twist of the rind.  I'm sure it stung, as I look into it on wiki, I see those oils are used for stripping varnish and garnishing things that have vodka in them.  I washed his eye out and put some saline in it, which also pissed him off, but I figured the more he cried the better it would be for his eyeball.

From the Daily Painting Blog
Postcard from Provence
by Julian Merrow-Smith

One and a Half Jack

Jack is sleeping or he is a whirlwind of chaos.  He likes all things little boys are supposed to like; cars, sports, playing ball, whacking things with a sword, running after women with his wolf claws out and growling,  climbing and jumping from the top of things and most of all pretending to be big.  His dark eyes glower when he's told "no" in a way that assures me he'll have to get some sort of fight training in life, both to back up his uncontrollable glare and to rein it in. His laugh starts with squinched up eyes, and a wide smile full of pearly teeth, one already chipped from a mishap while running on cement.  He'll give you five if he likes you and he feels like it, and sometimes he'll put his whole open mouth on your face and give you a kiss.  He speaks in song; though he doesn't always get the consonants or the vowels right, he does match syllables, cadence and melody.  We have a joke we tell when we're in the middle of a project and Jack runs into the next room, you say "What can he possibly get into in ten seconds?" and you laugh maniacally while setting the project aside in a hurry and giving chase.  Because soon he will be naked and shaking a lamp, or moving the dog food, or buttering someone on the head.  He's hopelessly devoted to his big sister who loves him enough to afford him all the patience a seven year old can muster.  Under a layer of baby chub, he's sinewy, independent and determined.  He's almost one and a half.

Tiny Matadore

This morning Jack is chasing the dog around the house with a tiny baby doll stroller.  The dog is rearing and jumping and running and Jack is squealing and doubling back to get her.  At times the dog is wild eyed with almost getting rammed and dodging out of the way at the last moment and Jack is perfectly giddy running as fast as he can and barely missing.  In my head he is yelling "Olé!"

The One Year Old Blues

In the Key of A

Little Jack Corner

Jack likes to sit on my art box and look out the window.  It's his quiet thinking spot.  It's not often he is still and reflective.  Like his uncle Joe, he is usually either going full blast or sleeping.  I like that he has a place he's decided is his own.

Tiny Vandal

While my son TPs
the living room, I can drink
coffee he splashed in.

Danger

My pal Kiki, over at I Still Hate Pickles posted today about the wildfires and it got me thinking about what I wish I'd grabbed when we started over in Texas.  George Bush Park was on fire last night, right in the midst of Houston.  The smell of smoke hung heavy and ash rained down over our dry dead grass and brittle pine needles.  I realized, while sitting atop a giant pile of kindling, of all the things I left in Illinois that I wish I kept, a hose might be trump.

***

Heart Attack Jack has the uncanny ability to find the most dangerous thing in the room.  This morning he climbed the stairs to Ella's lair of pink, sparkly, fluff and found the single thumb tack residing in the corner of a night stand drawer and decided it looked pretty tasty.  As I found him teetering down the stairs with a tack in his mouth, I decided that he would make a good bomb squad member, he'll be able to immediately find explosives with his special danger-senses.  

First Trip Around the Sun