Lessons in Love

My son is sick. And I think I've caught it.

Last week he started having a cough, then a runny nose, then post nasal drip I think. [You try looking into the throat of a stubborn, strong, uncooperative 13 month old. I figure post-nasal drip was involved as he would sniffle while sleeping and then have a coughing fit that sounded to me like some of the snot went down his throat.]

Sunday night he puked up the little bit of formula he was able to drink. Monday morning, I got 4 ounces of formula into the little guy, and he promptly puked that up at the doctor's office. So, the rest of Monday, and all of Tuesday, the poor little guy lived on nothing but Pedialyte.

Monday night he could not get comfortable when I tried to rock him to sleep. He was coughing, dry-heaving, and basically very miserable. He would start to get comfortable, fall asleep for maybe 5 minutes, and then a coughing fit would wake him up. On top of that, with no food in his stomach and trying to drink fluid with a clogged nose, he had swallowed alot of air and was having gas pains which would also wake him up.

If I tried to put him down in his crib when asleep, he would wake up and cry. If I tried to do it when awake, after having had a wrestling match with him in my arms, obviously totally uncomfortable there due to gas pains, he would cry. Either way, he'd want to be picked back up.

I tried explaining to him that there was just no way that I was going to be as comfortable for him as a bed, but all he knew was he felt like crap, was often in pain, and wanted to be held. Even if that meant he was being held in my arms while he flung himself all over the place, as if attempting to get me to drop him.

I started getting angry. Not at him, but at God, and at the virus. I mean he was just a little kid, and he was suffering so much. And the times he got to sleep, he would be asleep for about 3 to 10 minutes, and then wake up. It started to feel like I was being teased! After maybe the 5th time, I was all like, "ah, come on!!!" Again, I wasn't mad at Logan but at the bug that was doing this to him. Or at God, I guess.

I failed the Job test.

Good thing God is forgiving.

I was praying that Logan would get better and be able to sleep. At first it was for his sake, but as I got more and more exhausted, it started selfishly being more for my sake. :P Some mother I am.

Anyway...

Either Tuesday or just today the following hit me: this was nothing. Absolutely nothing. I knew a little 3 year old girl named Katie who has liver cancer, and suffers terribly. I knew that her Sister, Parents, and the rest of her family got very little sleep on the bad nights. And that the bad nights were numerous, due to the illness and the chemo. And, like me, they still had to work in the mornning. Unlike me, they couldn't take days off if they weren't feeling well or felt too tired... like I took Tuesday off as I was exhausted and coming down with Logan's bug. They need all the money they can get to pay for Katie's treatment. I mean, there's no way in hell that if there's a treatment that could save her, that they were going to avoid it because of their budget.

So, I'm a moron. I'm fighting off a bug, Logan is fighting off a bug. But Logan doesn't have cancer, and I can afford to take a day off if I need to... although not too many days off, as Logan and I have both been sick on and off all December. [Ah, December and winter in general: 'tis the season to be sneezing.]

But anyway, this has been a lesson in love. A lesson in humility. A lesson in counting my blessings. A lesson in not feeling so sorry for myself.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go cough up a lung.

Oh, I forgot to add one thing. Realizing the mercilessness of the bug Logan was fighting, I started wishing there was some way I could cause it pain. Some way I could find it, it's parents, it's siblings, it's children, and it's friends and other family, and kill them all slowly... with immense pain.

I started to fantasize that once I got to the vomiting stage, maybe I could take the vomit and heat it up over the stove to painfully torture and kill any of the virus that I puked up. Yes, I was starting to get a, uhm, little strange.

Feeling helpless does weird things to you sometimes.

Asses of Fire

It's 4:57am. The Friday after Thanksgiving.

If I have the runs one more time, I think I will implode. :P

I don't think it's a food bug. I think I just ate alot of stuff I really shouldn't have.

Still, other than the runs, Thanksgiving was quite nice. :)

It was my baby boy Logan's first Thanksgiving. He turns 1 year old on December 5th.

My husband and Logan and I met my parents at the Frog Bar and Grill at 1:30pm for a Thanksgiving brunch. My Dad had to be at work at 4:30pm, so eating a brunch worked out quite well. And the weather was lovely, in spite of all the rain and fear of flooding after all the fires in the area. The sun came out, expansive blue skies, and everything.

Logan got to have scrambled eggs and pieces of a croissant. And of course cheerios. Can't have a meal w/o cheerios anymore. ;) I also offered him pieces of a cantaloupe and pieces of a sweet potato, but I don't think he ate any of it.

My Father-in-Law spent Thanksgiving with my husband's brother, so he missed out on our fun, but got to enjoy time with his great-grand-kids. I think he may have wished he could be in 2 places at the same time, as he seemed a little bummed about missing Logan's first Thanksgiving. But he still had an awesome time with the rest of the family. :)

What did I eat... what did this to me. Let's see. Pre-brunch was a Jimmy Dean breakfast croissant with sausage, egg, and cheese. But not all of it. And some of Logan's cheerios. And some green tea.

Brunch was 2 orange juices, 2 champagnes, croissant, sweet potato, stuffing, cucumber, bell pepper salad, smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, strawberries, cantaloupe, and I think that's it. All small portions: it all fit on one plate, except the eggs were on a separate plate that I then used to feed Logan from. Well, the champagne probably dehydrated me.

Then when we went home, after some tea, and after a bottle (for Logan, not for me, LOL), went down with Logan for a nap at 4:30pm. Woke up at 6pm. Fed Logan. And ate... the wrong thing. Obviously. Chips and hot cheese dip. Lots. And a strawberry frozen fruit bar. And chocolate milk. And a turkey/cheese/bread sandwich husband called a "Royal George", but now he's not so sure of the name. Normally also includes mayo, but I included mustard instead.

Did have some of Logan's banana, and more of his Cheerios. But that was the only healthy thing this Thanksgiving evening.

Anyway, something I ate was the wrong thing.

So far, poor Logan is having the opposite problem: he is pooing less than normal. It takes time for a baby's system to become used to new food. Really, to solid food in general. It's just a new way of digesting. I think he's just overwhelmed by the whole "chewing" experience, LOL. Ok, "gumming" -- he only has 8 teeth, and they are all incisors. However, judging by the drooling, chewing on anything that's immobile and not nailed down, and general grumpiness, he's definitely trying to cut a tooth.

Well, campers, it's after 5am. My intestines feel like they may be done for the moment. And the Tylenol PM is winning over my feeling like crap from the runs, so I think I can finally get some sleep. At least until Logan wakes up, LOL. ;)

I think Friday is going to be an oat-meal and banana and Cheerios kind of day.

Ok, I was going to post this before I crawled back into bed at 5am, but didn't do it. Doing it now.

Tastes like chicken

I haven't posted since July 30th 2008. Whoa.

What's happened since then? Let me see.

August: uhm... hmph. It's like a blur. September: we had our 10th Wedding Anniversary. My parents had their ... 41st? 42nd? Let's see... I'm 40, it took Mom a year to talk Dad into having me... probably 42nd.

October: Logan had his first Halloween. :) Dressed him up as Yoda. Pics are up on Flickr, but more pics need to be uploaded due to not everything getting offloaded from our digital camera. 'Course, he didn't like wearing the ears, and his head was too big for the ears to be snapped up underneath his chin, so he was sorta Obi-Wan Kenobi for the rest of the night. :)

I let him play with my lightsaber. Yes, I'm 40, and I own a lightsaber. *Brrrrssshhhhnnnnnnng* Want to make something of it?

I bought it from ThinkGeek a few years ago. Makes all kinds of cool sound effects. It's red. Of course. :)

Logan liked it. Kept touching the part that, if it were real, would have sliced his hands off, but I'll teach him the importance of only touching the hilt when he's old enough. :)

Yes, yes, I'm such a geek.

Ended up with ALOT of Halloween candy left over. Not too many trick-o-treaters this year. Bummer. I think the trend of going to "safe shopping malls" where stores are handing out candy is affecting our foot traffic. :P

Ok, that and I didn't decorate until the very last minute. I've heard that if you want foot traffic, you want to decorate at least a week in advance. Apparently the kids scope out the houses prior to the event to ensure they hit the high-candy spots.

Early November we went to our niece's son's 1st birthday party. I think their son had a good time. Our son took over one of the blankets laid on the grass and started playing with their son's toy humvee, LOL! But their son didn't seem to mind.

Logan is all about things that roll. Especially things with wheels. My Mom keeps saying I gave birth to a linebacker because of how quickly he's grown, but now I'm wondering if he's not going to be a race car driver!

And he's almost walking. He will hold onto things and kindof totter around. And he will let go and stand and maintain his balance for a few seconds before DOWN HE GOES! :)

Well, his first birthday is coming up. December 5th. Then his 2nd Christmas. Alot to do before both events.

He's eating more "real food". It just needs to be chopped up into tiny bits as he doesn't have any molars yet. Just 8 incisors. No eye-teeth. He likes cheerios, cut-up strawberries, cut-up cantaloup, and chopped+skinned grapes. I tried just chopping the grapes, but he ended up with grape skins in his mouth that he couldn't quite swallow, and that I had to fish out.

He's also had spaghetti with ground beef and Ragu. Finely chopped up, of course. And I tried to mash some peas for him, but he's still not doing so good on any vegetables that are of the green variety.

Ellie, our female, hasn't been feeling well. But her numerous expensive tests haven't shown that there is anything wrong with her. Am thinking she must be getting into stuff. So am trying to be more careful... ensure she can't eat anything in the fireplace (sometimes we burn pizza cartons in there), and making sure there aren't any candy wrappers for chocolate candies anywhere she can get them. I think that her extra-curricular eating has made her stomach a little fragile. Kindof like after you have a stomach illness, it's easier to upset your stomach by accident for a while.

Logan... who won't eat any green vegetables... surprised us the other day when he went to Ellie's dog dish and ate some of the dog food Ellie had left in there from this morning! I truly didn't think he would do that. I truly thought he was just going over there to push her dog dish around, as he likes to do that. [And thankfully our dogs aren't food aggressive, so he hasn't started any fights by doing that. Heh... watching the dogs trying to eat from a moving bowl has been quite entertaining at times!] But anyway, yes, Logan put dog food in his mouth. And was working on gumming it and swallowing it, but I raced over and started fishing that out of his mouth. And then I started worrying that whatever was upsetting Ellie's stomach was now going to start attacking Logan's tummy! This is of course assuming Ellie might have been fighting something viral or bacterial off.

However, if she was fighting something off, it apparently isn't contagious to humans. Either that or Logan has a cast iron stomach. ;)

Ok, can't think of anything else. I know I'm forgetting something, but that is the highlights, as far as I can remember it. Consider yourself up to date... that is, until I remember what I forgot to post. :)

Oh, dear Lord, what is that disgusting stench?!?!?

... and other stories.

Not something I get to say often, even with changing diapers. But I got to comment about and smell a horrific stench Sunday evening AND Tuesday morning. I'm just special that way. ;)

So, we had a mouse in the kitchen cabinets. I was pretty sure it may have moved to other locations in the house... honestly, it may have, and the mouse I found Sunday may have been mouse #2. Whatever.

There was this strange smell coming from the kitchen for the past few days. I checked and changed the garbage fairly often. I ran the garbage disposal. Nope, not coming from there. I finally went ahead and looked in the lower kitchen cabinets on Sunday evening. I about fell on my butt, the smell was so bad.

Our electronic mouse trap definitely had something. I couldn't verify for sure until I opened the lid, but that horrific smell was definitely coming from it. The trap is supposed to show a little green light for 24 hours after it has killed something. Unfortunately, I must have missed the 24 hour window. By a few days.

I dumped Mr. Very Dead Mickey Mouse out into a trash bag. It was covered in maggots, and some of it's fur remained in the trap. I'll spare you a graphic picture... I didn't have the fortitude or disgusting forethought to capture a picture of Mickey, unlike the other 2 times I decided to gross out my audience with a picture of a still-alive-but-trapped Minny Mouse, or the picture of my puke on the lawn after a sudden bout of food poisoning.

After talking to my Father-in-Law, he told me it was highly likely the trap wouldn't work again, just on the basis that the smell of death would probably cling to it for a long while. I didn't have the courage to pull out the leftover mouse fur or even try to clean the electronic trap, so $20.00 of mouse-killing plastic hardware and wire went into a different trash bag.

So, that was Sunday evening.

Our female German Shepherd, Ellie, has been getting into the one trash can we have that sits at floor level. Well, we have a 2nd trash can that sits at floor level, but it's very tall, and the dogs haven't figured out yet that it's possible for them to tip it over. Thank the Lord!

Ditto for the fact that they haven't figured out they could probably jump the backyard fence if they wanted to, LOL!

Our male German Shepherd Boss has long been getting into any floor-level trash he can find, even if it was partially burned up in the fireplace. Boss has also been getting really sneaky and taking food off the kitchen counter-tops, or off of my tray next to the recliner. It's been getting worse, and Ellie has decided to follow suite. I guess I can't blame either one of them: they barely get any attention anymore with our baby boy Logan being around. They desperately need to be walked, and their nails are in bad need of filing down. :P They could also really use a bath. Oh, crap... and I'm about a week or so late on their Frontline and Sentinel!!! [Memo to self: medicate the dogs!!!!]

Boss eats poop he finds in the backyard. Thankfully he mostly finds his own or Ellie's poop. Hopefully he doesn't often find other critter's poop... that could give him worms. But anyway, he's used to eating the strangest stuff. His stomach can handle the most amazing things now.

In the little trash can next to the recliner there are often several Reesus Peanut Butter Cups wrappers. Boss eats these w/o any problems. Ellie, however, has been giving herself the runs from getting into them.

Well, Monday night she got into them again. It was a bad night for her to pull that stunt. My husband was getting up at 4:30am Tuesday morning in order to catch a flight. Logan needed comforting at 2am in order to fall back to sleep after a nightmare or some other problem. The he needed to be held and allowed to fall asleep on me while I sat in the recliner with him at 3am. I tried to let my husband sleep through both events considering he was going to have to get up so early.

After I put Logan back in his crib, I let the dogs out for what I hoped was the last time that night/early morning. I was so wrong.

My husband left at 5:30am for the airport. I passed into a deep sleep finally.

At 7:30am, the dogs desperately wanted out. They bugged me quite a bit. I finally relented and got up. But I wasn't prompt enough.

Ellie had left a huge amount of diarrhea on the living room carpet.

It didn't smell too bad just yet. Maybe my nose wasn't awake. I let the dogs out, and put their water outside, and kept them out there. I didn't want them walking through that mess, nor did I want Ellie making any new messes if she wasn't done having the runs.

I took a trash bag and used it to initially scrape up the poop. This disturbed the stench hovering above and in the poop. I about gagged and almost puked then and there.

About 40 minutes and several applications of Petastic and paper towels later, I gave up, poured a bunch of Petastic onto the poo stain directly from the refill jug, and took all the soiled paper towels out to the garage. There they joined Mickey Mouse in the trash can. I gave up cleaning the poo stain as Logan was crying. Ah, time to go from dealing with canine elimination to baby elimination. At least Logan wore a diaper and was unlikely to get poop on the carpet.

Around 8:30am, I gave the Little Guy a bottle and had him come back to bed with me. I was DEAD TIRED, and ended up passing out. I didn't wake up until Logan wanted another bottle after 11am.

The poor dogs watched me wandering around inside and begged to be let in. But I felt like I needed a break from any further doggy digestion problems that morning, plus I hadn't fully finished cleaning up Mr. Poo stain.

I was standing at the kitchen counter, making a bottle for Logan, while he sat in his rocking chair watching Baby TV. It was a little after 11:40am. I was SO late for work, SO dead tired, and had missed a morning doctor's appointment. I looked to my right, and saw some hanging items in the kitchen swinging back and forth. Huh? Looked to my left, and Logan's jumper was also swinging. Looked straight ahead into the dining room, and saw the chandelier also swaying back and forth. Hmmm... I could see we'd had an earthquake, but I had actually not felt it. Very bizarre. Guess my Spidey Earthquake Sense was no longer functioning.

I was 10 miles from the epicenter of a 6.2 earthquake in 1984. Ever since then, I was always hyper sensitive to the ground swaying. It was weird to see an earthquake happen, and not even feel it. I mean, I felt a San Francisco quake that happened in October 1989 and caused freeways to collapse... and I felt it from about 300 miles away, while sitting in the computer lab in college. Everyone there thought I was hallucinating when I asked them if they'd felt it.

Tuesday's quake was a 5.4 (downgraded from a 5.8) earthquake in Los Angeles... which is a ways away from us.

My Mom called to make sure I was ok. She lives in the same city as we do. I was highly amused, as being over 100 miles away from the epicenter of a 5.4 isn't usually cause for alarm! But she'd been lying down when it hit, and had totally felt it. I teased her before hanging up, saying that I was trapped under something heavy, but otherwise I was doing fine. :) "Very funny," Mom replied.

The next person to call was my husband. I don't think he was so much concerned as curious, as if it had been serious enough I'd have given him a call. [Unless I was still trapped under that aforementioned heavy object.]

Finally got Logan off to daycare and my butt into work. Worked really late. Got out... my right rear tire was flat. :P

And my husband was out of town...

But wait! I had the cool tire inflater that I'd purchased after talking to my Father-in-Law about it a while back. It's powered from the cigarette lighter. Worked like a charm.

Then headed off in search of "Fix a Flat", a can of compressed air and stuff that's supposed to seal flat tires. I just wanted to have it on hand. Then picked up Logan from my Father-in-Law's, and headed home to enjoy finishing cleaning up the poop stain.

And to enjoy dealing with a plague of flies in the house! We've been having some extra fly problems of late, but this was ridiculous! Ended up setting some bait out for them such that they would be sitting in a cup and I'd have a good chance of using the battery powered fly zapper on them.

And that's been my weird Tuesday. Well, weird few days.

I never thought I'd find something that smelled worse than skunk, but the dead mouse, and Ellie's diarrhea, were really just phenomenally foul.

Wednesday I get to call the tire place to get my tires checked. This is the 2nd time the rear right one has gone flat. Before the tire shop thought I might have a leaky valve stem. My Father-in-Law thinks I may have cracks in my tires that are more easily influenced to open up when my car is parked in just the right, or in this case wrong, position. His explanation makes the best sense at this point.

Well, I'm typing while sleep deprived. It's time to put he laptop away and try to get some much-needed zzzzzz's.

To quote one of my favorite Baby TV programs, "Shushy-Bye and Goodnight". :)

Bad parents, no donut

We're sitting here watching Law and Order. It's nearly 2pm. Logan (our baby boy) is asleep on our bed in our nice, dark, cool bedroom, after having been fed a bottle.

The dogs are VERY attentive to us.

Me: "They must be hungry."

Husband: "Oh, we haven't fed them."

Me: "No... we only feed things that scream and cry."