Isaac loves him some Grandpa Larry

Isaac has been great for most of this trip, but his insane love for his oh-so-lovable mother has made it kind of hard for him to really get to know his relatives. He is pretty good if I am not around and he is, of course, properly rested and fed. But as long as I am in the room, for the most part, he doesn't want to be held by ANYbody else. The major exceptions to this are Aunt Jean and Grandpa Larry. You already witnessed Aunt Jean and her success with the chicken noodle soup, but we are especially grateful to Grandpa Larry, whose mysterious baby-whisperings have lulled our sleep-fighter to dreamland not once, but THREE times. For example, Christmas afternoon in the la-z-boy:



And then yesterday morning in the la-z-boy:



And here is a super-cute one of Isaac waking Grandpa up yesterday morning:

Christmas Road Trip

The day after Christmas, all seven of us -- Grandma and Grandpa Ross, Uncle Chris, Aunt Jean, Dad, Isaac, and I -- set out for Missouri to see my extended family, including Isaac's great-grandmas and -grandpas. Grandpa Larry was cool enough to loan us the ultimate road-trip-mobile -- a seven-passenger van with cushy seats, a TV, VCR, and sound system. It was about six hours each way, making it Isaac's first real road trip. We are really testing this baby-travelling stuff to the max, aren't we? Anyway, a photo-recap:


Grandma Jane and I learn the hard way that the most entertaining toys come still come from Grandma's purse


Isaac opens his Christmas presents at Great-Grandma and -Grandpa Ross's while the eyeless bodies of Aunt Cindy and cousin Lucy look on


The whole gang gathered around the present-carcasses at Great-Grandma and -Grandpa Peetz's


Isaac sacked out on me in Great-Grandma Peetz's la-z-boy as we both enjoy the warmth of my new fleece jacket


Isaac with Great-Grandma and -Grandpa Peetz


Isaac helps Grandpa Walt drive us back to Indy

Christmas at the O'Neal's

A recap of Christmas as Dad's mom and dad's:


Isaac got a hat for Christmas


Isaac the emergency-response provider


Dad feeding Isaac Twizzlers. Bad Daddy.


Grandpa Larry feeding Isaac banana puff thingys. Even babies get in on the holiday junk food bingeing at our house.


Uncle Joe watches helplessly as Isaac flirts with his wife


Upside-down people = delightfully surprising

Christmas at the Ross's

A recap of Christmas at my mom and dad's:



Mom and baby matchies


Dad and Isaac and I opening presents; Isaac entertaining himself with plastic-wrapped candy-canes


Isaac explores a whole new world of bipedalism with his new walker from Grandpa Walt


Check out Isaac's new houseshoes!


Grandpa Walt shows Isaac the ropes on his snazzy Peek-a-Block wagon

Our first professional Isaac photo

Isaac has had his school picture taken professionally, but that was all behind-the-scenes work as far as I was concerned. While we are home, my mom wanted to capture the baby beauty once more for posterity, now that he is older and has "personality." We decided to go to Target, who is running some killer specials from their picture studio right now. And since J.C. Penney was going to make us wait until tomorrow. We just can't plan that far ahead until Isaac gets his own Palm Pilot. We also decided we should go as early as possible, and as soon as Isaac had eaten, to minimize the possibility of fussiness.

Can you ever really be prepared for the melee that is having your almost-9-month-old's picture taken? We brought two outfits to choose from, thinking naively that we might have gotten pictures of both -- his three-piece-suit and a new number from Grandma Jane, a red corduroy Tommy Hilfiger shirt with navy corduroy pants. This also required two pairs of shoes and socks. We left the house with him in the corduroy pants and a place-holder shirt, trying to keep one step ahead of the spit-ups/runny nose. He fell asleep in the car, not five minutes before we pulled into the Target parking lot. As he slept, we realized that the brown shoes we had for him, which fit him okay a month ago, were now too small, so Grandma Jane went and bought some new shoes for him as I sat in the in-Target Starbucks with a sleeping baby on my shoulder, 20 minutes away from our picture appointment. We woke him up 5 minutes before P-time to change him into his special Tommy shirt, and lo and behold he has an enormous line on his face from sleeping on the seam of my sleeve. But we do get his shoes and shirt on, we are ready to go. Isaac is rested, fed, and looking cute as can be (minus the line on his cheek, anyway).

Candy, our photographer, however, is not ready to go. She is photographing a family of four, whose 20 minute appointment before ours ran 20 minutes over. Meanwhile, I am chasing a delighted Isaac all over the floor of the studio, but I know that the window of opportunity can't possibly last long. And it doesn't. He was cool with this Candy person until she, like an idiot, tries to pick him up. I mean, duh. He doesn't know her, and he's nearly 9 months old, in the throes of separation anxiety. He can't even stand being held by Dad when there's a perfectly good Mom standing right over there that can hold him. So he breaks down into a screaming fit and won't let go of my hair and shoulder until Grandma, the genius she is, runs out to the car and gets one of his newly-acquired ADD toys. This distracts him enough so we can get two fabulous shots of him standing up, but then he melts down again. Candy suggests we strip him down for a nekked baby shot, but he again won't let go of me. Another brilliant Candy suggestion -- let's get me and baby in the picture then. Since I've not brushed my teeth and don't have any make-up on or anything. We got a couple of shots off with me, then, including an actually cute one where you can see Isaac in his favorite pose, clinging to my shoulder like a monkey, happily teething on my hair. When we eventually went back to the house, Dad was trying to give us some lip about how we didn't get a picture of him in the outfit we bought solely for pictures, and I told him to bite me. Let him try this whole picture nastiness himself, I said, and see what he gets done.

In 10-14 business days, his pictures will be available to see on the web, and I'll post the info on how to look at them for all y'all. In the meantime, I *won't* be counting the days till it's picture time again.

Photographic evidence of our happy plane trip

I hope you'll excuse the photo-blogging diarrhea -- I am a little excited to have figured out how to blog away from home, mainly because Dad is up on his HTML. Anyway, to prove to you just how easy we had it on the flight home, I provide you with a sleeping baby:



And a happy baby playing with his in-flight biscotti (so continental):

Brrrrrr continued = White Christmas

This is Grandpa working his way through a foot of snow this morning with his new snowblower. And we still have some shopping to do...

Out and around the town

Aunt Jean, Uncle Chris, Dad, Isaac, and I all went scouting around for some last-minute presents on Tuesday. We went to Panera Bread (which we regretfully don't have in Seattle), where Isaac did his best to eat Jean's chicken noodle soup out from under her:


We brought normal Isaac-food, too, so we could make a total mess of the place:


Another unfamiliar thing to Seattleites -- sunshine. And no baby-shade for the window, either, but we made do thanks to Aunt Jean:

Isaac meets Sparky

Aunt Jean and Uncle Chris have a dog named Sparky who is a total rabble-rouser. We were a little worried about Isaac and Sparky meeting each other, thinking that Sparky would try to jump all over Isaac, or that Isaac, who has seen many dogs during our walks from the safety of the Bjorn, would freak out when confronted with a live, in-your-face kind of dog. But all our fears were for naught. Isaac thinks of Sparky as a much-improved version of cat-brother, because Sparky does not run away when Isaac tries to touch or chase him, and is just as interested in Isaac as Isaac is in him. Unfortunately, this is bad for Sparky. We found out quickly that Sparky's main goal in life was to lick Isaac's face, which, while very cute, was also perhaps a little too germy for even our liking.



This meant that poor Sparky was quickly trained by his mom and dad to not touch Isaac, and you can now see the internal struggle in Sparky. "Baby! I love baby! Must go play with baby! But wait...playing with baby = yelling from mom...don't want to get in trouble...must avoid baby. But wait! Baby! I love baby!" You get it. So Isaac shrieks at Sparky and crawls after him, and Sparky quietly backs away from this new and interesting creature, but stays as close as he can without getting yelled at.

Um...brrr?

Yesterday Dad and I flew with Isaac and cat-brother from Seattle to Chicago, then from Chicago to Indianapolis. It went unbelievably well. One thing I think we had stacked in our favor was that we scheduled all this to happen super-early. We left the house at 4:15, and made it to Indy by noon Seattle time, which means that everything happened in the morning, when Buster is most happy. He slept most of the time, but the rest of the time we were playing with our 18-month-old friend Hunter we met on the plane. Hunter and his parents flew with us from Seattle to Chicago, where they stuck the six of us in the very, very back of the plane, as far away from those high-falutin' first-class-paying passengers as possible. Isaac was a complete doll and never cried, grinning and cooing and eating like a champ. He didn't even have any issues with ear-popping as I had feared, especially given his recent ear infection. Like his mom, he was also fascinated with looking out the window at the scenery below. As always, I was pleasantly surprised by my fabulous guy.

One thing we didn't expect, however -- how long have we been away? -- was the chilly Midwestern reception. Not from grandparents, but from Mother Nature. We landed in Chicago and the captain announced that it was a balmy six degrees outside. That's 6. Degrees. Not Celcius. And then we are watching the weather forecast here for Indy, and we almost guaranteed for 6-8 inches of snow tomorrow. While I am totally stoked about the white Christmas, Dad is informing me of all the horror that this entails for 1) how Buster's wardrobe is based in Seattle, where the most we have to worry about is that it might rain and dip down to 40 or something (oh NO!); and, much worse, 2) transportation around town to visit other people for Christmas. And we won't even go into the unthinkable last-minute Christmas shopping, which we, like dunces, have left ourselves lots of to do. In the meantime, however, Isaac is completely basking in the glow of the non-stop granparent excitement, and has completely fallen in love with the idea of a HOUSE, with, like, actual SPACE to crawl around in. Many pictures to come when I can find the USB cable in the chaos that is my luggage...

We'll....be home....for Christmas....

Monday morning we are ditching this town and its infernal greenness for Indianapolis, our hometown, where it is supposed to flurry ALL WEEK LONG. Bring it. Among the many reasons we are excited to go home:

*Snow. And introducing Buster to it.
*New toys for Buster.
*New toys for big people.
*Buster gets to meet his "Aunt" Jean for the first time.
*Handing off Buster to random family members and running.
*Bob Evans. We plan to go at least once a day. Seattleites just don't understand the importance of B&G. Or bagels, for that matter.
*People who can drive. Related to this: traffic that moves and road layouts that make sense.
*Sleep.
*Not being at work, or even obligated to work.
*Seeing high school/college buddies, family, everybody.
*Other people will cook; free, edible food available at every turn.
*Other people will clean, and probably even volunteer to clean things we should be cleaning (like a baby).

How can you not dig it? Well, there is the matter of the flight there, and it will certainly suck, for many reasons. First, there is the baby factor, which I think I do not need to elaborate upon. However, because we are pain-gluttons, we are also traveling with the cat. He is not usually one for causing us concern, but still he is another warm body to keep track of. Perhaps practice, if you will, but another Dad or Claire Jr. Then there is Dad and his discomfort with flying, though he has obtained some unbelievably small anti-anxiety pills from his doc that may help in that regard. Then there is the car seat. When we check it, does it count as one of our allowed bags? Let's hope not. And when we check in for our flight, will the flight be overbooked such that we won't get that uber-luxurious extra seat between Dad and I, needed for all things baby? How will I control the mess from my messy eater when it is time for him to chow? Will I have to whip out the boob in front of a passenger with delicate sensibilities? And then there's the matter of packing up a whole baby lifestyle to take with us. For example, he can't eat with big people spoons -- we gotta take those, along with bibs and drop cloths. I could go on, but I don't need to, cause I have a list. I will probably be wearing zebra-striped hotpants the whole time, but my baby will have all the necessary accoutrements. Wish us luck.

Whooping cough/new mommy freak-out update

We took Isaac to the pediatrician today, and was it ever a waste of time. He does not have whooping cough. They didn't even test him because he has almost stopped coughing altogether, saving a little hack for every once in awhile after he first wakes up. His ear infection is also gone. The doctor diagnosed him with the ever-glamorous "post-nasal drip." However, I think I am entitled to a new-mommy freak-out, seeing as how this was my very first one.

I am also feeling much, much better. I did today without any medication whatsoever, which was a first for me this week -- I was unable to leave the house most days without my prescription decongestant from last week and a couple Tylenol. All of this sickness did serve its purpose, though. I told you we are flying home to Indianapolis on Monday, right? And that I was dreading flying with screechy-monster, right? Well, I'm not anymore. I can't WAIT to get to Indy, and I don't care who I have to annoy with my screaming baby to get there. I am so tired of being sick and having to take care of two sick boys AND go to work at the same time that I am ready to flop on one of the Grandmas' couches and finally let somebody take care of ME. And I deserve it. Being a mommy is both hard and fun, but being a mommy for a sick baby and a wife to a sick husband while being sick yourself is completely impossible and completely lacking in fun.

Coffee-table spelunker

Nothing is off-limits to our intrepid explorer, even the dark underbelly of the coffee-table:

What lies beneath? Not even the vacuum cleaner knows....(ick)

Non-ADD toys

Isaac has many toys. Not an overwhelming amount, mind you, but a respectable number for our small apartment with its limited storage space. However, we are continually reminded when we visit Clayton's house just how boring our toys are. When Isaac first got interested in toys, Dad and I adopted the Anti-ADD Toy Law -- that we would keep toys with an overabundance of flashy lights, loud and obnoxious sounds, and otherwise unnecessary electronics out of our house in hopes of promoting our baby's attention span. Clayton, on the other hand, has had the opportunity to be spoiled by his grandmas in this respect, and almost all of his toys flash lights, make crazy sounds, or even move of their own accord. We have been going over to Clayton's house a lot this week to play with his toys because *I* am bored with ours. How many times can you knock over a block tower in a day before it gets old? Quite a few, mind you, but there is a limit.

Clayton still comes over to play with our boring toys, though, and his excitement gives them new life. Here are some pictures of Isaac and Clayton playing with Mindy:

Blocks + pots + lids = hours of baby fun


Aunt Mindy shows Isaac pictures from his family book (now, be cool, there are also pictures of O'Neals and Uncles and Aunts in there, too...)

Oh great, whooping cough now

Last night we got an email from the University of Washington informing us that a student just diagnosed with whooping cough had been traipsing all over campus on finals week. While neither Dad nor I were in any of the buildings this kid reported to be in, he obviously had to get the disease from somewhere. So paralyzed by mommy panic, I spent the morning not working but surfing WebMD and whatnot to learn more about whooping cough. I recalled that this is the P in the DTaP vaccine, but I didn't know what the symptoms actually were. It starts out as a 1-2 week "cold", with a runny nose, enormous congestion, a sore throat, and maybe a little cough, but no fever. Hm. Sound familiar? These are the EXACT symptoms I had. Of course I can't tell if Ike was congested or if he had a sore throat, but one can only assume he felt like I did. After the "cold" part resolves, then the dangerous coughing begins in earnest. This coughing comes in horrible fits that can consume all the oxygen in your lungs and cause you to pass out, but such fits are interspersed by long periods of looking and feeling normal, and the coughing stuff is most common at night. Like how Isaac wakes himself up three times each night coughing his brains out. Great. So we are going BACK to the pediatrician's office tomorrow to get a nose culture for Isaac and see if he has the bug.

Academically interesting but emotionally horrifying for me, however, is that regardless of whether or not Isaac has whooping cough, there is probably nothing that can be done for it now. The "cold" part is caused by a bacterial infection, which can be treated by antibiotics. But the coughing part starts up after the bacteria have all died, and have left behind a fun little protein toxin present to mess up your lungs. This toxin is actually very closely related, and operates in almost the exact same way, as the toxin that I am studying for my dissertation research. There is nothing you can do medicine-wise to stop the effects of the toxin, and only time and a cool-mist humidifier will make things better.

Now, you must realize that both Isaac and I have been vaccinated (though my protection from my immunizations is probably long-expired), so it is highly unlikely that this is what we have. Even if it is, neither of us would likely need medical attention since Isaac is older and we both have healthy immune systems. But because I am a new mom and my baby has an awful cough that will not go away and he is incubated in daycare with eight other little germ factories every day, I am a little freaked. Wouldn't you be?

I didn't even have to use my A.K.

I had THE MEETING with my boss today, to discuss my "Graduation Gameplan". It was a very amicable meeting, and we easily came to an agreement. Because today is Blog in Dialog day...
---------------
Claire: So you see, at my General Exam, we said that I needed to do three things to graduate.
Boss: Oh, I never take those things [meaning General Exams] seriously.
Claire: Oh. Um. Well. Those three things were this, that, and the other. And I have done all three. What next?
Boss: Well, I think that would make a tidy dissertation. First you have to finish your paper about that and the other -- how many papers have you published so far?
Claire: One.
Boss: So you would have two total. I think that could be enough for a dissertation...
Claire: I could elaborate on the that and the other paper in my dissertation.
Boss: Yes. But first let's focus on getting said paper published. Two papers may be enough for your dissertation, but maybe not depending on what you want to do next. Have you thought about it at all? Do you want to get a postdoc, or go to industry, or what?
Claire [and I actually said this]: Well, to be perfectly honest, after I defend and wrap things up in the lab, I want to stay home for two years with Isaac and have another baby....
Boss [quick silence]: Oh.
Claire: ...Then pick up where I left off and maybe stay in academia with a lectureship position or something, where I could work more with people. But I could also see myself in industry later.
Boss: Well, if that is what you want to do, I don't think you will need more than two papers.
------------------
I don't mean to suggest that Boss-Man was implying that the SAHM route is a bad one, or that I really care, since it is obviously up to me and my family to decide that. But it was weird. I've talked many times at home and in fantasies about being a SAHM, but to voice this possibility, aloud, to my boss...it was weird. Suddenly I felt really guilty for wanting to stay home, like I was abandoning women scientists everywhere with my cavewoman-like ideas. I will have a Ph.D.! A career full of intellectual and money-making potential! What am I thinking? I talked with my rotation student, also a woman, about it, and she offered some wise words which I will paraphrase. She said that the whole feminist movement started to make sure that women would always have CHOICES -- for example, whether to work or to stay home and raise the kids. But today it has swung a little far, where men and women (and SAHMs themselves) make SAHMs feel bad for not doing "their part" to be in the workforce. This mentality actually subverts the whole feminist ideal altogether, which was all about having the choice of whether or not to stay home in the first place. And no one should make a SAHM feel bad for choosing to do what's best for her family. This made me feel better.

Oh, and my boss and I agreed that I would graduate next summer. I gotta say it was a good day.

Isaac made us a present

When Dad picked Isaac up from school today, his teacher Jill says, "Isaac made a present for you." Of course, Dad's first thought is that any "present" from Isaac would be hellaciously stinky and swathed in a diaper. But then Jill hands him this:

It's a white pillar candle with a blue Isaac footprint in the wax. Those are some crafty ladies down there -- I've spent about a half-hour just staring at it, trying to figure out how they made this thing. The footprint is in the wax, not painted on. What a sweet thing to do for us moms and dads! We were really touched.

Because I haven't talked about poop for two days now, I must tell you about Isaac's other "present" to me that happened later in the day. All afternoon, my nose was alerting me of a poop diaper. Each time I went up to check, though, I had little conversations that went like this:

Claire (with open-diapered Isaac before her): Isaac, where's the poop?
Isaac's butt: Pffft. Pbltftfttt.
Claire: Now, let's keep that kind of language to ourselves, shall we?
Isaac's butt: Pffffffffffffffffffffft. Ppppfblt. Pft.
Claire: What's that smell? It smells like death! Run for your life, it's Baby Stink Breath!
Isaac's butt: Pblft.

Seriously, going on like this for five minutes at a time. Later, for dinner, Isaac set an eating record, consuming two whole containers of baby food. First there was the Vegetable Beef dinner, of the Gerber Baby Alpo Variety Pack. Then for dessert was oatmeal+milk+peaches. I tried to save some of the peaches for later, but when Isaac kept opening his mouth like a baby bird when done, he got some peaches straight-up. But that wasn't enough. He made a special present for me while he ate, the stinky kind this time, and as we headed upstairs to unwrap it he grabbed the almost-empty peaches container. He spent the entire diaper change burying his face in the peaches container, trying to lick the very last drops up. I guess he was hungry? Maybe?

He's a messy eater

The past two days Isaac has not been so keen on solid food, presumably because of the sick stuff, leading to two major and unholy poop-diaper breaches. This morning he finally seemed like he was interested in solids again so I did everything in my part to stop him up good. He ate a whole jar of bananas spiked with a healthy amount of applesauce and a hulking amount of oatmeal. We had quite a bit of fun in the process making happy-baby faces like this one:

...and this one:

Maybe he wants me to throw the Cheerios into his mouth? Might be more successful that way...

So happy about bananas:

Why I didn't blog yesterday

I got my Christmas present early from Dada:

Dada

Isaac snuggles with Dada after just saying "Dada" to his face. Was it on purpose? Who cares when I see Dad smile bigger than he has in his life?

We both have ear infections

After a horrible night of coughing and ickiness, which even sleeping in the car seat couldn't cure, and a painful "please mommy don't go" separation at day care this morning, Isaac's teacher Jill called me at work today to tell me that Isaac was completely inconsolable and tugging incessantly at his ears, and that I should pick him up right away. I made a doctor's appointment for him this afternoon, where we found out he doesn't have a lung infection (yay), but does have an ear infection (boo). I estimate this is a recent occurrence, since at the ER last Saturday his ears were fine, and since in the past two days he has become really, REALLY attached to his mommy. Finding out that Buster had an ear infection, though, made me think "Hmmmm. I have been unable to hear out of my ears at full capacity for three or four days now, and they ache considerably. Maybe I also have an ear infection." Because I'm smart. So Dad helped me score an appointment at the campus clinic at the last minute, where I got slightly chewed out by the receptionist about how "they don't usually like to fill openings this late in the day" and "you should really call and make an appointment next time." I told her to bite me. The doctor was quite impressed at how far my eardrums were bulging out, and gave me lots of nursing-friendly meds to make it all go away. So now Isaac and I are a walking upper-respiratory ailment pharmacy. Here's our haul. I've outlined the baby meds in Cheerios:

Mommy gets antibiotics, industrial-strength decongestant, and this fantastic nose spray that makes all my snot vanish. Isaac gets amoxicillin, generic baby Tylenol, and liquid Benadryl. The Benadryl is actually a last-ditch effort only -- Dr. Kira said it would help as a cough suppressant and as a sleep inducer, but it may also impair his breathing. No thanks. She said if the coughing was keeping him awake, to give him 2 tsp of corn syrup (hence the Karo), that it would coat his throat and help it not to feel so dry. We are officially now on the road to recovery.

Ah-CHOO continued

Both Dad and I were down sick today. Luckily for Dad (and me), I finally felt better today. Not good enough to go to school, mind you. Will I ever feel good enough to go to school again, I wonder? Aside from the sick stuff, I have really been living a life of luxury here -- sleep till 11 every morning while Isaac attends his school, then play play play all afternoon, all with minimal feelings of guilt about work. Makes me really want to take this PhD thing and shove it and join the SAHM camp. I will be having a meeting with my boss sometime next week wherein we will actually discuss a "graduation gameplan" for Claire. Let's just hope his goal-line is relatively near where mine is.

I took another Claritin last night, to which I attribute most of my feelings of well-being. I finally decided that this whole Claritin-popping thing is not a long-term issue, as I don't have allergies, and so if I need to take some medicine to even be able to take care of my child, then I can do that for a little while. I will take another one tonight, and I anticipate that it will make me feel good enough to go to work tomorrow. Great. Also, unlike yesterday where I could not stand to eat anythingall day except for 5 saltines, I was able to keep down normal food today, like raisin bran and vegetable soup and cold pizza. I have lost five pounds this week that I really did want to keep.

Buster is doing okay. I don't think he is getting much better, but it's just his cough that persists, and everything I've read says that can linger for up to 3 weeks. I WAS feeling very bad about leaving him at day care all this week with his horrible cough. Today, however, when I picked him up, 1) I heard a little girl, napping in the sleeping nook, coughing her brains out as she slept, and 2) on the daily report sheet under his, another kid's dad had written his cell phone number and "please call if Tucker isn't doing well enough to stay today". So I am actually not such a bad mom. Although it is obvious that there is a positive correlation between improvements in his cough and time spent near the humidifier at home. Maybe I should talk to them about getting a humidifier.

You know how, when you're sick and you have to "call in" sick to work, you still feel guilty? Like, surely you're just being a big faker and if you just sucked it up like a big girl you could go in to work. I felt really guilty today because, maybe, I could have gone to school. Maybe. I was still so tired from being sick all this week, and the snot was still flowing and I am coughing like I have the plague, but because I felt better than I had all this week, I kept nagging myself all day for being a slacker. I mean, did I stay home because I was really too sick to go in, or was it because I had a meeting with my boss today that I really didn't want to attend? Or both? The world may never know.

Another question for the ages: where does all the snot come from? I can blow my nose every five minutes and there's just as much slime that comes out every time. How is this possible? Are my sinuses just that labrynthian that they can hold that much liquid?

E-mailing in sick

I stayed home from work again today, making three days of sickly misery. And since this is oh-four, we now e-mail in sick instead of calling. I tried to make my misery as entertaining as possible for my boss and others. From today, which gives you an idea of what is going on here:

Hi guys,
I am finally getting better. I know this because I am too queasy to move, which means the snot-glaciers must be melting and draining. Not quite sure what this will mean as far as taking care of a now relatively healthy and fast-moving 8-month-old, but I think some kind of baby entrapment device will be involved. Anyway, I am going to stay put again today so I don’t puke on Doug and Ron in Lit Meeting.

Hope to see you all soon,

Claire
-----------
And I did puke today. It was gross. It was the first time I had puked since I was in transition with Isaac. You would think hospitals would know better than to feed a woman in labor a roast beef sandwich for lunch, or that she would know better than to eat it, but there you have it. In this illness of ours, Isaac hasn't puked yet, as far as I know -- how could I get his cold worse than him? Is it the (lack of) sleep preying on my immune system? And then there's the body aches -- it feels like I have run a marathon. Dad had to curtail a lot of his plans today to help me take care of Isaac. Poor guy, on his birthday, too. He said he had a good one, though -- we ordered buffalo wings for him for dinner, his favorites, and he got cards and/or gifts from Grandma Jane, Grandma Ross, and Grandma Peetz. When I'm feeling better, maybe this weekend, we will take him out for steak like he deserves.

I'm sooooo bad

Here is why I'm a bad, bad girl:

1) Last night I took Claritin. You heard it, I am breastfeeding and I took drugs. This is because my enormous sinus pressure was keeping me awake past midnight, and I couldn't take it anymore. I finally googled "breastfeeding" + "decongestant" and found out that Claritin has actually been given the nod by the American Academy (or whatever it is) of Pediatrics for nursing moms to take. So there. And after much sleep today, I finally feel better. But is it because I'm really better, or because sneaky Claritin is supposed to decongest me for 24 blessed hours?

2) I stayed home sick from work again today, for good reason. I woke up and felt like poo. Then I napped from 9 to 11 in Isaac's room with the humidifier, and suddenly I felt much better. Dad got me to take him to school, and that is where the naughtiness begins -- I went shopping. At first it started out so simply -- I needed more Kleenex. The kind with lotion, too, or my nose would simply fall off. So I went to the U-Village. This is where I heard the evil siren song of Starbucks, so I treated myself to a latte, having done completely without caffeine for the past three days. Then I went to the drug store for my nasal remedies. Then I went to the grocery store and bought some stuff and a Noah's bagel with yummylicious cream cheese for myself for lunch. This is all while I am "sick", mind you. I flirted with the idea of shopping for Christmas presents for Isaac, but it was getting late and I needed to pick him up from day care. And speaking of...

3) I stayed home from work for the past two days, sick as a dog, but I sent my boy to day care both mornings. Now, in my defense, he doesn't seem as sick as me. He just has his noxious little cough. Also, we all know that sleep is the key to recovery, yes? And that I get no sleep when boy is around, yes? And that sick mommies = no good to anyone, yes? Nonetheless I feel exceedingly guilty, sending my boy with a cold to go infect others while I sleep blissfully baby-free at home.

I am going straight to H.

Isaac discovers the cabinet with the pots and pans

We had lots of fun playing with grown-up toys around the house today, as you can see below:

Climbing up to get the pots

Reaching for the pans

Isaac was particularly entertained by these huge bowls and how they distorted his already huge Klingon dome.

Fun with the magazine rack

Happy 8 Month-day, Isaac!

Just wanted to wish our sickly little Buster the best on his happy 8-month-day. He is babbling up a storm, pulling up on everything, crawling like a champ, climbing stairs, and even starting to cruise a bit. In short, he is a holy terror. A cute terror, mind you, but a holy one nonetheless. One that we thank our lucky stars every day that we have. We can't wait to show him off to everybody back home -- he is such a little person now.

Oh, and they weighed him at the ER -- 21 lbs and 3 oz. No wonder my knees are giving out. Maybe he'll learn to walk soon like his ambitious blog-brotha Ben...

BIDS

Now that Dad is coming down with Isaac's ferocious cold, which, by the way, seems to have hit me harder than Isaac, we are in a complete quandary. How has the human species survived if babies are such efficient vectors for virus-delivery? And even more amazing -- how do day cares stay afloat? Are day care workers specially selected for their robust immune systems?

What is more amazing is that Dad and I have not *really* been sick, like stay-home-from-work sick, for about three years, and here you have it. There is the chance as well that we will have more bouts with this stuff in the months (days?) to come. A fellow blogger, also under the weather thanks to his little bundle of joy, has coined a new term for this: Baby-related Immune Deficiency Syndrome (BIDS). We hear you, buddy.

Birthdays

*Tomorrow is Grandma Carolyn's 59th birthday. Happy birthday, Carolyn, and many, many more! We here at Isaac's blog love you very much and look forward to seeing you (in less than two weeks!) so we can tell you so in person.

*Wednesday is Dad's 35th birthday. Can you believe what a fogey he is? It's amazing he had any swimmers left to make an Isaac. Just KIDDING. Dad and I are notoriously incapable of keeping presents from each other, so he already got his presents from me and from Isaac, but we will post pictures of them here on his birthday. We do have some special surprises for Dad that we haven't let on about to help him feel good about being so incredibly ancient. It does look like Isaac has already given Dad a special present just in time ... a yummy-licious cold!

Svelte cat-brother

Moses went to the vet on Sunday, not because he also got an upper-respiratory virus, but for his annual check-up. He passed everything with flying colors except for his teeth, which evidently need major cleaning that he won't like. A positive note is that cat-brother has lost almost 4 pounds in the past year, when we started his lard-butt on diet cat food. The vet was very proud.

An additional factor in cat-brother's weight loss, we are sure, is that we live in a place with stairs. Our apartment before this was all on one floor, with no other cat activities but lazing around in the windowsill. Now, cat-brother is exceptionally motivated to run the stairs because it used to be his only way to escape from Isaac. Note how I said "used", because Isaac, in true Rocky-fashion, has been training himself to climb stairs at school. There, they have a baby-workout piece of furniture where one side is a few steps and the other side is a ramp. Evidently, this is one of Isaac's new things -- hanging out on the stairs at all hours, trying to figure them out. And he has. Let us all feel sorry for cat-brother.

Isaac's Houdini-like escape from the rocking chair

Isaac has a rocking chair with the traditional little crotch-surrounding belt that he sits in so I can take a shower. I strap him in it, sometimes with him grumbling about it, and then sing him songs in the shower so he knows that mommy is right there. Yesterday he was doing his typical grumbling whilst I showered, and I my typical mommy-yammering. Occasionally I would peek out to make a funny face at him or whatever. Once I peeked out, and he was no longer in his seat. He was attempting to exit the premesis with two arms and a leg, the foot of the other leg entangled in the crotch-restraint. Evidently, he had leaned over in the chair so far so as to be able to slide himself out the top of the restraint. I guess. I really don't know, because I was hiding behind the shower curtain, yes? Anyway, I was completely flabbergasted, and he was just fine, not acting like anything was up or weird at all. I screamed for Dad, and Dad helped my sopping self to extricate the boy from the chair. Of course, I made Dad babysit while I finished my shower.

Isaac's first trip to the ER

Unfortunately, Isaac's hacky-cough did not go away. Oddly, it never really seems to bother him much -- he was just cheery, ambitious little Isaac most of the time, and then about once an hour he sounds like he was trying to hack up a lung. Then it was back to chasing cat-brother and trying to climb the stairs. Friday night, however, he started waking himself up with these thick, tuberculosis-sounding coughs. Seriously, if you as an adult had a cough that sounded like that, you would be at the doctor. But he had no fever and no wheezing, like the nurse said to watch for, so we persisted in our watchful waiting.

Saturday afternoon, Isaac was taking his inclined-nap on Dad when he woke himself up with a coughing spell again. Except this time, he couldn't catch a breath. Dad estimated that he went 10 seconds without air, turning an alarming shade of purple. Dad and I mobilized and rushed our little family to the car (minus cat-brother) for a trip to the ER. I think less than 4 minutes transpired between Isaac's color-turning and our arrival at the hospital. We briefly debated in the car -- should we take Isaac to the UW Med Center ER, where our insurance will pay 90%, but where Isaac will be waiting amid drunk people with bullet wounds, or should we take him to Children's Hospital, where there will be baby-friendly and -knowledgeable staff who have likely seen similar colds in recent memory, but where our insurance will only pay 50%? I think the choice is quite obvious. At Children's, we were seen by a pediatrician who herself had a 13-month-old boy, so unlike our other doctor's visits, there was no fussing or fighting because she knew just what to do. She also praised me highly for having breastfed my boy for 8 months with no supplemental formula whatsoever.

Her diagnosis is that he has some sort of upper-repiratory virus, which she guessed was probably RSV. RSV is an extremely common, extremely contagious virus that kids under 2 contract all the time. There's nothing you can do to treat it, and the only reason he would need to see a doctor is if he starts to wheeze, indicating his cold is turning into -- yay! -- bronchiolitis. She says that it's perfectly normal for babies to develop these kinds of colds during the winter, and often more than once in the same season -- yay again! One of the things a nurse there recommended to help him with his nighttime coughing fits is to have him sleep in his car seat. Here he is, starting out the night:

We also bought a humidifier that suggested it would be quiet and unobtrusive on the box, but is so loud you can't have a quiet conversation as long as it's in the room. Sigh.

Sorry for not blogging

Readers, I apologize for not posting recently. Isaac's cold has taken over our household, burying us in a steaming pile of snot and phlegm. It is highly likely that I will be staying home from school today to try to catch up on some much-needed sleep. I do have much to blog about, though, including:

*Isaac's first trip to the ER (he is okay, don't worry)
*Isaac's Houdini-like escape from his rocking chair
*Cat brother's svelte new figure
*Stair-climbing

And more. Stay tuned.

Please no, not the croup...

Isaac's sickliness continues. Being the kind gentleman that he is, he has now passed on the latest in viruses to Clayton, too. He does not have a fever, and does not act unwell, in sharp contrast to his election night bug where all he wanted to do was lay on a parental unit and occasionally whimper. Instead, he has an occasional death-rattle cough. About once an hour, maybe a little less, he coughs like he is bringing up lung tissue. The force is actually quite astounding -- it sounds like a real grownup cough, replete with phlegm. Last night, after having been asleep for two hours, he started coughing, still in his sleep. When he had been coughing for 15 minutes (still asleep), we went upstairs and retrieved him so he could sleep instead on Dad's chest, where he would be a) inclined so as to facilitate mucus-drainage and b) more closely monitored by Dad and I as we watched Spiderman 2. He slept soundly on Dad's chest, and then again when we transferred him to his crib later. But all today, he continues in his awful wet coughing spells.

I called the nurse to ask if we should do anything about it. She said:
1) Buy a cool-mist humidifier and use it as he sleeps
2) Before bed, run a hot shower for 20 minutes and keep him in the bathroom as it goes
3) Prop the "head" of his bed up 4 inches with a rolled up beach towel
4) He may have 1/4 tsp of Dimetapp DM if we feel so inclined.
I was a little wary of #4 -- I had heard NO decongestant stuff was allowed for kids under a year old, but she said "I give you permission" to use it.

Later, Mindy calls and says that Clayton has coughed so hard that he threw up. She also called the nurses' line, and a different nurse told her NO cough or cold medicine whatsoever, that they don't recommend it for kids under a year. Also, nurse #2 said that, as he coughs more, his airways will get swollen, meaning it also might help to add cold air treatments. She suggested, I am not kidding, sticking his head in the freezer (not closing it, of course). Since neither of the boys have a temperature and are acting fine, both nurses said not to worry unless they start wheezing and/or run a fever for three days. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, shall we?

Good luck, Grandma Carolyn

We forgot to pass on the news that Isaac's Grandma Carolyn passed her first post-mastectomy mammogram with flying colors. Tomorrow morning she is going in for surgery to fix her mastectomy implant and get a matching implant for her other boobie. Her birthday is on Tuesday -- I think she purposefully scheduled this to get youthful boobies as her present to herself. Her surgery should be no big deal, but we will keep her in our hearts and minds anyway. We love her very much, and hope that she and her new perky boobs will be up and running around in no time.

The beauty of the crock pot

Unbeknownst to ye readers, I have been a little cooking machine the past few weeks, making on the order of 3 homemade meals per week. Well, I say that "I" have been a cooking machine, but actually it has been my crock pot. I have one of those "fancy" numbers, which I paid a whopping $12.99 for, that has a removable crock. This means that you can be so lazy as to put your uncooked garbage in there the night before, and just set the crock in the cooker on your way to work in the morning. I used this lovely feature last night and this morning to make a 2 lb pot roast with carrots and onions. It was deeeeevine. And, in the future, it will be even better when I figure out how to buy meat. As in how to identify a roast that is less than 50% fat (although that characteristic of this slab of meat did make it taste remarkably like melted butter). Twice now I have cooked chicken + vegetables, and once I made chicken tortilla soup. All have been insanely easy and delicious, two qualities I would not have expected from anything involving putting me in the kitchen. Why this sudden Betty-Crocker push? This is all a stepping-stone to my eventual stay-at-home momness. Also, now that Isaac can sit at the table with us with minimal fussing, my desire for family dinners each night, real ones where everyone sits down together and talks about their days, is growing exponentially.

One thing that boggles my mind, however, is that my darling husband remains a crock pot snob. I really don't know why -- perhaps it's the lack of labor involved that makes it seem like less of a "real" meal to him or something. He was incredibly averse to the purchase of the crock pot in the first place, and each time I announce that I am cooking something in the crock pot, he acts incredibly disappointed. Obnoxiously, this sentiment completely disappears when he tastes what comes out of the crock pot. Example: I had cooked three luscious chicken-oriented meals for him in my crockery. Yesterday at the grocery store I bought this slab of beef for roast beef tonight. I made him put away the groceries: "Why did you buy a roast?" Why, to cook in the crock pot, dear. "I was afraid you'd say that." And I had to fight him to get any of the roast in my mouth this evening. I seriously thought he might bite me. How many delicious, nutritious, and cost-conscious home-cooked meals will it take to convert Dad? Regardless, I will continue in my crock-pot addict ways. How else am I supposed to pay attention to speed-crawler baby and cook dinner at the same time?

Climbing on ev-er-y-thing in the house