Jaws 2.0

On Tuesday I had to go back to Emory for my 3 month post-op check up. If you don't know what I'm talking about see this post to get caught up. Since it was my day off, I had The Boy with me. My last check up one month out was easy breezy, in and out. My Australian doctor even told me I had dark and mysterious eyes. I thought this one would be the same. It was not.

When I got there, they couldn't find me in the computer. I spelled my names for them multiple times, and when they told me I wasn't in the system I produced my last bill that said I owed them $162 to ensure them I was. Oh look, they found me. But then they said I didn't have an appointment. I told them "Val" called me to remind me yesterday. Hmmm. They said. The Boy was in his stroller observing everyone in the waiting room while this was happening. He likes to look around and around until someone falls prey and makes eye contact with him. Then he bats his eyes and grins shamelessly until they leave or something more interesting happens. They told me they'd "work me in." Oh H No. This was not good.

We sat and waited. And waited.  Eventually he signed to me "all done", indicating he wanted to run loose like a wild rabid raccoon. He ran in circles in the waiting room. He sucked on the windows to the hallway. He banged on the door to the office. He "jumped" up and down yelling "bump! bump!" He tried to climb on the free standing hand sanitizer stand. He stood inches from other patients and stared at them until they were forced to look at him. I'm a professional in the child development field, so I know it is not appropriate to ask a 15 month old to sit quietly for long stretches of time. Or ever. However, I am also an actual human, so I also know it is not appropriate to let your child do these things for extended periods of time. A nurse came out and told me it'd be another 15-20 minutes. I told her we were going down the hall to neurology to look at their fish tank.

When we came back a cute young resident was looking for us. I loaded The Boy back in his stroller and the cute resident held the door open for us and we followed him down the hall. He talked to The Boy and asked his age and name. We liked him. He asked me to stop in front of an office door and got a young female employee's attention just to look at The Boy. She oohed and ahhed and The Boy gave her a half smile. Cute resident took us to a room, where we waited. The young girl came by to see The Boy again. And we waited.

The Boy wore his tie to our appointment. He's very formal.

An hour and a half after we got there, the Australian came in to see me. By this point we were well beyond the point of no return. My bag of tricks was used up and we were past paper cups and latex gloves for entertainment. I'd even gone through the secret weapon bag of marshmallows I brought. The Boy was not even impressed with the doc's accent. He mostly rared his body back in a shrimp position and screamed.

Dr Aussie: Hel-lo. You brought the faml'y for suppoyt I see. D'ya think he cou'd sit in his chaya for a few minutes moor while we do the exam?
Me: I don't know. He's been waiting for a long time. I think we're past the point of no return.
Dr. Aussie: Alright then, letsee if he can sit with you in this chaya then?
Me: Okay. (He wasn't happy in the chair)
Dr. Aussie: Alriyght, if we need to we can go get one ov the nusses to help. Theya bedda with children than Iyam.
Me: Okay.
Dr. Aussie: Open yoor mouth until it's kompfable. Joost kompfable. Okay. Does this hert? Does this? Any pain heeya? How bout heeya?
(The Boy wasn't having any of this. DONE. Dr. Aussie asked me to hold on a moment. He left the room and came back with a nurse. )
Dr. Aussie: Alriyght, this is Gwen. She's one ov ouwer nusses. Would it be okay if he went with her for a few minutes so we coould continue? (I don't know which one of us was gladder to see this happen. The Boy jumped at the chance to get out of there, the doc was relieved that he could complete the exam, and Gwen looked excited to play with a baby. I was happy to just lay my head back on the 'chaya' and relax for a minute.)

Gwen stood in the doorway with The Boy. She asked if he could walk and I told her no, he could only run. She laughed as if that was a joke and asked if she could let him walk in the hall. When I indicated she could, she let him down and he was gone. Startled, she ran after him.

Dr. Aussie finished the exam. He said the word "jawr" three times. He asked if I've been taking "loortab" for pain. The bottom line is that it has improved some but not much, and I can choose to do another irrigation procedure involving a scope or full fledged "open surgery" which involves him cutting into my face. I'm not sold on either of those, but I'd also like to talk and eat and yawn again so I don't know yet what I'm going to. Also, it depends on if I'll get more laughing gas.

Soon Gwen came back with The Boy. I heard them before I saw them. "Ba-roon. Ba-roon. Ba-roon." He was in her arms, a green helium balloon on a tiny short string in his hand. Mind you this is not a pediatric facility, I don't know where he rustled up a ba-roon but I'm sure it involved batting those eyes again. Gwen said "he saw that balloon and he said balloon over and over again. I hope it's okay." Oh, he said it so you just gave it to him? Yep, that's pretty much exactly how we do things at home. No worries. We thanked Gwen and I loaded up the stroller. The Boy indicated that under no circumstances would he be getting back into it, so I put his bag in the seat and balanced him atop the handle bar, while I held him steady and held his baroon with one hand and steered with the other. We wobbled out of the exam room. As I steered us down the hall, people waved and called to The Boy by name. The Boy had obviously made quite a name for himself during his jaunt at Emory. Even a fellow patient shouted goodbye to us and waved. The Boy called out his farewell "baaa!" with a wave and a grin like he was getting out of jail. The cute resident appeared to open doors for us. We were a one man parade: he the parade master and me the float driver. And this is how it's going to be from now on. I wish I had a picture but I don't have enough hands.

The week in review

Our house has been getting back to normal after the Vomityville Horror that was last week's stomach bug. When I'm not working it's your typical, run-of-the-mill toddlerfest. Last week The Boy drank old milk from under the couch, set off my car alarm, ate a mouth full of styrofoam, spilt his spill proof cup of milk all over himself and then fell asleep in it, and somehow got under the sink and turned on the disposal. And here's a play by play of some more of last week's highlights, complete with pics.

On Monday I yelled at The Boy for repeatedly getting into the diaper pail. Unfazed,  he made his best monster growl at me in response.

On Tuesday I loaded up The Boy to drive to Atlanta for a recheck of my TMJ. Half way there I wondered why they didn't call me beforehand to remind me like they usually do. I pulled over on the side of the road to double check my calendar, which confirmed my appointment isn't for two weeks. We turned around and went home. Here's The Boy, with his eyes as tiny slits, pretending like he's not about to fall asleep in the car on the way.

The city dug up some of the street to fix our neighbor's sewer line, which meant there were heavy equipment tractor contraptions when we got home. Here's The Boy rolling his eyes that I would take his picture when he's trying to do testosterone man things like inspect sewer tractors. 

Mom! 

On Wednesday I let Sesame Street supervise The Boy for a few minutes while I went to fix his lunch, about 10 feet away. I couldn't believe he was content for so long, and bragged to myself on his growing attention span. I stuck my head in the living room to look in on him and saw that he had found, peeled, a squished a banana all over the floor and chair. He was quite proud, see?

On Thursday I got mad toddler props for letting The Boy wear the hand me down squeaky shoes his cousin gave him to school. We reserve these for places where we aren't in earshot. He was quite pleased with the results, and created a drunken-hunchback-butler dance to celebrate. 

On Friday we went to a benefit for Nuci's Space. The Boy loved the live music, and rushed the stage repeatedly. He tried to get on the stage, and indicated he wanted to play the guitar for the crowd. He was not even discouraged by the fact that he's never had a music lesson in his life. He also found and ate a single piece of ice from the parking lot. Now you just think about why a single piece of ice would be in the parking lot. I don't even want to know whose mouth it was spat from. 

And on Saturday my friend Sarah and I went antique shopping. That's right. I do kid stuff, I mix up my appointment days, I blog about kid stuff, and I antique. In the words of Fergie: 

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S. 

Breakfast of champions

The Husband is a great dad. He's very hands on and involved with The Boy. He'd never changed a diaper before The Boy was born, and though he loved his niece and nephew, he had very little tolerance for their spit up. But since day one he's changed diapers, volunteered night shifts, and played in the floor with The Boy. It melts my heart to see this jock from high school sing Itsy Bitsy spider and point out dogs in board books. Watching him be a dad has made me fall in love all over again.

This morning The Boy woke up at 5:30. He's been pulling this stunt lately since he's cutting two molars. The Husband got up with him and I kept wallowing in the bed. When I got up I needed to be filled in on where to start helping, so I asked about his morning routine so far. This is the exchange that took place:

Me: has he had a diaper change?
Husband: no
Me: Did you give him Tylenol?
Husband: no
Me: Did you put miralax in this milk?
Husband: nope, forgot.
Me: what have y'all been doing?
Husband: watching zombies on tv.
Me: How bout his appetite meds?
Husband: I thought we weren't doing that.
Me: it's time to start it back. What'd he have for breakfast?
Husband: marshmallows.
Me: marshmallows?
Husband: yeah, out of the Lucky Charms.

Awesome. There's no judgement here, some mornings are just like that. And here's The Boy teething on, not eating, a bagel on the way to school. About a minute and a half after I took this picture, he fell asleep in an apparent early-morning-zombie-marshmallow-rave fueled stupor.

Children are disgusting

I was getting my pilates on at the Y yesterday when someone from the childwatch came in to tell me that The Boy was throwing up. My first thought: oh no, I hope he's okay. Second thought: gross.  Let me set the record straight right here and now. Children are disgusting. Anyone who says it's different when it's your own kid is lying to you. They put their hands in nasty things. They put nasty things in their mouths. Nasty things come out of them. Their vomit is disgusting. Even when they are your own.

I peeled his wet clothes off and put him on a fresh set without gagging. He was acting fine, so we went to the grocery store before we went home. Then it was nap time. Nap time goes like this: I put him down in his crib and shut the door. He cries for a minute and then sleeps for exactly 30 minutes. I run around like flight of the bumblebees doing laundry or work or anything that needs two hands or less than an air traffic control amount of background noise. 30 minutes. 30. minutes. If I'm really lucky I may get 45. We get two of these a day.

Thirty minutes came and went. Then 45. Then an hour. WHAT?! You would not believe the amount of things I was doing. I was completely manic. I cleaned like the way you clean when your in-laws are on their way over right now for a surprise visit. I baked two chocolate pound cakes. I called the Lowe's repairman. I started a casserole for dinner. He slept for three hours. 3. Hours. I thought this must be the way those do-it-all moms do it all. Their kids are good nappers.

When he woke up I tried to get him to eat some lunch.  Then, as he was sitting there happily eating some crackers, up it came. He spurted up his lunch all over his shirt, his lunch, the tray, and the high chair. He made a pitiful little cry like he was confused and he didn't like throwing up. I made a little cry like I realized I'd be in charge of clean up. Cleaning up vomit is bad enough, but holding a wet, smelly, crying baby while you do it makes it even worse.

He seemed to feel better throughout the day. I made him some plain pasta and he ate it quickly. He was climbing on the furniture when the next wave came. Splurt. It was like a fountain flowing out of his confused little face. And there was the pasta. Whole. It was like watching him eat in rewind. Gross, you say? I agree. Oh, and this time it was on the couch, and on the floor, and on me. I picked him up and wiped him off so I could hold him without him slipping through my hands. I kicked the dog out of the room because she was way too curious. I stripped my pants off right there. Still holding stinky baby, I started unzipping and peeling the covers off the couch cushions to wash them. The Boy promptly crawled up on the cushionless couch and looked for treasures. He found a pacie, which he hasn't used in at least 6 months. I was fighting with the cushions with my hands and wiping vomit off the floor with a paper towel using my foot when I noticed The Boy had something in his mouth. He wouldn't offer it up voluntarily so I had to do a pry finger swipe. What's that? Oh, just a Shiner Bock bottle cap he'd found under the cushion. Excellent. In the midst of it my bare hand touched vomit. Yelch. The Boy climbed down off the couch, into the vomit and tracked it on the floor. I yelped.

When The Husband came home there were no cushions on the couch. They'd been stripped of their covers and were stacked high on top of the chair. There were cracker crumbs on the ottoman, and in addition to the toys scattered around, there was a sippy cup of pedialite on the floor. The hard wood floor was wet with cleaner. The dog was locked out. I had no pants on. The baby was naked. Welcome home, hon! Want some dinner? When your kid has a stomach bug and you're fixing dinner for yourself you can't help but think "what would I not mind potentially throwing up tomorrow?" It's a fact. Kids are disgusting. He's much better now, thanks for asking.