Nobody’s been

This week our little girl had a head CT. See, the pediatrician was afraid that some of the sutures in her head had prematurely fused. Babies are born with spaces between the bones in their heads and as they grow older, the bones grow together, forming a nice hard shell for their sensitive little brains. That’s where the fontanels, or soft spots, come from. The doctor thought that Natalie’s spaces had fused already and with her only being 9 weeks old at the time, this was bad. If the spaces had fused, her brain could not grow normally, a condition referred to as cranial synostosis. The only definitive diagnostic tool that we could use was a head CT (computer tomography) scan. But then we realized that a CT exposes our tiny little daughter to obscene amounts of radiation so we went back and forth and back and forth and finally decided that since the CT was the only diagnostic tool that could give us a yes or no for sure.

Wednesday morning we loaded up our tiny little thing and went off to Children’s Radiology. We weren’t allowed to feed her just in case they needed to sedate her and in spite of an empty stomach she was a sunshiny baby as we arrived to have her scan. It went fine. She got a little crabby when they made her hold her head still, but nothing a good pacifier couldn’t fix. Wednesday afternoon I got a call from her doctor saying the scan looked normal. Praise be to God.

Valentine’s Day II

We had our Valentine’s Day parties at school today.  They were canceled last week because school was canceled and according to the weather report we’re supposed to have sleet and freezing rain again tonight, so in an effort to ward off yet another canceled party, we went ahead and did ours today.  It was a good time – the kids made roses out of chocolate kisses, red plastic wrap, green wires, and green tape.  It was neat and very Martha Stewart-y.  It wasn’t my idea.  It was my room mom’s.

Now, I’m sitting in bed and my daughter is wrapped up in quilts beside me, about as comfortable as she’s been in a few days.  Poor Natalie has a cold and has been coughing up a storm, not to mention snorting boogers that have no right to exist in a child so small.  Eventually I’ll put her in in her crib, but the doctor said to have her sit upright as much as possible and she can’t be upright in her crib so she’s sitting up, propped against pillows, in our bed.  She’s dreaming about something that involves food – or else she’s about to wake up hungry.

In science class today we talked about amphibians and how the word amphibian (according to our book) means “double life” – or in other words, these animals can live in both air and water.  When I asked the kids to give me examples of amphibians, one boy raised his hand and said, “Hannah Montana!”  When questioned why he thought this was an acceptable answer, he said, “Because … she leads a double life!”  I laughed.  So did the kids.  That’s a pretty sophisticated sense of humor there.

Bits and pieces

Happy belated Valentine’s Day.  I just now realized that I actually posted on Valentine’s Day and said nothing about it.  Probably because I think the entire concept of Valentine’s Day is silly.  But I won’t go into that – it’s a little too soapbox-y and really a little ridiculous as far as opinions go.

JJ is still sick.  His sore throat appears to be significantly worse than the one I had last week.  He talks as little as possible and stays away from the baby when he can.  It’s not very much fun.  Nat still has a cold.  She’s very phlegmy.  And me?  I’m still getting over the pseudo-flu I had last week.  This house needs to be scrubbed from top to bottom and the air exchanged for us to get better.  Maybe next weekend.    Maybe tomorrow.

I wonder where all my energy went sometimes.  Not that I don’t have plenty to get through my day.  I have enough.  And not that I don’t have enough to function.  I do.  But sometimes I wonder where all my fun energy went.  The energy that I used to put into making things fun has gone … well, somewhere.  I sure don’t have it anymore.

I wish I didn’t have to work and could stay home with my kid and take care of my family and my house.  Wishful thinking.  Not in this world.  Not at this moment anyway.

Nothing is more frustrating than watching my 2 1/2 month old cough and turn red.  She has no idea why she’s coughing, nor does she know how to make it stop.  Usually she’s okay, though.  Haven’t had any major incidents yet.

Roxy’s a good dog.  Not all dogs would take to going from the center of attention to minimal attention all of a sudden as well as she did.  I think as long as we let her sleep with us, she’ll be okay.

My birthday is Tuesday.  Very anti-climactic, I feel like.  We’re having a party for Sabrina’s birthday on Saturday (I’m very excited – it is my very first “I’m the actual hostess of an organized party” party).   I hope it doesn’t suck.  Tuesday I have meetings all day (boo) but it is the end of the swim season so my schedule suddenly has 2 extra hours in it a day (yay).  I think JJ and I might go out and have dinner or something at some point for my birthday but JJ got me an iPod shuffle, which is what I wanted/needed (for working out – I’ve already used it twice for that!) and really I’ve got everything I want and need.

We’re wondering if maybe Nat isn’t in the earliest (VERY earliest) stages of teething.  I say this because the child’s drool production has gone from almost zero to like … buckets.  It seems like this happened overnight but I think it was more like in the last 4-5 days.  She’s chomps on things in her mouth instead of sucking on them, too.  But I looked and poked around in there today and if there are teeth, I sure as heck can’t find any.  Maybe she just thinks that drooling is fun.

This little piggy

School was canceled today.  I got a call at 6:30 this morning saying we had a 2 hour delay.  10 minutes later, I get another call.  School canceled, go back to bed.  Well I had already showered and everything and was on my way to wake Nattie so I climbed back in bed but didn’t go back to sleep.  Now, I’m watching Food network in pajama pants and watching my daughter coo and laugh and smile on her play mat on the floor.  Eventually she’ll go down for a morning nap (probably around 9:30) and she’ll wake up to eat around 11 and then go back to sleep around 1 for her afternoon nap.  I think I’m going to do a few loads of laundry and then when she naps, I might take a nap, too.  JJ is sick with whatever it is that I had last week – complete with fever and sore throat – so even though I’m not anywhere near being all better yet, I’m the better of the two of us so I guess I’m taking care of us today!

I’m actually quite happy to have the day off – so many people have been sick at school that we really needed to have a few days where everyone stayed home and we come in and kill off all the germs.  We’re not planning to go in to clean or anything, but a day out of there will definitely help.  Baby asleep.  Guess I better get a move on!

Not so sweet

Guess where I am?  Home.  Kinda sick.  But not really.  I have pinkeye.  Pinkeye is supposed to be one of those diseases that you get as a kid, but grownups don’t get pinkeye!  Unless of course your daughter is in daycare where two little girls have had pinkeye.  Or you work at a school where diseases spread like wildfire.  Not because it’s a school that has a disease issue – just because it’s a school that has kids.  It’s so frustrating – I don’t feel sick, but my right eye is a sticky, gooey, red mess.  It’s ridiculous.

End of the line

It was bound to happen at some point – I just didn’t think it would be so soon.  I’m sick.  I have a sinus-something-or-other that has given me a fever, sore throat, and stuffy head for going on 4 days now.  Natalie is sick.  She has a stuffy nose that makes it hard for her to breathe sometimes.  And JJ is sick.  He’s got a stuffy nose cold that makes him snore like a mack truck and wears him out.

I’m actually not even at work today.  I’m at home.  A fever of 101 and general malaise equals I should stay home so I don’t infect the kids.  Nat’s here with me.  She’s conked out on a quilt on the floor and I feel like maybe I’m not that far behind her.  Although I have to admit that I’m wondering when this whole sleep-all-day-and-all-night thing is going to stop working.  She was up this morning from about 8-10 and then slept till noon.  Then she was up from about noon to 3 and she’s out again.  I’m hoping she’ll wake up around 5 or 5:30 and be up till I put her to bed around 7:30 or 8 and then she’ll sleep through the night.  The last couple of nights something has woken her up around 3 am.  It doesn’t take much to get her back to sleep – a clean diaper, a quick swing in the rocking chair (literally like 2 minutes), a paci, and she’s out again.  But it’s strange that she keeps waking up – she’s never done that before.

Of course, I’m not shocked that we’re all sick.  I work with 11 little germ balls every day and my daughter is in a class with 8 other little germ balls.  It was bound to happen at some point.  Hopefully this will make all of our immune systems buck up and get on with it!

And in other news …

The other exciting thing from today is that Nat is now semi-mobile.  That’s right.  She can roll.  Kind of.  More like a 1/4 turn.  She can go from being on her tummy to being on her side by propping herself up with her arms and waving her legs.  Sometimes, if she’s lucky, she’ll make it all the way to her backside by sheer momentum alone.  Gotta love inertia.  However, this also leads to the problem that she is now semi-mobile.  Till now it has been quite common, and nice, for me to sit on the floor, Nattie in my lap, doing a variety of things – folding laundry, working on papers, talking on the phone, petting the dog … you get the idea.  Today, while we were on the floor, she rolled.  Right off my lap.  And of course the first part of her to hit the floor?  Her little baby head.  Her first bump.  Ouch.  She screamed but it didn’t seem to be too bad.  Less than 2 minutes later she was happy and wiggling and trying again.   There was no visible evidence of the bump, either, so I think she’s perfectly fine.

Just one more thing

One last thing to add to the birthday list … and you can bump this right to the top of the list because I LOVE LOVE LOVE this game and don’t get to play it often enough.

Carcassonne!  And any accompanying expansion packs.  I love playing this game.  I still don’t know how to score.  Sad, isn’t it?