these days in the shell of a nut

1)  My computer has been in the shop all week which has made me feel completely adrift, but I sure got a lot of things done around the house. But here I am, back in front of the screen.

2)  It's kind of astonishing how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches my daughter can eat in a 24 hour period. Can there be such a thing as too many?

3)  Something interesting happened this week relating to the blog.... Someone sent the director of Frances's preschool a link to my previous post where I list my complaints about the school. I have to admit that the post was kind of snarky and I was a leeetle embarrassed when I realized she had read it, especially as overall I like the school very much. The whole thing made me think about blogs in general, what their purpose is, what role they fill, how much must be personal expression versus personal restraint. When I write I know that I am doing so in a public forum; I know that some of my far away good friends read it (and of course my mom), and I also know strangers read it. But I forget about the peripheral people in my life who might read it when I'm not even aware they know I write a blog. Interesting.

(A short sidebar: I recently ran across someone from middle school on facebook and through a series of lazy links that literally took me all of 8 bored seconds I found a column his new wife wrote that described the details of his proposal as well as his wedding down to the flower arrangements and his carrying her over the threshold. It was bizarre to have this kind of intimate information on someone I hadn't seen or heard anything at all about since I was eleven. The internet is a strange place.)

4)  Last weekend we took our first trip to the emergency room. I've been wondering when that was going to happen. It wasn't so bad, though it took freaking forever. Unless you come in spurting blood you're going to be there for  h o u r s. I'd taken Clark to the doc on Friday because he'd been complaining for days that his stomach hurt. He'd stand up in his crib in the morning or after his nap and say "tummy. hurt." and rub his little dimpled hands over his belly. Then Friday morning he woke with a fever of 101 which I assumed was just a flu but decided it was a good time to take him in anyway because I was starting to worry about this pain in his stomach. Turns out he had an ear infection which the doc thought was oddly causing the stomach ache. 

So Clark started antibiotics on Friday, had been on them for 2 days when he woke in the middle of the night Saturday all red and shaking and burning up, with a fever of 105.2. I took off one of his many pj layers (his room is the coldest in the house and we dress him in literally no less than 3 layers of pjs) and gave him some motrin which he immediately threw up. That's when I started to get nervous. The doc on call wanted me to go to the ER since he'd been on the antibiotics already; he was worried the ear infection bacteria was resistant to the medicine. I had tylenol suppositories in the house from a previous stomach flu (Moms! Did you know these things exist? Called 'Fever All', got them at the grocery. Good to have on hand.) and I thought for sure that would only bring the fever down to 102 or something. But of course by the time we got to the ER Clark's temp was normal. Normal! He felt great--was quite the charmer, teasing and giggling with the nurse, climbing up and then jumping off the chairs. The doctor came in (finally.) and asked if Clark would let her look in his ears. Not only did he hold very still but he then insisted she look in his other ear, then his mouth, then the top of his head. He didn't even cry when they did the IV draw.

But holy cow do things move slowly around there. We were there from 3-6 am and accomplished little more than having his temp taken and ears checked. Let me tell you--losing an entire night's sleep does not look as pretty on me as it used to. It's a very nice ER--a separate pediatric ER that was quite clean and pleasant, though slow slow slow. They did some blood tests, I think just to make me feel like they were doing something, and when I talked to our pediatrician on Monday he said he thinks it was a virus on top of the infection which made his fever spike. All is fine now. 

5)  Yesterday I found Frances and Clark in the bathroom together, and she'd gotten his pants off, his diaper off, and had him sitting on the baby seat on the toilet. AND! He had pooped in the toilet! For the first time! I may not have to potty train this kid at all; his sister might do it for me.