Countdown to Crazy

Having a two-year-old has really changed my standards; somehow, being at home all day with a newborn is pretty much like being at home alone. It must be all that sleeping. And the lack of tantrums, movie requests, snack spills, and refusals to put on one's shoes.

My "alone" days are coming to an end, however -- next week is Soren's last week of daycare. Originally, I was actually working while he was in school three days a week, and then it was really handy to have a familiar place for him to go while everyone else was busy being hospitalized, but now the funding and excuses have dried up, so he'll be back with boring old mom full-time. I want to make sure I don't completely give up on giving him structure (i.e. bossing him around and making him do activities) during the day, since I think his time at school has really given him better listening and social skills, but I'm not totally sure how to do that at home; maybe I should set up a "school" area somewhere in the house. Or maybe I'm overthinking this.

I also figure the recipe for stay-at-home-mom success is not to do too much staying at home; we'll be going to lots of play groups (I'm a member of three local Meetups... and haven't done anything with any of them for three months, but I have great excuses) and will spend lots of time wandering around our fabulous neighborhood, with its kick-ass new and improved playground. I have really high hopes for that playground. I think it'll be a good place to pick up chicks.

It sounds like I'm totally dreading this transition, which isn't really true. First of all, Soren is a complete laugh riot/sweetheart/amazing supergenius, and I love hanging out with him 97% of the time. The other 3% tends to use up 99% of my patience, of course, but I'm working on that. I'm looking forward to taking him out and being more social with other moms and kids, and if I can get my act together, I think we'll have a good time doing school-type stuff together (lest you get the wrong impression, let me assure you that he'll be slumming it with all the other public-school kids as soon as he turns 5... I wouldn't want to disappoint you, Amber).

Look how cute he is!



As for the other child -- the one who sleeps so much she still barely counts as company -- she's doing quite well, and has completely recovered from RSV and bronchiolitis. She does have two major periods of wakefulness during the day (morning and evening... such a reasonable schedule) and tends to be really jolly during both. I still haven't managed to get a good picture of her insanely cute open-mouth grin, though. It's hard to look away long enough to go get the camera when she's feeling super happy. This is the closest I've gotten:



Which is a big improvement over this:



Chris is back to teaching again, which fills him with joy, because he lives for nothing more than watching the spark of knowledge ignite in an undergrad's eyes. Right, dear?

As for me, I'm doing only kind of OK health-wise, and have found myself in the weird position of being glad to find out that I've had C. diff for the past three weeks. The first C. diff test, a couple weeks ago, was negative, which meant that I was having symptoms of an ulcerative colitis flare that weren't being helped at all by crazy doses of steroids and mesalamine (have you ever taken 7.6 GRAMS per day of any particular drug?). I didn't really like that concept, because there's really not a lot more they can do to control a flare. So when I was retested for C. diff and it finally came back positive, I was bizarrely relieved, since I can take antibiotics for that and it will go away. And probably come back again later. But whatever.

Ooh, and I have a colonoscopy coming up on Monday! Because I am now old and have old person health problems! Prep involves drinking a gallon of salt water in the span of about an hour. But the salt water comes with flavor packets! Cherry, orange, pineapple, or lemon-lime! Thrilling. Maybe I'll mix them all together to make fruit punch. It couldn't possibly be more disgusting than one of the flavors alone.

On the bright side, being sick for so long has gotten me back into my pre-pregnancy jeans faster than I ever thought possible. Hooray for being thin at any cost! I have my priorities straight!

When the Cat's away...

When Soren and I went to the bookstore on Thursday (a common retreat where he can play with their Thomas set and I can get coffee), he wound up sitting on the story stage and sounding out the name of a book-of-the-week, "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake." This is one of the installments of the "If You Give..." series, in which the title is an opening line that leads to a series of ludicrous events. The second page suggests that if you give a cat a cupcake, he will surely want some sprinkles to put on it.

--- --- ---

I took Thursday mostly off from work to give Soren a mental health day, because he's really not up to doing school more than two days in a row, and he'd gone Monday-Wednesday. I slept until he called me in the morning, since I spent the previous night at the hospital, which was less than completely fulfilling, sleepwise. After breakfast, I left Soren to watch his alphabet movie (Leapfrog's Letter Factory, which he loves) so I could take a shower. When I came back downstairs, the living room was empty, and it was eerily quiet.

I walked through and searched the dining room and my office for my charge, and finally checked the kitchen. Soren wasn't immediately visible, but the baking cabinet was slightly ajar. (The baking cabinet is the one he's standing in front of in this picture, so he could (almost) entirely conceal himself; the child lock had been left ajar--as in the picture--by a certain resident of the house who responds to Momma.)


What could be in there? The goldfishies are in the other cabinet. This one has, mostly, 1) bread 2) single malt scotch and 3) vinegar.

I approached the cabinet and called out, "Soren." He immediately turned around, with the door swinging open, and asked, "Can I have a roll?" pointing the grinder rolls near where he was standing. His fingers, however, told a different story. They were, though he was looking at me, plunging in and out of a half-gone jar of multicolored sprinkles (jimmies, for those of you from New England) resting on a chest-height (to him) shelf; he was hiding in the cupboard and eating sprinkles out of the package whilst I was cleansing myself.

I was utterly unsure what to do. My first reaction was that this was hilarious and I should take his picture, but the tone was entirely incorrect because what he was doing was wrong, and he clearly knew it. However, he had not received a warning about the specific behavior of eating all the sprinkles, which is prerequisite for a two-minute time out, the capital punishment of toddler sanctions. So, I had to choke down my laughter and somehow express disapprobation. He had, fortunately for me, spilled quite a few a of the sprinkles, so I was able to focus on the mess he made (after throwing out the rest of the bottle), and his responsibility for helping to clean it up.

But I did have to call Kirsten to get the laugh out.

Home!

Sigrid is home! Yay!!!! She's currently enjoying a little wiggle time on the living room rug, staring at the ceiling beam. Ah, the comforts of home.

Moving On Up

...to the fourth floor! Sigrid's out of the ICU!

When I walked into her room last night after my stint at home, it seemed like she looked a little different -- it took me a minute to realize that was because she didn't have anything on her face! They'd taken her cannula out, and she was breathing room air again (and a lot happier for it). She's been off oxygen since then, and has only required one breathing treatment (epinephrine at 5 AM), so our doctor says she's on track to go home tomorrow. Yay!!!!

Sadly, we're back to sharing a room. I'd figured we 'd be shoo-ins for another single, what with the whole contagion issue, but apparently they're not concerned about that. Oh well. It's not so bad in and of itself, but there's no window on our side of the room, so it's a little... dark.

Well, I should go make sure she's sleeping and not forcing her nurse to be on paci duty. As always, thanks for all the good wishes.

Improving+++

Sigrid is moving out of the ICU and into the regular hospital this evening, ahead of schedule. Everyone is very pleased with her progress from where she was Monday.

I decided the trick with the chair is not to think of it as crappy bed, but rather like I somehow wound up in business class. I used my airline eye mask and ear plugs, and just like on the plane, there are a lot of bonging noises, babies crying, and people to bring you water.

Improving++

Sigrid's oxygen has been turned way down, and she gets to nurse again! She may be able to move out of the ICU tomorrow and onto a regular patient floor, and then... maybe a day or two until she's free? I don't want to jinx anything.

Last night, I got to sleep in my own bed while Chris took one for the team and slept on the Chair That Turns Into What They Call a Bed But Which Is Pretty Much Just a Flat Chair. So I'm grateful for that. I'm back on third shift tonight, but hopefully Sigrid will be more comfortable than she's been the past few nights.

Improving

Sigrid is looking better today -- her breathing is a lot less labored, especially when she's sleeping, which she's been doing all morning. We had a rough couple hours last night between 2 and 4; she was hungry (they'd shut her feeding tube off yesterday just in case they had to intubate), which understandably made it hard for her to settle down and sleep, and she was coughing a lot. I tried to hold her to help her settle down, but she just got madder, probably because my main role in her life is feeding her when she's hungry, and I keep refusing to do that for some reason. Chris apparently gets big smiles when he shows up; I get looks that range from mild puzzlement to YOU IDIOT WHY AREN'T YOU FEEDING ME?????????

Anyway, she was worked up, and I was worked up because I couldn't calm her down, and they had to suction her a couple times, and it was all a big mess. They finally decided to start feeding her again, perhaps at my insistence (I'd been asking them to do that all afternoon/evening, since it would help her sleep and stay calm), but probably because it was the Medically Right Thing To Do.

We both managed to get some rest eventually, although I did feel the need to get up and not look like an uncombed hill person by the time the doctors were making their rounds, so I've gotten significantly less sleep than Sigrid has. They're hoping to wean her off the high-flow oxygen today and maybe let her nurse; keep your fingers crossed!