Kid Amnesiac

For Christmas 2006, Aunt Barb got Simon a crib aquarium. It’s been a key component to our nap and bedtimes for ages now. Here’s what the folks at Fisher price say about how or why it works:

“The Soothing Seas Aquarium is a crib attaching infant soother that captivates baby with the mesmerizing effects of water. Lovely classical music plays one of 5 songs (or one of 3 sound effects) all the while bubbles rise upwards to the “surface”. Mama Fish has a realistic motion as she appears to be swimming through the water, followed closely behind by her baby. Their little crab friend plays peek-a-boo behind the coral as the seaweed sways gently in the waves.”

I love the crib aquarium, but I have to admit I haven’t always taken it seriously. I giggled at its babyishness, even as I appreciated how well it worked.

I’m not laughing any more. Tuesday morning, after a truly God-awful, sleepless night with a stomach bug, I was a wreck. At around 10:00 a.m., I came downstairs to rest uncomfortably on the couch having just spent several hours resting uncomfortably upstairs in bed. Matt came in and turned on the TV to a show called “Sunrise Earth”, which captures sunrise in various locations across the world. On this particular Tuesday, the location was the Great Barrier Reef.

The show is shot in HD, presented in real-time, and contains no narration. As I stared at the coral, watched light move across the water, and watched fish swim around in groups, I began to relax. I noticed my aching head less, my dry mouth less, and my cramping legs less. I was both soothed and captivated.

Sound familiar? Within thirty minutes, I was snoozing on the couch quite comfortably. That night, as I disassembled Simon’s crib to clean it after he threw up, I took a long look at the crib aquarium and felt a newfound respect for it.

Yesterday was a tough day. I was feeling a little off, but Jessica was a complete wreck from her continuing bout with the stomach bug. She was exhausted from being up almost all night the night before and still achy and sick. I decided that if there was ever any reason to take a sick day as a full-time telecommuter, the entire family having a stomach bug was it. We told the babysitter to stay away if she valued her health, and then I told Jessica to get some sleep while I prepared for a promising Baby/Papa day.

Simon was in good spirits and didn’t seem out of sorts at all. We played hard, and he took some amazing naps.  We went for a walk in the bizarre 67F weather (Simon took off his socks in the stroller again) and played with Christopher over at Mama’s Hip. I even got a bit crazy and, after a day of Cheerios, bananas and Pedialyte, decided to give Simon some milk and macaroni & cheese for dinner.

Bad move.

A little after 11:00PM Jessica and I heard a squawk from Simon’s room — not that odd for him at that time of night, but it was followed shortly by some repeated coughs. We both sat up for that, and I went to investigate. Sure enough — el barfo grande…on the crib, on him, on the carpet, on me. Simon and I just went straight to the tub while Jessica tackled the barf in Simon’s bedroom. Simon handled it like a champ, though, and stopped crying by the time we got settled into the bath. He didn’t seem to be feeling sick or in any pain, so we just cleaned up and shared a little bit of ginger ale (he made really funny faces when he tasted it) before I put him back to bed.

The pediatrician’s office said that if he appeared to feel okay, wasn’t running a fever and kept down his next meals then he probably just needed to go dairy-free a bit longer. So we’re back to Cheerios, bananas and Pedialyte for a while — although I might share a bit more ginger ale with him again before bed tonight!

…comes around. I didn’t poison Simon with too old milk or an unhygienic pacifier after all. I know because today, just about 24 hours after Simon fell ill, I followed him. And I neither drink milk nor use a pacifier.

Being an adult, I had the advantage of making it to the bathroom before voiding my stomach. Unfortunately, I have the distinct disadvantage of having to watch over Simon while this bug runs its course. Simon was his old self by dinner tonight, so if Matt can continue helping me before and after the sitter arrives tomorrow, I hope to be my old self before any damage is done.

It’s not like I expected to celebrate turning 38 the same way I celebrated turning 10, 16, 21, or even 30. It’s just that I thought I might celebrate turning 38 the same way I celebrated turning 37.Turns out it wasn’t in the cards for me this year.

I first surmised that this would be a very different birthday when Matt ran his gift idea by me. He wasn’t sure if it was something I really wanted, so he decided to forgo the element of surprise and ensure getting it right. Would I like my own iPod? Boy would I ever—what a thoughtful, generous idea. But we just ran up a four-digit vet bill and have an expensive roof repair coming up, so I told Matt thanks but no thanks. This just isn’t a great time for grand gestures. Instead I suggested a Rilo Kiley CD and a bag of Riesen.

Today, my actual birthday, started well enough. We played in the house, and I took some extra time over my tea and the morning newspaper. The travel section even had a feature on Iceland, my dream vacation for the last 15 years or so. Things were looking good. So when Simon got fussy in the car this afternoon, I didn’t think much of it. When he cried a bit on our walk, I assumed the wind was to blame. And when he woke up from his nap early, I assumed it would blow over in a few minutes.

Instead his tone got hysterical in a hurry, and I sent Matt upstairs to check on him. Within seconds, Matt declared a “baby emergency” and called me upstairs for backup. The poor little guy had thrown up and was lying face down in a puddle of his own sick. Matt hustled him into the tub in a flash, only to discover that he was also suffering from diarrhea. While Matt cleaned Simon up, I tackled the soiled clothes, stuffed animals, and crib bedding. It was, as you can imagine, an unpleasant task. As soon as I finished with that, I got to work sterilizing all his sippy cups and pacifiers and theorizing the cause of his illness while Matt changed his clothes and tried to calm him down.

At this point, we canceled our dinner plans and settled on take-out. Simon himself hardly ate dinner at all; we just hoped to get enough Mylanta and ginger ale into him to settle his tummy and allow him to rest comfortably.

So the day went off the rails a bit—a real bummer. But the funny thing is, I’m just not that bummed about it. We have a vet bill that’s high, but we’re lucky enough that it’s not a hardship to pay it. Simon is sick, but it’s his first time ever being sick and it appears to be just a little bug—not one of the much more serious ailments I’ve watched friends and friends of friends deal with in recent years. And I’ve got a husband who quickly and gamely stripped down and cleaned up a baby boy stinking from both ends.

It looks like we’ll all be OK, and there will be plenty of gadgets to buy and restaurants to try out for my birthday next year.

Our Simon is quite the kidder, a development that delights and surprises me in equal measures.

His first game is scraping his nail across the pink, scratchy tongue of the kitten in the book Touch and Feel Kitten. This little DK book features pictures of kittens with tactile inserts for babies to explore. You can feel the kittens shiny metal tag, his hard plastic bowl, his woven straw basket, his soft fur, and—on page 2—his pink scratchy tongue. The material they used for the tongue insert is much like what you’d find on an Emory board, and it makes a nails-on-a-chalkboard noise when you scratch it.

Simon was drawn to this page from the get-go, and each time he’d scratch the tongue, Matt would yell and wince in an exaggerated fashion. That made the game even better. Now, any time we give him the book , he flips directly to page two, puts his nail on the kitten tongue, and then looks up at us with an impish smile to see our reaction before he gives it a good scrape.

His second game features the TV and digital cable controls. He’s been drawn to them for a while now and is amazingly successful at turning the audio or video off. Given the relative lack of TV going on in our house, his facility is amazing. Anyway, just as he lunges for the controls, I grab him and pull him back a few feet from the armoire.

Today is the day I realized that the dragging away is just as fun for Simon as the button pushing, because as soon as he got within striking distance of the controls, he put his finger on a dial and looked over at me with the same mischievous grin he sports when he’s getting ready to scratch the pink kitten tongue. And as soon as I leaned in to grab him, he threw back his head and started giggling like mad in anticipation.

We play games with Simon all the time: tub games, hand games, horsy games, and the like, but I never thought he’d reciprocate at such a tender age. It is totally unexpected, and all the more delicious for it.

They say you never know when the last time you nurse your baby will be, but I’m pretty sure that New Year’s Day was it for us.

Simon abruptly cut down to twice a day shortly after his first birthday. From around Thanksgiving, he further reduced his nursing to a single morning session. Lately, his enthusiasm for even that has faded. New Year’s day he hardly stayed on long enough to get more than few drops of milk, yesterday he may not have even done that, and today he turned his attention elsewhere almost immediately.

I think I’ll handle this much better than the original slowdown. For starters, the writing has been on the wall for over two months that the end was near. There’s also the fact that my hormones have adjusted to the change, so I’ve already dealt with the depression and temporary insanity resulting from alterations to my endocrine system. And the final factor is that I’m sufficiently busy worrying over Tristan* right now that I don’t have the energy to get worked up about weaning, too.

As I stated before, there are many benefits to weaning for me. I can travel for work now without taking the whole family with me. I can run errands and be gone longer than two hours. Matt and I can go out at night if we have a sitter. Evie and Jim can enjoy Simon at their house all day Thursday. That part is all good.

But there are also significant downsides. Simon isn’t getting an immunity boost from me any more, and I’m not getting a regular oxytocin rush. And to be less of a scientific reductionist, I’m not getting my regular quiet snuggle time with Simon, accompanied by long loving stares, my patting his back and bottom, and his patting my face. I have to say that, for me, nursing was a singularly sweet experience, and I know I’ll feel misty for what was every time I see a mother nursing her baby from now on.

It’s times like these that I think about the aphorism “All good things must come to an end” and lament its truth even as I am forced to acknowledge it.

* As of this morning, Tristan has been home about 36 hours, seems to be eating and drinking well, and has been resting comfortably, playing, and purring/demanding affection in the house. So far so good.

Twice in the past week, I’ve caught Simon and Percival colluding; I sense the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The first time resulted in an unholy mess. Simon had left half of his yogurt from lunch, and I hadn’t had a chance to put it back in the fridge. Percival got at the yogurt on the kitchen island and knocked it to the ground, and Simon decided it looked like a fabulous toy. By the time I caught up with him, he had yogurt on his hands and face, yogurt on his Christmas PJ’s, and had left yogurt trails on the hardwood floor from scooting over and through it. There was no wiping him off at this point–I dumped him straight in the bath. At least Percival can bathe himself…

The second time came today–again at lunchtime. He wrapped the meal with some goat cheese spread on crackers, and had gotten the cheese all over his face and hands. Matt was at the sink getting a washcloth ready when we heard some giggles coming from the high chair. We assumed this was Simon’s now standard pre-face washing giggle (see “Waterboarding”). But the giggling escalated to new heights, and when Matt and I turned around we saw Percival licking the cheese off of Simon’s fingers. It probably tickled. He loves Percival. And his favorite page in the “Touch and Feel Kitten” book is the “feel my pink scratchy tongue” one.

There may be germ issues to be concerned about, but at least this collusion left Simon cleaner than when he started.

P.S. Tristan comes home tonight at 9:00!

I’ll blog later today or tomorrow about Simon, but for now I have a new Tristan update.

He’s still in the kitty hospital, and I still miss him a whole bunch. With luck, he’ll come home tonight.

I went to see him yesterday about noon, and to my pleasant surprise he had already had his ultrasound test and his catheter had been removed. The doctor could see some sediment in Tristan’s bladder, but no stones or crystals. That was very good news. While he was in the room with me, he got so happy and comfortable that he even flipped over on his back and purred. More good news. Then he sat up and howled again, and I could see a spot of white on the tip of his penis. That was not so good.

Turns out it was some sediment mixed with mucus, and Tristan needed some help passing it. He might have passed it on his own, but it was hurting him and there was no point in taking a chance of hurting him further. That restarted the clock for us; Tristan has to urinate on his own without trouble or a catheter for 24 hours before he can be discharged. So now he’s getting more IV fluids to flush him out, and if he continues to do well, we’ll get to bring him home tonight.

I’m spending the day cleaning out our gross attic and making it into a nice, baby-free kitty sanctuary for him. The litter box will stay up there, but I’m spot cleaning, vacuuming and deodorizing the carpet, I’m clearing out some boxes to free up more room for drinking and napping, and I’m putting a kitty bed and a kitty water fountain up there to encourage relaxation and hydration.

My fingers are crossed that my next trip to Jefferson Animal Hospital will be the last for a while.