Back to the events on Saturday…

Peanut was invited to a birthday party at a skating rink. He had never been ice skating before and was excited to try. “Mommy, ice skating is my favorite!” And even more excited to see BF’s daughter, the birthday girl, whom he plans to marry once they’re both grownups.

We had all planned to go, but Bean was diagnosed with an ear infection on Friday. (Even though the drive to our daycare’s new location sucks, their excellent staff makes up for it. Bean’s caregiver noticed him yanking on the infected ear and called Hubby with an FYI. She was spot on.) Hubby and Bean stayed home while Peanut and I drove out to the rink. We hung out with the party crowd, ate some pizza, and headed for the ice. BF’s husband took Peanut around the rink along with a couple of the other kids. I teetered along, dodging the other skaters. I took a couple pictures of Peanut on the ice with my camera phone and hung out with BF and her daughter in the middle kiddie area.

I headed back out for another lap or two when I lost my balance. “Oh shit, I’m gonna fall. I bet it’s gonna hurt.”

I open my eyes and realize a paramedic is leaning over me asking questions. “Do you know what day it is?”

“Sometime in January?”

“Do you know who is president?”

I think we recently had elections and someone new was elected. Have they been inaugurated yet? “I’m not sure.”

I hear discussion on my confused-ish state.

I’m cold and start shivering.

BF is there, too. I ask where Peanut is, if he’s OK, is he scared? Her husband hustled him off the ice and back to the party area when they realized I was hurt. He doesn’t know. Thank goodness. BF has already called Hubby who is on his way.

They put a c-collar on, load me onto a backboard and take me off the ice. I hear applause as we leave. Embarrassing.

So, I had my first, and hopefully last, ambulance ride. A CAT-scan showed no internal bleeding or breaks – they feared I fractured the orbit to my right eye. A few hours and four stitches later and I was good to go. I thought for sure the Lidocaine would hurt like a mofo, but it wasn’t bad at all. The Rocephin shot I got for mastitis was a helluva lot worse. Hubby and I talked and joked with the doc (resident? intern? He seemed young) who stitched me. I could feel his hands shaking while he worked. Hubby took several pictures of my lovely boo-boos.

I had mild headaches for a couple days. I still get dizzy every now and then, which is likely from the antibiotic. I’m sporting lovely pinks, purples, greens, and yellows on about half of my face. On Friday I went to Urgent Care to have the stitches taken out. My primary care doc won’t touch the stitches since they were done by a doctor outside of the clinic. Ummm….yeah, I had to go to the ER to make sure I didn’t have a serious closed head wound.

Apparently, BF didn’t see me fall, but came over just after it happened. She made some jokes then realized it was bad when she saw blood. She and a rink employee stayed with me while they cleared the ice and called an ambulance. I have no recollection of any of that although I had my eyes open and was somewhat responsive.

Poor BF feels bad about the whole thing. It’s not her fault I’m a klutz who can’t skate. I feel terrible that I scared her and the kids at their birthday party. I’m so thankful that she and her husband were there to take care of Peanut and Bean while Hubby was with me at the hospital. Peanut enjoyed his extra time with their daughter and didn’t want to leave their house. BF’s hubby pulled a baby swing and bouncy seat out of storage for Bean. Both boys had a great time.

Hubby, true to his self, had to make a few smart-assed remarks. “Don’t think a concussion and some stitches is getting you out of making dinner.”

“When other people ask what happened, tell them ‘You should see the other guy!’”


One week later:

Sickening. Literally. Studies show that high-fructose corn syrup frequently contains mercury due to the way it's processed and the FDA has known for years. Why isn't this in the mass media? I watched the local news this morning and listened to NPR on the way to work and heard nothing about this.

Thanks to Moxie and Gwendomama for writing about it.

Huffinton Post article

How HFCS is manufactured

Washington Post article

List of detects/non-detects in foods

Update: Apparently the mercury is in very, very minute amounts, much less than that even in canned tuna. Still, it's scary. I wonder if other "alkali-processed" foods such as cocoa also have traces of mercury? Lord knows, I eat enough chocolate products.

Peanut visited the pediatrician last Thursday. She confirmed he had drainage from the ear, but the eardrum looked good. We're continuing with his eardrdops. The eartube on the other side appears to be coming out. sigh I really, really hope we don't need another set.

Everything seemed fine on Friday until daycare called at lunchtime. Bean was fussing and poking at an ear. Back to the peds we went. He has an ear infection, too.

The big excitement came on Saturday though. I'll write about that later when I have more time.

Happy birthday, Mom.

***

This is her second birthday in the state hospital. We won't be visiting this year. It's too much of a trip to bring the baby and with the ongoing illnesses and Hubby's extra shifts, we can't make it. I feel guilty and relieved.

Peanut and I will call Mom tonight. He's sad because he thinks he's missing her birthday party. I tried to explain that there is no party since she's still sick. Sweet innocence of childhood.

At Peanut’s 4-y.o. checkup, one of the checklist questions was “Can your child draw a stick figure?” Hubby wasn’t sure, so he called me. I didn’t know either. Most of Peanut’s drawings are scribbles or letters.

Three days later, he came home with a drawing of his teacher. He says she’s very pretty. A couple of days later he drew a picture of our family and Wall-E and Eve.

Last night, he decided to do some drawings on his whiteboard. He drew a good alien, with a happy, smiley face.




Then he said “Mommy, I’m going to draw a bad alien with 4 arms and 3 legs.




I guess we have our answer.

After the aliens he asked Daddy to draw some pictures. One request was “God defeating a werewolf.” I wish I had taken a picture of that one. It was awesome with lightning bolts and flowing robes. I have no idea where Peanut go the idea for that.

Hubby sadly had to use his rifle at work. A cow got loose along the interstate. She had already gotten onto the travel lane before hubby arrived, but ran back onto the shoulder. Hubby, several other cops, and an ag officer tried to corral her away from the road for darting. As the ag officer tried to get a clear shot, she spooked and ran back for the road. Hubby put her down with several bullets to the head. He felt bad about it, but knew it was better than the cow causing a pileup on the highway which would have had the same outcome with the possibility of human fatalities as well.

It happens more often than a suburban girl like myself ever imagined. We have vast expanses of rangeland here, much of it along roads and highways. Hubby hates loose cow/horse calls. The animals are often scared and unpredictable and there is always the possibility of being charged at or kicked.

Peanut won’t stop singing! The little boy who would never sing breaks out into the ABC song multiple times a day and throws in some Jingle Bells, too. It’s so cute.

He’s really figuring out phonics. He’ll say a word, then name the letter it starts with. “My name is Peanut. P starts with Peanut. P says Puh Puh Puh. Peanut.”

He’s on a napping strike at daycare. He frequently comes home cranky and will cry at the drop of a hat. We’ve talked about the importance of sleep, how boys need sleep to help their bodies grow, and how much better we feel when we’re not in a bad mood from being tired. He’s always hated taking naps, even as a baby. He tells me he doesn’t want bad dreams, so that’s why he doesn’t sleep. He has a vivid imagination and I think he does have frequent nightmares.

He’s especially afraid of monsters, which seem to recur in his bad dreams. Hungry Bean started to cry on the way home from daycare. I made the usual soothing sounds and told him it was OK, that Mommy and Peanut were right there. Peanut looked over at him and said “It’s OK, Bean. There aren’t any monsters. I’m right here.” Then he told me Bean was crying because he thought a monster was outside.

Later, Peanut and I were snuggled on the couch when the dog got a drink of water. Peanut jumped and asked “What’s that noise.” I told him the dog was drinking. “Oh, OK. I thought it was a monster.”

Bean is crawling in earnest now. He’s still wobbly, gets trapped under tables and such, bonks into things, and often falls/rolls over. Every once in a while he’ll get stuck with his legs stretched behind him and he’ll do a little hop to get back onto his knees. It’s the cutest ever.

He can sure get to something when he wants to. Something usually is the dog or a power cord. He discovered speaker wire the other day (we have surround sound and ran the wiring under the couch and loveseat rather than attempting to mount the speakers and make Swiss cheese of our walls.) I found him wedged between the couch and loveseat (they’re set at a 90 degree angle) munching happily on the wire. He made quite a protest when redirected at something less dangerous. When not going after electrical hazards, he finds his way to the nebulizer, which I really should put away, but fear that would bring bad juju and another round of wheezing. Apparently the tubing feels great on teething gums and fits nicely in his mouth. In short, we really need to get the baby gates out of storage and baby-proof the living room.

He’s going through some sort of lovely sleep regression. I’m not sure if he’s at one of the “classic” ages, but I think he has some sort of teething-just learned to crawl-growth spurt thing going on. He’s waking up once or twice a night plus his usual 5-ish am for bottles. Dear Lord, I’m beyond exhausted. Hubby and I were complaining that he went from sleeping 10-11 hours a night down to 8-9 hours after his RSV hospitalization. Now we’re back to newborn-style wakings every 2-4 hours. I hope this passes soon.

He gained about a pound in the past week-10 days. The little guy is solid.

Chez selzach recovering from our eleventy-billionth round of the respiratory crud. We’re a hacking, snotting, sneezing bunch. Hubby wound up with viral bronchitis and an ear infection. Peanut came home yesterday with crud draining from his ear. At least the tubes are doing their job.

Fireworks stands pop up around here like mushrooms before New Year's Eve and the 4th of July. I'll never get used to them. I grew up in a state that banned all fireworks. Mom and I used to cross the state line to buy contraband sparklers for the 4th, in a state only slightly less restrictive than ours.

One stand is next to a produce stand Hubby & I occasionally shop at. The last time we went was sometime around the 4th. During our perusing, we noticed the fireworks proprietors smoking just outside their tent. That was the fastest veggie purchase ever.

We were waiting at a drive-through the other night when we noticed some mortars going off. I commented on how pretty they were. Hubby paused for a minute and replied, "They look like they're coming from the fireworks stand. You know, the one where the owners were smoking."

We sat the whole time waiting for the sky to light up, accompanied by BOOM-BA-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

The kids have been tag teaming Mr. S. and me with colds. Bean is on breathing treatments yet again. The wheezing started the day after Christmas and has continued. If he's still wheezing by tomorrow, the doc wants to see him again. Hmmm, think the wheezing will clear up over night? Me neither. He has something else cooking, too. He was up crying for most of the night (which meant I was up, too)and had a fever for most of today.

Hubby and I have also had the cold. Peanut, too (that goes without saying). I have felt like crap since Christmas night with a scratchy/sore throat, runny nose, painful sinuses and aches. I'm thankful I was off work this week, but it hasn't been much of a restful week off. I pray we're all healthy by Monday so I can go to work as scheduled.