Last night I had one of those weird dreams. It was neither frightening nor happy. Just an odd one. Hubby and I were on vacation in My Favorite Country in the Whole World ™. Someplace we may never visit together as we don’t have the money or time for that kind of vacation, but someplace I yearn to return to. In this dream, we had just arrived the night before and had gone to a little church to renew our vows (odd in itself, as I don’t see us as the type to do that). All of a sudden, the minister starts lecturing Hubby, something about soap being missing from the bathroom. Hubby pulls out a sad, lathery little sliver of soap from his pocket, then starts complaining to me about the rude minister, to go on like that in front of a church full of people we don’t know. I get kind of grossed out by the nasty soap remnant, wondering how many funky hands have touched it, and wondering if it’s ruined his jacked from sitting in his pocket. And I wonder, of course, why the hell he took it in the first place. I remind him that people in this country can be very rude and that I had warned to be polite before we came. Next thing, we’re in a car with another couple who are taking us to their apartment for lunch – a local couple we had only just me in the church.

I’m not sure what it all meant, but I have a couple ideas:

Hubby always forgets to replace his soap in the shower when he runs out, so he uses mine until it is gone or he remembers to put a fresh bar in. He uses soap that dries my skin and makes me itchy, so I hate when he uses mine up. I loathe to get out of a warm shower and freeze my ass off while searching the cupboard for a replacement bar.

People in My Favorite Country ™ can be very rude, yet many are extremely friendly and generous. That may explain the dichotomy between the minister and the couple.

I’ve had My Favorite Country ™ on my mind for a while. Dad went back to visit family this past fall. Just a few weeks ago, my boss was there for a week-long conference. I also recently saw a show on PBS about sorts of cool Christmas festivals and markets that happen there each December.

I asked my boss what he thought about it, and sadly all he really had to say was that it’s very expensive (it is) and he doubts he’ll ever go back. No comments on the amazing scenery (he rode by train cross-country so he had an opportunity to see it) and he stayed in a gorgeous area...well, most places there are gorgeous. No comment on the culture or food. Nary a candy bar was brought back, either.

Peanut is a biter. Shit. He’s bitten two classmates this week. Yesterday he came home with an incident report, which itself is really funny – it has Pacman-ish characters with jagged teeth all in a row along the top of the paper. Please tell me I’m not the only one who finds humor in this. Apparently, at lunchtime, Peanut leaned over and bit the kid sitting next to him. Hubby and I do find it kind of funny, in a hey, it’s lunchtime, let’s see how Joey tastes kind of way, but definitely want to nip this in the bud. We don’t want Peanut to be The Biter. So, we’ve given daycare permission to dose him with icky-tasting stuff the next time he bites someone.

He seems to be working on erupting another tooth, so I hope that’s the root of the biting. Or he could be going through a rotten phase. It’s quite possible.

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I mentioned the biting deal to a friend who has raised 4 kids of her own. She suggested the controversial Bite Him Back method. She said it worked on her kids, even the defiant one. I mentioned it to Hubby, who said he had already tried it.

This is how it went down: Peanut bites Hubby. Hubby bites Peanut. Peanut retaliates with a harder bite. we.are.screwed.

Peanut finally is over his rotavirus hell. We ended up back at the pediatrician's office on Saturday after 3 nights of 2-3 hour screamfests. It was like having a colicky infant all over again. The diarrhea ended on Thursday, but apparently he still felt like crap. He also cut a tooth during that time, which I'm sure made everything worse.

The pediatrician (our favorite in the practice and Peanut's primary one) sat down with us and really looked Peanut over and asked a bunch of questions. He felt that Peanut was just at the tail end of the bug and was correct. He also wants Peanut to have a blood screening when he's been healthy for a while. He suspects Peanut may be low in one of his immune factors, and that it's something possibly inherited from Hubby who also had serious childhood ear infections and is asthmatic.

Yesteray, Peanut woke up with a smile! He had a good day, although no nap. He was much to busy visiting with and getting to know our out of town friends who stayed for the day. At bedtime, were back to the screaming and fussing and Hubby had to lie in our bed and hold him in order for him to get to sleep. This morning was not-so-nice, but I don't like weekday mornings, either. I had to fight Peanut to get him in the carseat and the daycare dropoff sucked.

After the daycare stop, I went to the lab to have blood drawn, to see if the iron pills I'm cough only taking half as frequently as a should cough did anything for my borderline anemia.

The woman at the station in front of me had obviously been undergoing chemo. She was beautifully dressed and had a gorgeous purple scarf covering her head. The phlebotomist asked how her treatments were going and she gleefully said she had just had her last. She was scheduled to go in for scans to see if her cancer was in remission. She was so happy and hopeful. As I was leaving, I saw her walking out, holding hands with her husband. I hope she's in remission, too. What an amazing, beautiful woman.

It seems Chez Selzach is not the only bloggy househouse dealing with the intestinal crud. I commiserate with everyone else going through it.

Peanut woke up screaming and crying at 2:30 Sunday morning. Hubby went to check on him. He seemed to take a while and once I heard water running, I knew. Peanut puked in his crib, so I dragged my sleepy butt out of bed and helped with the cleanup. Hubby stripped Peanut down to his diaper, we laid a bathtowel in our bed and put Peanut in bed. He had a few more rounds which luckily were mostly caught be a series of towels. I felt absolutely helpless when it came to Peanut. He would freak out and cry every time he got sick. I'm sure he had no clue what was going on and wanted Daddy to hold him, but Hubby kept aiming him at the towel (he already had taken a direct hit or two). Nothing is worse than seeing your baby cry and know there is nothing you can do to make them feel better. By that point I was wide awake, so I started some laundry and scrubbed Peanut's mattress and the bathroom sink with disinfectant. By late morning he was past the puke phase and well into the exploding butt phase. Hubby has stayed home every day this week so far.

We may be on the road to recovery. Finally! As of about 10 this morning, we hadn't had a butt explosion since before bed last night. We thought things were better Monday night and had the ok to give milk, but that came right back up, so I hope today really is a better day. Please, please let it be over and let us get Peanut off the brat diet and back to a regular routine. I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed that Peanut didn't share the wealth with us. Shiver.

Wow. North Dakota has banned all abortions unless a woman’s life is in danger. The proponents of said legislation know it will be challenged and are willing to fight all the way in hopes of abolishing Roe. Welcome to the Dark Ages.

I recently had a conversation with two friends regarding abortion. Both are religious and conservative and hold many views far from my own. The first friend is a devout Catholic, and if anyone is a Christian who follows the teachings of Jesus, it’s her. I have great respect for her faith in God and her willingness to help others. If anyone is in need, she’ll help, even if she’s struggling to pay her own bills. She volunteers for her church and community, donates money to charity and will help anyone. For a while she was giving food and shelter to a guy living out of his car. She did everything in her power to hook him up with the appropriate social services. She’s taken in at least two of her sons’ friends when they had no other place to stay. If she sees someone on the sidewalk struggling with a heavy load, she’ll give them a ride. She does all this selflessly. She tries her hardest to lead a Godly life, and I’d say she succeeds.

The other friend is also a devout Christian, although I know less about her beliefs.

Abortion, the war on terror, and our government often come up as topics of discussion when we’re together. Generally, I don’t say too much as my views are different from theirs and I’m not much of a debater. My one friend’s son is in the Marines and fought in Iraq, so I’m definitely not going down that road with her. Regardless of my feelings on the war, he put his life on the line, so I avoid that subject.

Both would be happy to see abortion outlawed or at the least, have more restrictions. Interestingly, the Catholic friend, although she would prefer there be no abortions, seems like she would be happy with tighter restrictions (such as only in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger.) Her view is that a fetus is a life and should not be destroyed. I respect her viewpoint. I agree that a fetus is alive, but I feel that a woman’s life should come first.

The second friend is a little less clear on her exact view, other than that she feels abortion is wrong except in certain cases. She said straight up if she was raped or was carrying a child with severe defects, she’d terminate without a second thought. In fact, one of her relatives had an abortion when in that situation and my friend completely supported her choice. There’s where things got a little weird for me. I asked about what sort of defects the fetus had and she wasn’t real clear on it. When I was pregnant with Peanut, Hubby and I decided we would not terminate unless Peanut had any defects so severe that he would die anyway or would be unable to live a pain-free, healthy life. Pre-natal testing is far from 100% accurate, and although it can often detect the likelihood of a problem, it often cannot predict the severity. I thought to myself how ironic it was, that I, the pro-choice woman in the group, was judging my pro-life friend. I would need to know for damn sure that my baby would be horribly disabled before I’d consider terminating, whereas she was almost flippant about the whole thing. This is one of the reasons why I feel abortion should be legal and available. No one has the right to judge my decisions or any other woman’s. And no one has the right to make that choice for me or anyone else. Nor do I have the right to judge her.

Poor little Peanut has been sick. Last week we were home for three days with and upper respiratory infection and wheezing. Several days of nebulizer treatments banished the wheeze. This Tuesday, Hubby had a call from daycare. Peanut was running a fever and had been crying all morning. Hubby picked him up, made an appointment with the pediatrician, and brought him home. As soon as Hubby got Peanut out of daycare, he perked right up, drank his milk, ate lunch, and acted like a normal, happy little guy. Maybe he was just missing Daddy.

They got to the doctor’s office later in the afternoon. Peanut had a temp of 103.2, but nothing obviously infected. Ears, throat, lungs all good. So the doctor sent Peanut for a chest X-ray just in case. Ding Ding! Walking pneumonia. Poor little guy. At least now he’s had a couple days of antibiotics and the fever is gone or down very low. Up until Thursday, if we didn’t give Tylen0l every 4 hours, it would spike right back up to 103.

I’ve enjoyed my time home with Peanut (5 days over the past 2 weeks). We’ve taken long walks with the dog, gone to the park to feed the ducks…Peanut even threw bread to the ducks, it was adorable, visited Gramma. We’ve taken naps together almost every afternoon. When Peanut is sick it’s verrrry difficult to get him to sleep on his own. Not that I mind getting a daily nap. When he wakes up, smiles at me, and snuggles over to give me a hug and cuddle, there’s nothing better.

I did lose my patience last Saturday, though. Hubby worked till about 3 am on Friday night/Saturday morning, then had to go back in at noon on Saturday. The only way I could get Peanut to sleep Friday night was to bring him in bed with me, even though I wanted to stay up and watch tv and relax. I left Peanut in the crib for a little while, hoping he’d settle down on his own. When I went to change into my jammies, he got so upset, he puked. Yuck. That’s when I gave up the tv and brought him into bed. He had to sleep most of the night cuddled up or on me, so I woke up very stiff and sore.

Saturday morning, Peanut and I took mom and her 2 cats to the vet. I really, really needed a nap by Saturday afternoon, but Peanut didn’t. We went back and forth from the crib to the bed for about 2 hours until I gave up. When Hubby finally got home that night, I turned Peanut over to him. I was done. Frazzled.

Even with my bit of super-stress, I enjoyed being home with the little guy. All the hugs and snuggles. The big smiles whenever he takes a few steps unaided. His excited “Da? Dadadada!” every night when he hears Hubby’s key in the lock.

This morning when I left for work, he was lying perpendicular to Hubby, with his feet propped up on Hubby’s chest. I kissed his little fuzzhead goodbye and knew I’d be missing him all day.