Week of January 29, 2003
Croup. Ear Infection. This week's malady is Projectile Vomiting!We had one healthy weekend day and the next he spontaneously threw up first thing in the morning. There was a pile of curdled milk at the bottom of the stairs, as he anxiously waited for me to come down. We hoped it was a one-time thing, and since he seemed relatively normal, we took him to the grocery store as usual since he finds that a cheery errand. He held up well, and standing behind us in the checkout line was a man making faces at Owen and getting him to smile. I seemed to be the last one to realize it was our State Representative.
That afternoon, I was on the phone with a friend, who was trapped in Children's Hospital with her infant daughter (she's all right, but they feared she might have meningitis). I'm listening to my friend (feeling very terrible and helpless to do anything useful for her) when Owen came over to puke on me. Several times. What bad timing.
I excused myself off the phone -- Scott cleaned up the rug, while I cleaned up Owen and I. Poor little guy, it was a long, hard day. Both Scott and I ended up with hypermild versions of this bug, but we got off with a lost appetite. Owen was miserable all day, and we were reduced to giving him bread and water. The prisoner's diet!
We contacted the Pediatrician, not because we're psycho parents (are we?), but because this nixed his 9th day of antibiotic. The Dr. told us 8 ½ days of the antibiotic should do the trick, and that since he was in decent shape otherwise not to worry. We picked up two flavors of Pedialyte to give Owen something more helpful than water, but it was apparently too noxious in unflavored and grape for him to give it a second thought. "Yuck!" he said, and he tossed his sippy cup. Oh well!
He was well enough to send to daycare on Monday, though we would have kept him home if it hadn't been the first week of school. Our daycare person is patient, and we don't usually tax her if we can help it. He was a bit clingy and possessive of her with the other kids, but other wise managed.
Owen has some favorite trains that he has to have when he's there, and he's usually holding them when we leave in the morning, and holding them still when we come back to take him home. I'm not sure whether he's trying to hide the trains from other kids, or just using the bottom end of the couch as an engine shed, but when the trains disappear, they tend to be wedged underneath the couch. He's consumed with running the trains on the cushion and on the edge of the armrests.
At home, he runs them along the coffee table and the end table, pushing them off into whatever crevice he can push them into. Again and again. We retrieve them for him, and again and again they are pushed off the into the ravine. He plays with them as soon as he wakes up, and as soon as we get home in the evening. I don't think I ever had this much concentration. When he's not playing with his trains, he's picking out books for us to read, or running around and laughing, so it's not as though it's all he does. But it seems to be his favorite activity, and at the moment, his other toys are getting short shrift.
"Again" seems to be the favorite word. He's started to have us read him the same books over and over, we get to the last page and it's "Again!" When Scott lifts him in the air, or puts him on his shoulders, the moment Owen's feet touch the ground it's "Again!"
Is this just the beginning of a love affair with repetition? Will the day come soon when reading a book three times will feel like getting off easy?
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