Things you NEVER want to hear

Gillian has had a fever the past couple of days, and we assumed this meant she was having her first cold. We count ourselves pretty lucky to have avoided a cold for 13+ months, and I credit good old fashioned breastmilk for that (she still gets lots of it-remember her liquid diet?). I have been home dissertating this week, and as usual, have gone a little off the deep end with focusing a huge amount of work in a very short priod of time, because honestly, who has time to work 40 hours a week (+ commute 10 hours a week), raise a baby, and write a dissertation? That is why I am working until the wee hours of the morning every night this week-because I took the week off my day job to get closer to finishing my time-suck-not-even-fun-anymore-activity-that-is-school. So, I was feeling pretty excellent about my writing progress yesterday, and as such, had found a good stopping point to leave the coffee shop and go home and feed the baby before her nap at 2. Sean and G were at the grocery store picking up a few things when I got home, and then I got a awful call, "Michelle something is really wrong with the baby...she is just staring blankly at me and isn't responding..." this after she was shaking, and now she was ashen and pale and very ill. He was afraid she was dying. When I saw her, I understood why. She was very pale, her eyes had purple circles, and she wouldn't look when you said her name. I rushed her upstairs and took her temperature- 103.5, the highest we had ever seen with her. She was shaking. She was grunting. When I tried to nurse her she bit me-several times. It was like she couldn't even remember how to nurse. She made me bleed, on both sides. I called the doctor. Sean ran back to the car. We sped to the clinic thinking we would get seen faster there than the ER. Not fast enough, but it was faster.

When your child gets sick that fast, you are helpless to some extent, and that is utterly terrifying. The doctor we saw wasn't our regular doctor, who might as well be the Brad Pitt, he is so popular, overbooked, and generally charming. I believe the guy we saw was a resident. A nice guy, but he really needs to work on his doctor-patient communication skills. These are things you should never say to your patient that he said to us yesterday:

"I would be happier if her urine dip would have been positive for a UTI, because then at least we would know the cause of the fever, which could be really serious. Or maybe it could just be a cold."

"We wouldn't know for sure if it's RSV with a blood culture, but you would know it if she has trouble breathing, or stops breathing, or something. But she probably doesn't have RSV."

"What she had was a febrile seizure. It's not that serious. Unless it lasted more than 15 minutes. Did it last more than 15 miunutes? It doesn't normally cause brain damage, so try not to worry too much."

"We'll do a blood culture to check for bacteria to make sure she doesn't have a blood infection. We should get the results in 24-48 HOURS." (to this, I sarcastically snorted, "I HOPE it's not serious").

Anyway, poor little G got a catheter to get a clean urine sample to check for a UTI, which is apparently very dangerous in infants, got her ears checked, and got a general once over. After getting a good dose of Motrin, she was looking a little more alive and was able to nurse (and I get the Rockstar Mom Award for letting her try again even though my nipples were throbbing, bruised, and hating her). The doc ordered blood work as well. Now, the blood draw was like a PTS trigger for G and I. I had to hold her little arms while two nurses put a turnicate on her to take blood, and they saw her little IV scars from the NICU and said (in the tone of a Jerry Seinfeld joke) "she's done this before". One nurse was a mess. She didn't know how the needle went into the tubes, and she dug around Gillian's arm with the needle before even feeling around for a good vein to stick. This was just awful, and she ended up having to give up on taking blood in that arm because all she was doing was bruising her. Now that Gillian was hysterical and in pain, the nurse who actually had a clue quickly tied G's other arm, found a vein, and deftly took the blood sample. Here's what I would like to share with the medical community, in case they don't know it, IF YOU ARE NEW TO PHLEBOTEMY, YOU DON'T PRACTICE TAKING BLOOD ON AN INFANT, particularly MY infant. The incompetant, or undertrained nurse should have been let loose on those other two strapping adult males in the waiting room of the lab, not on my droopy, sick, and generally uncomfortable baby girl.

The good news is that her fever broke this morning between nursing her at 5 am and when she got up at 8:30 (her sweat-drenched sleeping clothes told us that). So, what is the mystery fever all about when G has nary even a sniffle? Teething? If it's teething, I would hope she is getting 4 at once to justify a fever like that one. Anyway, she is back to her silly self today, and we are grateful that she is ok. Whew.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr.

In true Chicago fashion, we went from beach weather this weekend to radiator weather today. I often wonder why we are deprived of 60-70 degree temperatures in transitional seasons (Fall and Spring (my favorites) are far too short, in my opinion). Now, our current 54 degrees isn't exactly frigid, but as usual, the 20 mph wind (with the obligatory 30 mph gusts) makes if feel that way. Either way, I stopped to consider as G and I headed out for what has become our Wednesday ritual, that it takes a couple more minutes to get ready when it's cold. At first thought, this wasn't really a big deal, because what's a few minutes? Then I started thinking about a few minutes a few times a day for the entire winter and I realized that I will spend approximately 27 hours from now until April bundling and debundling Gillian to brave the winter. If you consider the idea of getting her in and out of the snow bib when it is seriously frozen in January and February, you can tack on an hour or two more.

In the back of my mind the past few weeks, I have been thinking about what to do to keep Gillian's hands warm in the cold. I can imagine she would tolerate mittens as well as she tolerates vegetables, and I would spend the better part of each walk retrieving the discarded mittens from the sidewalk. Today I layered her and then tucked a blanket around her body, wondering how long it would take for her to free her hands and for them to turn to ice cubes. Remarkably, she did not attempt to free her hands, even when barking at the dogs that crossed our paths (usually this requires forward bobbing and arm flailing on her part). This might have been due to the Gold Fish coma she was in, but I took it to mean that she was aware that it was cold and she realized the blanket kept her hands warm. It occurs to me that I take for granted that babies aren't dumb...they must have some amount of instinct that would make it sensible to keep their hands somewhere safe.

So, today is COLD. The northeast wind was creating ocean-like breaking waves at the desolate beach, and we were the only ones there besides a few crazies body surfing in wet suits (not even the guy learning to play the fiddle was there today). Still, I couldn't help but feel that a sunny Fall day makes things crisp and fresh and new, and that crispiness made Gillian and I both giddy-happy.

It is really strange to think that Gillian will grown up in a completely different lifestyle than I did (and that, generally, is very, very good). Besides the obvious differences in growing up in a big city, more what I was thinking is that she will know what snow is before she is 25, sledding and snow angels will be a staple of fun in the winters (I made my first snow angel at the ripe old age of 30), and she won't be a weather pansy (after 6 years here, I am slowly coming out of this, myself). Maybe she'll be one of those people we south floridians would look at in November in the 60 degree weather, wearing a t-shirt and shorts and think, "what a lunatic, to dress like that when it's obviously FREEZING!" I like the image of her flying down Mount Trashmore at 2o miles and hour on a disk sled, completely unafraid, or throwing snowballs at her Papa, or putting on her snowboots to go out and play. The winter will add an entirely different dimension to her life that she wouldn't have if she grew up in Florida. That's not to say I don't long for Florida long about mid-January, when I'd give anything to be sweltering in 100 degree heat and 99% humidity, but for what it's worth, in my Fall buzz, I am romanticizing winter. Ask me how I feel again in a few months.

Feeding Miss Gilly: A Memoir of Hardship

You may have heard me bemoan the misery that is feeding Gillian. Here we are, 13 months after she was born, and she could still give a fig about food. Sometimes I start going to dark places in my psyche when I am especially frustrated trying to feed her solids, like daydreaming about forcefeeding her. Interesting what you start thinking about somewhere between the 5th and 100th piece of food that hits the floor. Today, I almost had to go for a walk. Almost. Somehow I found my calm voice and kept the utter irritation off my face to prevent her from learning which buttons to push to illicit a response from me. No one really ever told me the amount of psychology that goes into the seemingly simpler aspects of parenting, like FEEDING.

Today started like any other day. When we went into the kitchen to eat breakfast, I had high hopes (even though G has been hardly eating anything solid the past week of so (unless Goldfish count, which she would eat all day long, if I would let her)). I cut the tiny slit in the top of her yogurt and inserted the straw (because God knows, she won't let a spoon held by me within 100 yards of her mouth), I pulled out the cup of defrosted blueberries from the frozen bag I found at the grocery, hoping to delight her...blueberries are her favorite thing in the whole world, but are sadly out of season as of the past two weeks. So, I paid A LOT for a 1 lb bag of them from the frozen food aisle, all proud that I found her Favorite Thing on Earth AND justified because they would last virually forever because they would stay frozen till eaten, despite the cost. Erg. Ya. And a banana, and some grapes, and some Cheerios. Here's how it went down:

1) Yogurt (organic, delightful, and tasty) smoothie: one suck, then slapped away (mind you, she LOVES Pear...but not today)
2) Blueberries: rejected. Gagged on. Fished out of mouth seconds after entering and thrown on the floor in disgust. OUR LITTLE CONNOISSEUR CAN DISCERN FRESH BLUEBERRIES FROM FROZEN BLUEBERRIES, AND THANKS MOM, BUT THEY ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING IN THE SAME UNIVERSE. Anyone around here want an expensive bag of blueberries for cooking?
3) Bananas: a couple token bites to keep me hopeful, but then flailing arm sends them flying in all directions.
4) Grapes: no token bites. Just dropped over the side of the tray one by one.
5) Cheerios: eaten here or there, but mostly thrown around, knocked off by her waving arms, or stashed in her pants*
6) Oatmeal that I cooked hoping she might be really just in the mood for something else to eat, and rolled into bit sized balls: flared nostrils, plucked from lips like it was rat poison. I ate the rest of it for her.
***Throughout: Sippy cup tossed to the floor 5 times. Then it stayed there. She pointed and whined at it until she found something else to throw somewhere else.

I want to give her a good talking to. I try sometimes, but all she does if grab my face and makes some of those Pebbles sounds she makes ("poor mommy, knickers in a twist, you'll be ok", she says to me). In the end she doesn't know what, "Now Gillian, haven't we discussed your propensity for aerial food experiments and decided that these morsels of delight do more good in your stomach than sticking to the tiles?" means. But she does think it is Heee-larious when I get all serious.

So, I gave up. Did she eat more liquid because she didn't have breakfast? Nope. Is the only thing she devoured like she was starving to death all day carbohydrates? (Gold fish and little graham crackers)? Yep. Was dinner any better? NOPE-but it sure was more of a mess. So, everyone known my hangups about her weight with the whole preemie thing, but it's more than that...is she ever going to stop relying so heavily on milk and formula?!? It's so much nicer when we all sit down and actually eat together...

There are few things more depressing and demoralizing that trying to come up with a healthy menu for your baby and then having it completely fail-not only do you not have the satisfaction of knowing that it is at least appreciated a *little* bit, but you also have the pleasure of scrubbing the food off the floor around her high chair after said abysmal failure (and GOD it is hard to think of something interesting to feed her every night). In the end, it is becoming clearer that this mortherhood thing is a truly thankless job. At least she was charitable enough to give me a little love before bed to let me know it's not personal.

*lately, G has been hoarding things behind her when she plays and stuffs food between her diaper and the highchair at meals. Sean came up with a scenario that she is, in fact, stashing food in her diaper to sneak to Tigger and Bunny after I put her to bed. The dialogue he hypothesized was most entertaining, but I am too exhausted to expound upon it here.

Skillz

So, Auntie Kim, you might be extra proud of this!


And I am ever more fascinated by her expanding vocabulary and my ability to relate to her verbally...

GOODnight and other musings

The current phase G is in is mostly awesome. She is imitating cats, dogs, and cows. She answers with said trademark animal sound if you ask, "Gilly, what does ___ say?" She will look for and retrieve an item if you ask "Gilly, where's your ___?" I even think she might be trying to say "belly", which sounds a lot like "bey", when she points at my belly or her own belly. Gillian also recently started chasing the cats in her odd crabcrawl way (which is freakishly fast, by the way), and giggling quite happily as they frantically avoid her. This game I love. I am sure Needy Peepers is in for all the attention she ever dreamed of. and then some.

At night, she no longer is asleep when I put her down after feeding her. Instead, she likes to sit up, her legs on either side of my waist, and lays her little head on my chest and snuggle...sit back, and talk to me a little (including pointing out a belly), lay back on my thighs and look/point at things on the wall, and sit back up and cuddle...this usually goes on about 8-10 minutes. Then I ask, "Gilly, are you ready to go nite-nite in your bed?", and, get this, she points at her bed...and then I stand with her next to her crib and say, "do you want to visit with Tigger and Bunny and go nite-nite?" (Tigger and Bunny are bedtime-only pals), and she leans toward/reaches for the crib! (obviously, this fascinates me) From what I gather from sounds through the door, after that she listens to her mobile and talks to her bedtime pals for a few minutes and that's it. She likes going to bed. And WE LIKE THAT SHE LIKES GOING TO BED. The other night, our neighbor was over, and Gilly looked at me, yawned, and started crawling toward her room. I asked "are you ready for nite-nite?" and she stopped, looked at me, and continued down the hall and into her bedroom. I thought, "THAT was far too easy...what's the catch?" No catch. She was tired and knew she wanted to go to bed.

The drawbacks to this phase: 1) 95% of food on the floor; 5% of food in her mouth; 2) do you know how hard it can be to get your child clothed and her diaper changed when there are clearly much more interesting things to do than sit still and get one's diaper changed and clothes on? Both of which are small prices to pay for the mostly joyful days and nights we have had of late.

Aerodynamics

Lately, Gillian has been carefully studying aerodynamics and it's relationship to gravity. She conducts most of her research from her high Evenflo perch at 9am and 6pm daily. Generally, the test runs begin with how many times water-filled plastic can hit the floor, and how many times people can be trained to retrieve it (it's science and sociology, people!). Next is foodstuffs. She generally prefers to use denser vegetables in lieu of the airier and more valuable carbohydrates, for obvious reasons. Even when they are delightfully seasoned and cooked to perfection. And she holds eye contact with her observers as she first dangles the item over the edge, then drops it.

The experimental design is not limited to the Evenflo perch. It is also interesting to conduct data runs at the grocery store with General Shoulderbag Items. I bet no one could predict that a writing pen could impact linoleum no less than 2000 times in 45 minutes! (needless to say, not having the pen for said experiment was not an option (if that one time trying to pry it from her tiny vicegrip fingers is any indication).

We hope that this empirical endeavor concludes shortly. Tomorrow would be good.

An Ode to Strong, Fabulous Women

Today my friend Roxanne, Annikah's mama, ran 26 miles in 90 degree heat to complete the Chicago marathon. She ran it even though after 21 miles, they canceled the marathon because "there were no more ambulances for people dropping from heat stress" (one man died from it, and another 250 were hospitalized); she ran it because she had trained long and hard-logging many hundreds of miles a month, and she couldn't not finish; she ran it so one day her daughter would know that you can achieve any wild dream, any goal, you set your mind on achieving. Roxanne- you are crazy- and courageous, and such a person of conviction, and I admire you, and respect you so much and feel lucky to know you.

Sarah and I were talking about what an awesome story it will be for Rox to tell Anni. We talked about what strong female role models can do for a child. Maybe it will make some impact of our children to know their moms had a baby in the middle of their coursework and still managed to finish their PhDs. Maybe it will make them secure and confident to be brought up in a home where people achieve the things they set out to do. Moms who are artists, or musicians, or poets...moms who go out into the world and make it better through their work or their charitable contributions to society; women who dance; women who pursue their passions unabashedly, and unapologetically. I am blessed to know so many amazing women, and it makes me peaceful to think that they are contributing offspring to this planet-surely, their children will bring some balance to this wild world of ours.

Clearly, this is the answer to the questions I asked Friday. We are the solution to the endless diluge of bad messages weaving through our society, and purposely or indirectly targeting our children. We should strive to be what we want our children to become every day.

Our girl's got rhythm

So, we borrowed Roxanne's idea to take G to Didier Farms (along with Francie and her folks), which might have been the single most exciting thing to ever happen in her life...being surrounded by baby goats in the petting zoo, in particular. Gillian was inspired by the happy 60s tune piping through the place, and began by clicking her tongue and doing the ultra low groove to the beat of "Love Me Do".

I have to say, Didier Farms is a virtual toddler fantasy land of delights. And incredibly kitschy for adults.

Prostitute Action Figure or Happy Meal Toy? You decide.

I was desperate one night in one of my "If-I-run-errands-after-Gillian-goes-to-bed-I'll-be-alot-more-efficient" mindsets and given the fact that it was 9:30 (pm) and I hadn't had any dinner yet, and there was a McDonalds right there... I decided to get something small because I was dying. It had been a few years probably since I had McDonalds, for obvious reasons (like, every time you eat there it takes a year off your life), but I figured quantity (small) could make it less damaging, so I ordered a Happy Meal. It's not as happy now as it was the last time I saw it-they use to have fun little thin cardboard boxes with puzzles and games on it and the famous arches for handles, and some McDonald Land cookies in the shape of Ronald and the Burglar and the other characters, and of course, The Toy. They use to have cool toys...remember those reindeer stuffed animal/beanie babies that Christmas in the 80s? Well, mine came in a paper bag with no fun stuff to do on it, no cookies, and THIS awful thing parading as a child's toy.

So, given the fact that I have a daughter, and here I had this little mini-barbie-rollerderby-hooker in my Happy Meal, the ride to my next errand stop was a time of somber reflection. How will I EVER cultivate a healthy body image for my daughter in a world full of Bratz figurines and shows like The OC? I mean, her skirt is so short her hoo-ha is almost showing, she is showing some serious torso, and she has a red streak in her bleach-blond hair. Do I want my 5 year old begging me to wear mid-drifts, miniskirts, and thongs? Wouldn't you think that McDonalds, who has historically marketed themselves as family friendly, would choose a more wholesome toy for their Happy Meals? I wish they had given me the boy meal with the car in it. I wish I had never seen this blasphemous piece of Americana in something specifically targeting little girls. Maybe the answer is a unisex toy?

But, I could go on for days about the waify, sickly, anorexic gold standard that we see in commercials and magazines, and movies... it even infiltrated the latest season of Survivor-did you see poor Courtney trying to cut a rope with a machete this week? It might have been laughable if it wasn't so completely tragic. What were the show's producers thinking to choose a contestant who is starving without the trials of the game show? What message does this send to adolescent girls dying to be thin?

Ok, so maybe some of this post is a bit melodramatic, and alot tongue in cheek, but I really do worry about how to navigate the mindfields of the external world while trying to provide an atmosphere conducive to Gillian creating a beautiful, strong, and healthy self-image. One that doesn't require showcasing a smoking hot bod to have any vestige of personal value. Either I am getting super conservative in my old age, or I remember being 15, or I am now the parent of a little girl (or all of the preceding). Either way, I can't appreciate this fad. At all.