Aiden got an x-ray yesterday.
We had gone to get him his 6-month checkup in the afternoon. Normally checkups for babies amount to getting shots and getting measured, and my mind was mostly preoccupied with whether Aiden had finally started gaining weight again. He’d been falling in weight percentiles for a while now. I had hopes that he had, actually, jumped in weight category seeing as how he’s entirely gung-ho about solids. He practically eats 3 square meals a day, plus boobie for dessert and in-between snacks. And he still eats at night of course.
But the great weigh-in was not as expected, and the news was that he’s still getting skinnier. Twenty-fifth percentile or so now. The ped said not to worry, that he seems to be “rebounding” from some kind of precipitous fall (90th percentile to 50th percentile after he started group daycare), but I’m feeling awfully unsettled about it. While I think the 90th percentile was a fluke (he’d just eaten and hadn’t pooped in a couple days), it’s disconcerting nonetheless.
After the weigh-in drama, the ped commenced checking the baby’s various parts. This part of the appointment is usually easy, since it's mostly the doctor looking in various holes and moving the arms and legs about and usually remarking about what a specimen of baby perfection he is. His head is perfectly round, he smiles all the time, and he’s got this really cute dimple on his right side that you could just pack a kernel of corn into for a snack later or something. He has 2 legs, 10 fingers and 10 toes, and no discoloration or rash or odd lump that I can see.
But then the ped started talking about how Aiden’s legs didn’t match up – the fat rolls on the right were bigger than the fat rolls on the left – and apparently that’s some soft marker for hip dysplasia, and he followed this up by writing Aiden a prescription for an x-ray. I didn’t know x-rays could be prescribed like that, like on those little pieces of paper that usually say “take 2 teaspoons in the morning for 10 days” or something like that. Instead it was “x-ray of hips”. Yet you can’t just that sort of thing across the street to Walgreen’s, you know?
I thought two things then: One, that what if something happened in the in vitro procedure that messed Aiden up in little ways, like made him a strange colicky baby that still hates to go to bed at night, and is preventing him from chubbing up, and didn’t allow his hip joints to form right. What else did this in vitro procedure do? What other small blips in Aiden’s genetic profile are going to make themselves known?
The second thing I thought about was what shitty insurance we have for him. The insurance doesn’t cover x-rays. In fact I spent some time talking to the doctor about potentially delaying the x-ray because I was afraid it would cost thousands of dollars, the way those mysterious bills do whenever I have an unusual procedure. We chose a minimal insurance plan for both kids under the presumption that they were healthy and wouldn’t need much else other than their monthly or yearly checkups. What stupid asses we were, though, especially to presume that Aiden, who we’d not even met, was going to be automatically healthy. We’re in the process of changing insurance plans, by the way, but it still doesn’t kick in for another couple of months, and meanwhile, the x-ray loomed. Thankfully, as it turned out, the x-ray was not ridiculously expensive, especially since the ped was tactfully telling me not to waste any time with this.
So I decided to get it over with that same day, since we’d be on vacation the next week and it’d be really great not to obsess about what may or may not be going on with Aiden's legs while we’re strolling down the beach. So I dragged both kids to the hospital after work and waited patiently in a room filled with really, really old people waiting, presumably, for cancer treatment? I’m not sure. They were in radiology but not there for x-rays, so what else is there? Anyway, they were old. I felt like we’d dropped in on a senior citizen canteen. While waiting, Emily drank her chocolate milk and did spins and twirls through the waiting room and found an orange crayon that had rolled somewhere completely gross and proceeded to color a great deal of flyers on cancer treatment with it. Aiden did raspberries and tried to chew on the magazines.
Finally we were ushered into the x-ray room and Emily was given a special chair on the other side of the room’s window to watch Aiden get pictures taken of him. She was scared of the place and I wondered whether this would be her first permanent memory because it was so strange. Aiden, meanwhile, was stripped from the waist down on a really huge bed and he laid there blowing more raspberries and probably enjoying the warm light on his pee pee. Then some pictures were taken of his tiny parts while the tech cooed and awed at the little guy, and I tried not to think about how we just volunteered to radiate Aiden’s balls. And then we went home. And now we wait.
I know this isn’t probably going to be a big deal – if he has hip dysplasia then he gets a stiff-looking diaper or something like that to shape his hip socket better, and that’s probably going to be it. But it really does not take very much – just something a little out of the ordinary, a trip to a hospital, a special procedure for your wee baby – to make your heart beat a million times too fast and make your brain run around in circles.
Be okay little guy.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Guantanamo for parents
I have often thought that those wishing to experience childbirth without the help of pain medication would benefit greatly from something like a U.S. Army handbook on how to survive torture. I think the same thing would apply to those with small children too. I'm only partly kidding.
This week I believe I've reached a new level of chronic sleep deprivation, and it is one that is taking its toll on my performance at work. I slur my words when I read, I make far more errors when I type (this sentence alone took me twice as long as it should have) and I make lots of stupid errors all around. Part of my work involves managing the minutia of Microsoft Excel (R) spreadsheets. I'm not great with details when I'm performing well, but subtract 40 billion restful sleep hours on me, and my performance goes straight down the drain. Last week I ended up making a fatal error on one of those Excel (R) spreadsheets, and it nearly cost the company several thousand dollars and a bit of its good reputation.
There was a flurry of emails and calls over the weekend and continuing into Monday morning; Monday, a banner day in which I was awoken at 3:30am by both children, extra cranky-style, and finally, after many hours sweating through my XL shirts (still have weight to lose) and smacking my head repeatedly (partly to keep myself awake), crisis was partially averted.
The punchline is that they asked for another detailed spreadsheet to help clean up the mess I made with the first detailed spreadsheet, and THAT spreadsheet had an error in it. I thought seriously about giving notice before I was canned.
I expect to be operating in a continued state of chronic sleep deprivation well into next year, if not the year after that (Emily was never a good sleeper; why should Aiden be?) and so, lately, I have been wondering about how to manage this state I'm in. The only thing I'm sure about doing is to triple check what I normally only give one or two passes at, and the irony there is that I have less time to do double and triple checks in the first place.
Conversely, I think the military might benefit greatly from observing new parents in their sleep deprived states. Observe the clumsiness, the stress, the other physical detriments and the toll on effective communication with spouses and others that chronic sleep deprivation takes. Give a new parent an Excel spreadsheet and an over-heated office and watch that parent drool right into their 4th cup of coffee. And then drink that coffee and make some more mistakes in the spreadsheet. I might be inclined to write a grant proposal on that, if it weren't for all the spelling errors I would be bound to make.
This week I believe I've reached a new level of chronic sleep deprivation, and it is one that is taking its toll on my performance at work. I slur my words when I read, I make far more errors when I type (this sentence alone took me twice as long as it should have) and I make lots of stupid errors all around. Part of my work involves managing the minutia of Microsoft Excel (R) spreadsheets. I'm not great with details when I'm performing well, but subtract 40 billion restful sleep hours on me, and my performance goes straight down the drain. Last week I ended up making a fatal error on one of those Excel (R) spreadsheets, and it nearly cost the company several thousand dollars and a bit of its good reputation.
There was a flurry of emails and calls over the weekend and continuing into Monday morning; Monday, a banner day in which I was awoken at 3:30am by both children, extra cranky-style, and finally, after many hours sweating through my XL shirts (still have weight to lose) and smacking my head repeatedly (partly to keep myself awake), crisis was partially averted.
The punchline is that they asked for another detailed spreadsheet to help clean up the mess I made with the first detailed spreadsheet, and THAT spreadsheet had an error in it. I thought seriously about giving notice before I was canned.
I expect to be operating in a continued state of chronic sleep deprivation well into next year, if not the year after that (Emily was never a good sleeper; why should Aiden be?) and so, lately, I have been wondering about how to manage this state I'm in. The only thing I'm sure about doing is to triple check what I normally only give one or two passes at, and the irony there is that I have less time to do double and triple checks in the first place.
Conversely, I think the military might benefit greatly from observing new parents in their sleep deprived states. Observe the clumsiness, the stress, the other physical detriments and the toll on effective communication with spouses and others that chronic sleep deprivation takes. Give a new parent an Excel spreadsheet and an over-heated office and watch that parent drool right into their 4th cup of coffee. And then drink that coffee and make some more mistakes in the spreadsheet. I might be inclined to write a grant proposal on that, if it weren't for all the spelling errors I would be bound to make.
Friday, November 13, 2009
On food
Today I am catching up on my google reader and the theme of the week seems to be about eating. Here, here and here for example. And this is sort of related, and maybe also this one. Is it the upcoming holidays that are making us think more about food or something? I don’t know.
After reading post after post after post about the evils of food in one form or another (or, conversely, making it a point never to characterize food as ‘evil’ at all), I am...exhausted.
When did food become the apparent landmine-infested battleground that it is today? Shall we blame it all on corporate greed and Glamour magazine? Shall we hole ourselves up inside of a Whole Foods, no wait…Vitamin Cottage, for Whole Foods is decidedly evil by the too-elite-to-be-elite class, and snack on raw organic vegetables until the FDA gets its shit together and the U.S. Government supports bans on artificial ingredients? That’s a long time to be eating carrots.
The thing is, I eat meat and I’m pretty sure I will continue to do so, guilt or not. I also eat too much sugar, and so does my child, and I’m pretty sure most of what we eat contains substances I have probably done a toxicity review or two upon. I read labels but don’t get myself worked up when the word “soy” pops in there. I have heard enough stories about animals eating their own shit and tiny cages that deform their feet and I am supportive of measures that will prevent animal cruelty and not abuse factory workers but I’m beginning to wonder if some people are basing their outrage on the idea that they will be saving Bessie the cow they petted for 5 minutes at a zoo once? Or that cows should freely romp in lush green valleys (hint: cows and green valleys don't mix)? All I’m saying is animals aren’t the cleanest. For example, eating poop and getting pooped on and rolling around in poop is kind of par for the course, although maybe in smaller quantities or something, I don’t know.
Will I become a gluten-free vegan? Not Likely. Though I admire those that can. In fact, I support the many people who are walking away completely from animal products, although the feeling after reading piece upon piece about this on various left-wingish news sites and blogs is...it’s kind of a privileged class that gets to decide what not to eat, you know? Suddenly the walls of my suburban landscape are feeling very small.
Also I remain skeptical of environmental-dooms-day talk. Perhaps I should get over this. But the first 5 years of my higher education curriculum was suffused with these kinds of articles/books/lectures. I was graded on conspiracy theories for godssakes. Believe in ‘em or else! Don't be ignorant! After years of this I came to work as a peon in a nonprofit environmental company and realized the nonprofit’s agenda was driven by crazy women (and they are mostly women, not that this is bad) and I thought: yaknow? Maybe I need to subscribe less to the world-on-fire idea.
This is evolved to the point today where I recognize that food processing is far from perfect and, just like everything else (as if this is a surprise), regulations are driven to a large part by profitability, and there always need to be checks and balances, so hooray for those who point out what’s wrong. But I loathe the idea that the government can do no right and they're all out trying to kill us and Bessie. I hate when someone gives an example of a regulation in Europe somewhere as a symbol of how America is so greedy and awful because in beautiful utopic Europe these sorts of decisions are made “to protect its people! Because they care!” but dude, no they do not any more than Americans do, it just doesn’t cost ‘em much when it comes to food regs. In fact, their environmental pollution laws are kind of shady and largely absent all in the name of jobs for the people. Go tour an industrial area in the south of France sometime and sniff the unregulated rivers that run straight into the Mediterranean, and then come tell me whether or not the EPA is totally doing it wrong.
This is really funny that I’ve just regurgitated those paragraphs when, originally, I was thinking about writing something about how I hate preachy blogs. Haaaa, me. Wait, I’ll start a giveaway contest on here too, so then I can be a total blog-hater hypocrite!
ANYway, my original point, really the only one that I should be making here, is that the recent smattering of food-related entries should be doing me good – it should be testing my current dietary choices, challenging me to make healthier, more sustainable ones – but it actually has somewhat of the reverse effect, which is that right now I really want to go to Starbucks (evil corporate giant!) and buy a chocolate chip cookie (non vegan, loaded with Yellow #5, way too many empty calories) and a coffee (non-fair trade variety!) and now I’m paralyzed about whether to do so or not, and when life gets so bad that you’re not sure whether a cup of coffee and a cookie is a good idea or not it is time for a little positive reassurance or two.
If you’ve got some, I’d love to hear it.
After reading post after post after post about the evils of food in one form or another (or, conversely, making it a point never to characterize food as ‘evil’ at all), I am...exhausted.
When did food become the apparent landmine-infested battleground that it is today? Shall we blame it all on corporate greed and Glamour magazine? Shall we hole ourselves up inside of a Whole Foods, no wait…Vitamin Cottage, for Whole Foods is decidedly evil by the too-elite-to-be-elite class, and snack on raw organic vegetables until the FDA gets its shit together and the U.S. Government supports bans on artificial ingredients? That’s a long time to be eating carrots.
The thing is, I eat meat and I’m pretty sure I will continue to do so, guilt or not. I also eat too much sugar, and so does my child, and I’m pretty sure most of what we eat contains substances I have probably done a toxicity review or two upon. I read labels but don’t get myself worked up when the word “soy” pops in there. I have heard enough stories about animals eating their own shit and tiny cages that deform their feet and I am supportive of measures that will prevent animal cruelty and not abuse factory workers but I’m beginning to wonder if some people are basing their outrage on the idea that they will be saving Bessie the cow they petted for 5 minutes at a zoo once? Or that cows should freely romp in lush green valleys (hint: cows and green valleys don't mix)? All I’m saying is animals aren’t the cleanest. For example, eating poop and getting pooped on and rolling around in poop is kind of par for the course, although maybe in smaller quantities or something, I don’t know.
Will I become a gluten-free vegan? Not Likely. Though I admire those that can. In fact, I support the many people who are walking away completely from animal products, although the feeling after reading piece upon piece about this on various left-wingish news sites and blogs is...it’s kind of a privileged class that gets to decide what not to eat, you know? Suddenly the walls of my suburban landscape are feeling very small.
Also I remain skeptical of environmental-dooms-day talk. Perhaps I should get over this. But the first 5 years of my higher education curriculum was suffused with these kinds of articles/books/lectures. I was graded on conspiracy theories for godssakes. Believe in ‘em or else! Don't be ignorant! After years of this I came to work as a peon in a nonprofit environmental company and realized the nonprofit’s agenda was driven by crazy women (and they are mostly women, not that this is bad) and I thought: yaknow? Maybe I need to subscribe less to the world-on-fire idea.
This is evolved to the point today where I recognize that food processing is far from perfect and, just like everything else (as if this is a surprise), regulations are driven to a large part by profitability, and there always need to be checks and balances, so hooray for those who point out what’s wrong. But I loathe the idea that the government can do no right and they're all out trying to kill us and Bessie. I hate when someone gives an example of a regulation in Europe somewhere as a symbol of how America is so greedy and awful because in beautiful utopic Europe these sorts of decisions are made “to protect its people! Because they care!” but dude, no they do not any more than Americans do, it just doesn’t cost ‘em much when it comes to food regs. In fact, their environmental pollution laws are kind of shady and largely absent all in the name of jobs for the people. Go tour an industrial area in the south of France sometime and sniff the unregulated rivers that run straight into the Mediterranean, and then come tell me whether or not the EPA is totally doing it wrong.
This is really funny that I’ve just regurgitated those paragraphs when, originally, I was thinking about writing something about how I hate preachy blogs. Haaaa, me. Wait, I’ll start a giveaway contest on here too, so then I can be a total blog-hater hypocrite!
ANYway, my original point, really the only one that I should be making here, is that the recent smattering of food-related entries should be doing me good – it should be testing my current dietary choices, challenging me to make healthier, more sustainable ones – but it actually has somewhat of the reverse effect, which is that right now I really want to go to Starbucks (evil corporate giant!) and buy a chocolate chip cookie (non vegan, loaded with Yellow #5, way too many empty calories) and a coffee (non-fair trade variety!) and now I’m paralyzed about whether to do so or not, and when life gets so bad that you’re not sure whether a cup of coffee and a cookie is a good idea or not it is time for a little positive reassurance or two.
If you’ve got some, I’d love to hear it.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
There's a picture of pigs dressed as tigers in this post.
Three antibiotic prescriptions, half a dozen doctor's visits and a $500 doctor bill later (cataclysmic insurance does not work with small kids), we are sort of climbing our way out of the pit of sickness and doom. Nothing like angry, sick, super needy children who do not sleep times two to make me really, really not mind the hours I have to put in at the office. Gah.
Anyway, I wanted to share this because it made me tear up, and that is hard to do when I'm not rockin' a hormone overload:
The story behind this goes (at least as far as the unsubtantiated email in my inbox goes, and even if it's totally false it makes a kind of neat story so I'm choosing to believe in it): A tiger birthed 3 premature cubs who all died. Upon not seeing her cubs after birth (they were whisked away to be saved, but didn't), the mother fell into a state of severe depression and vets were worried about her survival, so they looked high and low for surrogate tiger cubs. When there was none to be found, they got creative with the piglets. Doesn't that mom look happy? Aww. Poor mom.
Anyway, in unrelated news, Aiden has started solids. I remember Emily taking forever to accept solid food into her life, and for months it would just be a spoonful here, a spoonful there kind of thing, but Aiden has seemed interested in grownup people food for weeks. Finally I broke down and popped open a jar of carrot puree for him to try, and he ate up the 2 tablespoons that I fed him and he could have probably eaten half the jar, but instead I cut him off and made him drink boob milk after that. And then a day later we tried some oatmeal with breastmilk (I forgot about waiting 4 days or whenever for potential allergies to make themselves known, but whatever) and Aiden practically grabbed the spoon out of my hand and helped himself. Again I cut him off and made him eat some boob milk instead because the internet nutritionists tell me I should.
So this is all to say that there is not much "introducing" of the solids with Aiden, more of a "holding back the flood gates" with solids, which I'm sort of looking forward to, but then on the other hand, I just changed out his clothes from the 3-6 month to the 6-9 month set and we're already putting things in the basement never to be used again like the swing and the infant inserts of things and it all makes me kind of sad that he's growing up so damn fast.
So let's forget all that and look at that tiger picture again:
There. Aahhhhhhh.
Anyway, I wanted to share this because it made me tear up, and that is hard to do when I'm not rockin' a hormone overload:
The story behind this goes (at least as far as the unsubtantiated email in my inbox goes, and even if it's totally false it makes a kind of neat story so I'm choosing to believe in it): A tiger birthed 3 premature cubs who all died. Upon not seeing her cubs after birth (they were whisked away to be saved, but didn't), the mother fell into a state of severe depression and vets were worried about her survival, so they looked high and low for surrogate tiger cubs. When there was none to be found, they got creative with the piglets. Doesn't that mom look happy? Aww. Poor mom.
Anyway, in unrelated news, Aiden has started solids.
So this is all to say that there is not much "introducing" of the solids with Aiden, more of a "holding back the flood gates" with solids, which I'm sort of looking forward to, but then on the other hand, I just changed out his clothes from the 3-6 month to the 6-9 month set and we're already putting things in the basement never to be used again like the swing and the infant inserts of things and it all makes me kind of sad that he's growing up so damn fast.
So let's forget all that and look at that tiger picture again:
There. Aahhhhhhh.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
My kid beats yours
Emily has been diagnosed with the flu AND walking pneumonia.
It totally does not get any better then that. Oh wait, it does! Because Aiden seems to be trying to maybe pop a tooth and has some upper respiratory phlemy thing going on too.
Close your eyes and picture how smoothly the night times are going around these parts.
I will now exit, leaving behind a small, chuckle-worthy image below, although in some senses it is sad, because you just know that that person votes in national elections, or is on the PTA, or is on your local HOA board, or at the very least, giving Americans a bad name over in various other continents.
It totally does not get any better then that. Oh wait, it does! Because Aiden seems to be trying to maybe pop a tooth and has some upper respiratory phlemy thing going on too.
Close your eyes and picture how smoothly the night times are going around these parts.
I will now exit, leaving behind a small, chuckle-worthy image below, although in some senses it is sad, because you just know that that person votes in national elections, or is on the PTA, or is on your local HOA board, or at the very least, giving Americans a bad name over in various other continents.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Halloween III: the princess' revenge
Somewhere around mid-September Emily announced that she would like to be Nemo for Halloween. Okay, I said, although I secretly wondered if Nemo costumes were still being made (I do not sew, even if I had the time to). But by October 1st or so, she'd decided she would rather be Thomas the Train. Her obsession with Thomas has been longer and heartier (for lack of a better word) than Nemo, so I was not surprised. Also I rejoiced because Thomas costumes are abundantly available. But Thomas was soon supplanted by Bolt, and can you tell we let her watch too much TV? And since Bolt costumes were sure to be non-existent, I actually started making the ears and tail, and started to think maybe this costume thing was going to work out. But sometime last week when we were casually playing in her room I said to her,
"Are you ready to be Bolt for Halloween?" and she replied,
"No mom, I'm not going to be Bolt. I am going to be a princess for Halloween."
Uh, what? This took me by complete surprise. Emily does not own any princess items, save a single princess hand-me-down dress that has been hanging at the back of her closet since we got it. I'm pretty sure Emily had no idea it was there. So I have no idea where this princess thing came from. I can only guess some little girl at school announced that she was going to be a princess for Halloween and Emily decided that would be a good idea, whatever "princess" meant.
As much as I tried to play up the half-baked Bolt costume I'd finished making or a Thomas the Train figure instead, the princess idea held. On Halloween, we brought out the princess dress and she was thusly transformed:
[pic removed]
Aiden, still immune to commerical exploitation of children, was dressed as a chili pepper, although it was super cold the day we tried to take pictures:
[pic removed]
And so the princess and the chili pepper had a pretty good Halloween weekend, I think, except for all the waking up in the middle of the night by BOTH of them (too much sugar? illnesses? rebellious streak?), and you know what's amusing? Fighting with your spouse at 2 in the morning. Teh awesome.
Anyway, Halloween is past now, thank goodness, and hopefully with it the whole princess thing. I guess I don't mind a princess dress here or there, but I feel like it can be a slippery slope, what with all the princess advertisements so easily accessible to a pre-schooler. It could quickly morph into the princess attitude and obsession with jewelry, prince charming and glitter. I'm not prepared for that. Is anyone?
"Are you ready to be Bolt for Halloween?" and she replied,
"No mom, I'm not going to be Bolt. I am going to be a princess for Halloween."
Uh, what? This took me by complete surprise. Emily does not own any princess items, save a single princess hand-me-down dress that has been hanging at the back of her closet since we got it. I'm pretty sure Emily had no idea it was there. So I have no idea where this princess thing came from. I can only guess some little girl at school announced that she was going to be a princess for Halloween and Emily decided that would be a good idea, whatever "princess" meant.
As much as I tried to play up the half-baked Bolt costume I'd finished making or a Thomas the Train figure instead, the princess idea held. On Halloween, we brought out the princess dress and she was thusly transformed:
[pic removed]
Aiden, still immune to commerical exploitation of children, was dressed as a chili pepper, although it was super cold the day we tried to take pictures:
[pic removed]
And so the princess and the chili pepper had a pretty good Halloween weekend, I think, except for all the waking up in the middle of the night by BOTH of them (too much sugar? illnesses? rebellious streak?), and you know what's amusing? Fighting with your spouse at 2 in the morning. Teh awesome.
Anyway, Halloween is past now, thank goodness, and hopefully with it the whole princess thing. I guess I don't mind a princess dress here or there, but I feel like it can be a slippery slope, what with all the princess advertisements so easily accessible to a pre-schooler. It could quickly morph into the princess attitude and obsession with jewelry, prince charming and glitter. I'm not prepared for that. Is anyone?
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Halloween? Or Christmas?
You decide. Eight inches yesterday and more coming down today. I feel like making Christmas cookies.
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