Sick Baby part Deux

And now it's become an ear infection so we have been charged with squirting .5 tsp of nasty pink antibiotics into his mouth twice a day. I really hope this stuff doesn't stain because Calder is responding to being dosed by spitting that shite right in my face. He breathing has started to clear up though which is nice because now I can stop dreaming that there is some sort of sex pervert calling me on the phone every night. Seriously, coming over the baby monitor, Calder sounds like a cross between Darth Vader and said phone pervert. It's scary. I have had to turn it off in order to sleep undisturbed. I figure if he's really in trouble, he'll scream loud enough to be heard without the monitor. In other news, Calder was weighed at the doctor's office and is now up to 15 lbs, 4 oz. Soon he'll weigh more than Molson. And then we can make them fight.

Sick Baby

So when I mentioned before that Calder was sick I wasn't kidding. Even I didn't realize how sick he was going to get. For a week now he's been all boogery and coughing but yesterday he started to scare me. He was completely out of sorts, screaming and not sleeping, randomly slumping over and dropping off to sleep. He got runny poops and then his temperature shot up to 102.4. Of course 102 is the magic number that Dr. Merens had given me earlier when I emailed to ask her what could be done for Calder. Since this was a Saturday night I called the emergency on-call doctor. Now, I have never made a phone call like this before so I wasn't really sure what I was suppose to say to begin with. Combine that with my panic because I think Calder's brain is boiling inside of his tiny skull, I am fairly certain when the doctor answered my page I yelled, "My baby's sick!" into the phone and scared the hell out of the poor man. Once I calmed down enough to relay Calder's symptoms, the doctor just told me to give Calder baby Tylenol and keep an eye on him. If he didn't get any better we were to run him on down to Children's post haste. After a long, long night of dosing the monster every three hours, his fever seems to be down under 100 and he isn't listless and droopy anymore. He's back to being mad as hell and hating me so I think I can say that Calder is well on his way to recovery.

Tres Meses

Calder turned three months old today. I cannot really believe it has been that long although every minute he screams feels like an eternity. Happy baby time flies by but Crabby McScreamapillar lasts FOREVER. Since the teeth started coming in and his recent cold started, Calder has been extremely pissy at night after daycare. From what I hear he's not his usual charming self there either. But I don't have to listen to that so, tough cookies Miss Kathy.

One surefire way to calm Calder down is to point him at our pseudo tv. Due to the limitations of speakers and cords and whatnot, the computer monitor that we have been using to watch the SlingBox is sitting on our coffee table. I guess the tv being that close finally caught Calder's attention. And he luurrrrvvves it. Like, maybe even more than me. Maybe even more than he loves the exercise bike and that is saying a lot. He doesn't even care what he's watching. BabyFirst TV or The Pussycat Dolls Present Girlicious. It does not matter. Yes, yes I know. He is too young to be watching television. It will ruin his brain and give him teh ADD. Fine. But why does it have to work so well? Why can't reading books distract him from a snotty nose and gum pain? I don't know why but they don't. TV calms me down too and I turned out fine. Then again, I let my three month old son watch singing and dancing skanks on the CW so my definition of fine may be different than some. I try to keep it educational when he is really paying attention to the screen so we have spent a few hours watching the aforementioned BabyFirst TV. Let me just say that that channel is mind-meltingly stupid. It's commercial free programming composed of five minute shows and learning segments. It's like watching bits of the Teletubbies but without the awesome production values. From what I have seen there are people in this country making television shows for infants in their basements because no studio could possibly putting this crap out.

One show that caught my attention is Bunnytown on Playhouse Disney. Let me tell you, that shit is B-A-N-A-N-A-S. An episode seems to consist of sketches and scenes performed by puppet bunnies, the residents of the namesake Bunnytown. The skits are all kind of rando and not really linked together but one just totally blew the crap outta my mind. A bunny is sitting in his bathtub playing with his rubber duckies or whatever when all of a sudden, one by one, a marching band comes out of his bath tub drain and starts marching around the bathroom and at the end of the skit, the bathing bunny gets out and marches with them. There is no dialog, no explanation, just marching bath bunnies. It freaked me right the hell out. This shit is for kids? Is the Disney empire trying to give our children PTSD? If children are our future, our future is going to be run by a population with the mental stability of your average VA hospital. Perhaps letting Calder watch Top Model isn't so bad after all.

Happy St. Pat's!

The little leprechaun has his first real illness, not just a bitty little cold like before. He is very snuffly and congested sounding, even in his chest. Poor guy. I wish I could teach him to cough up all the phlegm that is plaguing him but at the moment he only has his reflexes to count on. But despite his raging germ infested body, he is still cute!

My Boobs Are Sick

Technically only one of these dirty pillows are sick, the other just seems to be suffering from a general state of ennui. As I have previously mentioned I came down with mastitis, a disease of the ol' tatters. A better, euphemism for boobs-free description can be found at WebMD:

Mastitis is a breast inflammation usually caused by infection. It can happen to any woman, although mastitis is most common during the first 6 months of breast-feeding....

....Mastitis usually starts as a painful area in one breast. It may be red or warm to the touch, or both. You may also have fever, chills, and body aches....

....Signs that mastitis is getting worse include swollen, painful lymph nodes in the armpit next to the infected breast, a fast heart rate, and flu-like symptoms that get worse. Mastitis can lead to a breast abscess, which feels like a hard, painful lump.

Painful boob, yup. Fever, indeed. Chills, certainly. And oh, god the aches. I was completely miserable for almost the entire weekend, finally feeling well enough to leave the house on Sunday for softball and even that energy was wasted because we friggin lost. The only thing that kept me from asking Bruce to hold a pillow to my face was fake-Advil, sweet, sweet fake-Advil. Fake-Advil helped the aches and took the fever and chills away. I want to kiss fake-Advil on the mouth right now. I bet you thought I was going to say Calder was what helped me keep it together. Not a chance. The mastitis is his fault to begin with, why would he make me feel better? What would really make me feel better would be hitting my tv with a very big hammer but I will not do that because I am an adult and I should act like one. Well for now until the Slingbox stops working and adult or no, mom to a baby or no, that tv is going down like a two dollar whore. Calder is going to grow up wondering why his mother is completely insane. I will tell him not to worry. It's not his fault, it's those damn electronic picture boxes and dishamacleaners.

I will try to hold it together for Calder's sake as long as I can. That little kiddo has his own damn troubles now anyway. At the tender age of nearly three months, Calder is starting to sprout his first teeth. Yes, that would be almost three months, not the six months when this usually happens. I have been suspecting that he was teething for a little while now what with the constant drooling and then last week I felt his lower gums and there seemed to be hard spots. Although I had a strong suspicion about what was going I was hesitant to say anything until I was sure because I didn't want to be Crazy "My Child is so Advanced" Mom. I am pretty close to that already so I don't need to make is worse and be wrong to boot. Then I'd look like an ass.Well, more of an ass than usual. Well now I am positive. Today daycare reported that he had been a giant crabapple and that he seemed like he had a small fever, they even took his temp to make sure he was ok. After hearing all that I immediately re-checked his gums when I got home and sure enough, in one of the lower front spaces, there is a small white spot showing and it feels pretty sharp to th touch. Super. How do you deal with a teething baby who hasn't even developed the motor skills to hold the teething toys up to his mouth? Hell, how do you deal with a teething baby who hasn't even learned how to chew on stuff yet? I can tell he wants to chew on stuff but after mouthing on something for a bit he always reverts back to the good old sucking reflex which I assume doesn't do much to help his poor little mouth.

Bad Weekend

I have mastitis and my tv is broken. This weekend suxxxxxxxx.

You Can't Touch This

Babies just don't get more adorable than this. They just don't.


Seriously people, you can just stop trying. This is the cutest baby in the history of forever. See?

What? You still think you can take him? Fine. I guess I have to go nuclear on your asses.


Put your guns away people. This war is over.

First Day of "School"

Today was Calder's first day of daycare! Wooooooooooooo, I can now go broke comfortable in the knowledge that someone other than my dog is looking after the boy. Although he seemed to be a bit overwhelmed by the experience (he didn't really sleep all day) Calder apparently enjoyed his first day at Swift. Of course not sleeping at all made him a Major Mr. Crabbypants but Miss Kathy (pictured above) said he was a fun fussy. Whatever the hell that means. What I think it means is that Calder is so damn cute it doesn't matter if he spends the day screaming directly into your earhole because all you want to do is smush his lil' cheekums. Make that big cheekums. Combine those with his double chin and that baby has got a lot of face. Like a lot a lot. He will never learn to sit upright because his face will continue to succumb to the forces of gravity for a long, long time.

Speaking of face, anything that ends up in his rudimentary grasp goes straight into it. Fortunately, he is still not so hot at applying the mechanics of opposable thumbs so I have some time to develop my mom reflexes some more. He did catch me off guard on Saturday morning though. I was taking advantage of the cats' catatonic (See what I did there?) states to get them a little more comfortable with having the baby in close proximity. I was holding Calder's hand an making him pet Molson nicely when he snatched a chunk of fur straight outta Momo's back and shoved it directly in his mouth. I already worry about how much cat hair Calder in ingesting due to the generally filthy nature of our apartment but now he's developed a taste and is straight-up mainlining it. Pretty soon I will be finding bald spots on Sam and Molson and Calder will be sitting in his swing, jonesing for his next fix. Eventually, I will have to send Calder away to catfurhab to detox. At least that should be coveed by health insurance and I can stop paying for daycare and go back to being only slightly poor.

He's Okay

Well his head is anyway, not sure about the rest of him. We got a call from the doctor saying that there was no sign of a fracture so now we just have to wait for the bump to go away on its own. So the boy will have to live with being deformed for a few more months but at least he doesn't need to a helmet.