Stomach Bug- January 2017

James got the evil stomach bug that's been going through all the schools and the whole town. He started puking right after his bedtime on Saturday and I stayed up with him all Saturday night while he was sick. So obviously, then it hit me Sunday afternoon. And then, Kevin got it Sunday late night. Poor Kevin still had to go to work.

Sunday sick day.

Lots of mom love

I'm down next. Miranda tried to comfort me and James, but she was fine.

Poor Kevin! Father-daughter nap.

Stomach Bug Hits Hard 2014

Warning: This posts has a lot of vomit. If you have a weak stomach, don't read it.

As some background info, ever since Daylight Saving's time, James has been getting up earlier and earlier, and has returned to his early toddler bed habit of walking into our room to chat. He ruins our sleep and then falls asleep for nap in the afternoon if he's too tired, so he doesn't care.

Tuesday
On Tuesday morning, James kept us up from 4:30 to 5:30. So when James asked me for strawberries and grapes approximately 500 million times, I wasn't exactly in a zen place. But I explained to him we didn't have any and even showed him the inside of the refrigerator. James is not so spoiled that I ran out and got him strawberries that day, but he is spoiled enough that Kevin brought them home that night after work.

Being up all night doesn't bother him- he can take a nap any time!

Wednesday
On Wednesday, shortly after I got up, Kevin briefly put his coffee down on the bathroom sink because he was going to shower while I had breakfast with James. James ran right over to the coffee cup and spilled it on everything in the bathroom. He got time out and we started the day mopping up everything.

My 36-week doctor's appointment was uneventful, but Kevin took James to a bookstore, so for the first time I enjoyed the quiet solitude of a medical exam like it was another babymoon. It was lucky actually that I chose this appointment not to bring James, because he was probably pretty infectious so I spared a bunch of pregnant women from catching his bug.

At snacktime, I gave him a big bowl of half grapes and half strawberries. He's old enough that he picks the grapes off the stems no problem, so I assumed he'd pluck the leaves off the strawberries too. Not so much. So I told him not to eat the leaves, and he responded, "But leaves are yummy." Oh-kay.

So I started making a dinner I thought Kevin would particularly enjoy: Five-Spice Hanger Steaks with Stir-Fried Brown Rice. I was feeling really fancy, but it was clear that James was already not feeling so great. I asked him if he felt okay, and he said his tummy hurt, and I suggested the strawberry leaves were to blame. He huddled under some couch cushions and watched cartoons with a glum look on his face. I appreciated that I could actually cook without him pestering me in the kitchen though so I went back to that- when I started a grease fire. James didn't even bat an eye to the fire alarm. I stopped the fire and called Kevin down to turn off the alarm.

I had only gone back to cooking for a few minutes when James puked all over the couch. I was totally unprepared and had nothing to mitigate it at all. I called Kevin back down to help. It took us both a long time to clean up James and the living room. Including giving James a bath. Kevin then took him upstairs in his pajamas so he could finish some work and I could finish dinner. I sent them up with a bucket "just in case" but I think think was a rookie parenting mistake on our part. We thought he'd puked from overeating or eating the strawberry leaves so we thought he probably wouldn't puke again.

So while I resumed cooking dinner, James puked all over Kevin and the upstairs bedroom. This time, we rinsed James a little, and then I held him under kitchen-arrest while Kevin cleaned the upstairs and brought down everything that needed to be washed.

I had just finished serving dinner. Just finished. When James tried to escape so I picked him up. He puked all over me. We both had to shower.

Dinner was now cold, but Kevin ate his quickly, gathered the laundry and went off to the laundromat. That's right, we're having a second kid and we don't even have a washing machine. Sigh.  I put James to bed with a bucket and towels nearby.

Our cold dinner- Five-spice steaks with stir fry brown rice (not a picture of mine)

Thursday
James woke up relatively happy. We took it easy all day, but the fact that he didn't get sick again lent weight to our theory that he'd overeaten the day before.

James coloring with crayons and a coloring book Chrissy sent.

Friday
Everything was okay until Kevin left to go to Manhattan to sign books at his publisher's and watch the NCAA UVA v. Michigan State game at Madison Square Garden.

 

Kevin's view

I put James to bed, relaxed a little, and became exhausted super early. I went to bed and pretty much as soon as I was comfortable, I was up again throwing up. Since I've been throwing up a little here and there in my 3rd trimester, I thought nothing of it at first. But three pukes in, it hit me-- James had a stomach bug and I caught it. Nonetheless, I was still feeling pretty positive since James had recovered so fast that I'd power through it. Nope, I spent all night sick. This is not fun in the best of circumstances but when you're 9 moths pregnant and can't bend- and need more hydration than usual- disaster. I started having contractions. I downloaded a little contractions app on my iPhone and noted they were getting closer together and and longer.  I tried to sleep but I was a mess and had to keep getting up to throw up more.

Saturday
I was dying. I waited until James woke up (kind of a mistake since it took a while to reach the doctor) called my doctor's office, and as expected they told me to come into the hospital. They kept me waiting so long in admissions that I warned them I might throw up. They gave me a little pink puke pan and continued their slow paperwork. When they finished they took me in a wheel chair to labor and delivery triage. By then, the baby monitor machine showed that my contractions were 4 minutes apart. They told us we'd have to be there all day, and James was already being a pain so Kevin took him to Lukas and Sarah's and then came back. (James had a great day- more on that later.)

 

I was SO thirsty, and I couldn't drink anything. I was so desperate for the IV. It felt like forever and a day. It took them three tries to get the IV in my arm (I thought of dad). Finally by 9:30 a.m. the IV was in. But it's funny how when your worst symptom is under control, you move right along to worrying about the next. I was so queasy, and the doctors told me I would get Zofran to help. After the IV, I asked about the Zofran, and there was some confusion. First the nurse asked me who had said I was getting that, then when I asked again she said it wasn't in from the hospital pharmacy yet, finally they admitted the doctor had never called it in. But I am used to this sort of thing at hospitals; I have my stripes. (The nurse even asked if I was a nurse when she caught me reading my lab work.)

I finally got the Zofran at 11 am. I felt a lot better at first, then it wore off a bit. One problem was that I mainly felt better when I was sitting up, but they didn't want to let me do that because the the baby's heart rate would drop on the monitor. Lying down felt awful. Then I threw up water everywhere - the nurse did a very half-hearted job of cleaning it up. But then I really did start feeling better, and after a quick check-up they released me. After I got home the bug really didn't bother me anymore.

Though I feel horrible today and I'm not sure if it's leftovers of the norovirus, or just pregnancy rearing its cruel head. Oh well, 23 days to go.

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #7: End of Roadtrip

Nobody asked James if he wanted to go on a two-and-a-half-week road trip, which is probably for the best because if he were asked, the answer unambiguously would have been "no." Since the only words James knows are "mamamamamamama" and "ohohohohoh" (as sung to the New Kids on the Block's "The Right Stuff"), he responded to this unasked question in the method he knows best: puking all over everything in the car.

But we made it a long time before we reached this point! More specifically, we made it to the drive from Kentucky to Cincinnati. James had already been to several hundred states and probably a few planets by then, so we can't hold it against him. He even gave us a warning, which led to my pulling off the highway in search of the Golden Arches. (Based on this trip, my wife could write another blog titled "McDonalds We Disgraced," though I don't know what kind of readership she should expect.) Before anyone so much as lowered a Koala Kare, however, we had the following exchange:

Her: Don't stop. I just want to get there.
Me: Are you sure?
Her: Yes.
Me: Are you positive?
Her: Go!
Me: Okay, but--
James: (vomits on himself, my wife, the carseat, the backseat, all of the windows, the ceiling, the notion of future road trips, my wife's sanity, my ability to form words) MAMAMAMAMAMAMA

At this point, we had two hours to go. We would have considered getting a hotel or sleeping under the highway, but Jason had acquired excellent seats to the Reds game. Unfortunately, I can't relay any more information about getting to Cincinnati because I had it permanently erased from my memory. Sorry!

James's expression conveys his feelings on this matter

The next 48 hours were fun and only a little pukey. Then we had the twelve-hour drive from Cincinnati to Long Island.

James was REALLY finished by this point. He went to sleep in the car early but he made no promises. When I pulled over to get gas, he woke up and never went back to sleep. As in, he's awake now, staring at me with a look that says, You did this to me. Look, I didn't mean to, James. I just wanted to expose you to experiences that have no chance of registering in your long-term memory. Does that make me a bad father? (James's tired look confirms that it does.)

Need I say that we did not make it home? We stopped at a Super 8 hotel where the following things happened: (1) I transported two-hundred pounds of luggage into the room, (2) James didn't fall asleep for ninety minutes, (3) James woke up four hours after he kind of fell asleep, (4) We all drove half a mile to Dunkin' Donuts, where James commenced crying and there was no coffee large enough. The last five hours included two diners and James basically giving up as we drove over the George Washington Bridge into New York. In unrelated news, he was sick for five days.

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #6: Mt. Jackson, VA 2012

James hates being in the car. While this is not a singular hatred, it is a strong one. He will reluctantly tolerate the car during nap-time or bed-time, but during any other time, he views the car as an affront to his God-given right to stumble around, before smashing his head into something. If the car seat allowed James to smash his head into something, he would only hate being in the car as much as he hates being told he can't eat a cardboard box. Eating boxes, he loves.

In no particular order, James's favorite things to eat are sweet potatoes, whatever is on your plate, books, bananas, and cardboard boxes.

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How James looks when he is displeased

We had a good idea for my Spring Break. The good idea was seeing our friends in DC and Virginia, which my wife has written several thousand posts about in the past 36 hours. The bad idea was coming back to New York.

We got as far as the Shenandoah Valley, which is not far at all, when James realized what a bad idea his parents had dreamed up: eight hours in a car, many of which would happen before bedtime? And that's the best-case scenario? No, James said. At his urging, we stopped in a Virginia town nobody has heard of, whose biggest green space consisted of a thin strip of grass between a busy street and active train tracks. I was willing to see how this played out, but my wife thought we could do better. In this instance, better consisted of a vineyard many miles out of the way that was closed.

Mount Jackson, Virginia

To be fair, there was no way of knowing the vineyard was closed, but James didn't see it that way. We weren't a mile from the abandoned parking lot when James offered every last drop of the two bottles he'd consumed, as well as several cheerios, as his counter to our vineyard jaunt. I pulled off the road onto a very rocky driveway. I stepped out of the car, and my wife handed me James. He looked like he'd been attacked by a fire extinguisher. He looked he was having a bad time at a foam party. The only place he didn't have vomit was inside his veins. When I put him on a flat stone to change him, he rolled into the red Virginia dirt.

Did I anticipate that eleven months into fatherhood I would be scraping vomit out of velcro shoes in a West Virginia Chick-fil-a? I did not. Yet this is what I was doing. I would like to say that things got better, and it's true that this was the nadir of our trip, but things didn't get THAT much better. James never forgave us, I was tired with hours to go, and my wife was wearing a tremendous amount of regurgitated Similac.

Spring Break woo!

Diary of an Angry Pink Baby #3: Montauk, NY 2011

Since James was born on Long Island, I figured he should take in some Long Island sights. Unfortunately, most of those sights are shopping malls, so I chose the tallest sight. Montauk had the added bonus of being farthest away, so as to maximize the things that could go wrong between here and there.

Oh, the things that went wrong!

For a while, James enjoyed riding in cars, but that was before he transitioned to his current state, where he hates everything. As cars are part of everything, James hates cars. As of this last car ride, these posts should be renamed "Diary of an Angry Red Baby with Tears Streaking Down His Cheeks." When we stopped for the second time, Ericka held up James, not so I could hold him or help in some way, but so I could see his color, which is a color normally associated with firetrucks. James cries so much in cars, I just ask one question from the driver's seat, which is whether he's red or yellow.

Ericka is the one who offers wisdom, but I will add one thing based on today, which I encourage new parents to take EXTREMELY seriously: nothing is fun with a crying baby in a confined space. If we were at a Flaming Lips concert with James in the car today, it would not have been fun. If we were at Game 7 of the World Series with James in the car today, it would not have been fun. If we were Spanish explorers seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time with James in the car today, it would not have been fun.

We wanted to do two things: eat a lobster roll and see a lighthouse. This took eight hours.

By the time we got the lobster roll, all three of us were covered in sweat. The only other person at the restaurant told her friend--in front of our table--that she was sitting as far away as possible. The waitress commented that James was well-behaved, a comment she took back thirty minutes later when she observed that he really liked to be held. I meant to tell her that he doesn't like anything, but he immediately threw up all over the following things: his neck, his bib, his infant bodysuit, my hand, my soul. Ericka went to the bathroom to wash her hands, which I understood to mean weep quietly over the sink.

At Montauk Cafe (9 weeks + 6 days)

The lighthouse was covered in fog. It cost nine dollars each to get close enough to see it. We did not see the lighthouse.

Did I mention that we'd been wearing our bathing suits all this time? In my original vision of this trip, we'd zoom out to Montauk, enjoy a leisurely lobster roll outdoors where James couldn't bother anyone, admire an architectural feat, and then I'd body surf while my wife cheered at my physical prowess and my son began to want to emulate me. Nobody stepped in the water. It was just another thing we couldn't see from the place where the lighthouse was supposed to be.

The ride back was uneventful, except that James insisted--for the first time in his life--on eating hourly. Ericka assured me that this is entirely normal, and that if I read "babycenter," I would know this. The sad thing is I DO read "babycenter." The rhetoric isn't exactly to the level of the Lincoln-Douglas debates on "babycenter." Most of the spelling is purely speculative. But I'm thinking about getting active on the forums. Lying is implicitly encouraged, so James should be considerably less red there.

Foggy Lighthouse behind a fence