Cooper has been suffering from an unknown mild illness since Wednesday morning. Mysteriously, it has only had a few symptoms, of which most are tightly related. He ran a fever, topping out at 104 at one point, on and off for 3 and a half days. As always happens when he's fevery, he also didn't really want to eat, slept poorly, and was crabby. I consider these things all one entity, because that is his pattern when he runs a fever.
On the day (yesterday) that was the first one without fevers, he broke out into a subtle pick spotty rash over much of his body. Today the rash is really faint and doesn't appear to bother him at all.
Around Christmas Cooper had a somewhat similar illness. Fever, weird rash, etc. When I called the doctor she asked me a bunch of questions and then concluded that he has one of the million unnamed viruses that babies get, and unless he got worse or I felt something was wrong and he deserved a really close inspection, we should just wait it out and try to keep him happy. This time I didn't even bother with the phone call- and now that he's happily running around, screaming Doggie, in the front yard while dappled with a light rash I figure it was the right decision.
It does make me wonder though- what are these little viruses he gets? Where do they come from? Are they from eating dirt? Licking the shopping cart handle at Costco? Chewing on muddy wood chips at the playground? I know that they probably make him healthier in the long run, but I'm still curious (and they still stink when you have a sad feverish kid on your hands).
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Welcome Vivian!
My sister had her second daughter on Friday morning. Vivian Rose R., 9lbs 12oz, healthy girl! It is so very exciting. I'm really thrilled for her.
I've already seen some pictures and I think that Vivian looks just like her older sister, Eleanor. Both are cute as can be, and look mostly like their dad.
On a totally unrelated note, I did a little math today after reading a tragic article in the New York Times. Did you know that just about 1500 women die EVERY DAY in childbirth or as a result of pregnancy? Half of those deaths are in Africa. 1500 a day. One of the women profiled in the article died from something very minor- that happened to me, exactly as described in the article. In her case, the untrained midwife failed to do the right thing to fix it, and this little thing killed her. In my case, it was such a minor occurrence that it was not considered at all life threatening to me or to my child. To fix it, no special equipment or medicine was needed, it didn't hurt, and it wasn't even recorded on my medical chart. In essence- this is trivial and unimportant if you are lucky, deadly if you are a poor woman in Africa. A sobering thought.
I've already seen some pictures and I think that Vivian looks just like her older sister, Eleanor. Both are cute as can be, and look mostly like their dad.
On a totally unrelated note, I did a little math today after reading a tragic article in the New York Times. Did you know that just about 1500 women die EVERY DAY in childbirth or as a result of pregnancy? Half of those deaths are in Africa. 1500 a day. One of the women profiled in the article died from something very minor- that happened to me, exactly as described in the article. In her case, the untrained midwife failed to do the right thing to fix it, and this little thing killed her. In my case, it was such a minor occurrence that it was not considered at all life threatening to me or to my child. To fix it, no special equipment or medicine was needed, it didn't hurt, and it wasn't even recorded on my medical chart. In essence- this is trivial and unimportant if you are lucky, deadly if you are a poor woman in Africa. A sobering thought.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Lesson learned
If your son sees you putting his treasured blanket into the washing machine, and you let him stand in front of the washer-window as it starts spinning and filling with soapy water, you will create a tantrum of seismic proportions. A tragic, horrible, screaming, tears streaming down his chubby cheeks, clawing at the window to rescue his blanket, tantrum. I'm pretty sure Cooper won't ever forgive me for washing his blanket while he was a witness. And really, I deserve it. To him, it was like I was drowning a puppy or something.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Slide!
Cooper loves the slides at our favorite playgrounds. At the playground nearest to our house, he can climb all seven stairs, get onto the nice wide platform on the top, turn himself around, and gently slide down. All by himself! He goes down the slide belly down, feet down and arches his back just a little so that his chin doesn't smear the slide on the way down. The bonus to that is you can see his wild grinning all the way down.
I am so proud of him for being able to climb up, get in the right position, and slide down all by himself. Not to mention that it makes my life really easy. All I do is keep a close eye on him while he's climbing the stairs. The slide platform is about four and a half feet up, so by the time he gets to the top step he's pretty well up there.
He also likes the giant big kid slide, which even I find a bit intimidating. This slide is probably a solid twenty feet tall, and I assure you it was built far, far before any sort of child safety measures existed for such things. It is all stainless steel, narrow, and steeper than most slides. The steps that go up the back are almost twice as high as they are deep, so it is more like climbing a poorly designed ladder than climbing stairs. It gets hotter than hell in the summer. Cooper loves to climb this slide, which he is only allowed to do under extremely close supervision. He gets all twenty feet up in the air, at which point Matt or I pick him up off the top step, get onto the platform, and then slide down with him on our lap. He then immediately runs over to the back of the slide and starts scaling it again. He's so fast that if I walk from the bottom of the slide, I catch up to him at about the fourth or fifth rung- when he's already at least 4 feet off the ground.
He is utterly fearless.
I am so proud of him for being able to climb up, get in the right position, and slide down all by himself. Not to mention that it makes my life really easy. All I do is keep a close eye on him while he's climbing the stairs. The slide platform is about four and a half feet up, so by the time he gets to the top step he's pretty well up there.
He also likes the giant big kid slide, which even I find a bit intimidating. This slide is probably a solid twenty feet tall, and I assure you it was built far, far before any sort of child safety measures existed for such things. It is all stainless steel, narrow, and steeper than most slides. The steps that go up the back are almost twice as high as they are deep, so it is more like climbing a poorly designed ladder than climbing stairs. It gets hotter than hell in the summer. Cooper loves to climb this slide, which he is only allowed to do under extremely close supervision. He gets all twenty feet up in the air, at which point Matt or I pick him up off the top step, get onto the platform, and then slide down with him on our lap. He then immediately runs over to the back of the slide and starts scaling it again. He's so fast that if I walk from the bottom of the slide, I catch up to him at about the fourth or fifth rung- when he's already at least 4 feet off the ground.
He is utterly fearless.
Plenty of babies in town
Two of my friends had babies last week. Wow!
Welcome Oliver Isadore D.! Nicknamed Ollie, born on Thursday. Looks just like his dad, is sleeping well, and got home from the hospital on Saturday morning. Yay!
Welcome Miles H. G.! Born to one of Matt's fellow grad students- she went into labor a few hours after formally graduating and had Miles at 5am the next morning. This is a kid with a good sense of timing, to be sure. Lucky mom not only has all of her family in town, and had the baby the day after graduating, but also had a successful home birth. Talk about a good weekend!
I'm so excited for everyone. I need to go make muffins or something.
Welcome Oliver Isadore D.! Nicknamed Ollie, born on Thursday. Looks just like his dad, is sleeping well, and got home from the hospital on Saturday morning. Yay!
Welcome Miles H. G.! Born to one of Matt's fellow grad students- she went into labor a few hours after formally graduating and had Miles at 5am the next morning. This is a kid with a good sense of timing, to be sure. Lucky mom not only has all of her family in town, and had the baby the day after graduating, but also had a successful home birth. Talk about a good weekend!
I'm so excited for everyone. I need to go make muffins or something.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Four things
The bruise on his face isn't spectacular, but it is noticeable. It is about what you'd expect from a kid falling hard and fast, face first, onto a hardwood floor. Nice and round and purple, just under his eye.
On Saturday morning, something clicked in Cooper's head and he now knows how to do "High 5." He's great at it! He puts his hand right up to yours and grins broadly. Very charming. Matt apparently has been working on this for about a month- I did not know that- and so Matt is feeling very proud of himself for successfully teaching Cooper a cool baby trick.
I'm sad to report that Cooper has officially grown out of his totally awesome car shoes. His little booties with cute tiny red cars on them were getting pretty tight in the last few weeks, and finally yesterday I noticed that he had started to wear holes in the toes. Fortunately, I bought a really great pair of very cool shoes on super-ultra-clearance ($8 for a $40 pair of shoes! Score!) in his next size, sometime maybe two or three weeks ago. I pulled them out on Sunday, thinking of course that they'd be comically too big, and instead they fit pretty well with ample room in the toe. Farewell adorable little car zip-up boots! Hello brown leather sneakers with awesome red flames and racing stripes!
Lastly, Cooper's climbing skills have dramatically, and dangerously, improved in the last few days. He now can very quickly hoist himself onto the kitchen chairs, the coffee table, the footrest in his bedroom, the adirondack chairs on the deck, and perhaps most alarmingly, up onto the baby gate at the base of the stairs. Once on a surface, he immediately stands up. This means that in the last day I've already found him walking casually across the top of the coffee table, standing on a kitchen chair while leaning over to grab a large glass of water from the table, and one or two other gut-dropping unsafe maneuvers. It is amazing and scary. His last frontier will be the couch and chair in the living room, which are about one inch too high for him right now. I bet he'll figure it out in another week or so. Yikes!
On Saturday morning, something clicked in Cooper's head and he now knows how to do "High 5." He's great at it! He puts his hand right up to yours and grins broadly. Very charming. Matt apparently has been working on this for about a month- I did not know that- and so Matt is feeling very proud of himself for successfully teaching Cooper a cool baby trick.
I'm sad to report that Cooper has officially grown out of his totally awesome car shoes. His little booties with cute tiny red cars on them were getting pretty tight in the last few weeks, and finally yesterday I noticed that he had started to wear holes in the toes. Fortunately, I bought a really great pair of very cool shoes on super-ultra-clearance ($8 for a $40 pair of shoes! Score!) in his next size, sometime maybe two or three weeks ago. I pulled them out on Sunday, thinking of course that they'd be comically too big, and instead they fit pretty well with ample room in the toe. Farewell adorable little car zip-up boots! Hello brown leather sneakers with awesome red flames and racing stripes!
Lastly, Cooper's climbing skills have dramatically, and dangerously, improved in the last few days. He now can very quickly hoist himself onto the kitchen chairs, the coffee table, the footrest in his bedroom, the adirondack chairs on the deck, and perhaps most alarmingly, up onto the baby gate at the base of the stairs. Once on a surface, he immediately stands up. This means that in the last day I've already found him walking casually across the top of the coffee table, standing on a kitchen chair while leaning over to grab a large glass of water from the table, and one or two other gut-dropping unsafe maneuvers. It is amazing and scary. His last frontier will be the couch and chair in the living room, which are about one inch too high for him right now. I bet he'll figure it out in another week or so. Yikes!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
That's gonna leave a mark
My home office is upstairs, and I can faintly hear whatever is going on downstairs while I work. I can hear crying, laughing, stomping, and other loud noises fairly well.
Today, I was hard at work while below me, I could hear Cooper and Nicole having a lot of fun. The sound of a toddler running back and forth, punctuated by loud shrieks of glee, indicated that Nicole was probably chasing and tickling him, if I had to guess. He was clearly having a blast. And then, I heard, "THUD" and then, of course, wailing. Loud, hurt wailing. More wailing, and then sniffles and Nicole's calming voice "You are OK, poor guy, you are OK..." Maybe five minutes later, Cooper was back in action- yelling "Doggie!" and banging on pots and pans. I didn't really think much of it.
Around an hour later I crept downstairs. Nicole was doing homework on the couch, and Cooper was napping in his crib. She looked at me apologetically and said, "He's gonna have a really big bruise when he wakes up." I told her I had heard something to that effect, and she confirmed that he had tripped and face planted, and seemed to have smacked his face on the floor a bit harder than usual.
He's still napping. I'm really curious if he's going to have a big black eye or what when he wakes up. I guess only time will tell, but I am sort of perversely hoping that he's got a really nice bruise. It'd be a shame to take such a painful face plant and not have anything to show for it.
Today, I was hard at work while below me, I could hear Cooper and Nicole having a lot of fun. The sound of a toddler running back and forth, punctuated by loud shrieks of glee, indicated that Nicole was probably chasing and tickling him, if I had to guess. He was clearly having a blast. And then, I heard, "THUD" and then, of course, wailing. Loud, hurt wailing. More wailing, and then sniffles and Nicole's calming voice "You are OK, poor guy, you are OK..." Maybe five minutes later, Cooper was back in action- yelling "Doggie!" and banging on pots and pans. I didn't really think much of it.
Around an hour later I crept downstairs. Nicole was doing homework on the couch, and Cooper was napping in his crib. She looked at me apologetically and said, "He's gonna have a really big bruise when he wakes up." I told her I had heard something to that effect, and she confirmed that he had tripped and face planted, and seemed to have smacked his face on the floor a bit harder than usual.
He's still napping. I'm really curious if he's going to have a big black eye or what when he wakes up. I guess only time will tell, but I am sort of perversely hoping that he's got a really nice bruise. It'd be a shame to take such a painful face plant and not have anything to show for it.
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