Scare

So it seems to be our month for scares (wait, was it actually last month that we had the whole eye emergency?), and apparently that's what it takes to get me back to blogging these days. I'm trying to get back into it, but man, it's been hard lately. Because well, I was husband-less and dealing with 3 dogs and a baby for the better part of Nov. G officially had to travel for work for one week, but the weeks leading up to that week kind of sucked too because he pretty much worked all the time. And because DZ (the baby -- I feel the need to remind you because it really has been that long since I've blogged) got a cold. Also she decided to suddenly stop sleeping thru the night for no reason. And because, oh yeah, by the way, we're moving! As much as we (especially me) loved that little town that we've called home, we've decided to make the haul to San Jose. Far south San Jose so that G doesn't have to fight a ton of traffic for work, but still, exciting big city nevertheless. I will be less than 20 minutes from work when I go back in Jan. But more on that in a different post, maybe next year.

The movers came on Fri. And G spent the day directing them. I would have loved to help but I apparently had more exciting plans. That involved DZ coming down with a fever on Thurs night, waking up her entire body burning, and then waking up every hour after that. And then throwing up in the morning. So I called her pediatrician and took her in. The doc wanted to run some blood tests, mostly because it was Fri and she was worried that we'd be stuck with everything getting worse over the weekend and having to rush off to the emergency room. Plus, when we were in there, my child was seriously the ghost of the kid that I usually know. Listless, barely even cried when she was getting examined, and just looked miserable. Man, the cold had been bad enough, but to see her feverish was terrible.

So the doc gave her an antibiotic shot, then sent us to the hospital across the street for a blood draw and chest x-ray. Also wanted us to do a urine test to rule out UTI. So I spent the better part of the early afternoon hanging out at the hospital. The blood draw was as much fun as the antibiotic shot, but it only got worse as the day progressed. Turns out it's not that easy to collect urine from an infant (somehow, she hasn't mastered the art of peeing on demand yet). So they stuck this bag in her diaper and waited for her to pee. But nothing happened. So eventually they sent me home and told me to come back with it.

G meanwhile had to head up to SJ with the movers. I stuck around waiting for my kid to pee. She did just about everything else - eat, wail, even poop, sleep, but no pee. I had to replace the bag because it had poop on the outside. And a couple of times, it looked like she may have peed around the bag but not in it. She even leaked through her diaper and onto her nursing pillow but nothing in the bag.

Finally, her doc called and said the blood work suggested a possible bacterial infection and just to be on the safe side, she wanted to admit DZ into the hospital for overnight observation!!! OK, I have to say this. I've been sick a lot over the years but it doesn't compare to seeing your kid sick. Before I was a parent, no one could have convinced me of this. I almost cried a couple of times while waiting at the hospital and seeing her sad little face. Anyway, the doc made sense. It was Fri afternoon by this point. There were still no urine results, but the kid wasn't showing any signs of feeling better. It wouldn't hurt to already be somewhere for observation in case things took a turn for the worse.

So rather than me heading up to SJ where all our things were, G came back down and we spent the night at the hospital. So I take it back. It CAN hurt to be at a hospital o/n, at least this one. Because this hospital sucks ass. OMG. So the first thing they did when we got there (aside from making us wait forever even though my doc had called ahead and asked them to get a room ready) was try to insert a catheter up my kid's hooha to try to collect urine. That was fun. I'd say that it must have hurt because DZ started crying but actually, I have no idea if it hurts or not because the kid pretty much cried from the moment I walked into the hospital room. But I don't know, it didn't look pleasant. The stupid nurse tried twice but nothing came out. I think she missed where she was supposed to go, but I don't know. So first thing my doc had wanted didn't happen. They put another bag in her and waited again for her to pee into it (something I could have done at home).

THEN, my doc had wanted them to start an IV to give her antibiotics. A different nurse spent almost 45 minutes just looking at DZ's arms to try to find a vein. But apparently, that wasn't enough time to find it (and she decided to just go ahead anyway) because the first needle she inserted was in the wrong place. Then she decided to try the back of the baby's hand. Also stuck the needle all the way in, caught the vein this time but couldn't flush our her needle so I guess that was a no go also. So by this point, my kid looks like a heroin addict (between these marks, the blood draw from earlier, the antibiotic shot at our doc's office, and vaccinations earlier in the week). UGH. I told the nurse she wasn't allowed to try again unless she could find some one else who was more experienced at inserting needles into baby's arms. Actually, I suggested that after the first attempt, but the 2nd, I said no more attempts period. So 2nd thing my doc had wanted also didn't happen. It was great too because all of this took over an hour and DZ was crying the ENTIRE time. Somewhere towards the end, G finally made it in, and it was a good thing, because just his presence kept me from attacking one of the nurses.

I was starting to wonder what the point of being in the hospital was anyway. It's a small town hospital, they don't really have an infant or pediatric ward or anything. I think for both nurses, they didn't really deal much with babies as young as 4-months. But still, they didn't have to suck. Oh, and all this crying, and the kid STILL didn't pee.

The rest of the night continued to be a disaster. The door to our room was LOUD. So every time some one came in, the kid would wake up. She spent all evening trying to sleep and getting rudely woken up and prodded. The night time seemed like it would pretty much be the same. We asked if they could do their monitoring when she was already awake to nurse, and they said yes, but then what do you know, a nurse that didn't get the memo came in anyway. The people in the next room were also loud. Somewhere in the hallway, some kid went running around looking for his "Papi." We had a private room with a bathroom but we were afraid to use it because the toilet flush sounded like elephants stampeding and actually freaked the kid out every time we flushed.

The nurses finally got their pee but what do you know, most of the pee had leaked out because they didn't stick the bag in correctly. Several nurses told me to give the baby water to help her pee which I think is completely medically wrong (since she was nursing just fine). And I don't know how many patients they had but everything took forever. Our kid could have died by the time they responded to anything. Actually what happened though was that she would have gone back to sleep and then woken up AGAIN when they finally burst in.

Overall, awesome night. If you're ever in the area and need a hospital recommendation, please let me know.

Fortunately, my doctor's partner checked on us in the morning and told us we could go. DZ's temp had dropped by this point all on its own. And she was looking better. He said he wanted to do one more antibiotic shot the next day but we could just do it in his office (even though it was Sun, somehow docs seem to love showing up on Sundays especially for us). I will say that if you're in the area and looking for family doc referrals, I know two awesome ones.

It's now Tues and DZ seems to be almost back to normal. We're still puzzled by what it was. Her preliminary urinalysis was negative but we'll see if the cultures reveal anything. I'm hoping it's not that because that would then require a bunch of tests to figure out why a 4mo would get a UTI. But I guess that's a bridge we'll cross if/when the time comes.

emergency

A while back, G went to the eye doc for a routine appointment and discovered that he had slightly elevated pressure in one eye. It wasn't a huge deal, but I guess it's not something that's typical in young people. And it can be a risk factor for glaucoma which kind of sucks. Since then he's had a number of eye appointments to monitor the situation. I'm ashamed to admit that I only sort of paid attention when he described the issue to me (but hey, at least I didn't start making old man jokes or anything, so I'm not completely heartless). And then at some point, we started getting all these bills for things that weren't covered by our insurance. That's a story for a different day, but you can bet that I did start paying attention then. Anyway, so it's been going on for a little while, and then a few months ago, he said that his pressure in one eye had almost doubled. The eye doc gave him some drops as a result, and he's been using them every day.

So then -- last week, his right eye started getting really red. He's been pretty stressed at work and not sleeping that well, so we figured it was related to that at first. But it got redder and redder, and finally over the weekend, I encouraged him to go get it looked at (well, "encouraged" is sort of a nice way of saying "pestered" but whatever). Cuz, dude, it was pretty bloodshot and gross looking. He went into urgent care on Sat afternoon, and came home a little later freaking out.

Apparently, the doctor in urgent care had refunded his co-pay and told him to GET TO AN ER IMMEDIATELY because it seemed like he was having a glaucoma crisis. And that it could be extremely serious, require surgery, and could potentially blind him if he didn't get it treated right away. My husband rarely freaks out so clearly the doc had made quite an impression.

So he headed up to the ER - we figured the one in town was too small and probably wouldn't have an emergency ophthalmologist on call, so he decided to head up to the one in Gilroy, about 20 minutes away. I was a bit dubious about even them having one because it's not like they're a state of the art medical facility or anything. So while he headed up there, I called them to see. Go figure, they didn't have an ophthalmologist either, and the ER doc gave me the name of a specialist in San Jose who was very good. She recommended that I contact him directly, which I did. The ER doc also told me how important the situation was and how vital it was that we see some one immediately.

The specialist called me back relatively quickly considering I had to leave a message with an answering service and it was Sat around 5pm, not exactly when I'd be answering my phone if I were an ophthalmologist. The Gilroy ER doc had told me though that he was very responsive and had always called them back whether it was during the day or at 3 am. I was actually curious as to what sorts of situation would require an eye doctor being called at 3 in the morning but figured it may not be the appropriate moment to ask. He asked me a few questions about what G's eye pressure actually was (and this is where me paying more attention would have helped a lot). I had to give him G's cell so he could get more information. G in the meantime had bypassed the Gilroy ER and was driving farther north to San Jose. It was pouring rain, he was freaking, and generally, a good time was had by all.

So THEN the specialist finally called G (after a couple of attempts, I think, because he had somehow noted the number wrong when I told him). G called me back a few minutes later to say that although he was pretty much in San Jose already, the doc told him to come back tomorrow and see him in his office. That his pressure was not that high, so there was no need for immediate concern. At least, that's what G gathered -- there was a bit of difficulty understanding the doc's strong Armenian(?) accent. The thing was though that the urgent care doc hadn't actually measured G's pressure that morning. I guess eye pressure is measured in mm HG (because while G was driving to San Jose, I didn't have much to do other than google all this on the internet). Normal pressure in the eye is 10-21 mm HG. When G had first gone to the eye doc, his pressure was 15 mm HG which I guess is high for some one of his age, but not totally abnormal. But then it had jumped in just a couple of months to 25 mm HG. That's when G's regular doc had gotten concerned and prescribed the eye drops.

The specialist told him that 25 still wasn't too concerning, at least not enough to warrant an emergency room trip. When G pointed out that the urgent hadn't actually measured him that morning and that his pressure had been jumping drastically, the doc remained unconcerned, saying that truly concerning numbers would be 50 mm HG or above. And that there was no way his pressure would have jumped that much in just a few months. Apparently he just kept repeating, "Come see me at 9 am tomorrow morning in my office." As for the redness and irritation, he attributed it to possibly the drops and stated that he could prescribe different drops "tomorrow morning in my office." G told him that he had actually stopped taking the drops once his eye started getting really red and there had been no improvement. Well, they would discuss that in "my office at 9 am tomorrow morning." G by this time was probably 5 minutes away from his office but turned around and came home.

Sun morning rolls around. I had been planning on going too, and as usual, it was a bit crazy getting out the door (with the baby in tow too). The kid chose that morning to wake up early early (like 3 am), so we were all a bit tired. She woke up again around 7:45 and decided that she didn't really feel like eating. We were trying to leave the house by 8:15 and her lack of cooperation was not helpful. G was anxious and wanted to be on time. I started ranting because goddammit, I was tired of being stuck at home all the time with a little baby and at this point, even a trip to the eye doctor seemed oh-so-exciting. Because I'm frickin' THAT bored. Oh, and I was worried about my husband, of course, and wanted to be around in case I needed to drive him home after an emergency eye surgery. Bandit chose that moment to randomly poop inside the house and basically everything and everyone went a little nuts.

We finally just bundled the kid up without feeding her, cleaned the poop, and rushed out the door. As soon as we walked into the eye doc's office, our little angel decided that THEN was the perfect time to eat, so I went back to the car to feed her. It was Sun morning, and the eye doc had come into his office specifically for us.

About 20 minutes later, G came back to the car. It was so quick that I wondered if the eye doc had wanted us to head over to the emergency room and wait for him there. Or had maybe told him that all hope was lost anyway, and that G might as well go home and enjoy his last few days of perfect vision. But no, apparently, the doc had taken one look at his eye and told him that he had, wait for it, "the pink eye." You know, that life threatening, possibly surgery-requiring, mad dash to the emergency-inducing, possibly cancer-causing pink eye.

The urgent care doc hadn't EVEN LOOKED AT HIS EYE BEFORE PUTTING HIM ON THE CRAZY BUS. G told me that the urgent care doc had him trying to look at an eye chart, but really? Some one comes in with a red eye and you want to test his vision first thing?? My guess is that G immediately launched into his eye history, and it sounds like you mention high pressure and eye in the same sentence within the medical community and they immediately thing "glaucoma crisis." Well, except for ophtalmologists who know better than to let it ruin their Sat night.

Oh, and FYI, the eye doc thought our kid had probably been the source of the pink eye, as babies get it all the time without really being too affected by it. Afterwards, I was talking to my parents and they reminded me of how my mom had also just gotten pink eye recently after we visited. And their eye doctor had also asked them if they'd been in contact with small children. My mom told me that she had been offended by the thought of her perfect grandchild giving her pink eye. HA. So the moral of the story is that if you happen to touch my kid, don't go touching your eye right after.

Anyway, we had an awesome weekend, how about you?

house guest

About a month ago, my brother moved down to the bay area. It's been about 15 years since I've lived close to family (mine anyway, G's family is all here in the bay), so I of course immediately thought about getting together on weekends, holiday visits, driving up to my parents together . .. Before he was even down here, my brother jumped on the other time honored benefit of having family close by: taking advantage of my presence to babysit his puppy for ten days. Being the masochist that I am (and thinking of how nice it would be to have my brother owe me big time), I said yes.

So meet our adorable but pesky house guest, Porter.

He's a total doll, but (and I say this with love), he's a puppy. And it's been a while since I've had a puppy. Actually, I've never quite had a puppy like this one. Mia, for all her faults, was never hyper. Tucker was in some ways but he was mostly G's problem for a long time, although I'd like to believe that I was the first to begin to calm him down (with lots of exercise, which I had all sorts of time for back in those days).

Porter on the other hand has lots of energy, and I definitely don't have the time that I used to. He plays like there's no tomorrow, particularly in the mornings. Our guys like to lay around for as long as possible, he's ready to go the moment G gets up for work. G lets him out but it's usually a while before I'm done nursing and getting the baby back to sleep. So he wanders around listlessly during that hour or so after G takes off for work and before I'm ready to give the dogs any attention. The first morning, G left him outside with the dog door open. When he was bored outside, I suddenly started hearing scratching and pawing at the glass door, with the evidence of paw prints found later that were much higher than any of our guys can jump. I was in the middle of nursing so had to just sit there and listen to him for another 20 minutes or so. When the pawing didn't work, he moved on to whimpering and barking. While he seems to be just fine using the dog door when he wants (like when all 4 dogs get crazy for something outside and rush out there like mad men, with the dog door clanging loudly behind each one -- that happens most often when the baby is asleep and I've forgotten to lock the door. That's been a fun one cuz it almost always wakes the DZ up, and I think it's happened at least once a day this week. To be fair, that happens when it's just our guys too, so that's not Porter's fault), when I can't get to the door is when he forgets how the dog door works, it seems.

Yesterday, G just left the back door open and he raced in and out every so often to see if any of us had changed our minds about going out. Plus, I think he managed to get Mia to finally play with him a bit, but of course they did it inside instead of out. So imagine two decent sized dogs running around, banging into the stereo system and coffee table with their tails. And of course me being in the bedroom feeding the kid, so I couldn't do any more than yell at them from a distance. Today, I thought went reasonably well as Porter mostly hung out either in one of the dog beds or on our bed all morning watching me nurse. I'm still not entirely sure when he found the time to get into our bathroom trash and leave pieces of tissue lying around all over the house. Since I've had a runny nose the last few days, there were lots of tissues in there and I'm not convinced I've found all the pieces he's left around yet.

And I guess that's the other thing I'm not used to anymore -- having to keep an eye on a dog. Our guys all take off now to their various corners and I see it as a blessing (because they can't fight). With Porter, it makes me nervous. Most of the time, when I go looking for him, he's perfectly fine: sleeping in the guest bed, his crate, the dog bed outside, our bed, or in one of the other dog beds strewn about the house. Another favorite spot seems to be just behind the living room couch in front of the entry way table. And several times, when I've called his name, he's jumped up and looked at me, standing on his back legs, his front paws on the back of the couch (TOTALLY cute, by the way). The problem is that the rest of the time, I find him quietly digging in our trash, stealing the baby's laundry (he seems to love her onesies and burp cloth), or chewing on G's wool sheepskin slippers. And since I never know when those times will be, I'm always trying to keep an eye out and trying to remember to make sure these items are out of reach, the bathroom doors closed, the laundry covered with an extra basket.

He's a barker. And he's a bit crazy when he plays. He's gotten me several times with his teeth when we've been tugging. He tries to jump all over me when I'm done. When I am finally ready in the morning, the other 3 are thinking of just one thing: food. But he's trying to run circles around the yard and jump on me because he's finally happy to be let out and surrounded by company.

But despite the fact that he's a little bit of a punk, he's also a doll. Mia loves playing with him (for about 5 minutes a stretch maybe 2-3 times a day) and seems pretty good at telling him when she's done. He's also pretty good at listening to her eventually, though he's not above some extra attempted persuasion. In this particular video, Mia was waiting for her food, so she was into it but keeping her eye on me to make sure I wasn't serving breakfast just yet. I had a better one I shot yesterday, but it must have been too big for Blogger because it wouldn't upload.

Plus, he's great around the baby. I try to keep him from getting too close and I know it kills him because he sits there staring and trying to inch closer. When he has been closer, all he's done is sniff. Which is awesome because several times when I've gone looking for him, I've also found him standing on our bed, peering over into the bassinet while the DZ is asleep. Now that I've realized he doesn't do much more than smell, I'm not freaked out about it. The first day, I wondered if he was scared by her crying because I'd keep finding him in his crate when she got too loud. But he must have gotten over that quickly because he comes running now whenever she fusses.

Here, he and Mia were guarding her while she napped in the bassinet in our room. Granted, Mia seems a bit more alert in her guarding than he does, but I'm sure he would have stepped up if necessary. :)

I think he's doing his job much better in this one.

Plus, he's a bit of a snuggle bunny which I can never resist. Though he's been banned from our bed when G's around due to his propensity to get right on G's pillow and fart (and his farts are particularly frequent and foul, coming from some one with 3 dogs who definitely don't smell like roses). He seems to know it too (about the banning, not sure he realizes how stinky he is) because this morning, he waited until G had hopped into the shower before jumping into bed with me.

So overall, although he's been a bit more work, he's mostly been a pretty good house guest. Our guys spent at least 90% of each day lazing around the house, and he's taken quite well to that though I imagine he'd prefer a bit more exercise if he could get it.

The only real complaint I've got, I must say, is that you guys, he EATS POOP!!!! I caught him taking a bite out of Mia's fresh turd this morning about 5 minutes after she laid it. Not cool. And totally disgusting. I'll keep my eyes peeled if I can, but that's going to be a hard one to monitor, especially with 4 dogs pooping in our yard 2x a day. EW.

Leaving the house with an infant (Part "I'm so done with this now")

So I had another post almost done about yet ANOTHER trip I had to take alone with the baby, and I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. Because honestly, that was weeks ago, and it seems like every day there are more and more trips. And each one offers its own challenges but it's really just more of the same. And each one seems to get slightly better than the last. Or not. It just depends. But I'm realizing that every single one so far has been an EVENT, and I just can't have this blog turn into a description of every random outing I take with the little sucker. Seeing as how most of my "trips" from here on out will be with the kid, and I'm guessing reading about how awesome it was to go to the store trying to get her baby tylenol while she was screaming her head off will get old awfully fast. And if I'm getting bored writing about it, you must be bored reading about it.

So to summarize, yes, I did have to take her to the store and they were all out of baby tylenol and I got to stand in line at the pharmacy counter while she wouldn't stop crying. That whole afternoon she wouldn't stop crying because she got her vaccines that day. And although she handled it like a champ during, she got up 3 hours later in what appeared to be utter agony, most probably a life or death situation even, the way she was carrying on. Yesterday, I got to take her to my doctor's appointment and although we had a great lunch beforehand (in which I got to eat a couple of bites even), she started screaming in the exam room just as my doctor walked in. So my doctor said she'd come back later and left me in the exam room to nurse her. That was exciting. And nursing seemed to help for a while, but somehow the thought of her mom getting a pap smear must have been so painful for her, poor thing. So she proceeded to cry again when the doc came back in and continued to for the duration of the exam.

My previous trip to the doctor's office resulted in me struggling to get her fed, cleaned, and out the door with all her gear only to have the office call me to ask if they could reschedule. That was the day I had a meltdown. Well, actually, I had a meltdown for about 2 weeks straight and I'm not entirely sure it's over yet. But that day it all came to a head. I got off the phone with the doctor's office, called G, and started crying. I was even practically crying on the phone with the receptionist. I had WOKEN the baby up dammit, and I'm already on my way. What do you mean she's running late???? The receptionist was remarkably calm and unhelpful. Well, you can still come in if you want, but you'll be waiting for an hour and a half. I had made plans for lunch after the appt and seeing as how it was my first interaction with adults in weeks, I was determined to keep it. AND I had even called the doctor's office earlier in the morning to see if I could postpone the appointment since the DZ had been sleeping and I didn't want to wake her. Not later in the day, they said, since the doc would be in surgery. And yet, when they called, they wanted to schedule me, guess when, a little later in the day, right when she was supposed to be in surgery.

I've had to nurse her now in the car again (because coming back from SF a couple of weeks ago, she started going crazy around Mountain View and I just couldn't deal with a wailing infant for another hour on the road). That lengthened our trip by another hour and resulted in more nursing discomfort for both of us but ended with me maybe finally starting to get the hang of it. Although she initially liked car rides, and still kind of does, the periods where we stop for lights or slow down have become harder to bear. Most rides lately have seemed like a crying fit just waiting to happen.

I wish I could say that I'm becoming a pro. The truth is that it stresses me out every time. There is nothing worse than sitting in the front seat driving when your baby is the back crying her heart out. Even sitting back there with her isn't much better, and actually might even be worse because still there's nothing to do. I found that out one day when I sat back there with her while G drove. She's a little too young still to be entertained by a song or story or even really stuffed animals or something like that. G is much calmer than I am about these kinds of things. I freak out when she starts crying while he seems better about accepting that no trip is bound to be without any incidents at all - it just comes with the territory now. And he points, correctly (or so I'll admit when I'm calm and rational) that we can't stop going anywhere because of her (although when I was being irrational and in meltdown mode, I said that yes, of course we can, I'm not taking her anywhere for at least another year or two).

So I guess all I can hope for is not that things will get better but that I'll get better about dealing with them. I must say that I was much calmer nursing my kid in the exam room yesterday (and having to still hear her crying after) than I would have been a few weeks ago. So I guess we'll see how that goes.

Leaving the house with an infant (Part II)

Random aside: does anyone else using blogger have issues with the font? I don't understand why my font's all over the place on some of my posts. It's not intentional, I promise. I didn't even touch the font the other day, so I have no idea why it fluctuated from old person's size to magnifying-glass-necessary size. Sorry, I'm not trying to make you question your vision. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, never mind. I caught it and reposted right away so you may or may not have seen the original post.

Second trip:

Two weeks ago. Had to go solo on this one but I figured with just the kid and one dog, it wouldn't be too bad. Bandit had a vet appointment in Santa Cruz, so I thought the DZ might enjoy a change of scenery. Afterwards, a friend and I made loose plans to possibly meet up for lunch. Right off the bad, I knew I was in trouble when after waking up by 5:30 - 6 every morning for weeks, the DZ decided to sleep in until 7. Usually, I'd love the extra sleep, but my plans had been centered around her waking up at her usual time. Because I figured she'd eat by 6 and then be ready for another meal by 9am or so. Giving me some time to get her fed and ready to go by 10. Which then gave me plenty of time to make the 11 am appointment. Sounds perfect right? Rookie Mistake # I have no idea: it never works that smoothly.

Some of you might be thinking, what's the big deal, so the kid decided to sleep in a little. And up until a few months ago, I probably would have agreed with you. Because honestly, who structures their plans around their kids' sleeping/eating schedule. If you gotta be somewhere, you gotta be there and the kid's going to have to deal. Well, I've been discovering these last few weeks what the big deal is. Because if she ate at 7, she's generally ready for her next meal right around 10, right when I'm supposed to be leaving for the vet's office. And I don't want a starving baby in the car.

I struggled with the decision of whether to wake her up. Because the other thing is that she loves car rides. If I could grab her still asleep and throw her into the car seat, there'd be a pretty good chance she'd stay asleep. If I chose to wake her up, I'd have to do it by about 9 or so to give me enough time to feed her and get her ready. But after waking up at 7, it was almost 8:30 by the time she went back to sleep. So, I went back and forth. There were probably a few emails to G in there wondering what I should do. Maybe some agonizing indecision expressed in a chat with a friend. You'd have thought I was debating a career path or a life or death situation the way I was agonizing.

Finally, I decided to let her sleep. Figured if I left right at 10, I'd be early for the vet anyway and could give her a quick bottle in the car just before the appointment. Except that she got up just as I was loading her in the carseat. And started wailing, but since I didn't have enough time to feed her before leaving, I figured I'd just throw her in the car and hoped for the best. The next big task was to get Bandit into the car. That was an even bigger chore, because these days, Bandit's pretty darn deaf and blind. She hides out under G's desk for much of the day, and convincing her to leave it even for fun stuff is a HUGE event. Because she has no idea what you're asking.

So I had the car seat in one hand and was trying to drag Bandit out from under the desk with another. The kid was bawling and Bandit was resisting so much that her collar almost came off in my hand. And I kept saying, "Come on, Bandit, let's go for a ride" because she likes rides. The problem with that though was that guess who else likes rides? Mia and Tucker who DID hear me just fine and were racing around the living room all ready to go. So then the trick became getting the DZ and Bandit out the door while keeping Mia and Tucker in. I can't express to you how much fun this all was. I finally went and got the kid's seat into the car and came back for Bandit. During which time I could hear the kid bawling in the garage all the way from the house.

Needless to say, I was NOT early for my vet appointment. The 45 minute drive over wasn't too bad except that every time I stopped for a light or gas or in any way slowed the car down, there'd be screaming from the backseat. I think the commotion made Bandit even more convinced that she was in for an ordeal. So then I was stuck instead trying to give the kid her bottle in the waiting room at the vet. By this point, the DZ had calmed down considerably and decided to sort of take her bottle but that she really preferred smiling and cooing at the vet's nurse instead. Which was great except that then she got hungry on our way back home and the car ride back was pretty much the same as the ride over. And I was so tired that I decided to just go home rather than meet my friend for lunch. Which was also great because I had left the house in such a rush that I hadn't eaten all morning. If there's one thing more fun than sitting in a car praying that the light would turn green so that the baby would stop crying, it's doing all of that starving. Just awesome.

Leaving the house with an infant (Part I)

First trip:

The little prima donna was about 5 weeks old. I needed to get out of the house, so G and I decided to take the baby and our 3 dogs to the beach. I guess most people start off with a trip to the local grocery store with JUST the baby or something like that. But where's the fun in that? And anyway, we had already done the obligatory trips to the pediatrician's office in town, so we figured we were ready for the big leagues. And it wasn't terrible. We fed the little DZ, changed her, burped her, and then got the car loaded up. It only took us about 45 minutes to get everything ready and in the car. Not bad, I thought, considering that getting ready included grabbing a bunch of stuff for the baby, trying to figure out how to fit everyone in my little car, and grabbing various throws, towels, and toys for the dogs. It wasn't until later that I found out that we had already been guilty of Rookie Mistake #1: Get every thing loaded up BEFORE the baby is fed and changed. Seeing as how she was eating every 3 hours at that point (or sooner), 45 minutes is just too much time to waste.

We were a bit worried about the dogs bugging the DZ in such close quarters, so G at the last minute found a torn down cardboard box in our garage to shield her a bit from their attention. Totally classy, right?

It seemed to do the trick though. Tucker was a bit curious at first but then he, like the others, settled down pretty quickly. Actually, they didn't seem to care about the baby much at all, even though she was impinging on their usual space, so I'm sure it would have been ok even without the box. And honestly, if they had wanted to get all up in her face, the cardboard wouldn't have done much good.

Once we got to the beach (45 minute drive), we realized that it might be a bit colder for the kid than we had realized (Rookie Mistake #2). Plus we still had her in a cloth diaper. We decided to change both her outfit and the diaper in the car before setting off, and I got the fun task of holding the dogs in check while G had the even more fun task of getting the baby ready AGAIN in the back of the car. She loved getting naked in the cold as you can probably imagine. The dogs had to be evacuated from the car in order for G to have enough room, and they were going nuts with the beach just across the street and having a really hard time understanding why they couldn't just go already, despite me trying to explain it to them a bunch of times. So another 20 minutes or so lost there.

We finally hit the beach. By this point, it was pretty late in the afternoon and we had maybe about an hour of sunlight left. But it all ended up ok and it didn't even matter that it was too cold to take the baby out of the carrier. She fussed a bit at first (by the way, Rookie Mistake #3 ended up not hurting us too badly -- waiting until we got there to try the baby carrier for the first time). I think she initially wasn't too sure if she liked the carrier or not but decided very quickly that it was a great way to nap and slobber all over mom's chest at the same time. So that worked out well too.

As it got colder, I just zipped up, so you couldn't even see here . . . notice the little feet dangling from my sweatshirt? That's her! :)

One lady thought I was pregnant, but really, come on? What pregnant woman have you seen that's that big pretty much from the chest area down to the belly? It was an awkward "belly" too, all elongated and weird looking, with little toes sticking out.

We stayed at the beach for about an hour and a good time was had by all, especially Mia.

And even the kid finally got to check out her surroundings for a bit at the end. We didn't realize it until we got there, but the back-up outfit we had taken for her said "I'm just beachy." This particular picture doesn't show the words, but they're there, I promise. How much do we rock as parents that we were able to clothe our kid in a perfectly themed outfit for the occasion?

So far, so good, right? If you've been paying close attention though so far, you'll have counted up the minutes and realize we're almost a good 2 hours away from a feeding. Plus, we actually didn't quite leave right after the DZ was fed anyway, so we're pretty darn close to when she gets hungry.

Anyway, so we get in the car, and everything's still great. It takes us a little while to get the dogs dried off and everyone back in the car, but it wasn't too bad. As we head home, we decide to pick up some Thai food on the way home. I make the call as G starts driving and put in our order. And then, that's when it happened, about 5 minutes or so after we've left. The kid starts wailing. And wailing. And wailing. She cried the whole way to the Thai place (about 15 minutes). I'm in the front seat and can't really move to the back because the dogs are taking over the whole space. So all we could really do is try to talk to her from the front, and that proved to be totally ineffective.

We don't really know what to do at this point. We're 45 minutes from home, with a planned stop for a food pick up. We have a bottle that we've brought but we put it in a little cooler and don't know how to warm it up for her. And even if we could, it's not like I could just go back there and try to feed her while we're moving. I guess Rookie Mistake # 4 would be the whole cold milk thing but since we still haven't figured out a way around that really, I'm not sure it qualifies as a mistake. On another trip, I tried to take it as is, and it was ok for a while, but then I forgot about it when I got home and it spoiled before I finally remembered to put the unused portion back in the fridge. So that wasn't really an option either for a long trip.

We finally got the Thai place and decided that I would try to nurse her in the car while G ran into get the food. He also figured he'd get some hot water from them while he was in there to warm the milk. I got started and it became quickly apparent that I had no idea how to nurse her in the car. That's not so much of a Rookie mistake either so much as HUGE rookie issue. I'm used to nursing at home with a big pillow (actually, it used to be a whole pillow set up and I slowly worked my way down to just a nursing pillow). So I struggled to get the DZ in the right position and hold her there. Fortunately, I guess she was starving so she didn't seem to care that she was uncomfortable and just went to town.

G came back with the warm water but we were kind of making a go of it already with nursing by that point so we just decided to stick with that. The other thing though is that often at home, the DZ can nurse for up to an hour! I didn't really want to be hanging out in some parking lot for that long, so we decided to let her go for about 15 minutes and then just get going. We figured that would just satisfy her long enough for us to get home. And it should have except that as soon as we got back in the car and started driving, the little prima donna started wailing again.

This time, we just decided to let it go. She cried it out for a good 15 minutes or so and finally wore herself out and fell asleep. Ugh, I swear those 15 minutes seemed to last forever too! G just turned up the radio to drown her out (!), but it was much harder for me to bear. When we got home, we realized she had taken a huge dump, probably right after I fed her, and that's probably what had her bawling. And when I say huge, I'm not kidding. It was all up her butt and in her folds and crevices along her legs, AND had even leaked onto her outfit. Poor thing, of course she was crying. She had been sitting in her own poop for more than half hour. I'm sure there's some rookie mistake in there somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is exactly . . . check your kid's diaper right after feeding her in the car??

Anyway, we all survived the trip unscathed and in one piece but feeling like we had a lot more to learn about taking the kid out of the house.

Routine

So I'm a big fan of routines, and it's exciting to realize that our kid has the same love for order and schedules. Her recent (well, the last 3 weeks or so) night time ritual has been particularly endearing and goes something like this:

7:30 pm -- nurse and start prepping for bed

8:30 pm -- finish nursing

8:30 - 9:30 pm -- several diapers and several attempts to go to bed. Sometimes fussing and crying the whole time, sometimes wide awake and cheerful (whether Mom and Dad get to eat/guzzle dinner depends on which)

9:30 pm -- sudden wailing, followed by yet another diaper change, followed by another hour of nursing

10:30 pm -- more attempts to go to bed, usually consisting of Mom and Dad taking turns carrying her around the room (or bouncing on the bed or swinging or anything else that works to stop the crying)

11:00 pm -- get a bottle of pumped milk since Mom is physically and emotionally unable to nurse anymore

12:00 am -- more attempts to go to bed

12:30 am -- finally, success! down for the night and Mom and Dad get to crawl into bed

12:40 am -- wailing, followed by Mom or Dad getting to pace the living room some more

12:50 am -- repeat

1:00 am -- BEDTIME!!

In fact, our little diva is so in love with this routine that she manages to stick to it whatever curve balls we throw her way. We decide to start getting her into bed sooner? No problem, she can manage to stay awake and fuss even longer. Get a bottle in there sooner so we don't waste all that time nursing? Awesome, more time to screw around and not go to bed. Up all day and exhausted? She can at least hang on til 11pm or midnight. Uncle J and Auntie M babysitting? Perfect, let's throw at least 2 good poops their way in a half hour period or so.

But like her mother, our girl seems to realize that routines aren't everything. It's important to be flexible. And she seems to have a knack for knowing when. So this morning, for example, when I needed her to wake up early so that we could fit 2 feedings in before going to the vet in Santa Cruz, she decided to sleep in. At the vet's office, when she had time to take down a full bottle, she opted to just drink just a little bit. That way, she had plenty of time to be pretty with the vet's nurse and then save her bawling for the ride home when she got hungry again. I mean, really, who wants to stick with the regular plan when you have the chance to give Mom a hard time? What's a routine if not meant to be broken, right?

Clearly, I'm loving this.