Last week I was supposed to be enjoying Harrison being home all week while his school was closed before the “school year” started.

Last week I was supposed to be training for tryouts – Which. Are. Monday!

So yeah – screw you too Universe! Just because you think I need to “slow down” and “take a break for a while”. Okay okay – I get it! I was pushing myself a bit hard there for a while. And was stressing more than necessary over derby and tryouts and that little knee thing. And yeah, the time spent moaning on the couch in agony for a week DID take my mind off all that stuff. And when I woke this morning almost completely free from the death-grips of the evil-virus that had me by the throat, I WAS free from all that stress. So, thank you Universe.

When I could barely dress myself let alone imagine caring for H by myself while Marc took a bike ride, I asked Kylie to help hang with me and the kid. We went to the park and Harrison showed off his climbing and jumping skills.

Then we rode the Zilker Zepher with Jeff’s brother and sister-in-law who were visiting.

Harrison ate snacks and didn’t speak a word for the first half of the ride. Then when the graham crackers were gone he generously assisted the engineer with his apparently superior horn-blowing skills. And while my son was busy being cute-as-can-be I didn’t remove my sunglasses on the two trips in public that I took for fear of scaring young children with the site of my swollen vampire-red eyes.

Thank you Kylie for helping out. Thank you  Universe for that lesson in mental and physical health. And thank you to Marc for enduring a week of wife-born-sickness.

Listening: Mayor Hawthorne

At Harrison’s 2-year-old checkup today he was great. He talked up a storm; helped the doc use her tools; and only had one shot, but, was not stoked. At the end of it he got a ginormous bouncy-ball that he is currently napping with, so all is now well with the world.

31 pounds. 35 inches. 75% for height and weight.

He eats great. Is obviously physically developing on track (I maybe shouldn’t have mentioned the skateboard tricks – the doc was a bit concerned for his safety – we should have pulled out the iPhone to show her a video to put her at ease). He has more than “enough” words (he started really using adverbs last week – “I’m SUPER hungry, mommy.” “I’m very sleepy.” He’s been trying for a while – “Watch a little bit TV?” but, he is finally using them correctly and not just to get to watch TV.)

Harrison is allllllright according to our doc, whom we LOVE!

Listening: Beach Fossils

Where babies get sick and have to be taken to Urgent Care centers in strip malls.

Where business gets unwillingly put on hold for a week.

Where people sit around and look at each other and have to converse for entertainment.

A place where grandfathers AND great-grandfathers get sick the moment the baby starts to heal.

We’ve been traveling. And while it was pretty much as far from being the perfect vacation as I could ever imagine, we did get to hang with some friends and relatives and see some pretty stuff.

Listening: Phoenix

After having such a bad experience the night before I was determined to pull myself together and let us all have a good evening together. Marc picked H up a little early from Finn’s house so that I could have some time to play with him while Marc made dinner… we had to make those scallops that were bought for the previous night’s dinner. Wonderful aromas of fennel, onions and garlic were wafting in from the kitchen while I enjoyed a glass of vinho verde (the foodie version of a white wine spritzer and my official drink of choice for summer). When he was about done we switched and I stepped into the kitchen to make the kid’s dinner, as scallops are not on the OK-to-eat list in this country – if we were almost anywhere else in the world, he would have for sure tried them and the whole list of shellfish by now, but, we have to follow SOME rules. So, I started to make Mac & Cheese – AGAIN – this time following the directions to the letter and having quite a bit more success. Until I chopped the spinach.

Because Marc had been cooking, he had his GINORMOUS chef’s knife out, so I used that to chop the veg. I was done so looked away but, made one last chop. Right into my index finger on my left hand. Without inspecting the damage (I’m freaky when it comes to blood) I ran it under cold water and wrapped it in a dishtowel. I tried to curb my instinct to scream at the top of my lungs, because as soon as Marc walked in with the kid, H started to cry because he could tell that something was wrong with me.

While holding the kid, Marc inspected the cut (I still wasn’t looking – and haven’t still). I instructed him to take a look and DO NOT tell me anything about it… just tell me if you think I need to go to the hospital?

His responses repeatedly broke my rules.

“I can’t tell if the cut is just skin or if it-”

“AH! what did I tell you!? NO DETAILS!”

“Um… OK… well, it’s just that the cut is into your nai-”

“AH AH! Stop! Just – should I go or not?”

“If it was me, I probably wouldn’t go. But, I think you should.”

With that I gathered my things, gave Marc a report of where I had left off in the kid’s dinner and drove myself to the nearest E.R. NPR was, of course, babbling the entire time about the Swine Flu PANDEMIC that will kill us all. AAHHHHHH! I wasn’t really listening, as I was concentrating on NOT thinking about the cut – about how deep it was – about where exactly the blade fell through my finger – and about the inevitable stitches and poking and prodding that were about to take place.

I walked into a full-to-capacity waiting room. Half of the people there with dust-masks on and looking miserable. Eying each other, and me, to try and guess who will be the one to infect the city with the Pig Disease. I walked to the check-in station where the nurse was making everybody disinfect all exposed skin with sanitizer. The woman checking-in before me was doubled over in pain from abdominal cramping – that’s all I needed. I turned around back out the way I came and drove myself home. I called Marc on the way to double check that the finger wasn’t in danger of completely falling off… that the decision to go to the E.R. was aesthetic – right? Because I can live with a deformed finger, but, I can not live with giving my son Swine Flu. With some apprehension he agreed and I continued my drive home.

I also called my parents to make sure that I wasn’t doing something totally stupid. They related a story of the time my dad almost cut his thumb off with a saw. When I asked what he did to treat it, he replied – self-medication.

So, home I went. After H was asleep Marc untied the makeshift bandage, redressed it and fed me a vicodin that I had left over from H’s birth. Then we sat down to enjoy our fennel risotto with scallops. The finger has been throbbing a bit, but, right now it feels completely fine apart from the fact that typing is a total pain in the A$$.

I still haven’t seen the wound… until now – let’s take a peak, shall we?

OH YEAH. It’s bad. YIKES! It’s a diagonal cut from the side of my finger into the middle of the tip of the nail. Marc just asked “Yeah – it’s bad. I wonder what’s holding it on?”

That is precisely the reason I wanted NO DETAILS from him when it happened!

Listening: Pink Mountaintops (the new album is coming out May 5!)

Yesterday, while taking a quick break – probably waiting for a big file to save – I caught up with a blog that I read, with a post about vaccines and her rationale for vaccinating her kid which I totally agree with. Then, as if the universe was having a debate at that very moment and wanted me to hear it – a facebook friend of mine posted a youtube clip of Jenny McCarthy on Larry King. I don’t know… her side is pretty compelling… even if some of her facts may be exaggerated.

We vaccinated H on the schedule our doc prescribed. But, part of me – either the overly-sensitive-hippie or educated-intelligent-yuppie depending on which side of the argument you fall on – wishes I would have asked the doc to space them out or considered finding a doc who only gave the 1980′s schedule. I had done the research prior to his birth, known about Jenny McCarthy’s situation and the argument against the “bloated” schedule but, decided to take the advice of our doctor, friends and family and just do what I’m told. Because, to be clear, the argument that Autism is caused by vaccines does not support NOT vaccinating – they support a lessened schedule of vaccines. Closer to something that we all got when we were babies – a scheulde more like 10 shots rather than 36 before the time we were two years old.

So, now I’m having a moment where I feel like going with the flow got in the way of me doing what might have been best for my kid. He hasn’t had any adverse reactions to the vaccines thus far, but, it’s scary to think that we wouldn’t really know – for another year.

Just when you think you’re getting the hang of this parenting thing and all is going swimmingly – an issue like this comes back to bite you in the A-S-S. So, here I am working while listening to Larry King and the alarmist opinions of a former Playmate and this guy. Is it too early for a margarita?

Listening: Obits

THAT BASTARD CAT attacked the kid. And there is nothing even remotely funny about it.

Yesterday was the worst day of my life.

Harrison was sitting with Marc next to the couch where Jack was sitting. H must have reached up to grab a hold of the cat – which we don’t allow (because the cat is EFFING CRAZY) – and within a split second Jack had swatted punched him 3 times. I was in the kitchen about to make coffee and I heard the worst screams I’d ever heard, but, as a seasoned-pro-mom I calmly walked toward the living room, but, was met half way with Marc holding the baby and mumbling over and over that he “only turned away for a second… only for a second”.

Marc blew past me and took H into the nursery. I was stopped in my tracks as I tried to make sense of what I had just seen – that could not have been blood coming from my son’s eyes – could it?

It was.

I still didn’t know what happened. I went into the nursery and took the hysterical baby from Marc while he got some Motrin. Then I nursed H and he fell asleep. It was only at this point that I could see that there was a 4 inch scratch from the top of his head to his forehead about 6 punctures in face and the area around his eye was bloody.

NOTE: He is doing AWESOME today! This photo, while it doesn’t show the unfathomable – his face before it was cleaned up, looks far worse than his injuries actually are.

I covered H with my sweatshirt – to keep his eye from the sun – and we left for the hospital. He woke up when we put him in the car seat and cried for maybe a minute (the last time he cried all day) and stayed awake – he and me still under my sweatshirt trying to keep calm. We got to Dell Children’s Hospital where we experienced the absolute best care and sweetest people I’ve ever encountered in a hospital.

H was incredible. He stayed calm yet totally cognizant throughout the initial exam, cleaning and administering of ointment to his cuts and through the eye exam where he was poked and prodded quite firmly. We were finally told that most likely he did not have any cuts on his eye, however, we were able to see that there were indeed cuts on the top, outside of his eyelid and on the inside of his lower lid. They did a final ink-under-black-light test to make sure that there were no cuts to the eye – and there were not.

The doctors and nurses were genuinely impressed by his calmness. This comes from the fact that he is truly living up to his new nickname – Nails. But, also, because Marc and I were really very poised. I credit my ability to live in each moment of this experience as it happened – rather than indulging in my dreadful premonitions of H growing up blind, with an eye-patch covering his scary, glass eye – 100%, to Meadow DeVor (my former life coach) and to the work of Byron Katie. Thank you.

We feel lucky.

And thankful.

But, still ill at ease – or just plain ill. However, with every squeal of delight that H has released since we left the hospital – and there have been a lot – we are feeling better.

Listening: Wavves

He also only made a very brief peep when the nurse drew blood, and nothing with the three shots he got. Keeping up the rep he’s got going as our little tough-guy.

Listening: M. Ward

It was indeed. “In both ears. Very bad in the left.”  With a slight fever. We got some antibiotics and the go-ahead to give him Motrin. Luckily he seems to be fine during the day while he’s playing probably because he is so excited that he is almost about to crawl – for real, with knees and everything (more on that tomorrow) – that he can’t be bothered with a little acute pain in the ear.

Listening: Shocking Pinks

Big Brain – 90th% – 46.5cm
Big Belly – 70th% – 19lbs 4oz
Short Legs – 25th% – 25.5in

All is well. The doc was impressed with his sitting up abilities and said that most kids don’t usually sit up that well until about 7+months. She gave us the go-ahead to feed the boy whatever we want – including liquefied chicken – ick! His ridiculously rosy cheeks are totally normal. He got stuck about a hundred times and only cried for about 10 seconds. Fell alseep on the way home and is continuing to rest now.

Good baby.

Listening: Deer Hunter