Fine Young Fauves

The other day we were driving home and Isaac began to speak out of the silence: "I have really sharp vision. I can see, like, twenty miles. Just like ornitholestes."

I said, "What's ornitholestes?"

He said, "It's a dinosaur– with really sharp vision. I think that maybe, MAYBE ornitholestes evolved into Australopithecus, and that EXACT Australopithecus evolved into ME! And I kept the sharp eyes of the ornitholestes!"

I thought it was pretty unlikely that a reptile would've evolved into a primate, and the arrogance problem is sort of a problem, but I liked the way he formed his theory and the way all these multi-syllabic words were tripping off his tongue. I said, "Hm… maybe so."

Guess what? I can now have dual citizenship with Canada. On April 17, without my knowledge, I woke up Canadian . They changed the rules, and my dad is a Canadian by birth and so now I get all the benefits of being a Canuck. I have to complete some simple paperwork, and then… hello easy border crossing! I'm not sure what other benefits there might be involved with this. But if there's ever a draft again in the US, no problem! I'll just go north and claim my rightful place with my Canadian kinfolk. Hm… I always have loved maple syrup. … Coincidence?

And… of course as with anything there will be certain responsibilities.  For starters, I will need to celebrate Victoria Day on May 18. Thus I will be taking a long weekend, drinking lots of beer, and perhaps blowing off some fireworks in the backyard. Yeah, this is what they do to mark the birthday of their sovereign. Or I should say… WE.

We're back and better than ever from our 5-day sojourn to lovely Virginia. Do you like lush green landscapes, flowering redbud, budding dogwood, horses, and low blue mountains all around? Virginia is for you. Charlottesville is especially gorgeous and well-suited to people like me. Free-range grass-fed meats, hand-made cheeses and locavore-oriented friend candidates, lots of lovely shops… ah yes. I was concerned, too, having heard that the south is much more formal in terms of attire. But I found that the women my age and I were all wearing the same uniform: jeans and Dansko closed-back clogs. Thus I felt in my element in all ways.

However, Isaac, shall we say, often had difficulty with the unfamiliarity of it all. I think for him, in his overwhelming world of intense sensory input, change can easily overload the circuits. The result is a black mood so overpowering that it contaminates everyone for a wide radius. Take for example our visit to Monticello, one of the most physically stunning places I've ever seen. And one of the least kid-friendly. Indeed as the day WORE on I came to believe that children are not only unwelcome there, they are LOATHED. Perhaps this is too harsh. But consider our experience… on a cold, rainy, drizzly day, we arrived at about 11:15. We bought our tickets ($48 total, which becomes important later) and were told that the next time to tour the house would be at 1:40. A large 1:40 was stamped on our tickets and this number held us hostage from then on. So… how to kill two and half hours on a rainy day with two kids? We had lunch and wandered around the visitors center a bit. There was, I should say, a wonderful, fun-filled kids Discovery Center with lots of touch and feel things and log cabins to run in and so on. This was closed and locked, taunting us from behind the glass. We struggled through an hour or so just doing nothing and finally decided to take the shuttle bus up to the house. There– glory for adults. The gardens are incredible. I wanted to spend all day studying them. Anyway, suffice it to say that the kids did okay for a while, but for the last hour or so, Isaac was complaining in increasingly emphatic tones and demanding to go home.

I think he honestly had a headache and was cold. But his behavior was so awful… so petulant… so miserable… and meanwhile, Elias was getting more and more tired. He wanted to sleep in my arms. He wanted to nurse! He wanted to take a nap. This went on as Ben and I clung to 1:40 time and held our ground. We had paid $48 and come all the way from Ohio and were not going to go home without seeing the whole point of coming! WE would not let the kids tyranically rule us! Finally in the line waiting, endlessly, for our tour to begin (way past our time I think), Elias started to scream and struggle. Isaac finally crashed and began to scream too in a kind of furious, way-beyond-his-limit way. I tried to get the 28-pound Elias to sleep in my arms. Ben took Isaac back towards the car to protect the other tourists from the wrath. All this while standing in the cold drizzle. Elias began to shout, "Wanna go in the warm house, wanna go in the warm house!" I think expressing the sentiment of all in that line.

Finally we did get inside the house, which was, I should say, spectacular. A treasure trove of wonderful things, guarded by docents who have devoted their lives to protecting said treasures from the grubby masses. And who is grubbier than a two-year-old who has no respect for or understanding of ropes? Thus Elias had to be restrained, refused to sit in the stroller they so kindly gave us (perhaps hoping that we could tie him in) and created a scene on many occasions. Meanwhile, ISaac had managed to pull himself together and joined the tour, and of course actually liked the inventions and the doo-dads, mastodon jaw, the revolving doors and dumbwaiters and the clock that sinks way into the floor. When we were finally freed from the tour, he ran happily from ice house to privy and enjoyed himself, so it seemed. 

But I can tell you that when we all finally made it back to the car, I think we shared a profound sense of relief. My advice re Monticello: do not bring the kids, at least not under ten, and go in nice weather.

With the notable exceptions of canoeing and reading Hawkman, Isaac spent a lot of time in a black mood on this trip. A subsequent day I attempted to get us all to a kid-friendly part of the blue ridge mountains, where we could walk up to a look-out point and see the endless vista. We got there, and Isaac would have none of it. And walking up even a kid-friendly path with an unwilling, struggling, screaming child is not my idea of fun. We had to bag it, look at it from the car, and wish only that things had turned out differently.

Now. Back at our cottage, which was tiny and rustic in a 1950s summer camp sort of way, Isaac was a delight. Turns out he loves canoeing, you could say to a fault.  When we first arrived, after an 8 hour drive on Monday, we were all rather stressed and tired and the sun was setting, but Isaac set his eyes on the canoe and wanted to get to it at once. Too late, we insisted. This irritated him. The next morning he was up before dawn, wanting to canoe. Too early, we complained. It has to at least be light! This enraged him. When finally the annoying sun came up, it was raining. We would've said, "too wet" but I relented and went canoeing with him as soon as possible. I actually like canoeing myself, and this was a pretty glassy little pond with beavers and a few waterfowl (a domestic-hybrid duck and two Canada geese), so that was fine. Only when I was done canoeing, Isaac had only just begun and Ben and I had to switch. Thus we spent a lot of time, one or the other of us on the water, and then other one tending Elias on shore and holding Lena's leash. (Elias wanted to get into the canoe at one point, and we tried it, but he was terrified and had to come back to shore at once, a shaking, crying mess.) 

When not canoeing, Isaac was all about reading Hawkman in his bunkbed. This would've been great, except that he can't read well enough yet to grapple with it. So that meant he had to get a parent to read him Hawkman in his bunkbed. Suffice it to say, Ben and I both spent WAY more time reading Hawkman aloud than we would've liked, and when we were not actually reading it, we were constantly rebuffing a frustrated Isaac. Isaac would ask to read Hawkman roughly 2-3 times for every five-minute span of time… Hawkman is sort of interesting. He's a super hero with mechanical wings and a gravity-defying belt. He uses the weapons of the past to fight the crime of the present, so is always pulling out a mace or an asiatic scimitar. And there's a quaint leit-motif of beautiful white women being made wives/ravaged/sold at slave market by swarthy bad guys (it was written in the 1930s). But still, neither of us wanted to read for hours on end! 

It didn't help that it rained a lot. But Thursday was beautiful (the day I attempted to get us out for a hike), and enlivened by the discovery of some other kids on the pond who had found 9 orange newts! And they had constructed a sand and water containment facility to hold the newts for observation. This was a project that Isaac could get into, and I spent a fine couple hours sitting on a bench, chatting with another mom, while our newt-oriented kids got more and more wet and muddy. Happy times!

Ah well… If I had been home for two solid weeks mano a mano with both boys I would have gone insane. So, even though the trip had some arduous points, I'm glad we did it. Ben is now actively looking into the possibility of buying a family canoe and so perhaps we've found a new hobby.  

Today is looking good– I don't want to jinx it, but it seems likely that we will get through the day, completely, without needing any medical intervention. Fingers crossed! By contrast, I had to take Elias to the doctor on Wednesday due to sudden-onset pink eye and, as it turned out, a horrible ear infection in his left ear. Miserable!!

He seemed a little off his game in the morning, but basically all right. A little crud in his eye, but not all that noticeable. After two hours of struggle I got the boys to go with me to the Wellness Center so I could exercise. (They have all sorts of wonderful climbing things, toys, TVs, video games, etc., but Isaac still calls it "the Dullness Center" and complains bitterly about being dragged there… but can I ever have any moment of taking care of myself?? Horrible child! Arg!) but when I picked Elias up from babysitting, he was sound asleep on the couch (despite an environment that was far from quiet) and his left eye was sealed shut entirely with green crust. Oh boy. 

So afternoon plans canceled, a doctor's appt hastily scheduled. Elias screamed or slept, alternately, until the appt., and then also during it. Much hassle getting the meds and then finally home around dinner time. I've learned that the basic technique that works best for giving medicine to cats– roll them tightly in a towel with only the head showing– works great for administering eye drops to toddlers. Fun, fun, fun. Twice a day for the next week! Luckily his antibiotic liquid is apparently delicious.

Meanwhile, my persistent hacking and shortness of breath started to really, really become intolerable. I vowed on Wednesday night that no matter how I felt on Thursday morning I would try to get medical attention myself. This is a little bit of a challenge because I haven't established contact with any doctor since we moved down here, and so had to do the initial get-to-know-you stuff under duress. But I had a place that was recommended to me and managed to get an appt there on short notice. The only catch being that I had to bring my entourage. I went prepared with brand new, totally exciting, wonderful activity books to entertain them during any endless wait this might entail, but they only lasted for about three seconds before Elias wanted Isaac's and a fight broke out. So while I worked my way through a stack of forms about my entire medical history and family history, Elias stood by my knee screaming his lungs out.  

When we finally got into the little room, the boys busied themselves getting into mayhem as rapidly as possible. Isaac got himself tangled up in a lamp cord and tripped, knocking over a big lamp. Once that was straightened out, he began inflating the blood pressure thing, repeatedly and to dangerous levels, while Elias busied himself on the floor disassembling a model of vertebrae. Meanwhile I got thoroughly questioned and examined. My fear was that my lungs were feeling a little better all the sudden and I wasn't coughing– I worried that she would think I was crazy or a hypochondriac (a reason I haven't been any doctor in more than two years). But indeed the doctor, who had an ornate Italian name but no accent, proved to be my lost soul mate. She hates antibiotic abuse as much as I do! So after listening to my chest, which apparently sounded pretty lousy nonetheless, she prescribed my very own albuterol inhaler, just like Isaac's. Her concept is that if we get my lungs open and functioning, I will be able to get the gunk out and fight off the crud myself. She wrote me a prescription for antibiotics, but said to try not to go there. So too my fear of getting pink eye (well founded, due to how much slime got on me in recently days)– she said to put warm compresses on my eyes such that I can avoid getting it, but wrote a prescription for the drops just in case. 

After an afternoon full of hassles and schlepping around, I did get my hands on the inhaler and inhaled! Wow. Good stuff. I'm a convert. And just the sheer joy of deep breathing makes me realize just how constricted my airways have been in recent weeks. It does make my heart beat like a little jack rabbit, but I'll take it. I went to yoga this morning and got through sans repulsive coughing attack — a huge improvement. 

The old guy next to me in yoga kept annoying me by exhaling with the force and volume of a humpback whale. Which is to say, I'm very happy to be breathing again, but all things in moderation. 

Now that I live in a world where putting a child-proof item on a high shelf means nothing, I am trying very hard to secure our arsenal of over-the-counter medications and other dangerous items. My lord, there are a lot of things in this house and in this world, which, if ingested in huge quantities, can do a lot of harm to a tiny body. A whole tube of Fluoride toothpaste? Sure, that would be toxic. What about a whole bottle of cough medicine? And so on. I doesn't help that we've been dealing with a wide array of illnesses over the last six weeks and so have had occasion to gather supplies. 

As if to punctuate the point, in the last two days Elias has a) sat himself down to watch TV, while eating a cereal bowl full of sugar with his bare hands (he got up to a high cabinet using a stool, got the sugar bowl out of the cupboard, somehow got the sugar bowl– a nice porcelain one with a lid– down to the floor without breaking or spilling it, got himself a bowl and poured it in… all in two seconds…); b) come running in with the children's vitamins (WITH IRON– ultra dangerous), "To get help" with the child-proof cap! (again, the high cupboard and the stool routine, but in this case the child-proof cap actually thwarted him… thank GOD. If he had eaten a bunch of those we'd be in serious trouble right now); and c) gotten hold of Isaac's puffer and puffed it until it was completely empty… the damn things are expensive!

"Was Isaac this bad?" mused Ben over dinner last night. I don't think so… Isaac was more of faller– down the stairs, off counters, etc.– than a poisoning risk. Elias is posing a whole new level of challenge.  

So. We have to find a way a place somewhere in the house that will actually be Elias Proof. I got a Safety First child-proof cabinet lock and initially installed it on the medicine cabinet in the upstairs bath. However, shortly I realized that these things are only as good as the humans who use them. Within the first 12 hours I found the lock sitting there beside it– someone (probably me) had forgotten to lock it. So I decided it needed to be a more obscure cabinet than the one we use hundreds of times a day. I settled on the very highest kitchen cabinet. Then I began walking the house from end to end, room to room, trying to corral all the things that could possibly be construed as tasty yet harmful. The cabinet is packed to the brim with the loot. I locked it. Then I brought in Elias. I set him on the tallest stool we have and asked him to open the cupboard. Standing on his tippy toes he could reach it, but he couldn't get it undone. He struggled and struggled for a few moments and then began to cry. "Don't sink I can!" he lamented. "Need help!" 

"Thank you very much," I said, lifting him on to the floor.

I hope that that will hold him for a while, but Isaac is skeptical. "He'll learn how to do it just by watching," he predicts. And he may be right. Damn… this little bright-eyed cherub is alert to every detail! And as a teacher put it, "He has those great Montessori fine motor skills!" But in the case of this cabinet he also has to grow a couple inches, which will take time. And during that time one can only hope that some SENSE will grow in also. 

On facebook, I posted a photo of the children in the big cat cage I was using recently for Bagheera– that's one way to child-proof the house, simply incarcerate the children. (Don't judge me… I just like to keep my children in a cage. Is that so wrong?) My mother mentioned storing the medication in a gun locker. Other suggestions range from leg irons to duct tape.

As Secretary Clinton likes to say with regard to Iran, I haven't ruled anything in or out. 

Yesterday dawned happily enough. The boys had been invited to the circus with Nana and Pa and I was looking forward to finally being able to do the fluids and rest– sit on the couch and read the NYT– that my poor crud-filled lungs sorely needed. During the getting-ready chaos– fighting over a transformer, several feet needing socks and shoes, teeth brushing and puffs and so on– I heard a little voice from the bedroom. It was Isaac. He said, "Mom, he drank the medicine."

I came in and found Isaac standing there with an empty bottle of Children's Benadryl. He said, "I found him like this," and demonstrated, head tipped all the way back polishing off the bottle. I stared at it in disbelief. yes– it was completely empty. I asked Elias, "Did you drink this?" and he replied, cheerfully, "Yes! I drink it all up!"

Holy shit.

So I began scrambling around to find the number to poison control, and then began to try to remember, precisely how much was in the bottle. It was getting low, I think. But how low? I got through to poison control and told them that I estimated it was three tablespoons, but this was sort of a wild guess. The lady put me on hold. She came back and said, "If it's three tablespoons, you're probably all right to watch him at home. If it's more than that, you need to take him in." I decided to actually measure out three tablespoons of water to see if that looked about right. And it did– about. She said that Elias would get drowsy, but if he really went to sleep we had to take him in. Okay…

So fifteen minutes later he was on the bed, very drowsy. His eyes looked weird. Indeed, we were in a bright, sunny room and yet his pupils were big black saucers. Then his eyes started rolling up into his head and he was out. I called poison control back. The lady had an increased level of stress in her voice and said that I had to get him to the ER immediately. She asked whether I had a another adult to ride in the car with me. And Ben was there, but so was Isaac. We hastily decided that the best idea would be to have Ben go forth with the plan, take Isaac to Canton to hand him off to Nana and Pa, and then meet me at the hospital. This way, Isaac would be occupied all afternoon and Ben and I could focus.

I began throwing things in a bag, thinking I would need things, and I would be there for hours, but I was also incredibly distressed and worried and not wanting to waste time. Isaac was muddying the waters by following me around and complaining that Elias had broken his transformer! You will congratulate me that I didn't slap him, nor shake him, nor tell him to shut the hell up. But I did say rather firmly, "I don't care! Your brother is very sick!" Later Ben said that it was probably just as well that Isaac was clueless as to the seriousness of the situation.

I would say the worst part was the interlude between getting off the phone with the anxious-seeming poison control person, and actually getting physically into the emergency room and into the hands of doctors. Our geography is bad, and it's a good 20 minutes into downtown Akron, with lots of lanes and traffic and whatnot to navigate, to get into Akron Children's Hospital. Elias in the rearview mirror possibly slipping into a coma. I've gotten better at it with practice, but still I tell you I am COUNTING THE MINUTES until the new ER will be finished, only five minutes away from us at the Wellness Center where I work out all the time. That will be a much less intense drive. Opening spring 2009! Can't wait!

Anyway, poison control had called ahead and we got into the examining room immediately. What they did there was hook up a lot of sensors to his little chest– heart rate, respiration, blood oxygen, blood pressure, and so forth. The doctor took a moment to calculate the dose, scribbling on the paper of the examining bed. He determined that our best guess is that Elias had a dose equal to nine times the normal dose. He then said that the plan was just to watch and wait. (Apparently they don't pump stomachs anymore– "Those days are gone," the doctor said. "It absorbs immediately anyway.") It would be three hours until it was well past the peak level in his system. At that point, we would know he was okay. He mentioned that they might have to place an IV if certain things went wrong. He told me to call the nurse if he started to shake. And then he basically said, "See you in three hours," and walked out.

So. There I was, holding the soundly sedated Elias. I could see on the screen that he was not going into a coma and was basically fine, although drugged out of his gourd.  The left me free to consider my situation… I still had my coat on. I was holding a 28-pound child with one arm, in a stiff little chair that had no arm rest. I set Elias down on the little bed and took off my coat, hoping he would sleep there. But no, he actually woke up enough to cry and struggled, getting his little wires all tangled and making his monitors go heywire. The nurse came in to fix the wires and I begged her for a chair with arms. This was a slight improvement, seeing as it seemed I would be holding him the whole time. I looked through the diaper bag and took inventory. What I had: snacks. What I lacked: water. What I had: some parts of the paper. What I lacked: reading glasses.

Yes. Just terrific! The hours truly crept by. After an eon or two, Ben showed up. I was able to make the hand off, stretch, go to the rest room, stand up and move around a little. Eventually the doctor came back, flipped on all the lights and said, "We're now going to aggressively wake him up." Elias sort of came round and they gave him a popsickle, which perked him up a great deal. Basically, it was all over and were were free to go. The doctor said, "At least it wasn't Tylenol. If he was going to drink something, Benadryl was one of the better things." Apparently Tylenol causes liver damage. "If it had been Tylenol we'd likely be keeping him here on an IV for three days."

Later when we all went home, I went back up to the scene of the crime. Apparently Elias had climbed the bookshelf like a ladder, taken down the Benadryl, gotten off the childproof cap and guzzled it. When I asked him about it last night, he explained, "I hide and I drink it." He hid! He knew he was doing something wrong and had closed the bedroom door to get away with it. But the worst part was this: on a shelf about the height of my thigh, sitting right there, with the cap off (!!) I found a bottle Tylenol. At the moment, I thought, "holy crap– how did I leave this here??" And put it in what I hope is a safe location. Only later, when I was going to sleep, did the cogs fall into place. Of course. … I DIDN'T leave it like that. No matter how tired I was, or sick, I would never have left an open bottle of Tylenol on a thigh-high shelf.

Oh, I get it. He had climbed up, and gotten BOTH bottles down, gotten BOTH caps off, and was planning to guzzle them both. It was just blind luck that he chose to guzzle the Benadryl first, and that Isaac interrupted him before he got any farther.

Thus I close out the whole episode with a mix of retroactive dread and profound gratitude. We lucked out. It could have been much worse.

OKay, so I finished my nausea, with several pounds less of me to love. Bonus! Immediately thereafter, Elias took sick with the croup. Indeed, it was one of these "episodes" in which I'm outside in my pajamas, bare feet melting prints on the frosty bricks, trying to get the little bundled one breathing clearly again without calling the EMTs. I'm so tired of this!! So I got him in to the doctor (this was on Monday) and he got the steroids I've grown to appreciate so much. He was sick off and on all week, an intermittent fever and cough. He had a fever at school on Wednesday, which is definitely frowned upon, and I had home home Thursday. Meanwhile, I began a steady descent into what is now a full-blown hacking, rotten chest cold of my own. If I was a three-pack-a-day smoker, that would about capture it.

I'm reminded of Woody Allen, who once said that he walks for fitness in New York: "It's a regimen designed to give me the lungs of a 19th century coal miner…" Yes, I think that's pretty much how I feel at present. (My dread at the moment is that Isaac will get it, and I think we've established that hacking chest things for him are like that only much, much more so.)

But in good health for now, Isaac and Daddy have gone out to a special event: The Creature From the Black Lagoon… in 3-D! An art house in Cleveland is showing it tonight, and they are up there having a dad-lad outing extraordinaire, including dinner at a grown-up restaurant beforehand! What lucky boys! Elias and I are home, with me staggering around and hacking, and him watching "Little Einsteins" repeatedly. He seems to plan on eating strawberries for all three courses of his dinner.

In other news, our so-called cat made an appearance. There was a sighting! The other morning I spied her at the edge of the woods. I had a few minutes so I trotted out there with some canned food. In typical fashion she ran away into the shadows and used her cloaking device. I left the food there and went on with my day, caring not too much at all about the outcome. Later on the kids and I walked out there to see if she had eaten the food. She hadn't. But one thing we discovered was that right where she disappeared was a very nice, cozy, cat-sized groundhog burrow among the roots of a tree. Maybe that's her second home? Anyway, much as I try to ignore it, I do find myself scanning the spot through the kitchen window, in hopes (dreads?) of spotting her again. 

Also, at least it's spring. I'm thinking that we'll all be happier if she just becomes the local insane feral cat. Take a number! There are lots around here. I wish she were a competent cat, though, able to do this sort of thing without going on a prolonged hunger strike.

In any case, at least we have a back-up cat. Bagheera is wonderful, outgoing, playful, silky, affectionate, interactive, and in all ways a fine cat. He even uses his store-bought scratching post! My only complaint about him is that he's not helping with the mice problem all that much. A few weeks ago I gave him another trapped mouse. I immediately ran away, as I'm prone to do in this situation, so I can't say precisely what happened next. All I know was that I was quivering on the couch when I heard a sound upstairs similar to three grown men in a barroom brawl. After a long while I tentatively crept upstairs to see what was happening. What I deduced was that Bagheera had brought the live, fully hale mouse upstairs (to kill it in a more comfortable environment?) and then he'd lost it. He was fixated on getting into this tangled up vacuum cord, and I untangled it for him, but sadly there was no mouse in there.

Great! So now, far from killing the mouse, he released it in our bedroom!

So fast forward a couple weeks… Isaac and Ben were lying on the bed in our room reading Calvin and Hobbes, and I was getting ready for bed. At that moment I saw an unpleasant little rodent rush from dresser to chair. The same mouse? I can only assume. I brought Bagheera in to finish his work, but he was clueless/unable to follow through. I set the live trap there, but have gotten nothing. So now, bottom line, I can't put my feet on the floor in the dark. This is a real nuisance in the land of constantly night-waking. (I'm plagued by the insomnia of others.)

Oh well!  

The nausea diet has a lot to recommend it. It makes shopping easy (jell-o, gingerale, saltines), and meal prep and clean-up is a snap. You lose lots of weight fast, without ever, ever feeling hungry. Indeed, the only problem with nausea, then, is the nausea itself. I seem to feel it in my arms. They're heavy all the time, and the illness seems to radiate out of them like a gray-green glow. I want to lie down, but when I lie down, things don't improve.

It's been like this for two days. I haven't ever actually vomited, although opening the fridge carries a real risk what with all the smells in there. I've just been persistently ill and wishing for it to end. I have a good friend who suffers from this horrible form of morning sickness, that leads to months and months of vomiting, all the way to the point of becoming a serious health risk. So with her in mind, I am reminded of my pathetic wimpiness in the face of only two days of mild nausea. And yet… ugh.

Elias got better on Monday-Tuesday, after four days of full-on, both ends, stomach flu. We all hung in there fine, until Isaac felt a bit peckish on Thursday morning.  We got ready for school normally, but upon arrival there I found myself with not one, but two asleep boys in the car. With Elias it's just the problem of constantly starting the day at 4 a.m., which a string of days at home did little to cure. I carried him in asleep, and after a short time he came around and began doing his toddler work normally. But Isaac was a different matter. He begged to stay home, and insisted he was really sick. Sometimes he jerks my chain with this one, but I harbored a nagging fear that I would drag him into school whereupon he was projectile vomit and/or soil himself with uncontrollable diarrhea. I let him stay home, which proved to be the right choice. He didn't throw up, but started to run a fever and to spend lots of time in the bathroom. (another car full on the laundry train). 

But meanwhile, I was feeling horrible myself and wanting only to be horizontal and still in a smell-free environment.  I had to put Isaac back in the car to go get Elias, and then when we all got home I tried to arrange for a group nap. No luck… alas. But I did get the boys to at least watch something while I collapsed on the couch. This is the time when some sort of nanny-type person, or at least a conveniently located maiden aunt, would help tremendously! I have literally NO back-up. This becomes apparent at times like these. Anyway, I dozed on the couch for a half hour or so, until Isaac wandered back in and wanted to read something. I said, "How's Elias? Is he still fine?" (I always worry that Elias will choke or something unattended, but then I think Isaac would call me if something serious were going on, but then again I wonder if he would!) So Isaac says blandly, "He's gone." GONE???! At which point I think I levitated vertically three feet and covered three rooms of distance in the blink of an eye. 

At first I didn't see him… but then I spotted him. He'd fallen asleep on the futon, and the horrible old thing had slumped over, sort of folding him into it. Not smothered. Trust me, I checked.  

Did I mention we need a nanny? When I'm sick, it's just hopeless around here!

Anyway, we lived. We lived until Friday, and all stayed home again in varying degrees of illness. Isaac wandered from room to room, lying down when got there, even in the kitchen. We read a full Tintin, a great deal of a Children's Treasury of Bugs, and much more. The boys watched Toy Story 1 and 2. You don't realize how LONG 12 hours can be, until you try and create fun and educational actvities for all of them, while you yourself are not well. (Ben had to work very late the night before, left early for his conference, came home late, sick himself, drained and exhausted.) 

Today is a little better. Isaac decided to rally and go to his acting class and Ben gathered the strength to take him. I still want only to sleep and not eat. I'm home with Elias, who is working on many important projects and generally quite a busy fellow. I'm sure we're on the tail end of it now, and that spring is right around the corner. Yes? I hope so.  

Ah yes– having survived the great upper respiratory infection of February 2009, we are now confronted with quite a stomach flu. Kids at school are dropping like flies, including little Hank, Elias's peer, who puked in the hall two weeks ago just as his daddy was dropping him off. I would say he was the first ominous suggestion that we were in for it. Then there was Isaac's report early in the week that this little guy Sohan (the tiniest orange belt you'll ever meet), threw up in gym and then three more times in the bathroom. And Isaac got to see the barf! And told me all the details, which I will spare you. Then there was the glassy-eyed little girl led through the crowded halls by a teacher calling, "102.7! 102.7!" (Modern-day leper bell?)

But what can you do? Go on with life, pray, and hope that you will be spared. On Monday I spent the afternoon feeling horrible. Went to my health & wellness class feeling nauseated and wondering whether I would have to go home and barf, but didn't. On Tuesday morning I continued to feel bad, which was poor timing because I had the work-out of my life scheduled! I've been working out with a trainer since about September ( ten-week program that I repeated) and planned to attend the strength class she was teaching, which we would then follow with more private training. Ugh. But I was determined not to wimp out, took a double EmergenC and felt half-way decent. (I had a nagging fear that I was ill due to sinning with this big waffle the previous day.) Pure hell… thumping music, skinny people with make-up on, wearing cute outfits, and no place for me except the very front row! So I got to watch myself in my lame t-shirt, no make-up, uncoordinated non-skinny glory front and center! But I got through it without actually dying, which would not have been the case six months ago. And after that, actually felt non-sick, which bolstered my theory about the waffle.

All seemed completely normal for a few days, although Elias was sleeping uncommonly badly. One night, up from midnight to three. The next night, sleeping until four am and then starting the day with gusto. He didn't seem sick, though, just incredibly annoying and restless. Well, until yesterday morning, which he opened with a vomit between us in bed. Obviously no school for him! And I kept Isaac home too, for observation and also because I didn't want to put sir-barfs-a-lot into the car in that condition. He threw up all day, keeping nothing down whatsoever. Lands sakes, the bedding, the towels,  the jammies, the laundry! Ack! The Ovaltine geyser! Last night he stopped the vomit and began the pooping and fever. Today, seems to be better, lying around right now watching Caillou while sporting an impressive dragon costume.

Isaac looked a little wan yesterday and seemed subdued, but ate well and maintained his normal charisma. This morning he's at a birthday party at a jumping place, with lots of inflated things to jump in, and so will be ingesting junk food and shaking it vigorously.  One hopes that this will be okay. I'm pleased that, because Elias needs me at home, I didn't have to attend this party. It gives me a headache just to think about it.

One thing that I've noticed lately is that Isaac and Elias have totally different sick-kid personalities. Elias will maintain he's fine, even to the point of getting angry about it "Mommy! I FINE!" even when he has a fever of 102 and a double ear infection. Isaac will demand to be taken to the Emergency Room if he skins his knee. However, Isaac actually does get sicker and more worrisome, due to his history of hospitalization (see March 06) and his asthma. Over President's Day weekend, Isaac, Ben and Pa (Ben's dad) went on a boy's weekend to NYC. They had lots of fun, although from the anxious maternal vantage point it seemed like the fun involved walking all over New York in a chill wind with no hat on. That was the same weekend that Elias was so sick, so I suppose Isaac was gestating it himself all the while. 

In any case, he came home and promptly got deathly ill. He freaked me out for several hours one day that week, by curling up into a ball, going gray and pale while also smoldering hot and beset by shallow breathing. I was poised to take him to the hospital at any moment, while also balancing the need of a sick child to sleep it off and not go to the den of all horrible illness to sit and wait for three hours and get exposed to everything in town. He got through what seemed to be the immediate crise. But a few days later I ended up taking him in to the Emergency Room anyway. Annoyingly, it wasn't so much an emergency, just urgent and Sunday, and the brilliant urgent care center is closed on SUnday! Smart! There after waiting with all the sick kids in town for three hours, Isaac was found to have a double ear infection and wheezy inflamed lungs, such that he needed immediate oral steroids and ten days of antibiotics.

This was a snowy time also, which led me to compare my situation (trapped in the house with sick children for ten solid days) to the Shackleton Adventure. Sure, Shackleton had some challenges of his own, but he didn't have Isaac on steroids!

Anyway, he's been seeming very healthy lately. One can only wait and see as to whether the stomach flu will strike our household again.  

I think we've already established that Zane Grey is in the bottom quintile of cat intelligence. Now one has to wonder whether she really is in the bottom one percent.

Two nights ago, after we got home from the salamanders, apparently the front door blew open while we were all asleep. It was not a fit night out for man nor beast, and yet Zane Grey decided to take the "opportunity" and head out again into the great unknown. Here's a question I think almost all cats on earth would get right: Would you rather a) be cold and wet, or b) be warm and dry? Question 2: would you rather a) fend for yourself and starve or b) have an unlimited supply of premium cat food, supplemented by roast turkey and bites of tuna? 

And yet, she managed to pick wrong on both of them! Bagheera and Lena, posed with the same choices, both had enough sense to stay inside and cozy. 

It was going so well, too. Bagheera has been wonderful. He's talked her into being a normal cat, interacting with people, scampering around the house with him, having tails-optional cat parties in the kitchen and also lap-sitting. She seemed to love him. And now, who knows where she is. I walked the grounds yesterday calling her and visited the garage several times to see if she was there. But… no luck. I'm sick of it too– lord knows. If she wants to be an idiot, fine! I'm not papering the neighborhood with flyers this time, and you can forget about the pet psychic! She's on her own.

My mother says that she'll probably return again in three months, 98% starved to death and dragging a leg that needs to be amputated. As she put it, "injured, but not fatally!"

Groan.