Cabin Fever

Well, I spoke with my doctor today and he thinks I should stay home for TWO more days. Certainly not what I was expecting. I was thinking maybe Monday but he says that if I have H1N1, I'm contagious for 7 days and Monday & Tuesday will be days 6 and 7. Blurgh.

So why do we think it might be H1N1?

• I did have an off-and-on fever for the first two days, so it wasn't just a standard cold.
• I was vaccinated against seasonal flu.
• Chris and Anna were vaccinated against H1N1 and I wasn't - and I'm the sickest of the three of us, which never ever happens.

It still could be something else, but the only way to know for sure is a test that's inaccurate and expensive and really isn't done anymore unless someone gets really, really sick. So we'll never know for sure.

It's frustrating because... well, haven't we all more or less conditioned ourselves to work sick when we can manage it? It's not really a safe or medically defensible aspect of our culture, but it's true. When I'm sick but I could work, I feel guilty if I'm not working. And that's the case now - though I still have a runny nose and productive cough, I have the energy to work, so it's maddening to stay put. But... I suppose the whole pandemic thing more or less changes the rules. If this is H1N1, I got off relatively easy, but others might not have the same luck. Have to keep telling myself that.

Like me, Anna is getting a little stir crazy. When we walk past the front door she reaches for it and yells "bye-bye!" Understandable since we haven't left the house since Wednesday. She will be THRILLED when we drop her off with her friends at daycare later this week.

Other than my runny nose/cough and Anna's slight case of cabin fever, we're doing fine and even though we didn't get to do what we wanted to do for Thanksgiving, we still found a lot to be thankful for around here with each other.

Scary Times

Had a little accident tonight and it really freaked me out. Here's what happened:

Chris had just left to go take our collection of bottles & cans back to the grocery store for refunds. I was just finishing up eating my dinner and Anna was tooling around the living room / dining room area with a cucumber slice in her hand.

Now - lately Anna has taken to trying to stand on anything she can. She will empty her book box, flip it over, and try to stand on it. We recently had to take away her ride-on music truck because she would not quit standing on it.

The other day I purchased a contour pillow, which came in a box. After I unpacked it, I put the empty box on a chair, thinking I would break it down later, probably the next time the trash went out.

[IDIOT]

While I was finishing up my dinner, Anna, incredibly quickly, pulled the box off the chair, stood on it, and fell, faceplanting on the ground.

At first, I thought it was a typical, short-lived bump, then the blood started to flow. It was coming out of her mouth, but I had no idea whether it was her lip, her tongue... and since she's too young to understand what is going on, she wasn't about to be cooperative about it. All she knew was that it hurts in her mouth so QUITTOUCHINGMYMOUTH.

I started freaking out a little, I'll admit it. I'll own it. We have been extremely fortunate in terms of childhood illnesses and injuries so I'm just not used to it at all.

I called Chris and just said "She's bleeding out of her mouth so I need you to come home now [click]." He made a U-turn and headed back. Anna wouldn't lay back on the kitchen counter so I took her up to her room so she'd lay back on her changing table. I couldn't see very much except a lot of dark blood around her two front teeth. It just took a couple minutes for Chris to get home but it felt like FOR.EV.ER. If the RAV4 with the car seat had been in the driveway, I might have just peeled out for the urgent care center.

When he got back I was pretty much ready to go but he said no, calm down, let's just wait a few minutes and see how she does. He correctly diagnosed it as a cut on the inside of her upper lip, but not an awful one. I'm glad he convinced me that it was the right plan to wait - she cried for a few more minutes then perked up when I asked if she'd like some applesauce.

I fired up the Thomas the Train DVD and fixed a bowl of applesauce. She cheerily fed herself applesauce, watched the trains, and fully calmed down.

She opened her lip up twice more before bedtime by just messing with her mouth, but she didn't seem to notice or mind. No more tears, just some curious slurping as she tried to figure out what this weird taste was in her mouth.

So, mini-crisis over. Now that it's over I can look back, listen to things that Chris said I said when I was freaking out, not remember those things, and think the following:

1) This crisis was not that bad.

2) I'm really thankful that we have had so few crises that this crisis SEEMED bad at the time.

3) Maybe I should take a first aid class.

Now that some Sam's Oktoberfest has settled my frayed nerves, I will hit the sack. Good night!

Anna in charge

Marcia had a story for me when I went to pick up Anna.

Nolan is a boy about Anna's age at the daycare. Apparently he's a bit of a fusser... they often have to tell him he's alright and comfort him. Today he was in a high chair and had a tray full of crackers but wanted the crackers that another kid had. Anna was nearby when he started fussing.

She said, with authority in her voice,

"Nolan, you okay."

Man oh man...

Braniac

Anna had a brain day today. Even though it was a work day and we were away from her for many of her waking hours, she still found time to pretty much blow us out of the water with what her little noggin can churn out already.

For your consideration:

• When I was getting her dressed on the changing table, she hoisted her blanket up between us to start a round of peek-a-boo. To get the game going, she said "where Mama go?" Three words people. Three words in a row. About two weeks back she said "where Amy go?" when playing peek-a-boo with Grammy Amy over gchat, but at the time we thought she was just imitating what Dad and I were saying. Nope - she understood the structure enough to substitute "Mama" for "Amy".

• As we were walking up to her Mon/Wed daycare house, the dog (named Cheyenne) was barking as usual. We asked "who's that?" hoping for a nice solid "dog!" reply. Instead we got a thoughtful pause and a clear-as-a-bell "Cheyenne."

• Should she be able to use pronouns yet? Because I swear she used "I" more than once today to refer to herself. She started playing this game where she would "hide" by flattening herself against my back (I was kneeling on the ground), then LEAP out with ferocious giggling. I would laugh with her and say "you're funny!" At least twice she replied "I funny."

• Her ability to handle books is getting a little crazy. She is pretty much bored with her board books (har har) already. She is now digging into my collection of little kids' paperback books from the 80's - Sesame Street and Clifford books are big winners right now. Tonight she picked out "Annie" (as in Little Orphan). The text is pretty extensive so when she brought it to me, in my head I'm like YEAH RIGHT KID. Darn it if she didn't sit attentively as I read every single word, cover to cover.

• While reading Annie, I was trying to teach her the name of Annie's dog, Sandy. Early on I pointed at Sandy and asked "who is this?" She wasn't sure yet about the dog, but she did feel confident about one thing in the picture... she pointed at the trash can and said, "Oscar!"

We are so incredibly out of luck once she decides to use her smarts to outwit us, eh?

Gotcha Mama!

I have a story from tonight that wouldn't fit into a reasonable number of tweets - so here goes!

I bought Anna a new toothbrush today because this morning I noticed that the bristles of the old one were starting to come off in her mouth. I left it downstairs with the other Target stuff and remembered it at bedtime after we were already upstairs. Anna had her blankie and foofoo (pacifier) and seemed reasonably absorbed by a book in her bedroom. I decided to try to sneak downstairs without her noticing, as she usually gets distraught if I go downstairs without her.

I eased the gate open and tiptoed down each stair. Unfortunately Anna heard just enough and I was totally busted - I looked back to see her little face peering earnestly down at me from between the bars of the gate. I braced for wailing... Amazingly, she wasn't upset at all, she just stood there and looked at me calmly. I decided just to hurry up and grab the toothbrush, which was in a bag at the foot of the stairs.

As I was bending over to rummage through the bag, I heard the sound of her foofoo hitting the floor, then bouncing down the stairs. Then it ricocheted just right and nailed me right on the butt! How the heck did she do that?? It had some speed on it - she hadn't dropped it, she THREW it! I whirled around and looked up in time to see Anna totally CRACK. UP. She thought this was HILARIOUS. No trace of separation-anxiety Anna... she was completely replaced by Anna the mischievous imp!

I feigned shock and dismay, which made her laugh harder. I found the toothbrush and walked upstairs to find her around the corner, still in stitches.

Isn't it amazing how some changes in babies are so gradual that you hardly notice them and other changes are like WHAM instant 180? Incredible.