Tuesday, February 26, 2008

It's the Flu

I'm not "taking one for the team." I'm infecting the team. I am Typhoid Mary. Or more likely Typhoid Crazy Aunt Anita.

Ironically, I had the flu shot this year.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Taking Another One for the Team

We had a great weekend with Conor's cousin, Carter, and his parents visiting us from Palo Alto. Conor absolutely loves Carter and it appears the feeling is mutual. Of course, I am turning into "Crazy Aunt Anita." One the one hand, I like this, being the nutty aunt who is probably too smoochy, loud, and likely to join in a game of Fly on Space Shuttle to The Moon way too quickly. On the other, I'm turning into an aunt who is too smoochy, loud and likely to join right in kid's play when I ought to be a bit more grown up. There's a fine line between Craaazy Aunt Anita and Crazazy Aunt Anita, is all I'm saying.

Unfortunately, Carter got sick while he was here. One wouldn't have known he was sick from his and Conor's re-enactment of "Monkeys Jumping on a Bed" but his fever made itself known. We found out Sunday that he was strep throat.

So for the rest of Sunday, we were hovering over Conor to see if he started running a fever or started having a sore throat. But no! He's as healthy as a horse.

I, on the other hand, woke up with a sore throat. No big whoop. I've always got some sort of post-nasal drip going on. Then about 11:30, I started getting chills. I took my temp: 99.2. That is so low as to be no big whoop. 12:00 I was still freezing: temp 100.6. At 2:00, I was starting to flirt with the 101.5.

It could be the flu. My students are dropping like flies, including the good students so you know there's something going around. Flu has really hit the college students hard and if this is flu, there is no need to go to the doc. However, it could be strep due to proximity and symptoms.

In either case, and this is where I sound like Bitchy Wife Anita, why am *I* the one who keeps getting sick? I would never want to wish an illness on my son, so I guess what I'm really saying s WHY CAN'T DAVE TAKE ONE FOR THE TEAM once in a while?? He kisses Conor nearly as much as I do. Why I am the one who always gets the stomach viruses, the flu, and apparently strep throat?

Ok. Enough bitching and craziness. I'm almost finished making the homemade chicken and rice soup for dinner (!) and after that, I'm going to bed. (Dave had to work late tonight and we have no prepared food in the house. I would complain, but that's my own damn fault)

ETA: I don't think this is strep throat because I'm no longer running a fever this morning (although I had a fever last night while I was "sleeping."). And Dave would like to point out that he did take quite a few for the team during Conor's first 2 years of day care. I pointed out that this is my blog and hence my perspective and he should git his own dern blog should he want to discuss his child-induced illnesses. ;-)

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Best Laid Plans (of Lame Ass Bloggers)

Today's title was supposed to be Anita vs. the Ivy: The Siege of 2008.

However, we'll save that one for later on this week. Instead, I shall regale you with our story of going to the emergency room after work tonight.

Daycare called up Dave late this afternoon to tell us that Conor was going to the bathroom very frequently and had just told them that his p3nis hurt. Dave called me and we tried to figure out how we could get in touch with the pediatrician's before they closed. Conor's upset stomach on both Tuesday and Saturday worried me. We got ahold of the peds 5 minutes before they closed. "Go straight to the Presby Children's ER" was the nurse's exact quote.

Dave and I met at the house at which point there was some discussion about waiting until the next morning to save an expensive ER visit or chancing kidney damage if this really was unirinary tract infection. We opted to save our son's kidneys.

Fortunately, it was not a UTI in the classic sense. It is a UTI in the mildest sense---the UT is irritated not infected. Oddly enough, this was the second irritated UTI that the nurse had seen on a boy the exact same age as Conor in the last hour. I think that this bug that gave Conor his tummy/poopie problems is also irritating his wee-wee. (The bug has definitely been going around Charlotte's young 'uns). So it still hurts for him to pee and he's going with great frequency and urgency. But it should clear itself up by Weds. If not, we're back to the regular doc by Thurs.


As an aside, we left the hospital at 7:30 and no one had eaten, so for the first time in our lives, we had fast food for dinner. (Melting child, dying of hunger and holding onto his penis would have been fun neither at home nor a restaurant) The highlight of this part of the story is the drink we got the size of my thigh, which at this point is quite large. It was a disquieting display of consumerism to be served anything that big.


And back to Conor, just how bad is his UTI? He's been to the potty 4 times since I've started this. :-(

Friday, February 15, 2008

A Month in the Life of an Infertile

Cycle Day (CD) 1-5: Complain about Aunt Flo.

CD6, 7, and 8: Take a break from thinking about getting pregnant.

CD10-14 or so: Don't pee for 4 hours, sit with one's legs crossed until one can pee on a stick and perform the "Is-the-line-getting-darker" squint until the test line smacks you in the head, it is so dark.

CD8-CD17: Enjoy, ahem, being married or, in terms of TTC, babydance like crazy.

CD15-16: Take a break from thinking about getting pregnant.

CD17-CD26: Inject oneself twice a day with blood thinners while taking crazy making prednisone twice a day and progesterone once a day.

CD25-28: Laugh at how foolish newbies to the TTC process second guess every sneeze to see if they are pregnant. Realize that for you, indigestion, tingly boobs and bloating are "natural" outcomes to the massive amount of drugs you are on. They quite literally mean nothing.

CD26-28: Wake up and pee on a stick with no expectation of success, which, ironically, in the past meant a real possibility of success but now means you are not freakin' pregnant. Despite all reason, stare at the FRER HPT in 3 different light settings to see if the faintest of faint lines is detectable. Occassionally, tear the test apart to see if the line you see is "real" or an evaporation line. Decide after tearing the test apart that's as white as the driven snow, that it's perfectly acceptable to not feel guilty over a big fat glass of wine. Continue to whine, also.

After the final day of testing, stop taking drugs and wait for the whole damn thing to start again.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

My Best Valentine

It was a particularly sweet day. And it wasn't all the doing of my dear husband.

Last night, we put together a set of stickers and lollipops for Conor's friends at school. This morning at breakfast, we talked with Conor about giving all his classmates their Valentine's. I told Conor he would probably get Valentine's cards, too.

He turned to me excited and wide eyed, "Maybe I will get one Valentine today at school!!!"

My heart exploded at my child's unselfish nature.

This afternoon, when I picked Conor up at school, I asked Mademoiselle how the card exchange went. She said that they had every child give their Valentine's to the other children one by one. It took forever, she said, but Conor was amazing. Some children would just drop the Valentine into the other child's lap. But Conor went up to each child and said "This is just for you because I love you." She said, "I thought, Wowwww. Did his parents coach him last night!?!?"

No, we didn't. My little boy came up with that one on his own. And that's my best Valentine's day present ever.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

More Pre-School Door Quotes

What is a friend......

Conor: My mommy is my friend and she plays baseball with you!

What makes you happy......

Conor: when I play baseball with my Mommy!

(We don't play that much, but apparently, it makes a big impression with the toddler set)

What makes you miserable.....

Conor: When my Mommy yells at me from the shower.

(Great. I guess I deserve that after I came home and taunted Dave about being his baseball playing friend).

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Throw Up on the Pillow

That was Dave's suggestion for the title of today's blog after I pointed out that although he can wake up quickly when Conor comes in the room to snuggle with us in the middle of the night, I can go from REM to lit room at the sound of our son throwing up on the pillow between us.

I heard Conor moan. And then I heard the tell-tale sound of blork that made me leap out of bed to get a trash can while Dave sat up and began to comfort Conor as he continued to blork all over the bed.

Conor just threw up for the first time in Decemember and it hasn't even been two months that he's gotten another stomach bug. And the poor guy really didn't know what to do when he had to throw up and poop at the same time. He just knew everything felt bad. (And trust me, it was bad!)

The odd thing is that unless he was being sick, he didn't act sick. He was laughing and bouncing and playing. Until he wasn't.

And since I've been batting about 1000 in picking up Conor's bugs, I'm unhappily anticipating my go round of this. And for some reason, I don't think I'll be laughing or bouncing or playing at all during my episode. Oh, yes. So when Dave comforts Conor when he yaks, I do my part by getting sick and in my own way, taking one for the team.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Lip Scuff

Since I'm currenty on the quest to give a shit, I thought I'd start a new series of posts on some of the products I'm finding useful in not looking like a used up old hag.

So here's the first one: Lip Scuff. I bought mine for the Body Shop a zillion years ago, and it had to be on sale because there's no way I'd pay $11 for it as they are advertising it on amazon.

So, in addition to having it for a zillion years, I've never really used it. Until the chapter on lips in my Don't Look like An Old Hag book.

So, now what I do is every morning before I put on the rest of my face moisturizer, I use the lip scuff (it basically exfoliates the dead lip bits), add a lip moisturizer from Clinique (a freebie that must be 10 years old!), and after I put on whatever makeup I'm going to wear, I add a lip gloss.

I have thin lips. (Chickens have thicker lips thatI) Nonetheless, the lip scuff helps plump them up and keeps them looking polished for most of the morning until lunch. This includes a couple of hot beverages throughout the morning.

So, my advice: go cheap, but it's worth it. My lips appear to be bigger and definitely look healthier.

I give that product a Mother Thing Stamp of Approval.

We'll see what else does or doesn't make it.

And, as for infertility (Why, yes! My infertility is doing fantastic. Thank you for asking), we a probably going not going to start IVF in the upcoming cycle. I am traveling most of March and it just would be too tricky and expensive for us to try. So end of March/beginning of April is when we're starting.

Of course, I realized on the way to work that if we'd pursued adoption last summer, we'd probably be on the way to bringing our child home soon. But we didn't. We may be in that place next year. But we're not there now.

We're still trying on our own, so maybe something will happen beyond the knots and bruises I'm getting now. It goes well with the lip scuff.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

The Lives of Others

Thanks to our NetFlix subscription, last night we watched The Lives of Others. It was so good, that this morning on the way to the gym, thinking about the last line in the movie, I started tearing up again. Even NOW, I'm a bit misty.

Sad. Beautiful. Inspiring.

It was good.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

How Not to Look Like a Used Up Old Hag

In my quest to be more "shit giving" I bought a book, How Not to Look Like a Used Up Old Hag. Actually, the name of the book is How Not to Look Old, and it is about as vain as it sounds. Or worse.

The author is on the cover and although she is attractive, she sort of scares me, too. She's a bit too pink pastel for this feminist. (Yes, I am aware of the irony of a feminist buying a book to look pretty. Let's just say I'm a post-feminist)

However.

I've been trying to new face cream and seriously, there are less wrinkles. (Oil of Olay Regenerist, if you must know) And I've been trying with the clothes and the mani/pedis. And I'm going back to my highlighted hair because it did look a lot better. (her hint: the older, the lighter)

And I have to be honest: folks are noticing.

Of course, it's a pretty big distance from dressing "to not be naked" to actually wanting to look like I give a shit much less to "not look old". And that alone could be accounting for the compliments. But it's rewarding. And maybe it will inspire me to drop these 10 lbs that I really don't need.

In the meantime, check out The Fashionable Academic. It's clearly not me, but it's fun.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

A Real Trip Home

When we pull out of Conor's daycare, I ask Conor which way he wants to go: City or Firetruck?

The city route takes us directly towards uptown Charlotte and it's skyline. Conor always shouts out "That's my city Charlotte!!" (We've had a few testy conversations about whether its his city Charlotte or our city Charlotte)

The firetruck route takes us by the NoDa firestation and we can often see the firetruck sitting in the driveway. (A real hit with the three year olds).

That route also takes us by the coffee shop, Smelly Cat. Because I am a particular kind of mother, I have taught my son the Smelly Cat song, although really only the chorus.

Smelly Cat, Oh Smelly Cat
What are they feeding you?
Smelly Cat, Oh Smelly Cat
It's not your fault

We usually sing a couple of choruses as we pass the coffee shop.

Yesterday, after we finished singing, Conor sighed and said "That's my favorite song."

And I won the Mother of the Year award.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Scrabulous

It's been a crazy week. My Monday alone was so busy, I woke up Tuesday morning convinced it was Saturday. It's a mostly good busy, but by definition, it's still, ummm, busy.

I'm teaching a new class on online interactions this semester and it is one of the most fun classes I've ever taught for undergraduates. On Thursday, several students (probably the ones who drink coffee) agreed with me that our class seems to really fly by. This week, we have been discussing the effects of personality characteristics on online behavior (not so much) and also how people play with their identities online, too (again, not so much). A lot of the perceptions of how freaky people are online comes from research in the 80's and 90's when the main people online were geeky engineers and computer science professionals. So the early research of Weird and Odd behavior online came from the Weird and Odd behavior of old school Geeks, not that the Internet makes people Weird and Odd (media overplaying of sensational stories, notwithstanding).

In any case, my students are starting to pick their topics for their class project and so far SEX ONLINE is winning by far. This is new territory for me. I usually teach about organizations and organizational psychology, so my main take on sex during my classes is "Sex at work is bad. Don't do it." I am having to push the students a bit about what they want to study about SEX ONLINE--deviance? Deception?? What exactly are they interested in with SEX ONLINE, because although it's an interesting topic "PEOPLE HAVE WEIRD SEX ONLINE" is not likely to lead to an interesting research paper.

Ahem.

Anywho, so what does this have to do with Scrabulous? Not much. And unless you belong to Facebook, you have no idea what I'm talking about. But I LOVE Scrabulous!!! It's an online scrabble game that you can play on Facebook and it is so much fun!! I win! I lose! I have a boatload of fun. I can usually make about one move a day which lengthens out the games. Nonetheless, playing Scrabulous alone is worth the effort of joining Facebook. Anyone can join, btw. And it's free. And you can play Scrabulous!!!

Which I am doing instead of working on a conference paper. Well, right now I'm blogging instead of working on a conference paper. But I was checking on my scrabulous game when I thought I'd check in with you, too.