i see fish sticks in my future

what a week. so last tuesday evening, oliver's fever spiked again. we paged the on call doctor, who said that since he's still so young, we should have it checked out at children's hospital urgent care. so we trucked it over there. they needed a urine sample, which is an interesting affair with an infant, and some blood and x-rays, which is just stressful for all involved. when we were in the lab getting his blood drawn, they needed to do a heel stick as well as draw blood from his arm. when they placed the rubber tourniquet on his arm, his arm immediately started to turn purple and he began screaming like the world was ending. i wasn't able to calm him down and subsequently started crying myself. when the lab tech was FINALLY done drawing blood (and bitching about how they need more employees), i was able to hold oliver, though it took him awhile to calm down. then we were off to radiology, which was equally traumatic. luckily, the x-ray techs are VERY good at what they do and thus are extremely fast. they had to weigh his arms and legs down with sandbags, and tape his head into a foam thing, so he would stay still. he was not pleased and i teared up all over again. finally it was all over and we could go back to the room, where he passed out into a dead sleep from all the stress. the chest x-rays showed a viral progression but nothing bad, and the initial urine tests came back fine as well, so they said he had a virus and sent us home with instructions to visit his primary care physician the next day.

that night, i slept in the rocking chair with him, as whenever i attemped to put him down (even just to change his diaper), he would immediately begin screaming. this behavior continued through wednesday afternoon.

so, wednesday dawned, and his fever was a bit down, though he was still feeling pretty crappy. late that afternoon we went to see his doctor, who basically said i was over reacting and that he would be fine and that i would learn when he was really sick. which kind of irked me. i figured his cold was just a cold, or sinus infection, but the fever and random bouts of screaming at the top of his lungs, and screaming when the doctor pushed on his belly - not normal, and at his age, any fever over 100.4 should be checked out (or so all the sources - including the doctor - say). i keep feeling like his doctor dismisses all our concerns as "new parent worries," never taking us seriously. i understand that as a new parent, i will overreact at times, but i don't like the feeling that his doctor won't listen to us. the same thing happened with his gas, the discussion of what i eat affecting the baby, and probiotics. so we may end up changing doctors.

by wednesday evening, he was feeling a bit better (i was able to put him down without him screaming bloody murder) though still wasn't sleeping great, and by thursday morning his fever was gone. children's called to let us know that the blood tests so far were looking good, but that something was appearing in his urine cultures. friday, they called to let me know it was a bacteria (enterococcus, i believe), and something that always needs to be treated with antibiotics. however, since he no longer had a fever, they felt he was getting over it, but would fax all the information to his doctor to let him decide. which made me kind of want to kick the doctor, since if he had run ANY test on monday when we were in the office, he could have gotten antibiotics then (even if it was for his probable sinus infection) and perhaps avoided some of the mess (and lack of sleep) during the week.

he had been feeling much better: saturday night he regained his appetite and ate bottle after bottle, and yesterday his congestion seemed to start clearing up and he was sleeping better. however, his congestion has moved from his nose to his chest. you can hear and feel it, and his tiny cough is hoarse. he has that awful cough where stuff floats around in your chest, and i just know how that feels (and hurts). he was crying (hungry, mama, HUNGRY!!!) in the car on the way home from day care yesterday, and it sounded much like he was losing his voice. :( poor little bugger. i hesitate to even call the doctor's office though, since i am sure he will say it is normal and he is fine. and that's not the way it should be. at the same time, there is little they can do for him since he is so little and can't have much medicine anyways. i'll have to try some baby vick's tonight. if it doesn't clear up or worsens in the next day or 2, i'll have to have him checked out - make sure it's not pneumonia or something. the doctor will just have to deal with me!

bryan left for detroit yesterday morning, for work. i was pretty nervous about baby wrangling all by my lonesome while trying to get ready for work, but ollie has been the most precious angel (*knock on wood*). we got bryan to the airport around 6am yesterday, and as oliver had eaten before we left, he fell contentedly asleep in the car on the way home. i brought his whole carrier upstairs to the bathroom with me, where he slept peacefully while i showered and got dressed and ready. he woke up all smiles, and i got him changed and fed and all ready for the day. we made it to day care on time, so i was feeling pleasantly surprised and not the least bit accomplished (it may not sound like much but it's much harder than it sounds). he had a good day at day care, where they got to go on a walk since the weather had warmed up considerably. i don't know how his sitter does it with all those little kids (she has 6 kids, all 4 and under) but wow are we blessed because of it. it is definitely her special talent and calling!

i was worried about having to take on all the night shifts with oliver as well while bryan is gone, but he slept like a champ last night. we headed over to mom & dad's for dinner, and were home around 7. i got him ready for bed and we sat in the rocking chair for awhile, where he ate very well. i put him down around 8, took care of getting my things ready for this morning, and was in bed myself before 9. he slept 6 hours - until 2! he was up for about 30 minutes, and was back down until nearly 6. i got up at 5, shocked he wasn't awake, but started getting myself together. when he awoke just before 6, i thought that would be it, but i got him fed and he fell asleep again, allowing me to get ready for work, and was just waking around 6:45 when i was going into his room to wake him up. :) he was smiley and agreeable all morning, we got ready and out the door on time all by ourselves! go us!!

last thursday, we went out to the toyota dealership and picked up our new car! LOVESIT! it is soooooo cute. it is such a glossy, sexy black. well, at least it was when we got it. now, with the road salt and melting snow, it is covered in a grayish white coating of grossness (and the floor mats aren't looking so hot either). hopefully with this morning's rain it'll clean up a bit. and the inside smells like new car and leather, mmmm. it is super comfortable to ride in, so sleek with the leather and rounded surfaces everywhere, and has nice pick up! the display is really neat. it's a touch screen so you can navigate around the menus and screens and options - which is probably not the coolest thing to do while driving. the screen is pretty distracting overall anyways. i'm always checking it to see if i'm improving my average mpg (and i am - up to 38 mpg now!). same thing with the backup camera - more distracting than helpful i think. :) i've been having fun driving it the past couple of days. i have noticed, though, just how much lighter it is than my suv, which should be pretty interesting on the way home tonight with the forecasted 60 mph winds.

bryan and i have been watching britain's celebrity big brother, which has adopted a new format this year. instead of having celebrities in the house, they hand picked a group of young, talented people, and have a different celebrity "hijack" the house each day to direct that day's events. what i have found most interesting about this season is that all the young people in the house, while some may be slightly immature or naive, are generally almost boring to watch. they are all level headed, smart, and get along splendidly for the most part - very little drama. it makes it both refreshing and boring to watch at times. :) it's kind of nice to like all the housemates! they've had some good hijackers (we can't get enough russell brand). the finale just happened this week but we haven't watched it yet. can't wait to see!

we booked out atlanta trip, WOOHOO! since bryan has to go for work, the baby and i will accompany him for part of the week, so we can see all our friends and show off our incredibly cute baby. i can't WAIT to see everyone! our friends jessica and brent will have had their baby by then (based on the latest prediction, at least), so i am so excited to see them and their new family. flying with the baby (and more specifically, all his gear) should be an adventure. cat and chris are organizing the troops. it will be very nice to go to earthlink as a visitor! ;) we won't be there long, but it will be so nice to see everyone. i can't believe it's been nearly a year. it passed so quickly!

had my official start date as a permanent hire here this monday. :) took me awhile to find HR at the other building (no one seemed to know where it was), BUT ta-da!! i'm permanent. nothing much changes except who pays me... plus that longed for paid time off!!

oliver is 3 months old this week (hard to believe). with milk protein digestion problems disappearing between 3 and 5 months of age, based on the reading we've done, i may soon be able to indulge in dairy again. which is a good thing, as i've been fantasizing about dairy products for the last few days (i was longing for a cold glass of milk and holding an internal debate over whether sour cream or creme fraiche is better over the weekend, day dreaming about the many uses of feta yesterday morning on the way in to work, and i just had a random urge for a big hunk of cheddar). i'm going to give it another month and then we'll run a test (which, unfortunately, does not have me eating dairy but instead feeding him stored milk i froze while i was eating dairy). we shall see!! easter is coming, and everyone knows about easter and chocolate... oh lord i remember chocolate...

not much else here... i was off the hook last night, but we'll see how i juggle cooking myself dinner and keeping the baby happy at the same time. it's supposed to get up to nearly 50 today, but then drop to 0 by the evening, accompanied with snow, mega ice (which the prius will warn me of by lighting up a little skidding car picture on the dash), and that 60 mph wind (which i am uncertain the prius can handle). YUCK. the weekend won't be great either - not super cold, but snow/rain/wind as well. planning on trying to keep the munchkin indoors away from germs this weekend. i might try to get to the salon and spa for a hair cut and massage (mom's birthday gift to me). what a treat that would be!!

a brush with the death of my coolness

i almost purchased a mini van this week. i know - unbelievably cool. however, we had a major problem with the prius we ordered last fall - it wasn't coming. in november, when we had purchased the prius, we were told it would come in the first or second week of january, they would take a day to install the leather, and ta-da! - new car. so we sold bryan's car at the end of december. and received a call from toyota letting us know that we were on track to get the car in january. then they called bryan on tuesday to let him know that there wasn't a car for us, and we had 2 options: 1) upgrade a package or two, pay the difference, and get a car now; OR 2) get the package we wanted in april (now, they have a car on the lot that is the package we want, but there was some BS about how they have to keep cars on the lot x numbers of months before selling them... shady). so we discussed our disappointment, and in the end decided that we weren't willing to pay the extra to upgrade, and we really weren't too keen on waiting until april. bryan gets discounts through IBM, so we started checking out other dealerships. and what we found was that we could get a pretty awesome deal on a chrysler town and country mini van. bryan has been waxing poetic about being a mini van owner for a few years, and in light of the deal we could get on one, i was definitely running out of excuses (other than "OMG NO WAY"). so i cried a little to myself, and on wednesday we went to a dealership to see what we could see. it turns out (shock and amazement) that in order to get any of the nifty features that make getting a van worth it (such as the swivel seating, built in child seat, automatic door openers) you have to upgrade a bunch, and of course the price goes up considerably. and we're not looking for a long term loan, so that was out of the question for us. the sales guy offered us a few good deals (including one on a chrysler 300 floor model, a car i've been eyeing for awhile), so we decided to go home and consider our options. we figured if we're going to get a van, we should check out used ones as well, so i started compiling a carmax list of mini vans and station wagons to check out in detail. my coolness was on its death bed. in the meantime, the toyota dealership emailed bryan, saying that they really wanted to get us in a prius, and what did they need to do in order to make that happen. easy - give us a car *now*, for the price we agreed on. in the end, the guy gave us *2* package upgrades, still with the after market leather, for just an extra $500. pretty bangin. so we took that, they're installing the leather today, and we'll get the car next week. fantastico! my coolness is feeling much better. that was a very close call. :) lucky for me, bryan has already pledged that our next car will be a new suv for me, so i shouldn't have quite such a scare again for a very long time. after our experience at toyota (which, even with this snafu, overall was very good), we'll be back to purchase a hybrid suv from them. i'm getting ahead of myself again, though. first, we need to actually have the prius in our possession.

bryan made me some phenomenal fish and chips for dinner last night. he beer battered some tilapia and served that with some homemade thick cut french fries and ghee'd peas. our bottle of malt vinegar seemed to have disappeared, so we had tartar sauce instead. too bad; that and some mint in our peas would have made us very english (we were watching the current big brother: celebrity hijack at the time too). no complaints though - it was positively delish!

not sure what is for dinner tonight, but hopefully we come up with something extra warm, because it's freaking COLD out there! weather.com says 8°F, Feels Like -8°F. stupid wind chill. i bundled ollie up this morning, and he did look very cute in his new oshkosh b'gosh red sweat one piece, hat and mittins, and 2 blankets. he gave me a big fat smile and a giggle, so he couldn't have been too uncomfortable. :)

it's supposed to be even colder tomorrow (3°F, Feels Like -13°F at NOON - i like how weather.com labels this as "Uncomfortable" weather.... no, seriously?), so i think we're going to hide out at home and make chili for dinner. sunday won't be much better, but that's the day of the final packer's play off game, so we'll be home then as well. i may have to venture out to get some groceries at some point, but we'll try to keep the baby home all weekend so his adorable little fingers don't freeze and fall off.

in his on going quest to sleep through the night, he slept 6.5 hours last night. i woke up at 3, which is when he's normally gotten up by, and had that momentary "holy crap the baby's dead" feeling, but of course he wasn't. :) he got up at 3:30, ate and was back down by 4, and got up shortly after 6. apparently, "sleeping through the night" means 5 - 6 hours of sleep, so technically he is sleeping through the night... but getting up at 3 isn't sleeping through the night in a real sense, so we're not totally there. we're pretty close though! then, once he starts sleeping through the night, i'll still get up at midnight to pump, then 4am to pump, so i can work out at 4:30 and still get to work by 8. i'm never going to get a full night's sleep again, am i? :) luckily, i have no problems going to bed before 9pm.

yea, ok, my coolness started to die long before the mini van scare.