Jon and Amber

The Cefprozil for Jeremy’s ear infections gives him horrible diarrhea – many, many times per day. And the diarrhea is giving him a diaper rash, not a horrible one yet, but it’s obviously uncomfortable for him because he cries and cries whenever he knows he’s going to get his diaper changed, and no matter how gentle we are when cleaning him off, he cries in the saddest way and is pretty hard to console after the diaper change is done. The one thing that takes the crying down a notch is when I slather on gobs of Butt Paste, I guess it’s pretty soothing to his tender skin. He’s still crying by the time we finish up and do hugs and kisses, but the Butt Paste does seem to help.

I absolutely LOVE the smell of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. LOVE IT. Like, I wish I could get that exact scent in some kind of body oil or something, LOL. It’s kind of earthy and balsam-y.

In other news, I started a frickin’ kitchen fire last night. Oh yeah. I was going to make some noodles, and I put the pot on to boil on the left front burner. Then I turned the dial for the right front burner because, oh, I don’t know, I’m an idiot-head. Then a few minutes later, from the living room, I smelled something burning. Instantly I had a flash in my head of where the pot was, and which burner dial I had turned, and I knew exactly what had happened. And yet, even knowing what to expect, when I got to the kitchen and saw my pot holder and part of the plastic bag of noodles on fire atop the glass-top stove, I just froze and said, “Oh sh–! Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire-” until Jon came in and said “Stand back!” He blew on it because it wasn’t a huge flame, but it didn’t quite go out, and then I got my senses back about me and jumped forward, turned off the burner, and threw the pot lid over the flames, extinguishing them. Then the smoke. Oh the smoke. Good lord, it stinks even now. We turned on the exhaust fan and opened the back door and a few windows, and then Jeremy started getting annoyed at the smoke or the cold air or both, so I took him downstairs so he could sit and play in his swing while I worked on straightening out the branches of the Xmas tree. (Little story about that – we got this artificial tree last summer at some kind huge group rummage sale, for ONE DOLLAR! The branches were all kind of smushed down from being stored in a big bag, so I was straightening them out to make it look nice before we put the lights and decorations on it tomorrow. A little late, I know, but at least we’re DOING it!)

So to make a short story even longer, after the fire was out and we were still clearing smoke out of the house, the oven (which had our main dish in it) flashed yet ANOTHER F3 error message and turned off. We’ve gotten these errors at least 8-10 times in the 2.5 years we’ve had this house, and between those and the wonky temperature-setting dial, and all the other stuff I dislike about it, I’m hoping Santa brings me a new range for Christmas. He probably won’t. But then I think I am going to go buy one for my personal New Year’s gift to myself and the people I feed in this house.

This was my last week in the office before a 2-week holiday vacation, so I had a lot of things I wanted to wrap up before Friday. Of course that means I had to get a call from the daycare at noon on Monday saying that Jeremy had what appeared to be pinkeye, and I had to come pick him up immediately. Also, he could not return to daycare until he had been on medication for at least 24 hours. Great. So there goes half of Monday and all of Tuesday!

The pediatrician did a double-booking to get Jeremy in on Monday afternoon, thank goodness, so we were able to go get checked out and get a prescription for eye drops. And during that doctor visit, she also found an ear infection – in both ears! Poor Jeremy! But our jolly little trooper never made a peep or even had a fever, so we would have never known. Yikes. So we ended up with two prescriptions – eye drops and an oral antibiotic for the ear infections.

Let me take this opportunity to mention that the oral medicine, Cefprozil, tastes absolutely terrible. It’s supposed to be tutti-fruity but I got some on my finger and it tasted like… well, like tongue-burning, nasty, bitter horror. Plus it smells EXACTLY like tutti-fruity flavored cat urine. Seriously. The first time we gave him a dose, I thought one of the cats had just peed on the carpet somewhere behind me. So I can’t blame Jeremy for fighting tooth and nail when we try to give it to him.

I spent Tuesday at home with Jeremy, and he was happy and well, even his eyes were pretty clear, so he was able to go back to daycare Wednesday. Then on Thursday at 1:00, I got another call from the daycare. Jeremy had a fever of 101.3, and I needed to come pick him up right away. Argh! I called the nurse to see if I should bring him in again, and she said that it was most likely his body just working to fight the ear infections, and that I didn’t need to worry unless it got a couple degrees higher. So that was a little good-ish news at least. I gave Jeremy a dose of ibuprofen when we got home, and he had a good afternoon and evening. The fever came back at about 3:00 am, so I dosed him again and he slept pretty well after that.

And that leaves us here, home together again today – Friday. I am struggling with trying to decide if I should just call it an early start to my Christmas/New Year vacation, or if I should bundle up the baby and run in to the office for a couple hours just to tie up a few loose ends before the mandatory corporate shutdown next week. Right now, I’m leaning towards just staying home. Nothing will suffer too much if I don’t go in, and I’m still in my pajamas at 9:00 am and rather enjoying this slower pace today! Plus the Cefprozil gives Jeremy diarrhea and I don’t know if I am really brave enough to risk that happening on the 25-mile drive in to the office, heh.

Last night Jon and Jeremy were playing in the living room, and Jeremy started lifting his usually-firmly-planted feet from the floor and “walking” while Jon held his hands! He happily stomped his way across the room with big, sure steps. By the time I was able to get the video camera, he had started to lose interest, so his steps in this video are a little smaller and he’s not nearly as excited about doing it. But the fact that he’s suddenly started lifting his feet in a right-left-right fashion is still a big new thing and pretty exciting for all of us!