Maybe that needs a bit of background.

I have an almost-two-year-old son, who has never been particularly healthy.  During the first couple months of his life, we spent more nights in the emergency ward than we did at home.

He had raspy lungs.  He had a heart murmur.  He woke up in the middle of the night screaming with pain and fever.

Then, the doctor tells us he has a low white blood cell count.  Further testing is required.  Can’t tell us what’s wrong.  Gives us a pamphlet for leukemia treatment options.

Our hearts stopped.

Three more weeks of testing, with this hanging over our heads.  Sleepless nights.  When we did sleep, we had nightmares of funerals, coffin shopping, hospitals.

Every time our son was held and a stranger approached, he screamed and pulled away, fearing another needle.

Finally, an answer.

Lactose intolerance produced several of the symptoms.  Excess mucous (caused by lactose buildup) caused the rasping lungs.  Heart murmur within standard tolerance for his age range.  Midnight pain and screaming caused by undigested lactose fermenting in his intestines.

The low white cell count and fever were the only ones not caused by lactose intolerance; these were caused by an infection with bad timing.

Relief was very much present in our household when we got that news.  We took him off milk, and results were visible within two nights.

Multiple small, unrelated symptoms led to one of the worst nightmares of my life, and an experience I hope never to repeat.

The issue I have with it isn’t with the contents of the show.  Teach the kids to exercise, teach them to share, teach them to learn from the world around them.  Not a problem.

The issue I have is that, as with most shows where English is the primary language, they don’t speak proper English.  Dora and Diego teach Spanish; I have to presume they’re doing it properly.  Likewise with Kai-Lan and Chinese.  But it seems that kids shows want to dumb down the English language, which I feel is a completely backwards way of thinking of childhood education.

I shouldn’t feel stupider after watching a show with my kids than I did before it started.

Did my parents feel this way?

• I write on the computers at work and at home.  I transfer back and forth using email.  I spent a day writing to a file that I had emailed home from work.  Unfortunately, it was in the temp folder from when I opened it from my email client.  Net result – a full weekend day’s work lost.
• My family has been sick.  Not convieniently all at once.  One person recovers just as the next gets sick.  That has left me with no time for writing.

The net result is that this year’s attempt at NaNoWriMo has been aborted.  I will continue to work on my novel, but will now work on quality rather than quantity, and be able to make a presentable work rather than a word-count-padded one.

Yup, that’s right.  If we lose the remote, there’s no way to change the channel.

On Wednesday, I will have a one-year-old son.  His current favorite game is hide-and-seek.  But he doesn’t hide himself.  He hides other things.  Toys.  Soothers.  Spoons.  Phones.  Remote controls.

The toys we can deal without.  Soothers we’re trying to get him out of anyway.  Spoons we have a-plenty.

The phones have a pager on them.  I press a button on the base, and the phone beeps loudly.  Why isn’t there such a feature on the remote?  Instead, I’m stuck searching for a remote control while Treehouse or YTV is running.

Now, it’s just time to go car shopping…

Tomorrow’s a fun day of a PT test (which I have to attend in order to give the tester a chit saying that I can’t participate), then an ROE briefing where we find out who we are and aren’t allowed to shoot on our next sail.  Details withheld due to OPSEC, sorry.

Then a nice leisurely sail to show off to VIPs (your tax dollars at work?), followed by a nice leisurely sail to train navigators, followed by….? Family time?  More sailing?  Time will tell.

Diaper cream

Full jar of diaper cream.  Daddy wasn’t paying attention.

I went in to dispute the ticket that I got out of the deal (failure to yield to oncoming traffic).  I then returned home and made my statement for about the hundredth time, this time to ICBC.  I think the incentive to avoid accidents (besides pain) is the amount of paperwork generated for it!

Anyway, it’s back to the waiting game.  I’m back to work, but on light duties and restricted PT.  And still no car replacement or repairs.

I celebrated this fact by getting into an almost-head-on collision.  I was making a left turn, the other car went straight through the intersection.  We both swerved.  We hit.  I stopped, they went flying.

I’m OK.  A bit of bruising from my seat belt and airbag.  Nothing broken or cracked, no apparent internal injuries.  The other driver was waiting on tests when I was discharged from hospital.

Now I’m waiting to hear on the results.  I made my ICBC claim last night, and am waiting to hear from the adjustor.  I’ve talked to the police (they were at the accident site) and been to the hospital.  I went to work this morning (CF rules say I need to see a military doctor after I see a civilian doctor).  The doc gave me three days off work – today (the day I had to go in and see him) and the weekend.  Back to see him again Monday to see if I need any more work restrictions.

The doc also told me that, by Monday, I’ll be cursing and screaming, as the real pain should settle in   Not something I’m looking forward to.

Remains of my Car

At one point in this series of visits, we happened to see an actual pediatrician who happened to be working that night.  He was concerned enough to book us a follow-up visit at his office.  This time, after much poking and prodding, we were told that he has an underdeveloped trachea, which is apparently not uncommon, although very scary when he coughs until he can’t draw breath.

At that time, he also booked a follow-up to the follow-up.  This took place earlier this week.

Now, we have appointments with an ENT¹ specialist and a cardiologist.  In the meantime, he’s now on a puffer twice a day and nose drops once a day, which in a roundabout way leads to the title of this post.

One of the hardest things for a parent to do is deliberately do something that makes their baby cry.  We now have to do that three times a day – a puffer mask at 8 AM and PM, and nose drops at noon.  He’s gotten used to them now, he doesn’t cry but he still fights having the mask on for 5 breaths.  I hope that I won’t have to do it after the next follow-up, but I think he’s going to have asthma.

On a brighter note, he’s standing himself up (with support) most days, babbling up a storm, and crawling absolutely everywhere.  And everywhere he goes, he studies absolutely everything that he can.  My future geek