Mine mine mine, all mine

lots of caffeine on an empty stomach

So.

Apparently Drew's puking was not caused solely by drainage from his ear infection, because that would make it non-contagious. And believe me, folks, it was contagious.

I got to spend all of Saturday night and most of Sunday morning curled up into a little ball in the bathroom and wishing for death in between bouts of upchucking. Thank God for the Phenergan that finally knocked me into blessedly peaceful unconsciousness. Also thank God that I was at my parents' house, so they were able to help Charles take care of Drew while I was passed out.

Now that my stomach is completely empty, and has been for the past 24 hours, I decided that throwing a bunch of coffee on it would be a good idea. Now my ears are ringing, my brain is buzzing, my hands are shaking and if you knew how many times I have had to retype just this one sentence, you'd probably laugh your ass off at me.

In fact, Im goin to type this sentemfece wtihotu correcting myslfg at all just so you can seeeeee how my branin is functaoojning. Or rthater, not funcationing.

Whee. That was fun!

OK, so, it appears that there is some pretty good news on the horizon:

Hurricane Ophelia is reported to be weakening, and it looks like she's not going to hit the South Carolina coast.

Since we're going to be on the coast for vacation in 10 days, two hours and five minutes (approximately, but who's counting?) I'm so very glad that we won't be contending with a hurricane. Selfish? Yes, I suppose. But I've been looking forward to taking Drew on his first trip to the ocean since, well, since he was born.

Yes, I know, he's only 11 months old and he won't remember a bit of it. But this isn't all about him. I get a lot of joy out of watching him experience things for the first time. So, it's all about me. Me, me, me.

Besides, we'll take pictures, so when he's older we can say, "See? We took you to the beach in 2005, so quit whining about us never taking you anywhere."

Now, I thim,nk I neeid to go aget some mooore cooffeee, or at least get something in my stomacah to eat to maabye soak up some of this caffeeine.

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Edit: An hour later. Ate some peanut-butter crackers and am feeling much more lucid. Also cut out the coffee and switched to caffeine-free Diet Coke. Trembling in hands has subsided, although stomach still feels a bit lurchy.

Drew lately has taken to demanding singing when he's feeling blue, so I'm digging deep into my memories to dredge up all the kiddy songs I can, since singing 'Old McDonald Had a Farm' over and over and over is really taking its toll on my nerves.

So far, his favorites, other than the aforementioned tune about the elderly McDonald's ranch, are 'Jesus Loves Me', the theme song from Veggie-Tales, 'Amazing Grace' and the Rolling Stones' 'Satisfaction.'

If anybody else knows any good songs, or has a website where I can find more songs, tell me tell me. My husband says he walks around most days inadvertently humming 'Jesus Loves Me' under his breath, so he really wants me to find some more tunes for our son.

pukalicious

All I really want to say about this morning is: I have never, and I mean ever, seen a baby - or any human being - throw up that much.

We don't even need to discuss what was happening at the other end.

All of the vomitousness was caused, the pediatrician informed me, by drainage from an ear infection, for which he gave us some thick pink goo to be force-fed to my child every 12 hours.

He's not contagious, so I took him to daycare after the doctor's appointment. These people get paid to get thrown up on, and I do not.

Now, it's Friday, so it's time for the weekend plan report:

Tomorrow morning we will be heading down to Georgia to visit my parents so that Drew can throw up all over them spend quality time with them.

Their church is having its annual Fish Fry, and these people can cook some damn fish, I mean seriously.

After that it's all kind of wide-open and much depends on how well the pink goo is working to make Drew feel better. I really want to go to the Yellow Daisy Festival on Sunday, but my mom and sisters are there today, so I doubt they'll want to go back, which doesn't mean I can't just drag Charles and Drew there with me. You know how men love those artsy-craftsy festivals.

Save the pets and other Katrina information

Syndicated conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher is sponsoring a rescue effort to help the animals left stranded by Katrina.
Go here to donate and read more.

In other news, The Washington Post reports that the Bush administration gave the Army Corps of Engineers more funding than the previous administration over a similar period of time.

You can read here about what state officials did with all that cash. You can also read here about more screw-ups on the part of the state and local officials in Louisiana.

developmentally speaking

Exactly three weeks from today, my baby will turn one.

In the interests of ensuring that he is on the right track, developmentally, I've been reading the CDC website about developmental milestones for one year olds.

Physically, I know he's on track. That's really easy to gauge. Standing, check. Cruising, check. Waving arms about and smacking Mommy in the mouth, check. Standing up holding on to the rails of his crib and screaming when he should be sleeping, check.

Here's what else the experts say may be going on by one year:

• Cries when mother or father leaves

Not only when we leave, but if we stand behind him and he can't see us, or if we step out of the room for 0.3 milliseconds, or if, God forbid, I try to use the bathroom without his assistance.

• Tests parental responses to actions during feedings

"What will they do if I throw this carrot-covered spoon on the freshly mopped floor? What about if I grab this bowl of cereal and dump it over my head? Hmm...very interesting reaction."

• Extends an arm or leg to help when being dressed

Oh, I wouldn't call it helping, per se. It's more of an extending-an-arm-or-leg-to-push-us-the-hell-away kind of gesture.

• Repeats sounds or gestures for attention

Over and over and over and over until we look at him.

• Imitates gestures

I told Charles he's really going to need to watch his...um...gestures...now that Drew's started doing this. If I catch my son giving someone the finger from his car seat, I'm going to know who to blame.

• Responds to simple verbal requests

Our request: "Please stop crying." His response: "No."

• Responds to "No."

If shooting me a withering look of disdain and continuing to do whatever he was doing is "responding to 'no' ", then yeah, I guess he's got this one down.

• Tries to imitate words

Again, if I catch my son saying "damn smelly-ass cat", I'm also going to know who to blame. I'll blame myself.

The cat is smelly. Not that that gives me an excuse to swear at him.

Anyway.

I guess my son could do worse than grow up learning to swear at a cat who, when he gets miffed, pisses on our bathroom floor rug.

Drew, lakeside

This weekend we took Drew to the state park for a picnic and a swim in the lake. Charles was there, but for some reason the pictures I took of him didn't get uploaded. He says there weren't any pictures of him in the digital camera, but I think he just didn't like them so he deleted them. Men are tricky that way.

Here we are enjoying our picnic. Drew really liked the green beans. He preferred them spread out across the blanket rather than actually in the bowl.

The losers at KFC didn't give us any forks or spoons or anything, so we had to eat everything with our fingers, which was fine with Drew, but a little disconcerting for me.

OK, then we decided to go for a dip in the lake.
As you can see, Drew was a bit apprehensive at first.

I had to sort of ease him into it, which was really amusing for all the other swimmers.
We had quite the audience for several minutes while Drew adjusted to the water, which was considerably cooler than the bathwater he's used to.

Drew says, "I really don't think this is a very good idea, Mom. Let's go have some more green beans, whadda ya say?"

However, a few splashes later, he was back to his usual brash and fearless self.

He even got venturesome enough to start pushing my hands away as if to say, "I can do this MYSELF."

We're heading to the beach at Isle of Palms near Charleston in about three weeks.
I can't wait to see his face when he tastes that saltwater.

my hero

Found out today that my friend Nancy, who works as a sign language interpreter for the state Dept. of Mental Health, is on call to head out to Houston to assist with victims of Hurricane Katrina.

I'm so excited for her, and more than a teensy bit jealous. I've donated money, and will try to donate blood tomorrow (I say 'try' because I get so nervous at the thought of someone jamming a needle into my vein and sucking out life-giving cells that I usually end up having palpitations, which then gets me ruled out as a donor during the pre-donation physical screening) but she's actually going to get to be there and do some real hands-on helping.

And then I feel kinda disgusted with myself for being jealous, because let's face it, hundreds of thousands of people are trying to get out of those areas, and I'm envious because I want to be going in.

What's really getting me are the stories I keep hearing about people who have children who haven't eaten for two or three days. These stories make me feel sad, helpless and angry at the same time.

Sad, because the thought of any child going hungry is terrifying; it hits really close to home. I would do anything to keep Drew from going through something like that. Helpless, because, other than donating money, what can I do? And angry because I start thinking why why why didn't those people get their children out of the city before the storm hit?

So, I'm going to live vicariously through Nancy, who, if she knows what's good for her, will keep in touch with everyone while she's there and let us know that she's safe.

did he just say...?

This morning, Drew and I were putting off getting ready for school and work, respectively, by lounging about on the bed watching Baby Einstein's Baby Neptune DVD.

He's watching the screen, I'm snuggling with him and naming various features of the film. (by the way, the creator of Baby Einstein, Julie Aigner-Clark, is a genius who is probably rolling in money and I both hate and love her at the same time)

"That's an octopus," I say. "And that's a beach - we're going to one in a few weeks thank God because Mommy needs a break. And a tan. And that's a duckie. See the pretty duck?"

"Duck," Drew promptly responds.

Charles runs out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, and says, "Did he just say duck?"

"I'm pretty damn sure he did, in fact, say 'duck'," I said.

However, this is not a scientific fact, because we could not reproduce our results, which is required in order to establish any sort of validity.

All of our exhortations for Drew to repeat the word 'duck' were met with giggles and squeals and the occasional "Da", which is close, but not close enough to prove our theory - said theory being that his first true spoken and fully understood word was "duck."

I mean, he says "Mama" and "Dada" regularly, and sometimes I think he knows who "Mama" and "Dada" are,  but then other times I catch him lovingly cooing "Mamamama" at his toy train or his rattle.

"Duck" is the first word I've heard him say that exactly matches the object of which he was speaking, didn't appear to be accidental,  is a true word rather than baby-speak, and he said it in response to something I said, exactly as if we were having a real conversation.

I said 'duck' and my son said 'duck.' We communicated! In words! About a duck!