Views from the Fu's

Sick Baby, or How Vaccinations May Cause Baby Diseases

Miles was nearly ailment-free until he hit 11.5 months, and since then it's been onslaught after onslaught of weird baby diseases.

Rashes, fevers, croup, flesh-eating bacteria, etc. Ew. Most recently he's been fighting a case of Roseola, in which a baby gets a high fever for a few days, then the fever goes away, then he gets a gross rash.

Here's the disease illustrated, courtesy of Google Health. The best part of this disease is the irritability that comes as part of it. Miles whined non-stop all weekend. It's like you want to have only nice and soothing thoughts for your sick baby, but secretly (or publicly) you want to throw him out a window because he's following you around the house whining ceaselessly and nothing you can do makes him feel better.

I've been doing some thinking about sick babies lately, much to the amusement of our pediatrician, and I've come to the possibly obvious conclusion that the MORE Miles goes to the doctor, the more he gets sick. There are a couple possible explanations for this correlation.

1) The doctors can actually diagnose things like chronic irritability, so what used to be just an annoyance is now a treatable disease (kind of like ADHD).

2) Since there are SICK kids at the doctor's office, Miles gets SICK when he goes to the doctors' by playing with their disgusting germ-infested toys and sucking on half-chewed pretzels off the dirty-ass waiting room floor. (I got caught up in Glenn Close's fabulous portrayal of Cruella Deville and stopped watching the baby for ONE second, excuse me!) He went in for a flu shot and came out with Roseola. So that's how vaccinations cause baby illnesses, for those who were drawn in by the catchy title of this blog post.

For those who don't have kids yet, I'll tell you... sick kids are a drag. They suck all the energy out of you so even when you're at work or away from "ground zero" you're still exhausted and disoriented. Probably because you got up three times during the night to comfort the baby, or because you had to change your outfit due to a fat line of snot that trickled down your back when you hugged your little darling on your way out the door. Maybe there should be a sick kid farm where you can send them to heal up, then you can pick them up when they're back to 100%. Unfortunately, I think there's something about hugs from mommy and daddy that are more powerful than penicillin. But I'm no doctor, so don't quote me on that.

What's Miles up to?

The most common question I get as a parent is, "How old is the baby now?" As soon as I respond "x months and x weeks", I can usually tell whether or not the person I'm talking to has kids or not. If they do, a knowing smile will cross their face and they'll laugh and start talking about what their kid was like at that age. If the don't then I get a blank look accompanied by a nod. I realized it's because once babies are out of the "alien" stage, it's all pretty congruous until he's reached a milestone like walking or talking.

So, to help out those of you who don't have kids, I've made a list of some of the things Miles is doing this week (month 7, week 1):

• Rolling from tummy to back and vice versa.
• Sitting up from a fully reclined position.
• Gaining some rhythm and keeping the beat by slapping his hands to music.
• Showing a clear preference for certain stories and picture books.
• Ripping apart a necklace, spilling a string of beads all over the floor.
• Crawling backward.
• Growing out of all his pants.
• Tearing magazines and books cover to cover.
• Waving bye-bye.
• Pushing a very hard tooth up through very tender gums
• Touching a cat named Thomas.
• Pinching and scratching mom.

Sharing the Lactation Room

My company has a lactation room – Penguin is very "with it" as far as complying to federal regulations for working moms. We got a pen celebrating that fact last year, long before I knew baby Miles would be joining the party.

For a long time I was the only user of the lactation room and it really felt like my own space. I treated it accordingly: once or twice per day I went to the room, locked the door, whipped 'em out and pumped for fifteen minutes. When I done demilking I'd sit, topless, and leisurely finish the article or chapter I was reading. I left my pump parts strewn around the room and my yoga mat sat rolled up in the corner. I jokingly referred to it as "my office."

Then something terrible happened. As I was walking down the hall past the lactation room recently, I noticed that the door was open, and I looked in. This other person was in my "office"! She was straightening my pump parts and arranging my magazines! What the?!

I got an email later that day saying that two women had come back from maternity leave and would be using the room. I would have to SHARE the room with other women and reserve my time in the room on a shared Outlook calendar. Unbelievable.

I underproduce milk (yes, thank you, I have tried pumping more to up my production...) and now I have to put my shabby 1/2 full Medela bottles next to someone else's two or three full bottles? It's too embarrassing. It may not be a competition to anyone else, but I always feel like I'm getting lapped in the production department.

In the lactation room you can hear the conversations in the nearby offices - "No, t r is for table ROW, you need to put in a new one," or, "I told him I could do any day but Friday. ANY day... No, Tuesday doesn't work for me."  Even still, the gentle "cuush, cuush, whirr, whirr," of the pump all but blocked out most of the workplace sounds and it was a place I could relax and think about my baby without some of the stresses of being with him. Now that it's shared, all I can think of is how much milk I produce, whether or not the other users disinfect the pump when they use it, or if they are leisurely finishing their book topless when I want to be in the room. Perhaps this is a territorial instinctual thing that I don't want to share the lactation room. Or maybe it's a privacy thing, and I want the details of my breastfeeding to be my own business and not posted on a shared Outlook calendar. Maybe I just suck at sharing?

Practicing non-violence at home

We are doing everything we can to make sure Miles grows up to recognize the importance of non-violence. You can imagine how disappointed we were when we looked out into the rice fields and saw him fighting. Any suggestions on how to teach him non-violent communication tactics?

Current Event - The price of gas is still rising in our neighborhood

Miles Tones - Month 1

Appropriate Nicknaming

It's impossible not to use pet names when you spend 24/7 taking care of an infant. Choosing one and sticking with it is a big decision, though! A stupid nickname that you use once or twice in jest can become your child's identity for years to come.

Right now I call Miles "Banana," (alternates: "Banana Boy," "Baby Banana"), "Monkey," "Weasel," and "Bunny."

The weird thing about calling Miles "Bunny" is that his dad's nickname is Bunny. With the last name Fu, Andrew's friends inevitably started calling him Bunny when they were kids. 
 

Miles is probably going to have his fair share of nicknames without me slapping him with an embarassing one so early on. Most babies do. I do feel some responsibility to not traumatize him unnecessarily... I refuse to use gross nicknames like  "fart-o-matic" or "crapasaurus" (at least I won't call him those names to his face).

 

Hospital Anticipation

By Sarah

As a little girl I used to anticipate Christmas by counting down a week of preceding "eve's". For example, if Christmas fell on a Friday I would wake up on Tuesday morning thrilled that it was Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve. I feel a similar anticipation now - my c-section is scheduled for Friday morning at 8am. Today is the eve-eve-eve of meeting my son...

Granted, a c-section and 4-day hospital stay is a little bit different from Christmas... especially since I spent months planning for a natural delivery using the hypnobirth technique. Jessica Alba used that technique and in the days leading up to the delivery she went from being one of my least favorite actresses to my favorite hollywood personality!

So, it's Christmas anticipation... except it's for surgery and a long hospital stay. AND a baby!!