Little Mt. Vesuvius

So we're at a birthday party - the fourth one this month - for one of Jonathan's classmates at a fun place called Pump it Up! with inflatables for the kiddos to climb and slide and jump on.

We make it through all of the jumping and climbing and general mayhem with no injuries or upsets to all these 2-1/2 and 3-yr olds and their siblings.

Then we get to the pizza and cake stage. All the kids sat down and had pizza (a classic kid favorite) put in front of them. My child won't touch it. Then he doesn't want the juice boxes either - he wants Abba's water. So then he complains (my kid SO doesn't usually complain) that his tummy hurts - twice to his Abba and then he wants Mommy. Meanwhile, thankfully, Yael has recently fallen back asleep - so she is peacefully resting in her stroller/car carrier.

Then it was like a scene from The Exorcist. Yoni threw up everywhere.

I caught the first bit in my hands thinking that it would be a small episode that and we would be done - boy was I wrong! Thankfully the other mothers were quite calm about it. Someone found a paper plate for him to throw up on and a huge roll of paper towels and Sani-Wipes. And most of it got the floor and on his clothes.

Of course, the child that was sitting next to him and got the brunt of the show was the son of the most neurotic mother there - and also she happened to be some sort of adolescent doctor. She was pretty calm about Yoni - otherwise I would have totally lost it. As it was, I was pretty mortified. I had Eran take him out of that room as fast as I could to contain the screaming Yoni and make much less of a scene as I could. It was awful! But obviously not the first time the staff has had to go through this as they had a mop in there pretty quick.

Needless to say, we skipped the singing and cake part of the party. We took our 2 books as a party favor and got the hell out of dodge. Meanwhile all Yoni wanted was new pants - despite the fact that his shirt was entirely covered.

We obviously made a bad choice to go this party in the first place.
Yoni had not been feeling well that morning and he got overheated and threw up early that morning. Then he choked on some Frosted Flakes and spit up a little then too. But I knew how much he loved jumping on that inflatable at the carnival last week that I thought he would enjoy it with kids his own age and his friends. To top it off, it was a dreary day and he didn't get to go do anything fun outside after the party.
Also, earlier in the weekend, he took a rather harsh tumble and I was worried about a possible concussion. I guess if you can survive childhood, life is good.
My poor little boy :(

The saga continues...

Is there a reason you felt the necessity to forward my confidential self-appraisal to your computer on the day my daughter was born?

Yaeli stats

She is vaccinated.

And she has grown.
Now she weighs in at 10 lbs 14 oz and is 22 inches long.

And its official - she has dry, sensitive skin with eczema, hence the constant pimply "heat rash" as I referred to it on her shaina punim (beautiful face).

And I was SO glad to have left the office just then to take her a it gave me a chance to cool off and think a little more rationally after my big discovery.

GOTCHA!

We survived

The first full week back in the swing of things -

• Yoni back at the BAC from dawn till dusk
• Mommy back to the downtown Houston office - albeit on the 57th floor rather than the 52nd or 44th -[We're moving on up!] With a new wardrobe, a new handbag and a new attitude.
• Yaeli with her first bottle feedings (ok 2nd, bubbe gave her one bottle once upon a time - BTW we're still on a strict diet of boob juice and no formula - so far anyway)
  And introducing Yael to the whole newness of the pacifier episodes (for me she choked on them, for the not-mommy persons, she did just fine!)
• Abba having to rely on rides with people other than the Mom-taxi, and getting excited about his upcoming English classes, while desperately needing a vacation from his life right now - he didn't get maternity leave like me and his head is so full he really needs a break! About the only thing that truly makes him laugh and smile these days is playing with our special little Yonster!
• Our first round of birthday parties. We had a joint party on Sunday that was for 2 boys in Yoni's class. And directly following that, we went downstairs to the Family Fun Day at the JCC where Yoni spent literally hours jumping in the Disney Princess moonwalk.
  What a difference a few months make.
  At the Fall Festival he was not quite coordinated enough to enjoy jumping on the Tiger moonwalk, but 2 months later he couldn't get enough - even with all the bigger kids rumble and tumbling about in there too. And this was after a sports-themed party filled with active activities for active 3 year olds.
  Needless to say he was exhausted!

The whole breat-milk pumping thing causes some interesting questions in the ladies room from my co-workers, since that is the only place I have found on my floor that doesn't have a window in the door frame or that isn't out in the open. It's not ideal - to put it lightly. I pulled an office chair (at least its a pretty comfy one) into the ladies room and stuck a sticky note on it asking to please not remove the chair from the ladies room. Then when I need to pump at the office (twice a day at the moment, but I should probably up it to once more at work and once more at home) I just roll the chair into the handicapped stall and face away from the toilet (next to the the little trash can in the wall - YUK!) with my handy little lunch kit on the floor in front of me. In addition to the less than sanitary space, I also have to contend with the oh-so-pleasant sounds of others using the toilet.

But the important thing is that it is still enough for Ms. Yael to survive on during the hours I have to be away from her. And like it or not, this phase will pass sooner rather than later :(

So one of the reasons I was so grateful for having made the transition back to work when I did was that it was a short work week. I was able to contend with all the trials and still know that the weekend was only a few days away. And everyone at the office has been extremely nice and excited about me coming back.

Also, my witchy co-worker was absent and still on vacation on the west coast giving me a few blissful days of getting back into the swing of things without having to contend with her breathing down my neck. Today was her first day back and that is exactly what she did.

She immediately pointed out all the things she could that were wrong with the work I sent out on Friday (which I was just supposed to be proofreading). Then she changed the access I had to one of our essential programs, but when I brought it to his attention, my supervisor got her to change it back.

Also today, the woman who has been doing my job while I was out was absent with the stomach flu, so I had to deal with fixing mistakes she had made previously in my abscence, plus 3X as many reports (Mondays are always hectic) and having my nemesis back on the premises. In addition, I have another department breathing down my neck, waiting for me to update a report that I didn't pass on to anyone while I was out - job security - so that they can use it for end of the year accounting and accrual purposes.

All in all, it is nice to be needed, but I hope I can cope with the added stresses of running a one-car family and keeping up the professional standards I expect for myself.

And again

So I have already made RED updates to the Looking Back post but I keep remembering things I meant to put in there and I know that they'll get lost or worse yet, not get read, if I continue to edit on that post, So...

In September Eran and I "celebrated" our 5th wedding anniversary together. This was the whole reasonI posted about the September 11 th anniversary specials on TV - we got married just days before and were therfore able to cheaply get to Vegas for our honeymoon trip. We had planned to host a kiddush at Meyerland Minyan in honor of that milestone, but instead we had Jonathan admitted to Texas Childrens and forgot to cancel or postpone the kiddush, so it went on without us as the guests of honor - oh well. We were still able to spend it together. And of course, there is the fact that we were discharged from the hospital on the eve of Rosh HaShana. We were able to spend the High Holidays at home with Yoni, but I stayed away from shul with him so as not to get him sick after his surgery.


Mom pouted that no one mentioned their 37th (or was it 38th) anniversary of wedded bliss - going strong since June 9th 1968.

First Day Jitters

Happy 2007!
And welcome to the first day of the rest of your life - with 2 little kids at day care and back to work full-time in downtown H-town, where appearance is everything.

It was Yael's first day at Bertha Alyce Center at the JCC where Jonathan is already ensconced, and my first day back to work. We all survived.

I took pictures at home before we left, but forgot the cameras there too, so I will have to get more pics tomorrow. She was dressed as cute as a monkey - hint, hint - she was wearing the stuff Aunt Carlye and Senor Sam got her when they were here in Houston.

We (Eran and I) met Hanna Karny who has been at BAC for 24 years now. She is my friend Efrat Karny's mother (Sam went to HSPVA with her and I used to play Mahj with her and some other girls) and supposedly she's the greatest teacher there. I have wanted to meet her for quite sometime. She actually wanted to meet Eran because she heard him speaking Hebrew to Tzvia (our favorite morning teacher who makes Yoni eat breakfast everyday) and wanted to meet the "new" Israeli. We were talking to her outside of Yael's class which is in the infant wing whereas Yoni is already a big boy (just ask him, he'll tell ya) and is on the other side of the building.

Happy 28th and/or 29th Birthday Carlye

Gevalia Cake 'N Cup Hot Chocolate Set


The Cake 'N Cup Kit supplies ingredients to bake two individual dark chocolate, marshmallow-topped cakes—even the cups! All you need is milk and butter. We’ve added the perfect accompaniments—rich, white chocolate almond cocoa and Black Forest cocoa. Made in USA; cups imported.

This is what I sent to Carlye for her big milestone birthday on January 5th. At least I remembered to send a gift this year. A touch of elegance and gourmet style for my favorite chic Brooklynite sister-in-law. Hope its not too "froo-froo" for you and that you and Senor Sam (guess that's my newest nickname for him) enjoy both making and eating the "birthday" cakes together. Wish we could be there to drink a toast to you too.

Team Baby

I just ran across this site for the college sports fans and parents among us. There is both an LSU and a UT one (and an Aggie one as well) just for grandpa to get and watch with the grandkids - hint hint.
Gotta get em while they're young.

My new pediatrician's partner in practice is on the advisory board of TBE (and lends her name to lots of other boards around town - Texas Children's, Emery Weiner, to name a few) - That's how I found it

Looking Back

I made some updates in red that I remembered and added another picture (Edited 1/1/07)
I have been blogging on and off for a year now - and what a year it's been. Let's do the usual wrap-up and review shall we:

December - the first posts on this blog are about having my adenoids out and the happy pills for New Years. This year I have left over happy pills from giving birth and then some... Mom had also just had her surgeries.

January - Eran went to Israel to visit and it was the first time I was home with Yoni alone - now I hardly ever am alone with just Yoni, I get to contend with Yael too. I wanted Eran to take Yoni to Israel and the family wanted to see him too, but Eran was too afraid that Yoni would miss me too much (or something). Yoni started at the JCC after being at La Rochelle Academy and Yael will start there in a few days.

February - Birthdays galore! Eran's 28th and then Yoni's 2nd birthday.
We kept it small and did it at school with the teacher they had fired in the middle of the year. Then we did Chuck-E-Cheese with Brian (for his birthday too) and the family when he came home from school.








And when Eran came back from Israel we got pregnant.

March - Sam's B-day and Purim - Yoni wore his devil coustume from last Halloween (we didn't go out Trick or treating cause 1. it was yucky out and 2. he cried the whole time we tried to put the costume on and 3. we (Israelis/Jews) don't do Halloween)
Here's Yoni "helping" with our shalch manot





April - Yoni's first surgery - tubes in his ears (He had them put in at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital). They are BLUE and every doctor who I forget to tell that he's had them put in (several at TCH - Texas Children's Hospital) checks him and comments about their surprise. At this point the anaesthesiologist and ENT suggested he might "have a touch of pneumonia" and gave me oral antibiotics for him in addition to the ear drops, leading me and the pediatrician to think all was under control.

May - How wrong we were! Yoni got REALLY dehydrated and sick with a pretty serious case of pneumonia (according to the pulomonologists we saw - not the worst case they had seen, but pretty high up there) and was in the hospital for 8 days :( Guess we should have listened to the other doctors and had an x-ray sooner rather than later.









THE SUMMER
June - My B-day came and went. And we had the wedding season. We spent $300 each on clothing that we wore to several different affairs over the summer - Eran got a tailored suit and tie and I got several nice evening tops that I'll never be able to wear again since I was pregnant and HUGE in the boob department (even more so than usual) We did get to see the Rosenblatts and Druyans for the first time in forever and we got to meet Sarah Rochel in person and not just read about her exploits

July - Did we see fireworks at Sugarland, or was that the year before?

August - Still pregnant, still hot in Houston. Yoni is still coughing some dry coughs and ocaisionally throws up from the coughing spells.

September - Yoni went for his check-up at Labor Day with the pulmonologist and had an x-ray that landed us in the hospital again. Three weeks this time! Almost daily X-rays with a pregnant mother (meaning I couldn't be inside the room when they did them).

Recap: Chest tube in - scary doctor freaks us out that this may not work. CT scan to see that it really didn't work. Maybe a larger size tube will do the trick? Since we're already sedated, I'll just put in a second tube to make sure we get the job done this time. Still no success with both tubes. Guess we'll have to get that pneuomatocele out of there. Lung surgery. Operation. Such a mess of that lung tissue - we'll just take the whole right upper lobe. Three days later, we're finally home!!! Good thing kids are so resilient - wish moms were too! How could we forget the year anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina (and Rita) and 5 years since September 11 - we watched all the TV specials in the hospital on all these events. It was surreal

October - For Mom's birthday we did not-so-yummy-as-real-birthday-cake sugar-free cherry pie since we found out that Aunt Carol is diabetic. We skipped Halloween this year (partly because last year he put up such a fuss about the devil costume, but) mainly because Eran feels like it is not a Jewish holiday thing (we're American now-he'll learn) and mommy was too tired too stress about it. He probably still could wear last year's devil costume [which he did wear for Purim]

November - Yael Netanella Namer
(insert more cute pics here-blogger won't cooperate) made her debut with her arrival on Nov 7th (Safta Yosefa's birthday too) and life as we knew it changed forever. We got to see lots of family - which was awesome! Yosefa and Avi made their first visit from Israel, and Sam and Carlye got to meet their new niece and to see their nephew. We also spent our second Thanksgiving in Lafayette with the Louisiana family. Now it's tradition!

December - Shopping, shopping and more shopping! I did a lot of shopping during November too when the in-laws were here, but this month I was a little more responsible and had to do it with all of the other holiday shoppers. I can't remember a time in my life where I went shopping almost everyday for something or other, I guess Grandma Eleanor, my favorite shopaholic, would be proud. My post-maternity wardrobe is nearly complete. I still favor skirts for work, but now I have a new pair of jeans too.

Well this is it, the end of my extended chofesh (vacation) for maternity leave and my being home with the girl all the time. I'm sad already, but really looking forward to going back to work too.

Note to my loyal readers: As you can see, I took some time a while back and made some changes to the look of the blog site. Sorry if you don't like it, but comments are always appreciated. And I've been working on this post for a week now, so please give me feedback!!!

A Yael Update

I've been focusing some of my last posts on Jonathan. I noticed and don't think I've gone and hidden Yaeli in the closet or forgotten her somewhere in the midst of all our shopping lately.

The truth is that Ms. Squeaky Nutella just hasn't been very noteworthy as of late. She's still sleeping a lot during the day, still eating (or rather drinking), still pooping and pretty fussy at night - especially when we're trying to get Yoni to go to bed or on long car trips.

But she has started cooing and gurgling and making all kinds of especially cute faces and noises. There are some definite recognition smiles in there - I don't care if they call it gas.

And tomorrow I hope to take her to "visit" the nest at the daycare at the JCC and hope to help make that transition as smooth as possible. I'm sure she'll be fine, eventually, but it's more for me to get used to the idea that she won't be with me all the time. Remember, she's been with me constantly during the pregnancy (since last February) and I have left her for only breif spells with the relatives - and even then I was generally nearby or at least within phone call and a 15 minute ride to get to her.

And I need to find out exactly what she needs to have at the school - how many changes of clothes, bibs (ridiculous) and passifiers (she still chokes on them whenever I try to get her to take them) How many bottles, how much food they expect and a backup plan when I can't get her enough boob juice.
These people do this for a living - I expect them them to know more about it than me since I was lucky enough to be with Jonathan for the entire first year of his life (and then some).

On a slightly different note,
I never thought then name Yael would be so hard for all these Texans to pronounce or comprehend. I remember there being at least one Yael in public school when I was growing up and it never seemed hard to pronounce. But the people at work mangle her name. I get strange looks and then Yale or Yell or some variation thereon. Netanella I can understand - I made it up and it's pretty random - although for some reason I seem to recall a Spanish language soap star who either is named that or it is her character's name or it is something really similar.3

So there you are - an entire post about Yael - her posting label count is growing

Yonisms - Part II

New Yoni-isms

Bootiful - Beautiful as in Oh what a "bootiful" day.

"Like Abba" - refers to perching his sunglasses on top of his head. This is generally the place Abba puts his sunglasses when he is inside so as to have them handy for bright lights or for the moment we eventually step outside. Mommy uses it to refer to wearing big boy underwear - oh the joys of potty training.

Yaeli - his name for his sister, whom he adores

"Turn your face around" or "turn your face this way" - especially cute when I am trying to drive and am not paying enough attention to him

Two minutes - another synonym for not yet. Is used with everything from finishing his bath to putting on his shoes to go out.

Handy Manny - For those of you who do not regularly watch the Disney channel at 7 o'clock in the morning or thereabouts, Handy Manny is a new cartoon handyman with a box full of talking tools like "Felipe" the Phillips screwdriver, "Pat" the Hammer, and "Stretch" the measuring tape to name a few. It is one of those bi-lingual Spanglish programs where Manny and some of the other characters speak Spanish. My son is definitely a fan and likes to put a crayon behind his ear and chant "Handy Manny, Handy Manny, Handy Manny" several times in a row, at loud decibels.

Mickey House - Another one of Yoni's corruptions....He likes to watch the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He now refers to all his favorite cartoons as Mickey House. I know he recognizes the Mickey character, but I'm not so sure about the others.

Addicted

So we went away for one night with 2 sicko kiddos and I felt like I had packed enough stuff for a week. Good thing I took my car so there was room for everything. The only thing we didn't have was a laptop and I felt a pang of regret when I couldn't go online to investigate some minute detail or other about my kids. I am so addicted to the Internet, it's shameful.

Aunt Carol invited mom to go with her and Brian and his friend Kelby up to a resort village in Conroe. So mom invited me and we - me and the kiddos - went ahead and joined them (although for some reason I had an inkling that I shouldn't) [Eran was supposed to stay home and fix up the house while we were gone but he ended up sick instead and even missed a day of work and the house still looks like a tornado hit even though he did manage to clean the kitchen and toilet] It was a long long day and night for me as both my kiddos were not 100% and Brian was also not feeling well. And I had been with Yoni for most of the week anyway since he wasn't up to going to school. I needed a vacation from my vacation when we were done!

Yoni was an attention monger and was impossible to placate for long periods of time. He embarrassed the crap out of me by being a bit noisy and by swinging around Bubbe's cane (into displays and people) while we were trying on clothes at the Outlet mall (Mom's whole incentive for the trip) while Yaeli, my newborn started to kvetch right about the same time, as she was hungry. Her I can't blame or hold responsible, or him for that matter - it was just too long a day for him to sit still - the drive in the car and then at the store.

The next morning all he wanted to do was "see the water" and be Brian's shadow. So we looked out the window at the water. That wasn't enough for him. Eventually I explained that we could get him to settle down by taking him to see the water (the fountains on the miniature golf course). Mom was gung-ho to take him to the mini golf, but truth be known, it was too sophisticated for him. Also, it might not be a good idea (at least it didn't seem so to me) to give a 2 year old and two15 yr olds clubs and hard golf balls. When they did finally go to the course to "see the water" that's all Yoni wanted to do. If he had shown even the slightest interest in the game the other kids on the course were playing, I might have pushed to get the equipment, but the teenagers were more interested in the OTHER water. They wanted to rent a boat and go out on the lake. I was not about to have anything to do with that.

A Beautiful Day

Sometimes it pays to stop and recapture the innocence of youth.

I have been teaching Yoni while he was sick and out from school last week that we should be thankful for the beautiful days we are given. This also helps in teaching the Modeh and the Shema. We had several days in a row of gorgeous weather with sunshine but not too hot and not cold... in short perfect weather to go outside and play at the park and have a picnic - which we did. I would remark on what a beautiful day it was and Yoni would concur.

So we woke up this week to overcast skies, fog and rain, and all around gloomy weather. But my so innocent son was adorable (as he tends to be) and when we opened the door to go outside he commented on what a beautiful day it was. It just served as a reminder that everyday is beautiful especially in the eyes of a child.

What a way to spend the day

So when we last visited the Namer family, we were discussing the options regarding the fact that Yoni probably needed to see the "dahktoor" and about the difficulties with Mom trying to decide (some things never change) which route to take to seek medical advice on Mr. J.

Ms. Yael made that decision so much easier.

She kept even her pooped papa from getting pooped-on (I couldn't help myself) by intermittently deciding to breathe (or rather stop breathing and choke and gasp) throughout the night. So I called her doctor at 7AM (after we survived the night and upon the urging of Eran) to see what to do about a newborn (I keep forgetting that she's still so little, to me she seems so big already) in this predicament. She sent us to the ER anyway - what fun.
Dr. B suggested that since her lapses in breathing were never more than 20 seconds and she was not turning blue, that she probably had RSV - doesn't that sound scary. She also suggested that it made more sense to send her to the ER since they could hook her up with oxygen if necessary and get blood drawn and X-rays and the like.

While I was there I had Jonathan evaluated too, just for good measure, and basically demanded they do an X-Ray to rule out pneumonia since his symptoms were that of the last time we were admitted - diminished appetite, intermittently feverish, vomitting after bouts of coughing, etc.

Of course, since I was taking Eran to work and apprehensive about the whole damn trip to the hospital with the kiddos, I didn't arrive there until 10AM and I know that because that's the time stamped on the valet sticker. (It never fails that the parking lot is full when I get there!) It also gave me time to prepare for the long haul - I had diapers and wipes and extra outfits and blankets, and muffins and cookies and juice boxes as snacks, as well as cars and crayons and blocks and a Channukah bear for toys, not to mention my thank yous for baby gifts and the list of who they go to, and a book - in the off-chance that I actually would have time to read, ha ha.

On the positive side - I did get to spend three whole days not in the hospital with Yoni.
In the end it turns out that they both have the same virus (Jonathan's sicky school friends are to blame here, but his X-Ray looks good - Yippee, no pneumonia) which means there is nothing to do about it but let it run its course. So I get to torture my infant by spraying stuff up her nose (Saline drops or mommy-milk, whichever I have on hand) and break in the new bulb aspirator thingy for Ms. Princess and then try to suck out whatever mucus is loose in there, she is most displeased and I am pretty unhappy to have to do it. Yoni is still holding steady at 25 lbs (11.5 kilo - a good healthy almost 3rd percentile for him) and Yael is a hefty 4.49 kilo (9.88 lbs - you figure it out)

We finally sent Yoni to school today - it being Friday and them doing all sorts of fun things on Shabbat and compounded with the fact that it is the first night of Channukah. So at least he'll get to be in on some of the partying for that - how much fun can that be for a bunch of 2 and 3 year olds? Will let you know if any more Yonisms come out of it.

Yoni-isms Part I

Eran asked me the other day if Yoni would ever be able to "speak clearly". Since I (his mother, who should be able to instinctively interpret his every breath, right?) still need a translator to understand him and sometimes ask him five times to repeat the same sentence till I finally do understand it, I figured others might appreciate a small dictionary of his most common(?) cutest phrases (and please be assured that this is my way to document it for posterity and to embarrass him later). Please feel free to add your favorites too.

All the way there = "All the way over there" as in when Bubbe showed him the general direction of their house out the 12th floor Texas Children's Hospital window

TIME OUT! = pronounced forcefully and accompanied by wagging index finger at offending adult. Generally elicits irritation from said adult and prompted parents to threaten him with an actual "time-out" when he got a little too precocious and was yelling it at his visiting grandmother at every other sentence.

Not yet, Maybe later, Almost = can be used interchangeably in my genteel boy child's mild-mannered vernacular to mean "buzz off, leave me alone, I'm almost three and very headstrong and BTW- I'll do whatever it is you want me to do when, and if I'm good and ready"
Sometimes these are also accompanied by wagging index finger at offending adult.

"Abba need to go dahktoor" - wisely spouted tonight when told that Abba didn't feel very good and was probably asleep on the couch (which he was), and also a good 45 minutes before Yoni threw up all over the living room floor maybe indicating that Yoni probably needs to go to the doctor.

ShoPPing = grocery stores and the likes of Walmart. Pronouncing the P quite strongly My son's favorite outing, even supercedes the park as I found out this afternoon when we went on an outing. I was prepared to go to Walmart with the kiddies, right before the holidays, but decided I'd swing by the library and check out the parking lot to see if there were lots of mommy cars there, possibly indicating story time or other such fun library activity. As we drove by the Kroger on the way to the Walmart (by way of Randalls parking lot), my son decided HE wanted to go shopping at Kroger and put up quite a tantrum until I turned the car and made it "go backward" in the direction of the Kroger. I never did make it to Walmart and didn't need ANYTHING from Kroger. We ended up splurging on RediWip and Magic Shell and chocolate chip waffles.

Then we went to the park and I wanted to try out a "new" one someone had clued me in to. It was nice and new and clean. But it was in the opposite direction from the park we usually frequent.

BTW - My son was out of school for the past few days and home with me since he threw up at school as he got overheated in his sleep while wearing a long sleeve shirt and a hoodie and wrapped up in his nap mat which is similar to a sleeping bag with a sheet sewn on top. Granted he has been a bit feverish and coughing but nothing a few doses of Triaminic and Infant Cold drops can't control - so maybe he SHOULD see a doctor, but I'm at a loss as to who to call. Should I call Yael's dr - a different pediatrician - who I briefly told about his condition (Yes, my newborn daughter's 2 year old brother who may or may not be asthmatic recently underwent lung surgery. Do you want a new patient?)
Or his pulmonolgist - who told me to go to my pediatrician to get a flu shot for him
Or his "current" pediatrician - who I am a little less than comfortable with his care of my problematic child, not that he isn't a great doctor, he just isn't making the kind of connection we need

too tired to type with one hand and have to deal with diapering Yael and cleaning up the living room. More to come later

Maternity Leave...Finally

So this is what being on vaction feels like - and its almost over :(
I'll probably be returning to work right around the first of the year 2007 or maybe the week between Christmas and New Years.

My in-laws returnd safely to Israel without too much trauma or drama on this end. They are of course sad about leaving but promise (or is that a threat) to come back in 2 years time.

I have been back to my office twice - once before Thanksgiving to pack up my stuff for the move and once more yesterday to check out the new digs and to show off Yaeli (of course) to all the others who didn't get to "ooh and aah" over her before Thanksgiving.

I am pretty excited about my new "office" on the 57th floor of the Wells Fargo Plaza. In this picture our new building is the green glass one and the old building is the pretty triangular pink granite one in the background on the right. There's a Hebrew phrase that loosly translates to "Change your location, change your luck"

I am down the row from the majority of people in the small cube farm and in a pretty resonable cube-space with a tall plastic tree just visible just over the top of the cube wall. And I'm across from the engineers with window offices - so that I can get an outside view when I need to. My favorite engineer who prefers to use his speaker phone for most calls and peppers his conversations with colorful Texas phrases like "we got a cat by the tail on this one" is directly across from me and "the whistler" is further down the row. My immediate supervisor is in the corner office next to the VP (in the other corner office) across from the small cube farm and far enough away from me not to interfere with my independence. And my least favorite person, as well as the girl they hired to cover me while I was out, are directly across from the supervisors - keeping them on a short leash. The only problem is that all the administrative staff people I could potentially learn things from are also located far away from me.

I am not sure what my duties will be when I get back, but I hope that the office location speaks loudly and that I'll get a chance to do other things and learn more.

Baby Stats

Today Yael went to the doctor for her checkup. Here is the pertinent info including charts to track her growth


Weight: 8 lbs 8.5 oz = 3.86970991 kilograms
Height: 21 inches = 53.34 centimeters
Head Circumference: 14.5 inches = 36.83 centimeters

Next dr's appointment is in January when she'll get her next round of immunizations

More pics from the Levine Whirlwind baby tour

This post is an addendum to Mrs. Carlye Levine's, previous post on her blog. Since I don't know how to upload pics to Snapfish or some other venue this is just a snippet of the 24 pics I got developed this afternoon.

Aunt Carlye and Uncle Sam holding Yael in her oversized blanket.
Eventually she'll grow into the adorable monkey suit outfit you got for her and we'll post pics of that when she wears it.



Aunt Carlye holding my loveable little camera hog Jonathan.


Barb can handle and hold even the smallest of babies and here's the proof - We're so proud that you could hold Yael at a few days and Jonathan at a few months old. Thanks for being part of our celebrations.

And also thanks for getting the TMX Elmo. Hope you all enjoyed seeing him and his antics when you were here.

Horsie, Horsie!

We start them off early in the South.

My 2-1/2 year old son thouroughly enjoyed his Thanksgiving trip to Louisiana (Huge thanks to Perry and Marla for putting up with ALL of us for so long), including a trip to the horse races. Good thing they skipped the Casino.
I had to put my foot down and insist that we had to wait to take Yael there until she was at least 2 months old.

It was a first for Saba and Safta too. See the look of awe on their faces

Big horses running at breakneck speed topped with colorful jockeys - leads to an interesting action shot.
Go Horsie #3!

Abba helps Jonathan cheer them on - Go Horsie #3.


I don't think Horsie #3 was the big winner - or I'm sure I would've heard all about it by now.
Oh well, you win some, you lose some. But is sure looks like they had fun.

Hot dogs and peanuts and popcorn - oh my!

Our first real outing

Yael, Saba and Safta and I all went out for a few hours to my downtown office today. For me it was mostly to check on the status of things at the office and to pack up my stuff so that no other poor schlub had to do it for me, since we are moving to the taller building next door.



It was the first time Yosefa and Avi have seen skyscrapers up close and in person and I made sure they got a really good look. We drove around a bit near my building so they could get a sense of the concrete jungle where we live and work. I then took them to my building. I took them first to the 44th floor where they got a good look out of the "executive" conference room window. They were impressed (among other things) that they could see the Aquarium where they had gone over the weekend with Eran and Yoni. (see pic)


Then we went up to the 52nd floor so we could pack up my desk and work area, where we were summarily accosted by all the ladies - in order to see the newest Namer.

We came during lunchtime, on a short week when most of [the engineers in] my dept were out (except of course for those most diligent worker bees - including most of the friends I wanted to see anyway, and my immediate supervisor - good business sense for him to see both me and the babe at the office! I was hoping that we wouldn't cause too much commotion, but who was I kidding, boy was I wrong about that - almost everyone wanted to see us both and stopped by to give the proper praise to the Princess.





This sculpture in front of my building reminded Avi and Yosefa of another sculpture in front of one of our miserable old houses in Jersalem, "The Mifletzet" in Kiryat Yovel. Now that you mention it, I wonder if they had the same weird artistic influence. You be the judge

My prodigy

So here's the latest yummy Yael news.
Yael is officially her own person. Her last link to me (the remnants of the umbilical cord) fell off yesterday morning at the first diaper change.
She is making all the proper baby movements that "the books" tell you about - rooting, sticking out her tounge, mouthing "ohs" and getting wide-eyed at all the appropriate things.
She is also already lifting her heavy head some and making what could be construed as distinctive sounds other than cries - my little prodigy.
I can tell when she is focusing on things like the difference between our navy blue couch and the stark white wall behind it, or when she is studying my face and the silly expressions I am showing her in the middle of the night when no one else is awake.
Her fingers are still long and the nailbeds are even longer, but she has only managed to inflict minor injury on herself - is it too early to order her custom-made Raabs (that was for you Daddy)?
We have to protect her from her over-loving big brother who wants to hold her hand (better than her soft head) while she eats or sleeps or gets any attention whatsoever. He has only actually climbed into the bassinet once - while it was on the floor and she wasn't in it, but he tries to hold her hand in the mornings before I am totally awake and I am afraid she will be squished or something wihle my back is turned.

We have misplaced our digital camera at the moment and don't have the proper software loaded on the home computer to download the pictures anyway - so pictures will be forthcoming eventually.

Introducing...

Yael Netanella Namer

being held by her big brother Jonathan

New Arrival

We're so excited to welcome our new addition to the family on November 7, 2006.

You can see the first family photos on my sister-in-law Carlye's website here: http://gracefullysocial.blogspot.com/ and I'll find some others and post them later on this site

Here is the link to our daughter's very own webpage:
http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/babypage.asp?URLID=1S5J3V1R0I
password: Namer

She was ready to enter the world quite quickly when she finally decided to join us and we're happy she waited for the doctor to show up. She was a healthy 6 lbs 13.7 oz and 19 inches.
And NO we don't have an official name for her yet - but we will very soon - I hope!!!

The Namer in-laws from Israel have landed in New York and are currently on their way to Houston for the next few weeks - It's gonna be a full house around here!!!

I finally deliver the promised goods

So maybe it took awhile, but here are the promised pictures from the Fall Festival.
And again - comments on our cuteness are always appreciated!

Unfortunately, I only had a few pics left on my Fun Saver camera or I surely would have snapped some of him at the petting zoo and with the pregnant goat too...Oh well.

Childhood memories -

No one would know from this picture that a cute, blonde pre-teen girl helped Mr. Independent get up to the top

but he didn't need any help coming down - Cowabunga Dude!

Aunt Carol - Thanks for spotting so we didn't roll off the side! And for holding the cherry red snowcone which of course we ended up spilling all over your shirt later anyway

So, what do you call those bouncy things - a moon walk? ....
We were not so big on the bouncy thing as our plain jumping up and down on the ground still leaves a lot to be desired - coordination is just not quite there for those muscle groups yet, I guess, since running in circles can sometimes still prove to be a challenge.

How apropo though - this moon walker, bouncy thing was an orange striped tiger - our Namer family mascot :)


Here's Bubbe in the front by the eye of the tiger


And a very pregnant Mommy at the back by the tail - And how do you like our orange balloon sword to match?




And what would a day at the park be without a trip or two down the slide?

This one made Mommy cringe when we got to the bottom and the gap between the slide and the ground was way too big for Mr. J to navigate - and so he landed with a pretty hard thud on his diapered butt - great padding - not even a bump in the road for this rambuncious kid

Good thing Aunt Carol was there to dust Jonathan off though, since Mommy just couldn't get there fast enough or bend down to pick him up.

It sure didn't bother him much though, he was off to do it again and again and again and even knocked some bigger kid out of the way on the way down.

Kids
You just gotta love 'em and the crazy things they will do to make your heart leap out of your chest!

I'm so special!

CHECK THIS OUT!!!

HowManyOfMe.com

There is: 1 person with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Tzniut (modesty) - Take 2

There's no way I can recreate exactly what was eaten yesterday by the Halloween blogger monster, but here is a second attempt, somewhere along the same lines

So there are many side effects of being pregnant, some of which are less pleasant than others, but I'll leave that to your imagination...

One unexpected side effect for me has been the fact that I am just much more comfortable in skirts than pants. In fact the last few times I wore pants just made me realize just how much I like wearing skirts - despite the fact that my legs are not so pretty since they are constantly covered in some sort of bug bites and/or scratches that are at various stages of healing.

In one of my previous posts I mentioned the fat lady, front pleated jeans - and about how those were the most recent pants I wore - leaving a bad taste in my "mouth" about the way I looked. Also recently I wore my most favorite pair of pre-pregnancy work-trousers to work and just did the rubber-band waistband trick to accommodate my pregnant tummy. I forgot about the zipper part and totally busted it open. It didn't phase me one bit and I just threw out the pants without much ado or hullabaloo about it - my favorite pair mind you, and that's a big deal for someone who doesn't like shopping for clothes for myself too much.

In addition to the airy comfort of long modest skirts, I also like the shorter knee-length flirty ones. .{Somewhere in here would be where the part about my son playing peek-a-boo under my skirt should fit in, but because of that other side effect known as "pregnancy brain", I don't remember how the story fits in now a whole day later} I wore a flouncy knee-length skirt yesterday and it just made me happy to have a feminine ruffle right at my knee. Because I have never been comfortable with my legs, a mini-skirt is pretty much out of the question, but it was really fun to wear a short(er) skirt and feel good about it during the last part of this pregnancy.

Now I have to mention my disgust with my pregnancy hair. Some people love the fact that they have glowing and shiny hair during their pregnancy, but not me. It is not only a mousy shade of brown, but it is both stringy and frizzy at the same time and the population of stray greys is ever-growing, much to my dismay. A few months ago I went and chopped about 4 inches off hoping that it would improve the situation - it didn't, although I don't have split or dead ends to report. And I have changed both shampoo and condition at least 3 time snow, all to no avail. This pregnancy hair (and skin) almost makes me consider wearing a hat or maybe a wig just so I could remember what a good hair day feels like.

Now I am contemplating the customary or not so customary ritual dipping in the mikve before giving birth. Haven't done enough research, can't remember if I was for it or against it myself, and time is quickly running out.

My doctor's visit this afternoon went something like this --- "Where do you live? Meyerland? Good! That's pretty close to the hospital. If you lived any further away, I'd be sending you there right now. Friday I am in Clear Lake so if you don't have any contractions that are 10 minutes apart before then, give us a call on Monday and we'll go ahead and get this party started"
And that's because I told her I had Pitocin with my last delivery and ended up having to have an epidural and at this point I am walking around already further along than I ever was with him (they really, really had to induce me with him - I mean from nothing), so I'd kinda like nature to take it's course as much as possible at this point.
Now I'm going to get off this computer and call our family friend the OB/GYN who has been displaced from New Orleans and see how irrational I am being about waiting this out and what I should really expect at this point. She was surprised at how long they let me keep walking around with my high-risk pregnancy in Israel, let's see how she feels about the most lackadaisical pregnancy I ever heard of in comparison.
Goodnight!

Tzniut (Modesty)

AAGH - the HAlloween Blogger monster ate most of my post!!!
I will have to recreate it later - too tired right now :(

This is the only part that survived because I cut an pasted it and it was still on the clipboard
Maybe it was the day before that he went underneath my skirt and did the not-so-modest peek-a-boo thing that made me cringe. I guess he can get away with that for a little while longer, but it wasn't pleasant for the mommy.

Tales out of school

I just had to share this...
We go to pick up Jonathan from school this afternoon and I notice he's wearing a different shirt than the one I left him in this morning.

Usually during potty training, if there are accidents it involves changing the pants. So I thought it a little odd that he was in a different shirt, but didn't pay it much mind.

Now just as a coincidence, this morning Jonathan specifically brought a no-sleeve tank top (not appropriate fall weather wear, but I'm not going to argue with my 2 year old son when I'm trying to get him out the door) and put it in his cubby hole, along with his spiffy jeans jacket and Bugs Bunny baseball cap.

When we came to pick him up, that tank top is what he was wearing, despite the fact that there was another short sleeved shirt in there too. So I asked him why he had changed shirts and he replied, "Went pee-pee on it" and continued playing with the Play-Doh.

He has had accidents recently at nap-time, so I just assumed that his diaper leaked and that they changed his shirt for health reasons. Logical enough I assumed. But the afternoon teacher was looking a bit pensive and seemed to be trying to remember something.

She then remembered that the reason he changed shirts was because one of the other boys in the class was using the toilet and still learning to aim (we're all learning to use the potty together it seems.) Well he completely missed the mark and peed all over my son. What can you do but laugh. I wasn't horrified until I just typed it up, my initial reaction was that it is a hysterically funny story. I just couldn't contain myself and laughed out loud. The teacher was trying to be diplomatic about it and even left the individual's name out of the story, but kids will talk. Jonathan told me again loudly at dinner as he was wearing that spiffy jeans jacket over his sleveless tank top, that Jack (or maybe it was Zack, whatever) pee-peed on me. Gotta love em ;)

To UltraSound or not to Ultrasound

My doctor has been uncooperative about granting me another ultrasound since the one I had at 18 weeks.
Could it possibly be that I have been uncooperative myself?

I declined to do one of the "optional" blood tests to see if the baby would have a possibility of having Down's Syndrome (at least I think that's what it was all about), I got a little pre-occupied with my son in the hospital and pretty much forgot to do the Glucose tolerance test for 2 months or so and now I can't be bothered to know the results.
The 1st optional test was one that made Eran crazy last time waiting for the results and I just couldn't put him through all that again - even early on in the pregnancy. To alleviate his fears, I strongly suggested that I wanted to have the CMV screen done - which is not usually done here in the USA and the results were as they should be - my levels were whatever they needed to be so that this pregnancy had no potential of having THAT particular problem.

And since I think I can pretty much pin-point the day and time the baby "dropped" (3 weeks ago Friday about 11:00 AM after having a particularly uncomfortable morning at work - not being able to breathe or sit comfortably - and coincidentally the day I realized that those feet that I thought were trying to come out my nether regions were probably actually contractions) Then all of a sudden everything changed and I felt a whole lot better and could actually breathe again.

Also, being that at the first ultrasound everything looked good and the baby is apparently in the correct head-first position (the doctor can feel it) and there is no bleeding or unbilical cords poking out anywhere, there seems to be no medical reason for another ultrasound.

I just can't get over the fact that I had SO many with Jonathan (every week twice a week for awhile) and now I am going through a whole uneventful (thank G-d) pregnancy on just the one major one (and the one confirming there was a peanut with a heartbeat a few weeks in).

I did have slightly elevated blood pressure (160/90) this last visit but I blame it on the 3 pickle slices I ate with my ice cream at 3 AM the night before (typical cliche pregnant-woman-diet remarks are not funny!!!), not to mention the cup of instant Ramen noodles I had for lunch the same day as my appointment. And by the time I saw the doctor 15 minutes after the nurse had checked it, my BP had dropped down to 130/90 which is much more my level.

So it was a minor blip and we continue on our merry way - me bringing in a list of questions to the doctor's office because I have pregnancy brain (a lot) where this little angel takes over all my brain power and I lose my train of though mid-sentence or worse!

So the doctor's parting words after commenting that:
1. I shouldn't get a flu shot at this late stage because it has the potential of putting me through undue fatigue and she wouldn't want me tired if I did go into labor at this point
2. she expects a very busy week as she has a few patients who are all right around delivery - I'll comply and wait a few more weeks for all our guests to arrive thank you very much
3. I CAN work until the very end as far as she is concerned
4. I would surely know if my water HAD broken, even if it was a minor trickle that I attributed to my lovely intermittent, uncontrollable hot flashes
was 4. "see you next week, if not before."

Some sense of humor - this doc, but like she was recommended to me by a very pregnant (or rather just delivered) mother, I recommended her to someone else this week - Hope she has room for new patients cause I can really appreciate the fact that she takes the time to listen to all my inconsequential pregnancy fears even though she's heard them all a million times at least.

Surprise...You're Having a Baby...Shower, That Is

My female colleagues at work totally surprised me yesterday with a baby shower including balloons, a homemade cake and corsage (and gifts to boot) It was held in the conference room on the 52nd floor of my building (that's where my dept is located - we used to be on the 44th floor) And in the next few months the whole company is moving buildings and will all be located somewhere between the 55-58th floors. We're moving on up in the world!!!

There are some pics that someone took that I will post later when she gets them to me. Gotta get ready for the day now - more later

Fall Festival

Sunday we went to a Fall Festival thingy at Godwin Park.
What fun to be had!!!

This is a Polaroid of Jonathan that they took for us to make him a Kid ID safety kit or something like that with a DNA sample and fingerprints and the like.

Eran just loves this picture so I thought I would post it.
Comments are always appreciated.


There was free popcorn and cookies and soft drinks to be enjoyed by all alongside the pavillion basketball courts which were converted into a makeshift stage for the local elementary and junior high schools bands, jazz ensembles and the like to perform.

Also there were clowns making balloon animals next to the face painting.

And there were bouncy things - a tiger striped moonwalk (Jonathan's not too big on jumping yet) and an obstacle course thingy that was more suited for bigger kids but didn't stop my fearless wonder one bit. He just had a boost up to the top by one of the bigger kids and he had no problem sliding down.

And of course, lest I forget there was the petting zoo where I made Bubbe go in and chase after him. Not to mention the attraction of the slides and other outside climbing things that are there all the time. Aunt Carol was kind enough to chase after him on that one. He's not too big on the swings anymore though - he'd much rather run and be active on the other things.

We've taken Jonathan to that park on several other Sunday afternoons and he always loves it. Only once have I found something disgusting in the rocks that cover the entire playground.

I have some pictures, but I need to scan one (see above) and get the others developed first. Am on my way to do that now (still hasn't happened yet - three days later)... more later.

We live at the doctor's office

Once again I was proven wrong...

What a waste of time at the pulmonologist.
She didn't order an x-ray since we just had one 2 weeks ago, she glanced breifly through his x-ray record in the computer, asked how he was doing in general, listened to his back and chest, came to the conclusion that his current cough is a head cold or virus from daycare, didn't come down on his asthma medicine (which I keep forgetting to give him anyway) and just told me I should contact my pediatrician for a pediatric dose of the flu shot since they were out at the clinc. Then she told me I should get one too as pregnant women are in the highest risk category and get priority.

I still think she's great, but I am not sure I am completly satisfied with the fact that since she was in clinic during the time he was in the hospital (she was the one who had him admitted) we didn't see her or hear from her even once. This time our pediatrician didn't come to the hospital either, but he did call a few times to get a status report.

What is it about me and doctors. I don't seem to like the ones I choose to use, but I feel guilty about leaving them.

What will I do about the new baby? We'll need immunizations and well baby visits pretty soon after the arrival I'm sure. Guess that's just one more thing I'll deal with when we get there.



My doctors appointments are going well though. There is definitely some positive movement in the direction of the things considered. I can pinpoint the day and almost even the time that the baby dropped - about 2 weeks ago. The baby is in the correct position (head down) and the discharge is not bloody so there is little chance that the umbilical cord or placenta are in the way of the baby. Which basically means there is no medical reason for me to have another ultrasound - despite the fact that I ask for one every time I see her.

I forgot that we listen to the fetal heartbeat at every visit too - that to me is not as much of an indicator as an ultrasound that everything is as it should be.

This last appointment went really well - The doctor was REALLY far behind.
I was scheduled at 3:20 and didn't even get called back there until after 4:00. She offered to give me a little Pitocin and get this show on the road - she seems to think that the baby is just going to pop out easily and quickly (and I am beginning to think she may be right) but then she realized that we're barely at 36 weeks and thought that maybe we should let those lungs mature just a little bit longer. I'm all for that!!!

I also asked her what happens if she personally can't deliver my baby. So I found out that she doesn't work weekends (she just had a baby herself in August) but that she won't leave at 5 on the dot if I (or any other patient) is pretty much ready to deliver. She assured me that the staff was magnificient no matter who did the actual delivering. It just made me aware that she probably won't be the one to actually deliver me since this has been such an uneventful pregnancy unless I happen to fall into labor exactly when she is on call at the hospital and not seeing other patients and if it is not 3 in the morning. I really should call Fran = I mean Dr Ivker and see how this is supposed to work and what I should be mentally prepared for even though that is never exactly what happens.

We went out for dinner tonight and despite the fact that I was doing the pregnant lady waddle all day long on account of my terrible shoes, swollen feet and painful back and jabbing pains in my nether regions (and not necessarily in that order) - my ever loving family took great pains to laugh at me as I waddled up the walk to the door of the apartment after parking the car. I did however make the driver let me out at the door of the restaurant and then fetch the car to pick me up. Then since I was wearing brand new fat jeans, they had to comment on how fat they made me look. Fashion tip from one unfashionable very pregnant lady who was just happy to find something different to wear - large women should never wear front pleated bottoms (skirts or pants) it just adds to the very obvious problem areas.

Finally - MY turn ... well almost

Well - Jonathan has another check up tomorrow
- at the pulmonologist this time.

I would safely bet that we'll have yet another chest X-ray where a very pregnant mommy has to step out of the room to avoid irradiation of the fetus. And then maybe she'll (the pulmonologist) see that he's not really asthmatic since the stupid pneumonia and then subsequent pneumatocele caused all kinds of trouble.

Then the following day I get to go to my now weekly (instead of bi-weekly) doctor's appt. My office should be thrilled with me by now for taking so much time off! At least I am getting my reports out on the early side since I don't have a shadow right now; but the back-up thing - where I am training the new girl (that they hired specifically to do my job while I am out - I think) and one of the other girls (who is just not that interested in doing what I do) - to be my backup and get my reports done in a timely manner - it's just not going that well. I hope they can handle it (or improve on the labor intensity of my position) and that maybe I'll be free to do something else a little more meaningful (or at least less tedious) when I come back from maternity leave.

Last week I went to see my doctor and despite her disappointment in me for not doing the stupid glucose tolerance test, all went well. I only gained a total of 3 lbs since my last visit a month ago. Hospital food in Sept must have agreed with me. (I accidentally skipped my appts in Sept as I was at the hospital with Jonathan right after Labor Day and I was checking my blood pressure regularly at the hospital too. I thought one appt was on the 28th, but it turns out it was for the 21st when we were just recovering from surgery.)

And now I know that I am really in the home stretch.

According to the doctor, in my current state I could walk around like this for several weeks or go into labor in a few days time. It's all pretty lackadaisical from her point of view. And I am taking special pains not to do any unnecessary walking around so as not to encourage gravity to do its thing and pull this kid out early. [My slightly "hormonally-altered" pregnant brain remembers all the women in the hospital in Jerusalem that they told to walk around to help them go into more advanced stages of labor - so I am deliberately avoiding that walking around thing as much as possible] Do you see a pattern here????
***In all seriousness, at work I try to do all my printing at once so as not to have to walk to the printer multiple times since it's down the aisle from me and coincidentally located right next to the woman I work with who can't be civil and who harbors a mutual dislike for me. She also happens to be the one who works most closely with the same reports I do and seems to take sinister pleasure in making my life miserable (and lots of other people's for that matter).
***Also, it rained on Simchat Torah so we didn't walk to shul (like I was going to walk anywhere at this point - and most especially not in the rain!) and so we didn't take Yoni to see the dancing and general merriment. And that's a shame :( - although he did have a slight fever on Friday afternoon and he still has that nagging bit of a cough, though its definitely getting better. But he did make a flag at school and we sang "Torah tzivah lanu Moshe" while he paraded around the couch at Bubbe's house many, many times. So I think he got the general idea of Simchat Torah - anyway - he's only 2! (ok, ok - so he's closer to 3 at this point - bli neder)

All I know for sure right now is that my in-laws from Israel will be arriving (if all goes well on their first flight to the USA or anywhere for that matter) on November 9th and will be here till after Thanksgiving. And I would prefer that this baby come closer to their arrival date so that I can take full advantage of them being here in our tiny apt with a new baby too. Sarcasm?!, I think NOT!

In case you were wondering - we did the American thing and registered for a whole bunch of baby stuff. Eran is very superstitious - so that means no baby oriented stuff can come anywhere near me or our apartment until the baby arrives - so as to stave off the evil eye I guess. But we went ahead and registered at BabiesRUs and Target (and used a different mailing address) just in case people wanted to get us stuff and didn't know what we wanted/needed. We need lots of stuff since we were in transit a lot of the time that Jonathan was an infant, most of it is lost or packed away (lost) or we didn't think we needed it to begin with.
Now we know better! We NEED all kinds of stuff.

Little Dr. Namer

So maybe TV shows like Grey's Anatomy and ER are inappropriate for a normal 2 yr old to watch on a regular basis, but we watched Grey's Anatomy together this week (he was asleep by the time ER hit the airwaves anyway) so I had the opportunity to use all the proper platitudes that mothers are supposed to say about how much doctors can help people feel better.

Also, once he left the hospital after his ordeal we presented him with this Sesame Street Medical Kit so that he can pretend to be a doctor too.
We (mommy that is) like the stethoscope that has a little button you push to make a heartbeat noise. Whenever he comes across the Oscar the Grouch blood pressure cuff with the Telly Monster gauge, he comes over to one of us (usually Mommy) and wants to check our blood pressure. Interestingly enough, that was truly the thing he hated most (after his "boo-boos" of course) in his prolonged hospital stay. They would come around every few hours to check vital signs (blood pressure and temperature) and he hated them both. What he didn't mind so much (as long as those boo-boos were relatively covered up) was the stethoscope every doctor (and nurse and nursing student and respitory therapist) wanted to use to hear his lungs. Maybe because some of them let him play with it too so it wasn't so foreign and strange. Also, at some point we took BP readings on most of his menagerie of stuffed animals since he was so bad about the BP cuff on himself.
But what was baffling to me was the fact that he really hated the underarm thermometer. What could possible be bad about that I wonder? Especailly in comparison to some of those other things...portable X-ray machines being brought to your bed, chest tubes attached to drains on the floor, a beeping pulse-ox monitor whose alarms were annoying loud - so much so that he would "shush" it whenever it went off (usually when he was trying to stand up on the floor for a few minutes or move around on the bed)

Maybe I'll get the opportunity to kvell about him being a doctor one day - after having spent so much time in his short little life (we're quickly approaching that 3rd b-day) around hospitals, but right now I am too busy worrying about him gaining some weight so he can grow. He left the hospital at 24 lbs and 2 weeks later with his shoes on he had gained 0.6 lbs. I know some dogs that weigh more than that!!!

TMX Elmo

Uncle Sam and Aunt Carlye wanted to make sure that Yoni was feeling better so they somehow feneigled the newest toy sensation around - Tickle Me Elmo - the Extreme edition - (check out this story) and made it arrive at Bubbe and Grandpa Stewart's house at the end of September just as Mr. J was coming home from the hospital.

This thing is amazing!! It's like a fuzzy little robot.

Elmo laughs and pounds his knee and bends over and falls on the floor. He even gets a little winded and cries "phew", but then begs for more - pleading "again, again".

Eran has already asked if there was a way to turn him off (there is, but I won't show him). Elmo starts up again at the slightest hint that someone might be paying him the slightest bit of attention.

Yoni can't get enough. He hugs him and then watches him go. He also "tickles" him as he would tickle a real person. It's so much fun to watch :)

As soon as I can figure out how to download the pictures and videos from our camera to this computer (don't have the software to do so installed on this machine) and then once I figure out how to upload the videos, I will try to post them to this blog.

Happy New Year and the Follow-Up

So I'm maybe a little centered on my son's health crisis right now.

We made it out of the hospital just in time to be at home for Rosh HaShana and to have to scramble for babysitting for Yom Kippur. I am not about to send my still-recovering-from-surgery kid to play with tons of other bigger kids at shul right now and catch whatever is going around all the different schools. Although I had no choice but to return to work immediately (don't even get me started about that - but they really have all been so suppotive and concerned) and therefore send him to HIS school. And that was an ordeal as well.

After two and a half weeks in the hospital, the first day back to daycare we wanted him to ease into things and get out of there at an early hour of the afternoon - 2:30 or 3ish. But somehow it got longer and longer and by the time 4:30 came around, he was still there at school. I was not a happy camper and pretty much fumed for a few hours after that and didn't go get my clingy, cranky child - who I hadn't left for more than a few hours at a time for the past 3 weeks - till long after 6. (He was already at the grandparents' by then)

So we made it through the first week somehow and are now into the second week out of the hospital. Meanwhile they sent me home with no antibiotics or pain meds for this child. Hey, they did give him an epidural (feeling no pain!)And both antibiotics and pain meds in the hospital intraveneously and even 2 doses of pain meds by mouth, but even after the outpatient ear tubes procedure they sent me home with BOTH oral antibiotics and a prescription for liquid Tylenol with codine for him to take as needed. This was a slightly more invasive procedure (don't you agree)and a bit of a longer hospital stay to say the least.

So tomorrow we have the follow up appt with the surgeon. And of course Jonathan managed to already have a serious cough - so much so that he woke himself up last night and almost threw up. He did cough so much this evening that he vomitted a little, I actually expected more.
So I expect a chest X-ray and an inspection of the incision and drainage sites and I don't know what else except a lot of general crankiness on the part of Mr. J. Luckily my brother and sister-in-law managed to somehow send him an amazing gift that arrived yesterday - I'm sure to devote a whole post for that one :)

Another milestone - I actually managed to remove the huge gauze pad (Sunday night) that was over the drain site (which caused all sorts of trauma and drama for such a small wound) and get a quick peek to at the steri-strip that was over the actual incision. Not to mention the other 2 Band-Aids that are covering the original chest tube sites. All of this despite a hyper-sensitive 2 year old who doesn't want to see his "boo-boos".
During the entire time he was stuck in the hospital bed he was covered by either a sheet or a towel so as not to see or remind him of his "boo-boos", despite the tubes hanging off his chest that were connected to the drains taped to the floor and the IV that was sometimes connected to the IV pole at the side of the bed. Not to mention the ever-present pulse-ox monitor that was fitted to his big toe with a glowing red light that he had to have covered by socks (and the sheet)at all times.

Bathing has also been a challenge, but every time seems slightly less traumatic. We'll get there. He's only 2 and bathing is an issue anyway since he doesn't get to swim in the bathtub with his toys right now. Now I can pretend to give him kisses on his tummy and sneak a peek at those bandaids and he lets me get away with it whereas at the beginning, he wouldn't let me touch his shirt at all. As my husband says - "Step by Step". We're getting there.

Pneumonia in May

Most people can do General Practioners or pediatricians and that's enough, but my family seems to need teams of specialists.

So we're in the hospital with this "pretty good case" of pneumonia (for a 2 year old or an adult, I'm not sure which) according to the pulmonary specialists. They say it's not the worst they've ever seen, but pretty impressive nonetheless.

So the first day we see a Dr Chris O-Something or other who turns out to be an Asthma and Cystic Fibrosis specialist. So I mention that I had tested positive during my pregnancy as a CF carrier and that we had tested Eran and he came up negative. I even went so far as to produce the letter stating that (in Hebrew - but hey it had the exact strain in English and with our translation that was enough for the doctors) This whole thing sparked Dr O's interest and they ordered a CF test done on my little man anyway since he could have any one of the other strains. Luckily the test was pretty non-invasive, just a simple 2 hour sweat test on his legs. But waiting for the results is agonizing. We got off lucky. Jonathan is CF free.

So meanwhile, the doctors have ordered 3 different strong IV antibiotics to be administered to fight the pneumonia while we're in the hospital. And the pulmonary specialist who we saw at the end wanted to send him home on an oral antibiotic that would have had to clear the Center for Infectious Diseases approval. Since they weren't exactly sure what strain of bacteria was causing the pneumonia (if any), they didn't get approval for that particular drug, but they sent him home on some other oral antibiotic that they suggested I supplement with Hershey's kisses to counteract the diarrhea. For some reason, my son is not a big chocolate or cookies fan. Go figure. But I sent extra kisses to daycare for the poor soul who was elected to fight with him to give him his meds during the day.

So anyway, mom is pregnant and can take Mr man down to the X-ray room, but cannot actually be in the room when they do the X-rays to see how the pneumonia is progressing or rather resolving. This is almost done every other day. And he starts crying the minute we step into that room with those big machines.

At this point, Jonathan is not very verbal. A few two word sentences is about the extent of his actual verbal capacity (and his name for me is "Me" - quite confusing sometimes), but he is very insitent about getting his views known in other ways...pointing and crying and whining mostly. And at this point we are still wondering if he is speech delayed because of his constant ear infections (hence the ear tubes a month earlier) or if it is something to do with his congenital CMV (hearing loss and other development delays are the earmarks of CMV at this stage - we get to wonder until age 4 or 5 I guess) I wonder how much non-verbal clues kids actually pick up on. Sometimes I didn't like the person who brought us down in the elevator for our routine chest x-rays and I was definately stressed out about the whole situation.

The good thing is that they eventually let us go home on oral antibiotics, with a follow-up X-ray in 2 weeks to see that the progression of the pneumonia is still good.

Jonathan's Heath Saga - Part 1

After many months of not blogging I can't even think where to begin.

I'm still pregnant and Jonathan is finally out of the hospital (again).

Eran is still hawking diamonds via telephone - I don't think I'll ever quite figure that one out, but it's working for him.

Here's Part 1 of our saga:

April
Jonathan has tubes put in his ears and his adnoids taken out (whereas the doctor (ENT) thought he was just going to cauterize them) After the procedure he come to the waiting room and suggests that my son probably has "a touch of pneumonia". I immediatly sent my diligent husband and mother upstairs to the pediatrician's office to relay the news that my son, the center of our universe, had successfully had the tubes put in and adnoids taken out and that probably he had a touch of pneumonia but they took care of him anyway. And then later I eventually got around to calling my pediatrician (it was on Jewish Standard Time - within the following week, I'm sure) and personally told him what the ENT said and that he was on Augmentin already for 10 days after the surgery. We left it at that.

May
Jonathan has a rough weekend with fever of 103 and his entire body turned red. We took turns staying home with him to let him rest and even sent him to daycare a few times, but by Thursday, (coincidentally the day I had a lunchtime job interview at Brennan's restaurant during which the school called my cell phone - needless to say that didn't go too well) I made mom take him and Eran to the doctor. They saw someone on call at a nearby practice as my pediatrician's mother had passed away that morning and I sent a detailed list of symptoms via fax to the doctor's office. She ordered a chest X-ray and somehow (luckily) the technican gave a CD copy to Eran to take to the doctor.

We made a reverse house call that night to the pediatrician on-call who lived in Bellaire and by the amount of time it took her to read the X-ray and by the look on her face (I had never met the woman) I could tell it wasn't too good. I told her Yoni was in the car and asked if she wanted to see him. She did and she brought out her stethoscope to listen to him. Her comment was there was NO air moving in the right side of his chest (the pneuomnia was that thick on that side) and that if she hadn't seen the X-ray already she wouldn't have known that was the problem.

So we go straight from her house to the emergency room as Jonathan is still lethargic but not really feverish. It is now approaching 10 PM. We get to the emergency room, have the vital signs taken, answer all the questions, fill out all the paperwork and then end up sitting in the waiting room with a miserable child for hours with not even a sippy cup to give him some water or a diaper to change him if the need arises.

Eventually after an exhausting few hours and the child getting more dehydrated by the minute, Eran takes action and gets us a bed in the hall and some gatorade to try to make him drink. A "doctor" who looks like she's just out of high school comes and asks us a few questions in the hall and takes the X-ray to look at. We never see that disc again.

Finally around 3 AM they put us in a triage room, start him on IV fluids and we finally see a doctor I can take more seriously - who comes in and out of the room several times before we actually can talk to him [stupid doctors' pagers].

I can't remember exactly what happens next but we eventually end up in a corner room on the 14th or 15th floor which is the cardiac floor for something or other.

I'll try to fill in the rest of that hospital stay later. Remeber this is the episode of pneumonia in MAY. I haven't even gotten to the barage of tests we do once we're there. Or to the excitement of the second hospital stay in SEPTEMBER.
More to come (soon, I hope)

Chemo - 2nd dose

So Mom is at the hospital, her new second home away from home, where shs is receiving her bout of chemotherapy. I am sorta nonchalant about the whole cancer thing. One the one hand it is a scary word, on the other hand, she doesn't even have a main tumor site (which I guess is potentially more dangerous)

too tired

I didn't fall off the face of the planet, I've just been too tired and busy with work, school, family (insert your own excuse here) to keep up with it.

I promise to TRY to do better - maybe it's cause the newness factor went out of it? Or maybe it's cause

Life is hard

Here's a typical day in the life:
Get up, get Yoni up, fight with him over what to wear, brushing his teeth etc. Make his school lunch (and sometimes mine, but when I do remember to make it I usually forget it on the counter) Drive him to the JCC - close by, but just far enough for me to get stuck at both traffic lights and busy intersections not to mention the school zone on the way. Drop him off - if I can get him out of the car and into the building and down the hallway without any problems - or sometimes I just pick him up and cart him off...Then a quick goodbye kiss and it's off to work I go. That usually takes 45 minutes or so in the height of Houston morning rush hour traffic.
I get to work, start opening my emails and printing them off. That takes forever.
Then I start working on my report. Then I send the first one out and start working on the second.
Somewhere in there I have lunch. Then I make sure both my reports have gone out and I pack it in for the day (Around 4:30 ish). I check with Eran and usually swing by to pick him up before heading back to get the little Namer.
By now I am fighting rush hour traffic (again) and have to dash across town to get the Yoni by 6PM. Yes it takes that long if I have to get Eran first. So by then we are all super hungry and fall into the trap of fast food because we need something NOW! Then it's home (although we spent a lot of time recently at Bubbe and Grandpa's) a few songs a drink or two and then bedtime for Bonzo. Sometimes I am still awake when Yoni falls asleep and sometimes not. This evening we fell asleep together on the couch after he asked to turn out the lights and then to turn off the TV. I think I was asleep b/4 he was, as soon as the TV went off.

So that's it. Add the fact that I am super stressed about work and the merger and if I'll still be working come the summertime and next fall. And the other outside stresses (you know what I mean). And there you have it...
A day in the life...