Well, things are better now. Lucas feels good again; the antibiotics worked like a charm. The nasty behavior lasted about as long as the antibiotics did, but the 9th was definitely the worst of it. He never got as obnoxious as that again. He even got to the point where he was taking the antibiotics without complaint—just about when we ran out of the stuff.

Since I last wrote we actually had our first parent-teacher conference. Miss Karen came to our house on Saturday the 19th and we chatted about how Lucas is doing at Little Gate preschool and how he’s developing. Obviously, he is very articulate, but he’s now learning how to communicate his needs to other children. She says his sharing skills have improved and he’s learning to negotiate. She is glad to see that he now has more varied play. At preschool he plays with the kitchen and the blocks (which are natural branch blocks, not unit blocks), as well as the train set. She says he builds “towers” and “castles” and “tunnels.” His creative, imaginative life is blossoming. Lucas is also very interested in cutting with scissors. Karen really has to watch him with scissors because he occasionally says things like “I’m going to cut you” or “cut hair.” Basically, he’s testing the boundaries. When that happens, he loses scissor privileges for the rest of the day. Karen also says that Lucas’s physical well-being really seems to affect his mood and behavior—I’ve noticed the same thing myself. His fine motor and gross motor skills are developing apace. Outside he enjoys the slides, the sand box, and also balancing on things. Karen thinks he really enjoys the kinesthetic and tactile things like sand.

Karen also recommended we put him on probiotics to counteract the negative affects of the antibiotics.

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but one new development in Lucas’s life is that he’s become obsessed with alphabet letters and writing. Beginning at the end of January, he began writing some letters. Now, he hardly scribbles anymore, he’s always writing letters. He can write E, F, I, H, A, B, J, O, P, U, W, and X. That’s nearly half the alphabet. E and F are his current favorites. Sometimes the E has more than three horizontal bars—sometimes it has many, as if the excitement and enthusiasm he feels about E can’t be contained in only four lines. However, it’s truly unmistakable that writing letters is what he’s doing. He’ll tell ya all about it too.

Lucas is also interested in the magnetic letters on the fridge. Sometimes they are put away and sometimes they are out. Lately he wants them out and he wants to spell words with them. They are no longer just building long letter “trains” like before. Now he says the letters in order, then says “that spells Dad.” He knows how to spell his name: “L-U-C-A-S spells Lucas!” and “M-O-M spells Mommy” and “D-A-D spells Dad.”

Oh, and he’s into making letter shapes with his fingers too. He makes O, C, and L (that one he makes with his left hand, like I showed him). I’m thinking of starting to teach the ASL finger alphabet since he’s so interested.

Another thing worth mentioning. VoVo says that last week Lucas asked, “Did Puffer Cat died?” Grandma said yes, he did. Lucas replied, “When he’s undied, he’ll come back.”

My son is sick with lung and ear infections. (This is completely and totally unrelated to the vomit-mania that occurred last Friday. He started getting sick with a brand-new cold on Sunday the 6th.)

We spent 6 hours in the Emergency Room last night with Lucas coughing terribly and burning a 103-104 degree F fever. Now we are armed with antibiotics, fever-reducing suppositories (he gags and spits up any oral cough or fever-reducing medicine), and medication for his lungs to be administered by nebulizer. Needless to say, I have not been able to accomplish much editing on the 5 projects I am currently juggling.

Childcare is great (and essential) for freelancing/WAH/working parents, except when your child is sick. Caregivers don’t want a sick kid. And other children’s parents certainly don’t want Lucas’s germs. If I had a job and weren’t self-employed, I’d take a sick day (or three), stay home with Lucas, and not worry about my work not getting done. Someone else would put out fires and take care of things in my absence. But, being self-employed, the buck stops here. And it’s my ass if I miss a deadline.

Lucas is driving me crazy. I’m running away to join the circus as soon as Ian comes home tonight.

Lucas told me today that he doesn’t like me anymore. That I’m terrible. I’m a terrible mommy. Literally! I’m not kidding! “Mommy, you’re terrible. You’re a terrible mommy!” He says he only likes daddy now.

We had tons of nap drama today. He was in his room shouting, “I’m still, still awaa—aaa-ke!” over and over again. He climbed out of his crib (a feat never before accomplished) three times directly onto the 3-foot-high bookcase that sits beside it. He threw books. Knocked over the lamp. Three times I found him either sitting or standing on this bookshelf. (It is no longer standing next to the crib.)
I swear I’m about to feed him to wolves.
Well, things have calmed down a little since the horrible napless fiasco. He completely won that battle, and by saying mean things to me, even managed to make me cry. That was a big emotional bomb for us both, because the moment he knows that I am sad, he begins bawling and sobbing about how sorry he is and how he wants me to “be happy, mommy!”

The kid is sick, and tired. And I’m sick and tired of it. Great compassion, eh? I know, it’s my job to be the unending source of all love, affection, comfort, and confidence. But quite frankly, my confidence is a little shaken right now. I’m tired from being out at Kaiser until 12:30 am. My nerves are rather frayed, and I have to keep him home tomorrow too.

Today is a Mommy Lucas Day, since it’s Friday and there’s no preschool. We had big plans for today, including a morning trip to the gym and then a visit with Gordon and Kimberlee Dawn at Fair Oaks park. Lucas woke up feeling really cheerful, but at breakfast he hardly ate his favorite cereal, Honey Bunches of Oats, and complained his tummy was “rotten.” He asked me to kiss it. He was pretty whiny, so I was trying to jolly him along into his clothes, packing a snack so he wouldn’t get hungry at the park and getting into my workout clothes.

Lucas balked at putting on a pull-up and pants and very soon threw up twice on the kitchen floor. I guess his stomach really did feel rotten. He seemed to cheer up after some sips of water. We finished getting dressed and then went outside to watch the tractor/Scoop-type loader and the county truck pick up the huge stacks of junk in front of everyone’s houses for neighborhood cleanup day. When we came inside he said, “Mommy kiss me!” and threw up in the entryway.

It’s now 2:00 pm and he’s down for a nap. It’s been maybe three hours since his last vomit–six times so far today. Poor baby. We’ve both changed clothes three times. Once he managed to do it into the toilet. Two other times in his crib and my bed. I feel so bad for him when he gets ill. There’s really so little a mother can do. Except get barfed upon and clean everything up.

I hope he sleeps well and wakes up feeling better. At least his mood has been pretty cheerful, all things considered. The sun is shining outside and it’s a beautiful day. Maybe later he’ll be able to play in the back yard.