Ian called. He’s got it now too. That makes all four of us. We’re all sick with the cold that knocked Lucas out a week ago. 

We are tired. We are miserable. Lucas is alternately very exhausted and pathetic and annoying as hell. He’s on meds. He is now complaining of an earache. 

The rest of us are just suffering, hoping we’ll feel better soon. 

Asher keeps looking at me like, “What the hell kind of crap mom are you, anyway?! Why don’t you DO something?” I get the stink-eye from him when his nose explodes snotty slime all over his face. I get it when I take his temp rectally. I get it when he coughs. And also when I put any type of food in front of him—any morsel at all. He won’t eat anything. (Thank goodness he’s still nursing. I know he’s getting some fluids at least.) 

Asher woke up many times last night with coughing or crying. But then he did something I’ve never seen him or anyone else do in my whole life: He started screaming and thrashing about. I’m talking about eyes-open-mouth-blaring-rageful screaming. And thrashing his entire body about in the bed, hitting his head on the headboard, on me, on Ian, with complete disregard. It was like a full-on temper tantrum out of a dead sleep at 3 a.m. If he had been hot to the touch, I would have concluded, “Oh, so this is what a febrile seizure looks like.” Only he didn’t have a fever. He was, as far as I can guess, simply MAD AS HELL. He screamed that way for 20 minutes. Ian just held him … tightly, until Asher stopped screaming and went back to sleep. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

It’s another gorgeous spring day and we are trapped inside the Wilson Sanatorium. God help me. I’m just about off my rocker.

Lucas has been sick all week and still is sick. Today we took him to the urgent-care doctor, who determined he has a lung infection and asthma because of it. We now have medicines to treat both. And now Asher has a fever, too.

On Thursday night, after the fourth solid day of fever, I got creative. More about that in a minute. 

There is a whole school of Athroposophical medicine, of which I am largely ignorant. I know a couple of key points, however, and have an uneasy relationship to them. One key point is the idea that fever is one of the body’s main ways of purging itself of unwanted substances, i.e. viruses and bacteria. People who subscribe to this theory recommend not suppressing a fever with drugs, but say we should instead simply provide supportive care and allow the fever to run its course. The supportive care stuff is somewhat familiar (and seems natural/reasonable to me), and somewhat alien. Lemon leg compresses are not the stuff I was raised on.

Over the course of the past week, Ian and I have waffled a bit. Sometimes we gave Lucas ibuprofen to suppress his fever so he could feel better. When his eyes get glassy and he stops moving and talking, I begin to worry. Whenever we dosed him, he felt much better and was able to play and be more himself (still sick, but more himself). When he wasn’t that hot, we let him be in the hopes that he’d rest and get rid of the bug. Now I kind of wonder if dosing him may have prolonged the sickness, given that he was far more active with the ibuprofen in his system. Perhaps he overtaxed his impaired body during those times.

I am so not a doctor, and often have a hard time separating the health info/advice I have stored in my noggin into appropriate True, False, or Complete Bullshit categories.

Anyway … In an effort to distract him and keep him still, I made him a needle-felted Fever Fairy. (Yes, I made her. With. My. Hands. You may rightly gasp with amazement now.) So. A Fever Fairy. She is adorned in fiery colors and is made entirely of wool roving (with a single pipe-cleaner inside for structure). I named her Scarlett (OK, that part wasn’t very creative) and gave her to Lucas, telling him that Fever Fairies are special friends who visit children who are sick and feverish. 

The job of a Fever Fairy is to keep sick children company and to whisper soothing things to them. Fever Fairies stay by their side as long as the children are sick, then disappear. But whenever a child needs a rest and some quiet time, he may call to his Fever Fairy and she will come to him and whisper soothing words and cuddle him.  



I told Lucas a story about a sick little boy and Scarlett, the Fever Fairy. Every time the boy became sick while he was growing up, Scarlett came to him and kept him company. She reminded him of all the cooling things in the world, like the sweet taste of ice-cold water, the many flavors of ice-cream, swimming in summertime, the feeling of snowflakes falling on his cheek and raindrops on his skin. She told him he would get well and feel better soon and that she loved him very much. Scarlett came to him when he was a boy, and a teenager, and a grown-up man, and even an old man—whenever he was sick. And each time she visited, the boy always felt better. Her sweet words helped his fever come down. They were forever friends.

Lucas has slept with Scarlett since then and held her while resting on the couch. I don’t know if this is an original idea or not, but I’ve never heard about anyone else doing it. Either way, his Fever Fairy has distracted him a little. And for that, I’m grateful. 

 

And now, we’re off to do some face-painting. He wants a teddy bear on his cheek.

Yes, that says “Day Four.” We had planned to spend his first week (and Ian’s only week) of Easter Break at the cabin in South Lake Tahoe. I know we were there just last month, but staying there is fun and free and we figured that we could do with another week of snowy bliss. 

Alas. We are not in Tahoe. We are puttering around our house, mostly enjoying each other’s company and not working, but we’re also bummed that Lucas feels so crummy. He has had a fever and a bad cough since Sunday night. He is able to play a little (occasionally a lot) when we dose him with ibuprofen, but when it wears off he’s back to feeling miserable. And he is bored. And whiny. 

But, really, poor baby! At least he’s old enough now to know that sickness is temporary. I hated it when he was younger and he would get sick and look at me with those big blue eyes and ask, “Why, Mommy?” And expect me to make it all better.

The weather is drop-dead gorgeous, if such a thing can be said about weather, and it’s hard to be cooped up indoors. We managed a leisurely walk along the American River bike trail at Negro Bar yesterday and a meal out in Folsom. Today we tried a walk around our neighborhood with Lucas on his bike, but he quickly decided he’d rather turn around and go home. Asher and I pressed on without Lucas and daddy and had a nice, quiet walk. 

Last week Lucas played with the grandson of his grandma’s friend on Wednesday. He was here visiting from Maryland or someplace. The next day the kid was sick and had to cancel another planned playdate with Lucas. I’ve been silently blaming that kid for the last four days for getting my kid sick. Turns out, he wasn’t this sick, so maybe it’s not his fault afterall.

On a more positive note, Ian has made us some marvelous meals and I love, love, love that I have a husband who wows (and woos) me with food. Tonight we had chicken picata with artichoke hearts and capers and a sidedish of kale and chard in a creamy tomato sauce. Two nights ago he cooked chicken korma, complete with cashews and garum masala. Totally delish. He’s a man of many scrumptious talents and I’m a lucky girl.

Also, the darling

frosteee 

dropped by (unfortunately when we weren’t at home) and left us a big, beautiful family portrait as a gift. It must be 16 x 20 or bigger (don’t know where my measuring tape is at the moment) and printed on metallic paper and mounted on a hard board of some type. It’s this shot that they took of us at Asher’s birthday party on Feb 3, and we look like rockstars!



I adore it and I can’t wait to have it framed. It’s awesome! Thank you, Frostee and T8! 

This Easter was really great. I especially enjoyed the buildup to it because we did a number of crafty things that turned out beautifully. 

I’ve always loved dying Easter eggs—for my whole life it’s been one of the things that signifies Spring to me in a very concrete way, even when Easter arrives rainy and grey. This year, I decided it would be fun to dye our eggs naturally—meaning no Paws dye kits, no food coloring and vinegar concoctions. This time, we used kitchen and yard ingredients only.

* Turmeric for yellow
* Beet juice for pink
* Blueberry juice for lavender
* Red cabbage for blue
* Birch leaves/grass and assorted kitchen veggies for green
* Coffee for brown
* Onion skin juice for peachy orange 
* Vinegar

It was significantly more expensive dying the 18 eggs this way, and it took probably four times longer than a kit would have taken. But it was easily four times more fun! And we spend less than … probably $9.

Getting a good-looking green solution took a lot of work and time, and surprisingly, it did not color the eggs at all. I also assumed that coffee would easily stain the egg brown, but it didn’t. (That may be because I used the used coffee grounds instead of fresh coffee. I suddenly became frugal when it came time to use the coffee. Can you see my vices?) 

We called it “Kitchen Science” while we were doing this, and stressed to Lucas that it was all a big eggsperiment. We didn’t know how well it would work, whether we’d get nice colors, or if it would fail completely. A la “Myth Busters” we said, “Failure is always an option.” 

But if you care to scroll down to the end, you’ll see that our eggsperiment was a great success! We got lovely eggs in soft, earthy shades. They weren’t pale, as I expected. And as they aged overnight and over Easter day, they sort of changed colors, which was unexpected. Some got darker, some paler. Perhaps they oxidized? We wonder if the beet-colored pink eggs turned brownish because of iron in the juice. And weirdest of all, the blueberry-dyed, dark lavender eggs became a mottled lavender-and-orange before Easter was done. They were really cool!

At one point, when it became clear that we wouldn’t have any green eggs, I contemplated cheating and pulling out the food dye. But Ian convinced me not to, reminding me how cool it would be to have a basketful of plant-dyed eggs, and how not cool it would be to have almost all plant-dyed eggs and the green ones we cheated for. So we finished it as originally intended, and they were gorgeous!

That’s probably the longest story about eggs you’ve ever read.

I got sick on Wednesday night with a freaky intestinal virusy thing. I’ll spare you the details. Yesterday I was still sick—shaky, weak, and so sleepy from having been up half of the previous night. I pawned my baby off on gracious friends Parnasus and T for a couple of hours in the morning. (Thank you wonderful ladies!) I slept while he was gone, and worked for an hour. After I picked him up at aroung 1:30 p.m., I put the both of us to bed. We slept for three hours straight. In a way, it’s not surprising that I needed that much sleep to recover, but it’s a bloddy MIRACLE that Asher cooperated so that I could. (He sleeps better with me than alone, a habit I’ve ingrained in him and one that eventually I will regret, but for now it’s the right thing.)

In two days my weight decreased 4.6 pounds. That’s what dehydration will do for ya! Quick, call Hollywood! 

Anyway, I’m much better today. I can think and move around. My appetite is back. But damned if Asher doesn’t feel heavier than usual!

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/02/plastic_toys2.html 

I’ve been doing a lot of crawling around on the Interwebs lately. I’ve been learning about some icky stuff that they put in … well … everything, but in particular in children’s toys. Like teething toys. That babies. Put in. Their. Mouths.

Ian, who is smarter than me—or at least better at adding 2 and 2 together—just asked me, “What about pacifiers?”

Oh crap. 

Dear God, 
Please, PLEASE do not let me find out that creepy dangerous chemicals are in the pluggies that I lovingly place in my baby’s eager, sucking mouth multiple times every day. I really cannot live without pluggies. They are the life raft I leap to regularly to save my sinking sanity. They are the balm to my weary, hounded soul. I cannot make it without pacifiers. My nipples won’t survive. My jangled nerves will jangle their last.Please. Please.

Synchronicity is a bitch. Ya know? Just last Friday I bought a book called Toxic Sandbox (http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Sandbox-Environmental-Toxins-Childrens/dp/039953363X/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203382169&sr=1-8). So far, I’ve read the lead chapter and I’m halfway through the mercury chapter. Guess what the next chapter is! Yep. Plastics, including phthalates. 

It seems phthalates are implicated in smaller scrotums, smaller penises, undescended testicles, reduced sperm count, reduced testosterone, testicular caner, liver cancer, and damaged kidneys IN RODENTS. It seems that these chemicals “feminize” babies and small children. The EU has banned products containing phthalates.

So, my gut reaction right now is to go buy a lead testing kit and to throw away every single plastic item in my home. Not sure how much will be left in my home if I do this. Dammit. 

See? There IS a reason (beyond aesthetics) I’ve been asking for and buying wooden toys for my boys for years.

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20081102-16879.html

Breast milk contains stem cells

Monday, 11 February 2008

By Catherine Madden Mammary stem cells (red/blue) and differentiated adult mammary cells (green) isolated from human breast milk.  The Perth scientist who made the world-first discovery that human breast milk contains stem cells is confident that within five years scientists will be harvesting them to research treatment for conditions as far-reaching as spinal injuries, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting revelations about the potency of breast milk. He believes that it not only meets all the nutritional needs of a growing infant but contains key markers that guide his or her development into adulthood. “We already know how breast milk provides for the baby’s nutritional needs, but we are only just beginning to understand that it probably performs many other functions,” says Dr Cregan, a molecular biologist at The University of Western Australia. He says that, in essence, a new mother’s mammary glands take over from the placenta to provide the development guidance to ensure a baby’s genetic destiny is fulfilled. “It is setting the baby up for the perfect development,” he says. “We already know that babies who are breast fed have an IQ advantage and that there’s a raft of other health benefits. Researchers also believe that the protective effects of being breast fed continue well into adult life. “The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast milk versus formula don’t become apparent for decades. Formula companies have focussed on matching breast milk’s nutritional qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance.” It was Dr Cregan’s interest in infant health that led him to investigate the complex cellular components of human milk. “I was looking at this vast complexity of cells and I thought, ‘No one knows anything about them’.” His hunch was that if breast milk contains all these cells, surely it has their precursors, too? His team cultured cells from human breast milk and found a population that tested positive for the stem cell marker, nestin. Further analysis showed that a side population of the stem cells were of multiple lineages with the potential to differentiate into multiple cell types. This means the cells could potentially be “reprogrammed” to form many types of human tissue. He presented his research at the end of January to 200 of the world’s leading experts in the field at the International Conference of the Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation in Perth. “We have shown these cells have all the physical characteristics of stem cells. What we will do next is to see if they behave like stem cells,” he says. If so, they promise to provide researchers with an entirely ethical means of harvesting stem cells for research without the debate that has dogged the harvesting of cells from embryos. Further research on immune cells, which have also been found in breast milk and have already been shown to survive the baby’s digestive process, could provide a pathway to developing targets to beat certain viruses or bacteria.

My baby is SICK! He developed a barky cough on Sunday during the night. Monday he was clearly sick and had a slight fever. Monday night and in the wee hours of this morning he was miserable, struggling to breathe, unable to sleep and crying without making much noise—just a hoarse, pathetic, croaking sound. The doctor’s office couldn’t see him until 3:30 today. His pulse-ox was pretty good—96. I hate the diagnoses where “supportive care” is about all anyone can do. They did give him a single-dose oral steroid, which I don’t much like but I know how awful not breathing feels and I want him to get whatever relief they can give. Otherwise, humid air is about all we can do for him. Poor baby is sad and clearly miserable. They said, “Keep him comfortable and happy.” Crying and agitation will make him feel and breathe worse. He is a far cry from happy.

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/infections/bacterial_viral/croup.html
Signs and Symptoms

Croup is characterized by a loud cough that may sound like the barking of a seal and may be accompanied by fast or difficult breathing and sometimes a grunting noise or wheezing while breathing.

At first, a child may have cold symptoms like a stuffy or runny nose for a few days and may also have fever. As the upper airway (the lining of the windpipe and the voice box) becomes progressively inflamed and swollen, the child may become hoarse, with a harsh, barking cough.

If the upper airway becomes swollen to the point where it is partially blocked off, it becomes even more difficult for a child to breathe. This happens with severe croup. With severe croup, there may be a high-pitched or squeaking noise when breathing in (this is called stridor). A child will tend to breathe very fast, and the stomach or the skin between the child's ribs may seem to pull in during breathing. The child may also appear pale or bluish around the mouth because he is not getting enough oxygen.

Symptoms of croup often worsen at night and when the child is upset or crying. In addition to the effects on the upper airway, the infections that cause croup can result in inflammation further down the airway, including the bronchi (breathing tubes) and the lungs.

Contagiousness

Croup tends to occur in outbreaks in the winter and early spring when the viruses that usually cause it peak. Many children who come in contact with the viruses that cause croup will not get croup, but will instead have symptoms of a head cold.

Diagnosis

Doctors can usually diagnose croup by looking for the telltale barking cough and stridor, the squeaking sound on inhaling. They will also check the child for fever, cold symptoms (like a runny nose), or a recent viral illness, and ask questions to find out if the child has a prior history of croup or upper airway problems.

If the child's croup is severe and slow to respond to treatment, a neck X-ray may also be taken to rule out any other reasons for the breathing difficulty, such as a foreign object lodged in the throat or epiglottitis (an inflammation of the epiglottis, the flap of tissue that covers the windpipe). Typical findings on an X-ray if a child has croup includes the top of the airway narrowing to a point, which doctors call a steeple sign.

Treatment

Most, though not all, cases of viral croup are mild. Breathing in moist air seems to relieve many of the symptoms. Doctors will also sometimes treat with steroids, which helps with the airway swelling.

One way to humidify the air is with a cool-mist humidifier. Having your child breathe in the moist air through the mouth will sometimes break a croup attack. Or try running a hot shower to create a steam-filled bathroom where you can sit with your child for 10 minutes. Try cuddling and reading a bedtime story while doing this to help calm your child.

Sometimes, during cooler months, taking your child outside for a few minutes can help break the attack because the cool air can shrink the swollen tissues lining the airway. Parents can also try driving the child in the car with the windows down to bring in cool air.

If your child has croup, consider sleeping overnight in the same room to provide close observation. If you are not able to break your child's fast breathing and croupy cough, call your child's doctor or seek medical attention as soon as possible.

Medical professionals will need to evaluate your child if the croup appears serious or if there's any suspicion of airway blockage or bacterial infection. Medications such as epinephrine or corticosteroids may be given to reduce swelling in the upper airways. Oxygen may also be given, and sometimes a child with croup will remain in the hospital overnight for observation. As with most illnesses, rest and plenty of fluids are recommended.

Duration

The symptoms of croup generally peak 2 to 3 days after the symptoms of infection start. Croup resulting from viral infection usually lasts less than a week.

Complications

The vast majority of children recover from croup with no complications. Rarely, some children will develop complications such as ear infection or pneumonia.

Frostee, Asher, and I were having lunch last Thursday (1/24) at a sushi restaurant. Asher somehow leaned over in his high chair just wrong and bonked his mouth on the marble tabletop. He cried pretty hard and I could tell he was hurt, but I didn’t see it happen, so I wasn’t sure what he hit, exactly. After a few minutes he stopped crying. We finished our lunch and went on our way. About 20 to 30 minutes later, I noticed that his front left incisor was chipped. He knocked a small chip out of his tooth when he hit the table. 

Later, I could feel the jagged edge of the tooth when nursing him. I called our dentist/uncle and made an appointment.

This morning we went in to see the dentist. He agreed it would be best to smooth out the poky part. I held poor Asher’s body and head still while the assistant held down his arms and my uncle smoothed out the tooth with what looked and sounded like a tiny power grinder. Poor baby cried and struggled and turned bright red with frustration. Fortunately, it was over very quickly. He got a plastic bath toy out of the deal, but he seemed pretty pissed off about the experience. He’s currently sleeping it off. 

Before and After photos on flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37914323@N00/2226261841/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37914323@N00/2227052454/

I still have to take a picture showing the smoothed tooth. 

Asher ate stewed onions for dinner tonight. It was the weirdest thing. I put one on his plate just to touch and he picked it up, placed it in his mouth, munched it, and swallowed. He then ate tons of them and was clearly disappointed when there were no more. Then he ate half a slice of bread dipped in beef and onion gravy.