The Trixie Update

Trixie is sick. First time since the massive exposure when we started school. She’s been home with me all day and sporting a 101-103.5 fever. It’s the .5 that gets me. 103, I can deal with. 103.5, it’s time to dump her in the bath. Putting a sick toddler in a luke-cool bath is about as much fun as putting a cat in any bath. Luckily we had Trixie’s front claws clipped recently.

The good news is that Jenn just gave the word that the fever seems to have finally broken. Her head is sweaty, but her body is no longer radiating heat like an open stove. It’s a big relief. She’s been pretty miserable today. All she’s eaten is 3 popsicles and box of 3-week old Chinese food. It breaks your heart.

In other news, who wants to guess what Hannah* has been up to? Haven’t heard from her in a while, right? Well… sometimes it’s hard to get online and surf when you’re busy taking care of twins. Yep — I’m happy to congratulate Hannah and company on the recent healthy births of Carina and Henry. They have no idea what a cool mom they are getting — it’s just too bad hannah’s next comment on this site will probably be around 2008. Good luck guys, we’re thinking of you!

* AKA old school hannah,

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Trixie’s bug has hit me in a serious way. Just wanted to let you guys know that Trixie seems like she’s going to be fine, and that I’m not ignoring the comments — I just can’t respond at the current time.

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[Note] An update has been added to the end of this post.

I know, you should never post things on your blog that might get you into trouble, especially when it comes to your daycare provider. But I’m not too worried — they have never read this blog. If they did, then they wouldn’t be under the assumption that Trixie takes a nap every morning at 10:30.

I have no idea what goes on at daycare, but once again I pick up Trixie today and find out that she took another 30 minute nap. I’m like, “What the hell!??”

Not at the daycare, of course. There it’s more like, “Hmmm, that’s very interesting. She took a morning nap, you don’t say?” But the whole time I’m thinking, “Trixie has been on a one-nap-a-day schedule since almost the beginning of December, and I’ve got 10,000 points of data to prove it, so what gives?” Um, yeah, I’ll probably have to take this post down…

Anyway, I usually drop her off around 8:30-8:45, and she ends up taken a nap there around 10:30 every single day. Is she really getting that exhausted in less than two hours? If she is, then fine, but I find it hard to believe. I’m not suggesting that they are making Trixie go to sleep, because as far as I know, that’s impossible. Basically, I guess I don’t understand what is going on, and the reason it’s a problem is that it’s messing up the rest of Trixie’s schedule. In particular, it’s throwing her afternoon nap into a tailspin.

To play the devil’s advocate, Trixie has spent the last week and a half getting over a stomach virus. It has affected her appetite and was responsible for the morning naps she took last week. But she’s better now. She didn’t take any naps this past weekend, and I figured we were back on schedule. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens over the next couple of days. If daycare is really that überstimulating or if she’s still not 100% well, and she needs a short catnap, then I’m glad she’s getting it. I’ll apologize for this misguided steam-releasing rant. But just don’t tell me that a 10:30 morning nap is normal or regular.

[UPDATE 2/14/05 2:48pm] I just thought of one more thing. Trixie is having major, major separation anxiety when I drop her off in the morning that results in 10-15 minutes of terrified, inconsolable crying and banshee screaming. Maybe that energy expenditure is enough to knock her out for a short morning nap.

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Trixie is back in daycare today after so far missing 3 out of 8 scheduled days due to stomach problems. That leaves quite a bit of room for improvement. No one passes out gold stars for a 63% attendance record. Our primary concern is for Trixie to feel better and enjoy her time at daycare, of course, but my next thought is, “What a waste of money!!”

Now, I don’t fault the daycare — we are paying to reserve the space whether or not it’s actually filled by a child every day. But the situation makes me think that there may be a market for daycare sickness insurance. You could pay a small premium to hedge against lost days. Or maybe it could even be set up like options where it’s tied to the calendar. Buying sickness calls at the beginning of the flu season cost more than in the middle of summer. Maybe they could even be traded in a daycare hedge market. Parents of healthy kids would make a killing as they sell off contracts to those whose children are setting new records in projectile vomiting. It might sound crazy now, but this time next year we’ll see Superbowl Ads — complete with CG talking babies — for DaycareHedge.com.

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Trixie has successfully infected us once again. Jenn and I are horribly sick, providing further evidence that BIDS never goes away. I guess that shouldn’t really be a surprise because, by definition, BIDS isn’t going anywhere until there is no longer a baby in the house. And until then, every single germ Trixie brings home stands an excellent chance of exploding into our own private hot zone. The only good news is that before I got sick I almost finished up a two-part story (with pictures!) that should be up tomorrow.

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Trixie is doing better today. Her fever has broken. I’m sure it’s not gone for good, but it has been below 100 all morning. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of snot. A whole lot. I think she’s excreting some kind of mucus cocoon. I’m terrified of what I might discover when I go in after her nap, or how many arms and tentacles it might have. Thanks for all the well wishes.

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It’s my understanding that the “danger” fever zone is about 104. Above that and you might need to rush to the ER. But at what temperature do you personally start to panic? What’s your fever threshold for your baby? Vote in our new sick-day poll. (Poll is to your left under Latest TTU Comments.)

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It’s like someone puréed a jellyfish, unscrewed the top of her head, poured it in, and now it’s slowly seeping out of every hole on her face. It’s the sort of thing we’ve all seen on at least 6 different X-Files episodes. It’s also the most pitiful I’ve ever seen her. We took her to the doctor, and she’s got bilateral ear infections. Welcome back to the Amoxicilin Club.

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Breaking all previous records, Trixie used the potty three different times today. Scientifically speaking, she did no.1 twice and no.2 once. However, she also rounded out the day with a nice big no.16 on the only spot of carpet in the whole house, and now Jenn is currently out buying some Resolve. I don’t really know if today counts as a net gain or loss.

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We’re back. Happy New Year. In our absence, I’ve discovered another component to BIDS* — crippling upper back/shoulder pain. I stopped working out when Trixie was about 6 or 7 months old. There just wasn’t enough time in the day and I figured that taking care of her was exercise enough. Matter of fact, I thought it was great exercise. It’s like running non-stop in circles while throwing around a 23.5 pound medicine ball all day long. Unfortunately, in retrospect, I now realize that running non-stop in circles while throwing around a 23.5 pound medicine ball all day long is a horrible, horrible idea. That’s probably why there haven’t been medicine balls in gyms since the 1950’s.

The main issue here is that I never stopped carrying Trixie as she’s gotten bigger. This is because of my aversion to strollers. I would rather lug Trixie around and be able to freestyle it than get trapped behind one of those monstrosities. As a result, I’ve carried her a lot (because she’s lazy and weak) and I think it all finally caught up with me.

I don’t know quite what happened but something with my left shoulder gave out the day after Christmas and got progressively worse. However, thanks to my friend Ibuprofen and lots of rest, I’m happy to report that I’m recovering. Has your body ever taken a hit thanks to your kid? Take the new poll. (Poll is to your left under Latest TTU Comments.)

*Baby-related Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Read more about BIDS.

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