Misery

I am sick. Splitting headache, constant nose-blowing, frequent sneezing, feverish with chills, feel like crap, want to curl up on the couch with tea, kleenex, and really bad TV, kind of sick. Landon is sick too. I am in the middle of finals. JP has been working late. The week is not going particularly well.

Yesterday was pure misery. I had an 8-hour take home exam in Sexual Orientation and the Law. I began studying for the final after picking it up 10 minutes late from the registrar's office. I spent the first two hours checking email, reading news stories, and outlining the questions. During the next six hours I wrote 3,920 words over 14 pages while going through a box of kleenex, 8 cups of tea, and sneezing every 20 minutes. I'm certain everyone in the library hated me. I emailed in the exam 30 minutes early because I just couldn't think of anything else to say. I think I did fine, nothing great, but I had good notes from the class, and I was able to turn them into thorough, even if far from brilliant, essays. I'm just glad it's done.

After turning in the exam, I picked up Landon and found out he had thrown up all over Maya and his clothes earlier in the day. I adore her because she didn't even call me, she just cleaned him up and put him to bed. He was still asleep when I got there and very upset at being bothered. He was fussy, feverish, and clingy all evening. I had one of the worst headaches I've had in years (and that's saying a lot), a 102 degree fever of my own, and just wanted to cry. Landon wanted to cry too, so we sat on our recliner, watched re-runs of America's Next Top Model, and cried together. JP got home in time to give Landon his bath while I curled up in a ball and moaned along with the pulsing in my head. Landon was up from 3 to 5 AM, but JP dealt with it and thanks to a dense fog of nighttime cold medicine, I slept through everything.

This morning Landon woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed, so maybe his cold was just taking one final stand last night. He had been feeling (and sleeping!) much better the past few days, so I was surprised when he seemed worse yesterday. I still feel awful, but at least I was able to take Landon to daycare this morning. My Con Law II final is tomorrow morning, and I'm still missing giant sections in my outline (like freedom of the press, only a small part of the 1st Amendment), but I just want it over with. Then I can focus on fun things like creating a beautiful excel spreadsheet with our potential Austin home information on it, coloring in a map of the neighborhood we're looking in, and creating a schedule of daycares we're going to visit while there. I opened up excel this morning, but forced myself to close it because I should at least read through some con law outlines before the exam. I mean seriously, I must have some kind of academic standards left in me. This makes me worry about the Fall- I wonder how hard it will be to rediscover my work ethic. I know I used to have one...

A Strange Sense of Calm

Each quarter I sink to a new level of finals unpreparedness. It's become something of a contest among 3L's to see who has done the least studying and I'm pretty sure I win. This isn't the "I haven't studied at all (oh, but I did do all the reading, took notes, looked over old exams, and made an outline)" type of whining; I really haven't done any of those things. And there isn't time left to pretend that I will. I have an 8-hour take home exam tomorrow for Sexual Orientation and the Law, a class you may notice I haven't mentioned in a while, and that's because I haven't looked at it in a while. I'm planning to spend the first 3 hours creating an outline based on the exam questions, one hour eating lunch and wasting some time (necessary for my thought process), and the last four hours actually writing the exam. I'll spend Wednesday plugging through other people's con law outlines to make my own, knowing that I won't actually finish. With every section I get through, I realize with more certainty that I won't reach all of them. And I'm honestly not bothered by that. The sections I have done, I've done thoroughly, so I will have enough written down to pass. My grades so far in law school have been pretty good (not that anyone understands our bizarre grading system anyway), so my transcript can take a few low numbers and still look okay. Thank goodness I'm not close to honors or trying to clerk, there would be so much more pressure.

In health news, I am sick with a bad cold. I'm sure those sitting near me in the library are hating me for the constant sneezing and nose-blowing. My head is filled with snot and other yuckiness and there is no room left for con law. Landon had a follow-up appointment with the surgeon this morning and everything looks great! The stitches look good and there's very little swelling - this might be one medical story that is completely drama-free (other than the near starvation he suffered Thursday morning). The surgeon said that for all his complaining in the pre-op room, he was totally quiet and happy down in the OR. He looked around, smiled at everyone, didn't put up any resistance to the IV (which they got on the first try, yay!), and then just closed his eyes. That was nice to hear. He really has turned into such a happy little fellow. Maybe he always was, there was just so much drama and crap and pain covering it up. This weekend while I was "studying" and he was sitting in my lap, banging on the desk and trying to pull off my nose, I realized how much we enjoy him now. While there were some great times and we loved him to death, I can't say his first several months with us were particularly enjoyable overall. But now, he's just so fun. His personality is coming through and JP and I spend hours just talking, playing, and laughing (and laughing more) with him. Babies can be a blast - who knew?

Belugaless

I am sitting in an under-heated undergraduate library, wearing my puffy down coat, and striving to create a con law outline without actually having read con law. Snow is pouring down from the heavens. I am freezing. I am tired. I am without belugas.

Yes, today was supposed to be the day I lived my own version of the famed Raffi song, but I had to reschedule it due to a baby being home from daycare for the millionth time this quarter, JP's work suddenly demanding his presence on nights and weekends, and my shocking lack of preparedness for finals. April 5th is now the big day- I'm sure the belugas are looking forward to it as much as I am.

Our little patient continues to do well. We went to Target yesterday and I let him pick out a toy and variety of band-aid. I lined up three options on a shelf and after much careful consideration, reading of the labels, and weighing of the costs and benefits, Landon selected the Baby's First Blocks and Spider-Man band-aids (and by "selected" I mean lunged his body towards and tried to cram in his mouth). We also purchased a small plastic watering can after I let my cart get too close to a shelf and looked away for half a second. When I looked back, he had a water can sticking out of his mouth. Luckily it was only $1.99, and I figure it will be fun to play with in the tub.

As you can see Landon is already working on the "learning objectives" displayed on the toy's box: "Filling the bucket with blocks, dumping them out, and starting over is great for eye-hand coordination and other early skills. Then baby can move on to sorting and stacking, learning about identifying and matching shapes while having fun!"

Oh, wait - sucking on the sorting tray, without even noticing the brightly colored blocks within isn't an objective? At least he's easily entertained. I don't think every toy needs an educational purpose anyway - have you noticed the Fisher-Price "Laugh and Learn" series? A lot of the stuff looks cute, but I find it funny that they try to pack the word "learn" into the descriptions as many times as possible. Like the "Laugh and Learn Learning Toolbench". I mean really? It couldn't just be a fun bench that baby can hit with a hammer?

Anyway, Landon still has a terrible cough- he sounds like a 60-year-old smoker hacking up a lung. Every time I think about getting worried about it, I just remind myself that three doctors and two nurses examined him and listened to his lungs on Thursday and if they didn't mention anything except a cold, then that's probably all it is. Plus he's seeing two doctors next week for various follow-ups, so knowing those are in our future makes me less apprehensive. Other than the hacking, he is doing great. He doesn't seem to have any pain, is very playful, and is drinking well. He still hasn't eaten much baby food, I think it's because he's wary of his beloved bottle being taken away again. He demanded a few sucks every twenty minutes Thursday and Friday. I'm pretty sure he was testing me, and as he sucked, he'd eye me with deep suspicion.

Alright, study break over - I need to at least read through an entire con law outline if I'm not going to read the book. It's a good thing there's only five exams left in my law school career, I keep doing less and less to prepare for them.

A Surgical Story in Pictures

Greetings Dear Readers,

I am pleased to report that Landon is home and doing well. I am drinking an enormous diet coke which I am counting on fueling me through the next hundred hours of catch-up reading and exam studying. But before I open my con law book for the first time in weeks, I thought I'd share our surgical adventure today.

It all began when Landon had to stop eating at midnight, stop drinking formula at 6 AM, and stop drinking clear liquids at 10 AM. As you can see from the following picture, he is PISSED about this.

By the time we were in pre-op at 12:15, he was in the midst of a total meltdown. After his pleas for food were cruelly rebuffed by JP and I, he regarded us with hurt betrayal and turned to others for help. He would quiet down whenever someone new walked in the room, look up hopefully with wide eyes, and when a bottle was not immediately produced, begin to wail again. It was so sad. He was certain his big belly was wasting away and couldn't understand why everyone was ignoring his cries of hunger. Until...

He was momentarily distracted by a mirror and surgical hat produced by our angel of a surgical nurse. Sadly, this did not last long. Immediately after this picture was taken he tried to eat the surgical hat, but quickly rejected it as unpalatable and began to wail again.

While all the wailing was going on, almost certainly scaring all the other kids waiting to go in for their surgeries, doctors came in and out of the room to yell details about the upcoming procedure. The chief attending anesthesiologist was on Landon's case and he quickly decided that there was only one thing that was going to make Landon happy and that was, "General Anesthesia". He scooped Landon up, cuddled him against his chest, and carried him off to the OR. Landon looked hopeful again as they walked out of the room together. A nurse followed behind with his bed.

JP and I went down to the cafeteria, ate the worst piece of pizza I've ever had, and quickly returned to the OR waiting room. After about an hour and fifteen minutes, the surgeon came in to talk to us, saying that everything went well. He showed us a picture of the cyst, which was removed in entirety and bigger than anyone had expected. It was shaped like an open clam shell which big and small halves. The smaller half was actually lodged into the muscle above his eye, so the surgeon rebuilt the muscle and said it should heal up just fine. Landon's left eye may open and close a little slower than the right for a couple weeks while the muscles build up to fill in the area previously taken up by the cyst, but he wasn't even sure we'd notice the difference. The anesthesiologist was a little concerned about Landon's coughing, but thought we could just run a vaporizer tonight by his bed. We will follow up with the surgeon on Monday.

After another thirty minutes we were able to join our trooper back in recovery. He tried to look pathetic:

but gave his daddy smiles whenever the nurse wasn't looking. He didn't cry and was very happy to have a bottle back in his life, even if it was just filled with pedialyte.

As the anesthesiologist foretold, Landon fell asleep in the middle of kicking off his blanket and telling us all about his adventures. He woke back up 5 minutes later and looked confused. He enjoyed petting the cast covering his IV because it made a funny noise and was absolutely determined to pull off the pulse-ox wrapped around his toe. He succeeded after about ten minutes causing multiple alarms to go off. He looked very pleased with all the attention.

We headed home a little after 4 PM. Right now he's sleeping in his swing, sporting his very macho band-aid, and moving his lips like he's drinking a bottle. I almost hate to type it this early, but it looks like this was one medical procedure he didn't make more complicated than necessary. My first final is on Monday and JP has several big work assignments due, so we'll be nursing in shifts while the other works. I'd like to write "hopefully Landon will cooperate", but I think he's holding a grudge about the bottle fast we put him on this morning.

He sure looks peaceful right now though, doesn't he?

Best Served Chilled

Currently sitting on my refrigerator shelf, resting comfortable between my box of caffeine-free diet coke and leftover spaghetti sauce, are two poo-filled diapers. Parenting is so glamorous.

Landon had two bloody stools yesterday. We called the pediatrician last night and she is very concerned about Clostridium difficile, a bad bacteria in the colon which is able to thrive because all the good bacteria in the gut has been eradicated by repeated antibiotic treatment (which Landon most certainly has had). JP is staying home from work again today to take him to the doctor's office for a stool culture. He has been such an enormous help over the past few days with Landon being sick (he's also developed a horrible cough and is tugging on his non-infected ear) and my finals looming ever closer. I'll keep you posted about the results.

Update, 3:45 PM: Landon is fine. The red poop is, well... red poop. Landon likes to keep us all guessing- including his pediatrician who had theories, but no certainties about what's causing it. Despite the mysterious poo, his newly developed 65-year-old-smoker-like cough, and the recent fever and ear infections, his surgery is still on for tomorrow at 1 PM. He is not to have any food after midnight, no formula after 6 AM, and no clear liquids after 11 AM. Yeah, it'll be fun trying to explain that to him tomorrow. He'll probably rub some bacteria in his ear to create another ear infection the night before my con law final as his revenge. The good news is that his baby modeling career can take off soon - maybe he can pay us back for his medical bills! (Just kidding about the modeling, though JP is convinced that Landon is the best looking baby ever and we could make millions if we sent his picture into Gerber. I'm just happy to have that bump off his eyebrow. It was getting really big and moved so easily it was starting to freak me out. And I'm sure the lady babies at daycare will appreciate his bump-free visage.)

Obsessed

The TV has been turned on CNN since Landon and I got home this evening. He may only be seven months old, but he's deeply invested in the democratic process. And though we can't tell daddy, he's totally rooting for Obama. I think the most exciting thing about this election- besides the fact that I finally have a candidate I care about, rather than one who's just a better than the other guy- is the incredibly high voter turnout. The numbers in Texas are breaking every record and it's fantastic. I'm very happy people are getting out to support their candidate, even if about half the state isn't picking mine.

I really need to go to bed. It's possible that Landon is having a rare, but serious complication with his antibiotic (just got off the phone with the pediatrician), so we'll be in the doctor's office first thing in the morning. You know, because I really needed more to do this week, with both my finals a week away, his surgery and overnight hospital stay on Thursday, and my Aquarium adventure on Saturday. Hopefully it's nothing, but with Landon that's so rarely the case, I should be resting up for the drama that will probably unfold tomorrow morning.

But I can't stop watching the results roll in on CNN. If I wasn't so busy and behind, there totally would have been another Election Party tonight. This time with a Texas Two-Step theme: brisket, vermicelli salad, baked beans, corn bread, and cake. If I hadn't just dropped $150,000 on a law degree, I think I would want to be an event planner.*

*I meant for this to be a very short post about watching CNN and it turned into a longer ramble ending with a statement about brisket and event planning. Seeing your exhaustion in physical, blog-post form is a little sad, but it's giving me the strength to turn off the TV and wait until morning to see the results. Given that Landon likes to host a party at 4am, I won't have to wait too long.

3pm: Diet Coke and a Fudge Brownie

Time for my daily diet coke break (or Diet Pepsi, I don't have a preference and am actually drinking Diet Pepsi now, but in the South we call everything "coke" and I've had a hard time breaking the habit). I don't drink coffee ever or caffeine often, but I do enjoy my afternoon diet coke. I used to be all about the diet coke + something salty, but a month or two ago I got in the unfortunate habit of eating a baked good in the afternoon. I had lost a lot of weight during the DCFS drama and through the holidays, and by January my weight almost matched the number I blatantly lied about on my driver's license. I was wearing pants I hadn't fit into in years- even a pair I thought I'd given away because they didn't fit back in the skinny college days when I bought them. But with my new 3pm habit, those pants will go back on the top shelf to hopefully emerge again one day. They may be cute, but their cuteness doesn't rival the deliciousness of this fudge brownie. Or those Subway chocolate chip cookies. Or a rice krispy treat. Mmmmm....

Where was I? Oh yes, my 3 pm study break update. Landon is doing wonderfully. He slept from 9 pm to 5:45 am - something he doesn't usually do even when he's healthy! Everyone was feeling perkier this morning - especially Landon, who's acting like nothing ever happened. He hasn't had a fever since yesterday morning, has been eating and drinking normally, and spent an hour bouncing away in his jumperoo squealing with delight at the cat. He probably could have gone to Maya's today, but that seemed wrong, so JP is home with him while I get things done at the law school. So far I've made lots of necessary phone calls, proof-read the four papers I wrote on Saturday (I am now done with Marriage Law for the quarter- yay!), and read a long scholarly article that I now need to write a reaction paper for (well, first I need to think of a reaction. The paper was moderately interesting with nothing jumping out, begging to be critiqued for five pages). But with some sleep, my diet coke, and a brownie, the world is looking pretty bright again.

Okay, brownie gone, diet coke empty- back to work!

Home, Drugs in Hand

We are home, Landon is acting much more like a Landon, and JP and I are like the walking dead. We decided to go to Northwestern Children's Memorial hospital. It's closer to us and doesn't have the memories or medical files of the Univ. of Chicago Children's. While I'm pretty sure that not even Dr. K could try to link Landon's fever and lethargy to child abuse, there was no way we were taking that chance - and we just couldn't handle knowing that any ER doctor viewing Landon's medical file would see all the notes and red flags from his last stay. I feel like it would change the way they looked at us and I didn't want to deal with that.

When we walked into the ER Landon was on fire and so listless it was really starting to scare me. I tried to sit him up in my lap to unzip his outfit and he kept crumpling over. He hadn't drank more than a few ounces since 5 PM Saturday night and his breathing has very rapid and shallow. We were given Tylenol and Pedialyte and sent back to urgent care- where we waited almost three hours to be seen by the doctor. A few minutes before she came in we were ready to leave - Landon had cooled down and perked up, he was drinking well, and making nice wet diapers. Luckly she came in pretty soon after that, looked in Landon's ears, and started pulling lots of gunk out of the left one. Apparently it was solidified pus which had hardened in the ear canal and exerted extra pressure on his painful, bright red, raging ear infection. No wonder he cried for 13 hours. She said there was so much stuff in the ear she couldn't even see the infection until she spent 5 minutes digging it out. He's now on a new, stronger antibiotic and receiving alternating doses of Tylenol and Motrin. His temperature is normal, he's drinking much better, and he even flirted with a woman at Chipotle when JP and I grabbed lunch at 4:30. Those coy smiles were a relief to see.

Thank you all very much for your concern and well wishes. After trying to piece together the events of last night with JP it appears that I got about 75 minutes of sleep, so that's 15 more than I thought! Of course no studying took place today, but JP is taking off work to stay home with Landon tomorrow so that I can go to school. I have a reaction paper due Tuesday on a gigantic scholarly article I haven't even downloaded yet. But it'll get done and most important is the fact that Landon just saw his cat and got a giant smile on his face as he lunged out to grab as much of her fur as possible. That's our boy.

The Last Place We Want To Go

Landon was up all last night crying (ALL last night, we got maybe 60 minutes of sleep) and this morning he had a temperature of 101.4 and was refusing his bottle. We called the pediatrician who said to keep him hydrated and watch the temperature. We called her back when it went up to 103.1 despite Motrin and Tylenol, his breathing was rapid and shallow, and he was lethargic. The doctor told us to head to the ER, a place we never, ever wanted to go again, especially here.

I'm not so much concerned with everything I was supposed to be getting done today (and tomorrow and the surgery we may have to reschedule again next week), I just hate walking back in a hospital with him. Send good thoughts.

House Hunting Examination

At exactly two weeks from today, I will have to have accomplished the following things:

- catch up in the Marriage Law reading, write four, 5-page reaction papers on something in the reading
- read 200+ pages in Con Law, create outline, write something on the Exam
- create outline for Sexual Orientation and the Law, write something on the Exam
- write reaction paper to final Law & Politics Workshop meeting for the quarter
- talk with Austin loan officer and realtor to make schedule for home buying trip March 18-20
- go through the hundred Austin listings our realtor has sent, do research, create list of homes to see on our 3-day home buying trip
- have apartment surveyed by moving estimator to get timeline of summer move (tomorrow, 11:30)
- get Landon sleeping through the night so we can all get a little rest before his surgery and our trip to Texas send his sleep schedule back to hell
- go to hospital for Landon's surgery (March 6th), pretend like I will study while there, spend the night watching children's movies instead
- play with beluga whales
- pack and fly to Texas

I'm not very stressed out about the school stuff because my expectations are embarrassingly low. I really meant it when I said I just want something to be able to write on the exam (it's also embarrassing how much work I'm going to need to do in the next few days so that I will have something to write on the exam). Con law is my toughest class, but it's case-based rather than statute or code-based, and that's easier for me to prepare for.

No, exam stress lies on the periphery of my mind. At the forefront are the lack of sleep, Landon's surgery, and the fact that we are buying a house in two weeks. I've spent all morning at the library, supposedly writing reaction papers, but actually perusing the home listings online. I love this kind of research- looking at pictures, floor plans, virtual tours, maps, etc. and trying to picture us in each home. My stress levels surrounding the home buying have been extremely low so far. I'm completely trusting our loan officer and realtor (both highly recommended by close friends), but yesterday I was perusing amazon.com (is it any wonder I'm so behind in my reading?) and discovered hundreds of books about buying your first house. I realized that I have done no research on this - none - and other people do lots! This is so unlike me. Normally I'd have read at least three books cover-to-cover and created a detailed list of questions to ask the realtor, a color-coded map of each subdivision with the distance to the pool, park, and elementary school noted for each house, an entire excel spreadsheets with our projected costs for next year, and so much more. Right now all I've done is save a few favorite listings in a folder online. And oddly enough, I'm okay with this. Maybe it's an implicit acceptance of my limitations, with finals, the non-sleeping baby, and the beluga whales all demanding my time. Maybe my OCD is relaxing as I get older. Maybe I'm going to start FREAKING OUT about this very soon. But for now, I'm just excited to go buy a house. It's just like buying something at the mall, right?