Matt, Emily, and Baby Sage

A couple of years ago I had a student who had a severe case of pinkeye. His parents kept bringing him to school, and I kept sending him straight to the nurse who would send him straight home. On the third day, he arrived with two bright red, oozing eyes. He was miserable. He was in my room for about 30 seconds before I handed him his backpack and sent him to the nurse. I immediately disinfected everything I could, including myself. The nurse called his mom and his parents were surprised, they were on their way to St. Louis and couldn't come get him ( are you KIDDING ME?!!). Eventually they found a relative who came and got him. Poor kid. 

Anyway, the next day I woke up and one of my eyes was a little itchy. Probably nothing, but I didn't want to end up like The Pinkeye Kid, so I made an appointment to get it checked out. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic just in case and then turned to me, very serious, and said, "you know, you really should make sure to wash your hands."

There are some parallels that exist between the medical profession and teaching profession. We both spend a lot of time around sick people, belligerent people, bodily fluids, etc.  However, it is socially acceptable for a doctor to wear a mask and rubber gloves and throw them away after each encounter with a disease-ridden individual. They have hospital grade soap and sanitizers, and they are allowed to use them!  And they don't have to wait until lunch to go to the bathroom and wash their hands. Their soap and paper towel dispensers are always fully stocked. Must be nice.

A teacher, on the other hand, is inside a school building with hundreds of germy children, some with no control over their bodily functions. They have watered-down, foam soap that might as well just be water, and half the time the soap dispensers are empty. They aren't allowed to use disinfectant because of allergies and chemicals, so they haveto sneak around and trade air fresheners and Clorox wipes on the down-low. 

So the next time a doctor looks at me and says "you really should wash your hands," I'm going to leap across the exam room and cough right in her eyeball. 

I figured I would take the opportunity while one of her hands was occupied to trim her fingernails. This has been a traumatic experience lately, so I just started by clipping one nail and making a big deal about how pretty it was, then trimming one of my nails. Then I did one more nail, then my own again. Then I asked her if I could cut the rest of her nails. She thought about it, then nodded, and I was able to cut the rest of her nails with no fight!! When I was done I gave er the clippers, and she uncovered her foot from under her towel and started tapping the clippers on her toes. So cute!

We went into a little hospital room and the nurse took her blood pressure. She HATED that. Then the waitig game began. We waited about 40 minutes and finally people started coming in to get things rolling. First, a nurse came in and brought some toys and a breathing mask like the one Sage would have to use to get her anesthesia. The nurse showed Sage how to use it on a baby doll and on herself. After she left, we showed her on ourselves too so she wouldn't be scared. I thought this was really nice and Sage seemed to like the nurse and feel a little more at ease with the toys and books. We also watched Disney Jr. on TV while we waited. 

After a while the doctor and some nurses and a medical student came in and talked to us about the surgery. Then the anesthesiologist came in and asked me questions about Sage's health history. She cried when he talked to her, confirming what I had told the first nurse about her being scared of men, and leading him to order a sedative to give her before they took her to surgery. 

A nurse came in soon after that and used a syringe to squirt what I later learned was morphine up Sage's nose. She seemed to be calmer and a little groggy after that. At about 10 till 7 we put her in her hospital gown and at 7 the friendly nurse, the surgical nurse and the anesthesiologist came to take Sage to the OR. The friendly nurse had an iPad and she pulled up a video or Mickey Mouse to watch while they walked. Sage was hooked and didn't even notice we weren't with her as they walked her away. 

Matt and I went to the waiting room, where they had monitors with a list of patient numbers and status updates. Ours just said "in OR" the whole time, while others said little messages reassuring families. I'm guessing this is because our surgery was relatively short, only about 30 minutes. I tried to read some for my class, but I just kept looking at the monitor for updates. The doctor came out soon and said that she did great. They put a balloon in her left tear duct because it didn't want to stay open and went ahead and probed the right one as well. They brought us back to the same hospital room to wait for Sage to wake up. 

After a few minutes, they wheeled in a wheelchair. A nurse was sitting in it holding Sage. She looked so tiny and pathetic in her hospital gown, hair all crazy, eyes closed and chugging a bottle of Pedialyte. She didn't even open her eyes until she was in my arms, finished her pedialyte and garbled something, handing me the bottle and passing out again like a little drunk. About a minute after that, though, she realized that she had a heart monitor taped to her finger and the IV in her other hand and she started raging and trying to pull them both off. She managed to get the heart monitor off while I held onto the hand that had the IV. I kept shushing her and she fell back to sleep. She whined a little when the nurse took out the IV, and then she was out, barely waking at all as we dressed her and took her home. 

At home she slept until 2 PM. When she woke up she had a little bloody discharge from her eyes and nose and was a little puffy and groggy, but she was in pretty good spirits! She slept through the night and has been great since! I'm so excited for her to not have all that annoying gunk irritating her eyes anymore!

Joy. 

So I show up to get and thankfully, they were holding her and cuddling her in between pukes. I was worried because my niece had had a not-so-pleasant experience being quarantined at daycare the first time she ever vomited. 

We love our daycare for this reason, they are so wonderful. They warned me that she had been upchucking about every 5 minutes or so and that I had better hurry home. Sage talked and smiled all the way home, so I thought I was okay to stop and get the mail. Wrong. She tossed her cookies the moment I pulled into the garage. Then again on the kitchen floor. And then she spewed her pedialyte all over Dad while I was back at school writig sub plans. 

No temp though, and she is sleeping now! I am still worried about dehydration. 

In the meantime, she has learned to take her own temperature, so I guess that's a win! ;)

Anyway, today I made Sage some "baby cookies" and Brussels sprouts from this cookbook that Erin gave me:

Little Miss is very busy. She is now army-crawling everywhere she goes and she is very fast. I tried doing it myself and it is really hard. She is super strong though and likes to try to dive out of my arms on a frequent basis. We are working on standing since her doctor was a little worried that she isn't cruising yet. She referred us to a physical therapist, but I think now that we know that we should be worried, we are being more proactive about making her try to stand. Her favorite place to practice is in the bathtub, which is less than ideal for obvious reasons.  

At her one year checkup, she clocked in at 21 lbs, 11oz and 27 3/4 in long. This puts her in the 6th percentile for height and the 76th percentile for weight. Whoopsie!  I learned that I'm probably letting her drink too much milk and since she is not walking yet she is becoming a bit of a chunky monkey. Her head measured in the 89th percentile (maybe that's why she can't stand up?). The doc said she looks very healthy otherwise. She got four shots and a finger prick which was all thoroughly traumatizing, but she handled it all like a champ and passed out shortly after getting back In the car. 

Sage is showing us new tricks every day, and her babbling sounds more and more like real words. Yesterday, she said "beh bee" while looking at a picture of Matts uncle as a toddler, and she waves and says "ba" when we leave daycare. She also says "dada" and often sounds like she is asking "what's this?" ("Wisdis" whole pointing or holding something).  She will also hold our phones up to her ear and say "oh?" She likes to feed her baby dolls with bottles and loves to dance. 

We are entering a new stage of rebelliousness and stranger anxiety. She cries when strangers come to daycare and does not like being held by people she doesn't see daily. She enjoys throwing food off her tray while looking at us and shaking her head "no."  She cries and squirms with all her might at diaper change times. I think we are really in for it for the next couple of years!