and then uglier ... but not really

Okay, last post ended after we got home from the emergency room. By that time Perry hadn't had much to drink for about 6 hours, and maybe a quarter of a banana to eat. We got home hoping not to have to clean up any more vomit. The good news was that he stopped throwing up. The bad news that actually was kind of good news was that he began to show signs of fever. It was bad news because Perry wasn't over being sick, but it was good news because it means that all the vomiting was at least partly due to a stomach virus and not necessarily because of a terrible concussion.

Sometime in the middle of the night on Sat night/Sun morning the diarrhea started. Let's just say that over the course of the next 24 to 30 hours we went through 3 changes of sheets and about 7 different changes of clothes. In between Perry lay nearly motionless on the couch watching endless hours of children's educational programming. He's going to be a toddler genius after this, or something.

Monday and Tuesday have been spent recovering, and sparing Perry's daycare from the horror. But he should be just fine on Wednesday. We should be just fine shortly thereafter.

And then it got ugly ...

Perry settled just fine last night, but woke at midnight with shivers and woke again at 1:30 in a pool of vomit. He kept puking all night long and into the morning. We stayed up with him watching children's PBS programs (having 24 hour Sprout and KQED Kids on the rare occasions when Perry is sick makes our digital cable bill worth every penny). Perry only slept about an hour in 15 minute snatches, and Jay and I took turns out on the couch. But since it took two of us to deal with the barfing, neither one of us got more than 45 minutes of sleep at a time. In the morning I had an errand to run,, and I called up our hostess to let her know that one of the kids who had been at her party was now sick, and the other parents might want to know. She is in training to become an EMT, so she knew that nausea and vomiting after a blow to the head are a danger sign, and asked me to call a doctor.

The advice nurse at the urgent care heard the situation and told us that we needed to immediately go to an emergency room.

So, off we bundled to El Camino Hospital. They're the place to go if you don't need complex care, and the other times we'd been there Perry didn't have to wait long for medical care. Today, though, even though it was early afternoon on a Saturday, was a total zoo. We waited only 15 minutes before Perry was seen by a PA, but it was another 4 hours before he could get the CT scan the doctors wanted. Ambulance after ambulance kept rolling in with sick ("sick like dead or dying", said one nurse) babies and toddlers, and there was more than one old person who had fallen and banged their heads. Perry was relatively low priority for the scan.

After his scan we waited another hour and a half to get the results. It's frustrating to realize that if it were bad news they'd tell us quickly, but to have to wait forever to be told essentially "You're fine, go home". Eventually a nurse came in and told us "you're fine, go home. Oh, and here is a scrip for anti-nausea medication. Come back if he doesn't get better in a day or so." The scan came back normal, whatever that means. The discharge papers had a diagnosis of concussion, but they think the vomiting was likely because of a coincidental stomach virus. In any case, we did the right thing to take him in, and we're happy there's no swelling or bruising of the brain.

Perry had a little banana and a lot of apple juice and has kept it all down. Hopefully he'll wake up hungry in the morning.

Boom

Tonight the family went to a craft party. The plan was for all of us to go, and I would help Perry make some valentines until it was time for him to go home with Daddy. I would stay and actually get some socializin' and knitting in after the kidlet's bedtime.

All was going well until Perry slipped and hit his face on the corner of a coffee table. I scooped him up, forgetting that I was wearing light-colored cashmere. Yikes! Fortunately I managed to pull off the sweater before any of Perry's blood got on it. My turtleneck ended up with some, but that's all fine. So I ended up going home with Perry and Jay, and now that I'm here I'm really sleepy, probably from all the excitement.

Perry had a small cut over one eye, and will probably have a nasty bruise. We got a band-aid on him, but he refused cold packs, so we're hoping that Tylenol and sleep will keep him from swelling or hurting too much. He went to bed saying "Valentine house dangerous. Be careful."

I don't worry about being a bad influence on Perry. My friends are the ones who take care of that. Those are tampon applicator tubes they've shoved up their noses.

A breakthrough

Perry, like many kids, has been having trouble pronouncing S sounds at the beginning of words. His friend Sarah is called Harrah, 6 and 7 are pronounced hix and hebben. We've been working on the leading S sound with him, and if we slow down and over-pronounce, he can get out sssss-ix and ssss-ebben. So today after we stopped for a smoothie I was really pleased to hear him say from the back seat "Suck! Suck!" (he's quite fascinated with how straws work, but he was emphatic enough that I wondered at first if he was unhappy with something). He finally has the S! He also said "Bue sky! Sun! Sun in eyes." And he pronounced all of the leading Ss clearly and without prompting.

fvvtgvrvtvgfvgvyvtgvcgtvct4rvv xczazzacv ahgfxjmxe3jnhvgcv5tjuh4r3r4edtgdfedk6yhfghdzdyvb6gd`
^^^^^^^THAT is an example of what happens when Perry gets access to a keyboard, and is why I write this blog, and not him.

Today we are experiencing teeth-chatteringly cold weather as an Alaska blast comes to visit. Our local low temps won't rise above freezing until after the weekend is over. Perry really wanted to play in the park, so we gave it a try, but I didn't have a warm jacket and so had to go home after 5 minutes, just to get warmer clothes. Perry protested at first, but as soon as he snuggled close to me he realized that it was nicer to be warm. When we got home there was a package waiting for us. Perry's grandmother had knit him a beautiful red sweater and matching hat, and it couldn't have arrived at a better time. I put it on him, and he marched around the house declaring "Grandma maded it!" Thank you, Grandma!


Here you can see Poor Bear, or as we like to call him, Winky. He lost the eye in a tragic dryer accident.

Dammit!

It's really funny, but also surprisingly shocking, to hear mild swearing (dammit!) coming from a two year old. At least he is using the word appropriately.

I'm not sure I can tone my language down all the way to a G rating, but it's time to try. Maybe we'll start a family swear jar.

Introducing ...

Here, for your interest and enjoyment, is a blog dedicated to Perry: his development, progress, antics, milestones, trivia, and various data. I'll do my best to include links to the entries I make here in my other blog, and include links here to that blog if I write things about Perry there.

Today was Perry's first day back at daycare after our New Year's road trip to San Diego. He apparently ate, slept, and played well, and is happy to be back to his regular routine. You might not have known it yesterday as we were getting closer to San Jose. Even after 5 hours on the road, when I told him we were getting close to home he demanded that I turn the car around and go the other way. For those of you who can do math and know California geography, it's not 5 hours from San Diego to San Jose, but we had stopped overnight in Santa Barbara, so we were actually doing pretty well. Next time we go, we'll be flying, though. I love the drive if I'm by myself or one other adult companion, but toddler company is trying even at its best.