Yesterday, a 6 year old went missing in Colorado. The child's parents, his neighbors, his siblings, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Headline News, the National Guard, The Justice League, and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, were all convinced that Falcon Heene had climbed into an experimental weather balloon type vehicle, cast the ropes aside, and ascended into the stratosphere. From what I was reading on Fark and from the constant CNN coverage, I also thought the worst. I watched for an hour or so at my desk as this balloon soared to 8000 ft at 20 mph. I kept telling myself to stop watching it. There was no way, I thought, that this was going to end well, and CNN was clearly going to show it in gruesome detail. But I kept watching, as I'm sure most people, who were bored at work and had nothing better to do, did. But I didn't like myself for watching it, I didn't like CNN for covering it, and I didn't like the thought of a six year old in a flimsy balloon hurtling to his death on live television.
I wondered if I would have been as affected two years ago. I probably would have been concerned but I also would have moved on pretty quickly. But I didn't know any kids two years ago; not only do I know a few now, I also have one. I hear it's fairly cliche for people to go from being unconcerned about children to being fearful for every child, so I'm not going to admit to that. But I will say that my impressions about things that happen to children have changed since started hanging out with Avery on a regular basis. Right now, I'm not all that concerned about Jack; he can't even roll over. But I do know the amount of anguish I felt at simply bumping his head on the door last night, so thinking about him alone, 8000 ft above the ground, cold, scared, and in a great deal of danger has a pretty profound effect on me.
But really.
Falcon's parents didn't think to check the attic? They didn't look in every single nook, cranny, box, and cabinet in the house?
Strange.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Stop calling me Shirley
My major discovery since becoming a parent is this: everyone knows how to take care of your child better than you do. If I happened to mention to a felon, convicted of murder, arson, drug trafficking, treason, and music piracy, that I had recently had a baby, he would offer advice on how to feed, burp, clothe, soothe, and quiet a newborn (most of which would involve murdering drifters by setting them afire in their cardboard boxes, combining the ashes with methamphetamine so that the sales will directly provide Afgani insurgents with Ipods containing every Jonas Brother song ever written so that they can continue to find reasons to hate America. Babies find this type of behavior VERY soothing). It is apparently something that everyone in the world knows, except for new parents. New parents are incredibly dumb; we can barely manage to breathe through our mouths and drag our knuckles across the floor to relieve ourselves when nature strikes us. How can we possibly know how to provide the delicate care a brand new human being requires?
Anyway,as I have also discovered, babies are surprisingly flexible. The boy is a living Stretch Armstrong. When I feed him, I hold him like a guitar, head in my left hand, my right doing all the moving. His left arm usually stretches out behind mine, so that he can do things like reach up and grab an handful of my armpit hair and tug, or gently tickle my underarm area so that it's all I can do not to drop him on the floor while I giggle uncontrollably. But when he isn't moving his arm, it frequently ends up in positions that would cause Circe de Sole performers to gasp in horror. As long as he's eating, he is happy. If liquid, for whatever reasons, be it from my attempting to change the channel, from Mother Nature's attempt at drowning the South, from the Lord Jesus Christ returning in glorious Rapture, stops filling his belly with delightful formula, he is as offended at as a Fox News independent. It is at that point that his body ceases to be Stretch Armstrong and becomes the Immovable Object. His legs stiffen, his back arches, and his face contorts. The screams soon follow.
Last Friday, I got a call from Shirley/Sally Jackson at Jack's day care. She's some sort of social worker and, in my humble opinion, a very unpleasant person. She was extremely concerned about Jack.
"Have you noticed his rigidity?" she asked me, with insistence. I thought to myself that he does tend to be a little uncompromising in his principles, specifically regarding formula and napping, but he generally makes his points known without resorting to ad hominiem attacks, so I responded "Yes, I've noticed it a little bit."
"Who is your pediatrician?" she asked, desperately.
"Signal Mountain Pediatrics. Dr. Jones." I smiled to myself, thinking about Short Round and the Temple of Doom, before Shirley/Sally interrupted me.
"Well you need to tell him that his child care provider would like to have him examined for excessive stiffness, particularly in his back and hips," she said.
Not knowing what to say really, I agreed to call the pediatrician and thought that was that.
Now, again, I hadn't noticed anything excessive. Sure, he gets angry and stiff when being fed, but when he's happy he is perfectly limp and manageable. So, naturally, I was worried about him and his apparent developmental disability. I spent the next hour searching for his "symptoms." I left work worried that he had: spinal meningitis, cerebral palsy, Chlamydia, West African Monkey Flu, and the Ebola virus. I met Rachel at the grocery store, told her Shirley/Sally's concern, and went to pick Jack up.
Rachel decided to check with Shirley/Sally at her office. Shirley/Sally is a twitchy, older lady who must be very unhappy. Rather than doing anything to comfort our collective worries, she merely exacerbated them by claiming that Jack "is not at all typical" and that "he needs to see a specialist" and if our pediatrician refused to refer to a specialist "we need to find a new doctor." Rachel is an emotional person; she gets upset easy. So, of course, she started to cry. We were clearly done with the conversation, but Shirley/Sally wasn't ready to ease our fears; she followed us out of her office, repeating that he wasn't developing correctly but "that there was another little girl in the center who had the same problem but she's getting better, SLOWLY." She wasn't interested in telling us "it'll be ok" or "we're just a little concerned and think you should look into it." No, Jack, was in serious danger and he might just be turning into a lizard.
Well.
We took him to the pediatrician on Monday, after a long weekend of worry. He's fine. His reflux medication might need an increase. But he doesn't have any developmental problems; he's a perfectly healthy 2 month old baby.
Shirley/Sally doesn't believe us. She practically rolled her eyes at the news. In fact, she called Rachel a day later and asked her to come see Jack because he was crying. CRYING.
I'm not sure where Shirley/Sally received her medical degree.
Dr. Jones got hers at UT and did her residency in Washington.
I don't think this battle is over yet.
It might not be over until I make Shirley/Sally cry. I don't think it's going to be hard.
Anyway,as I have also discovered, babies are surprisingly flexible. The boy is a living Stretch Armstrong. When I feed him, I hold him like a guitar, head in my left hand, my right doing all the moving. His left arm usually stretches out behind mine, so that he can do things like reach up and grab an handful of my armpit hair and tug, or gently tickle my underarm area so that it's all I can do not to drop him on the floor while I giggle uncontrollably. But when he isn't moving his arm, it frequently ends up in positions that would cause Circe de Sole performers to gasp in horror. As long as he's eating, he is happy. If liquid, for whatever reasons, be it from my attempting to change the channel, from Mother Nature's attempt at drowning the South, from the Lord Jesus Christ returning in glorious Rapture, stops filling his belly with delightful formula, he is as offended at as a Fox News independent. It is at that point that his body ceases to be Stretch Armstrong and becomes the Immovable Object. His legs stiffen, his back arches, and his face contorts. The screams soon follow.
Last Friday, I got a call from Shirley/Sally Jackson at Jack's day care. She's some sort of social worker and, in my humble opinion, a very unpleasant person. She was extremely concerned about Jack.
"Have you noticed his rigidity?" she asked me, with insistence. I thought to myself that he does tend to be a little uncompromising in his principles, specifically regarding formula and napping, but he generally makes his points known without resorting to ad hominiem attacks, so I responded "Yes, I've noticed it a little bit."
"Who is your pediatrician?" she asked, desperately.
"Signal Mountain Pediatrics. Dr. Jones." I smiled to myself, thinking about Short Round and the Temple of Doom, before Shirley/Sally interrupted me.
"Well you need to tell him that his child care provider would like to have him examined for excessive stiffness, particularly in his back and hips," she said.
Not knowing what to say really, I agreed to call the pediatrician and thought that was that.
Now, again, I hadn't noticed anything excessive. Sure, he gets angry and stiff when being fed, but when he's happy he is perfectly limp and manageable. So, naturally, I was worried about him and his apparent developmental disability. I spent the next hour searching for his "symptoms." I left work worried that he had: spinal meningitis, cerebral palsy, Chlamydia, West African Monkey Flu, and the Ebola virus. I met Rachel at the grocery store, told her Shirley/Sally's concern, and went to pick Jack up.
Rachel decided to check with Shirley/Sally at her office. Shirley/Sally is a twitchy, older lady who must be very unhappy. Rather than doing anything to comfort our collective worries, she merely exacerbated them by claiming that Jack "is not at all typical" and that "he needs to see a specialist" and if our pediatrician refused to refer to a specialist "we need to find a new doctor." Rachel is an emotional person; she gets upset easy. So, of course, she started to cry. We were clearly done with the conversation, but Shirley/Sally wasn't ready to ease our fears; she followed us out of her office, repeating that he wasn't developing correctly but "that there was another little girl in the center who had the same problem but she's getting better, SLOWLY." She wasn't interested in telling us "it'll be ok" or "we're just a little concerned and think you should look into it." No, Jack, was in serious danger and he might just be turning into a lizard.
Well.
We took him to the pediatrician on Monday, after a long weekend of worry. He's fine. His reflux medication might need an increase. But he doesn't have any developmental problems; he's a perfectly healthy 2 month old baby.
Shirley/Sally doesn't believe us. She practically rolled her eyes at the news. In fact, she called Rachel a day later and asked her to come see Jack because he was crying. CRYING.
I'm not sure where Shirley/Sally received her medical degree.
Dr. Jones got hers at UT and did her residency in Washington.
I don't think this battle is over yet.
It might not be over until I make Shirley/Sally cry. I don't think it's going to be hard.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Whoops...and other musings.
A few months ago (two or three to be precise, although saying two or three doesn't really make it very precise does it? I'm not great with numbers or time management.) I had a child. Which is to say, Rachel did the actual heavy lifting, since my role in that entire episode was to stand there looking confused and occasionally yell loudly into the call button so that someone would come and stand at the foot of Rachel's bed, wondering aloud why her drugs weren't working, and then leave to find somewhere quieter, presumably somewhere with less screaming, and maybe fewer sources of profanity. I found the entire thing extremely exhausting. Not only did I have to leave my comfortable bed at 2:30 AM to drive Rachel to the hospital; not only did I have to spend the next 14 hours watching someone I care about deeply writhe in pain while attached to incessantly beeping machines; not only did I have to listen to nurses and anesthesiologists chat casually about their vacations while Rachel peed into a tube and tried to push a living creature out of her body; not only did I have to walk her down the hall towards the OR for her C-section only to be told that someone else just had their baby crown and we'd have to wait until it was delivered before they could operate on her; not only did I have wait outside the OR, dressing in maddeningly complex paper gowns with booties and paper masks; not only did my child have to be born listening to 867-5309 by Tommy Tutone at 4:20 PM so that he could be subjected to the same tired marijuana joke for the rest of his life; but I had to ask the hospital staff if they had any extra pillows so that I could sleep on an uncomfortable makeshift couch in the same room as the mother of my child. They found me one. One. In the entire hospital, they were able to come up with one extra pillow. I've stayed at Motel 6's with better customer service.
I can hear what you're thinking: she gave birth in a hospital, not a Hilton. But honestly, given the amount we had to pay the anesthesiologist for screwing up his only job, I think Women's East could spring for a couple of pillows and a comfortable cot.
Anyway.
On to the beginning of the story.
Jackson Robert DeVore was conceived, entirely by accident, sometime in October 2008. That's the "whoops" part of my story. Rachel and I aren't married. We had been dating around 8 months when it happened. We met at work. We liked each other. We fell in love. That's that. But we weren't prepared to have a child, believe me. Rachel has one already. She has Avery, her 9 year old daughter from her previous marriage, and she was convinced that she wasn't having another one.
I, on the other hand, have never even had a cat. I, on the other hand, play lots of World of Warcraft and watch reruns of South Park and still laugh uproariously at Beavis and Butthead. I, on the other hand, had never even seen a baby close up. In fact, I avoided them like the plague. I have friends in childcare. I have friends with children. But I had no interest in having one of my own. Why would anyone do this if not by accident? So far, Jack has been noisy, messy, exhausting, frustrating, worrying, and perfect. Notice that's one positive adjective to five negative. And while "perfect" probably outweighs the others, the sheer number of negatives indicate that you have to be insane to have children on purpose. And he isn't even mobile yet!
But, despite the minimal precautions Rachel and I put forward (yes, minimal. Smart people sometimes aren't that bright), Jack decided it was necessary to exist. So what were we going to do? I couldn't very well tell him no; he wasn't even aware that I was part of the equation. So, Rachel and I decided that we were going to have a kid. Or at least, it was decided that we were going to have a kid. I always find it amusing that children are frequently borne out of blatantly irresponsible behavior.
So the overall purpose of this blog will be to track the adventures of my complete ineptitude in caring for a baby.
Let's see how much fun it is.
I can hear what you're thinking: she gave birth in a hospital, not a Hilton. But honestly, given the amount we had to pay the anesthesiologist for screwing up his only job, I think Women's East could spring for a couple of pillows and a comfortable cot.
Anyway.
On to the beginning of the story.
Jackson Robert DeVore was conceived, entirely by accident, sometime in October 2008. That's the "whoops" part of my story. Rachel and I aren't married. We had been dating around 8 months when it happened. We met at work. We liked each other. We fell in love. That's that. But we weren't prepared to have a child, believe me. Rachel has one already. She has Avery, her 9 year old daughter from her previous marriage, and she was convinced that she wasn't having another one.
I, on the other hand, have never even had a cat. I, on the other hand, play lots of World of Warcraft and watch reruns of South Park and still laugh uproariously at Beavis and Butthead. I, on the other hand, had never even seen a baby close up. In fact, I avoided them like the plague. I have friends in childcare. I have friends with children. But I had no interest in having one of my own. Why would anyone do this if not by accident? So far, Jack has been noisy, messy, exhausting, frustrating, worrying, and perfect. Notice that's one positive adjective to five negative. And while "perfect" probably outweighs the others, the sheer number of negatives indicate that you have to be insane to have children on purpose. And he isn't even mobile yet!
But, despite the minimal precautions Rachel and I put forward (yes, minimal. Smart people sometimes aren't that bright), Jack decided it was necessary to exist. So what were we going to do? I couldn't very well tell him no; he wasn't even aware that I was part of the equation. So, Rachel and I decided that we were going to have a kid. Or at least, it was decided that we were going to have a kid. I always find it amusing that children are frequently borne out of blatantly irresponsible behavior.
So the overall purpose of this blog will be to track the adventures of my complete ineptitude in caring for a baby.
Let's see how much fun it is.
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