Um, WHATsackievirus??

The start of a three day weekend. The advent of warm sunny weather after two straight days of rain. A very long "to do" list. A wedding to attend, which happens to be the first kid-free event we have planned to attend in almost a year. Mix all these ingredients together and what do you get? A sick baby, of course.

Poor Finn. He's been battling a cough and a runny nose for about two weeks. It was clearly on the mend - we had ceased dosing him with Benadryl at night, and he was sleeping through without any disruptive coughing fits to wake him. But Thursday morning we noticed the cough was making a comeback, and I received a call from daycare informing me that naptime was less than stellar. For them to call me about a nap, it had to be bad, and indeed, apparently his nap lasted all of 35 minutes. A far cry from the usual two + hours. The Benadryl came back out Thursday night, after we listened to cough after cough over the monitor. Friday I called the doctor. What if it's allergies? A sinus infection? Should we bring him in? We decided the best course of action was to watch and wait. Finn was acting himself, even if he did seem to have a leaky mucus factory in his nose. Friday night went well - very few coughing fits, and no antihistamine was needed. As Saturday morning dawned we thought we were in the clear, this cold was on it's way out. But a couple of hours later, and I'm sure there was no whinier kid in the world. Lots of crying and crankiness, and general exclamations of "hurts!" without an indication of where. Suddenly, the prospect of a three day weekend, when it means the doctors' office won't be open on Monday, didn't sound so good.

Thank goodness for Saturday hours, though! It was my #1 criteria in selecting a pediatrician for Finn. Our appointment was a 10:00 am, so we had about an hour and a half of time to kill before heading over there. While M. sat with Finn on one of the playground swings across the street, Finn actually fell asleep. Sitting up, with his bike helmet on. Whoa, my child just doesn't do that. He's definitely not a "sleep anywhere" kind of kid. So any doubt I may have had about whether I needed to take him to the doctors or not flew out the window.

We arrived at the appointment right on time, and within 5 minutes we were talking to the doctor (love her!). She made Finn, who was clutching his blankie and an Elmo doll, feel very comfortable while she checked him out. She looked in his ears and mouth, listened to him breathe, and took his temperature. The diagnosis - a sinus infection, as we expected (not sure how she knew this for sure, but I'm willing to buy it from the pain Finn's been feeling in his head, since he's not teething for a change). No ear infections, though it does look like one of his tubes is starting to work its way out :-(. The big surprise was that Finn also apparently has Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease, or coxsackievirus, in addition to his cold/sinus infection. He has sores in his throat, and a fever of 102. Poor baby!

A dose of antibiotic, a dose of ibuprofen, a short nap, and we already have a different child from this morning. As I type this, he's running around upstairs with his father, watching baseball on TV and playing with M.'s guitar. I'm sure that he will start to feel awful again as the medicines leave his system, but we can stay on top of it and, hopefully, rescue some of the weekend. No doubt he'll be in full health by Tuesday and ready to go back to daycare, where I'm sure he picked up the cold and HFMD in the first place.

Finn officially starts in the 2-year-old room on Tuesday, so it's a whole new set of germs for him to get used to. But I'm sure I'll have plenty more to say on THAT - transitions are my least favorite aspect of a daycare center and they definitely cause me angst!

Gooooood Morning Viet Nam

As some of you know, I'll be leaving shortly for a week-long visit to Viet Nam for work. My longest international trip to date was A.'s and my honeymoon trip to Aruba, which was pretty much a disaster. Not Natalie Holloway disaster, but, yes, "Carlos 'N Charlie's" did play a role. Midway through our honeymoon, A. and I decided to venture beyond the boundaries of the Wyndham resort where we were staying. Mind you, this wasn't a tough decision, as the Wyndham had decided to undergo massive renovations without telling us in advance and also distributed beach towels that must have been washed in butt sweat. After renting snorkeling gear and a car, A. and I spend a fantastic morning of underwater sightseeing. We decided to head into Oranjestad, Aruba's capital and largest city, for lunch. For those interested, "Oranjestad" is Papiamento for "sleazy tourist trap". After a longer lunch than expected at Carlos 'N Charlie's, we returned to our rental to find our snorkeling gear and day-bag (all of which had been stuffed under seats) stolen. Most frustrating was that A. and I were working our way through the Jason Borne books that were in the day bag. I'm fairly certain that the street value of The Borne Identity isn't great and to this day wonder why the thief didn't just leave the paperbacks. To make matters worse, I endured strep throat and heat rash for much of the vacation and A. was struck with, um, GI "issues". Good times!!

Fast forward five years, and I'll again be leaving the friendly confines of the U.S. Truthfully, I'm pretty excited. Aside from the 24-hours of flight time (one-way!) it should be a great trip. Three of us at my company have worked for over a year to put together a workshop for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which is one of the big regional multi-national organizations (sort of like the World Trade Organization). We'll be spending two days in Ha Noi running the workshop and a third meeting with folks from various Vietnamese Ministry's and science policy groups. The fourth day is all about sight seeing. We're planning on heading to the coast to visit Halong Bay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halong_Bay), which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and looks spectacular on the Web. Then it's another 24-hour flight home.

For all of you more seasoned international travelers, I'm looking for any suggestions you may have on surviving my visit. Tips for surviving 24-hours of flights? What should I pack in my carry-on (toothbrush)? How can I ensure that my various electrical gadgets will have plugs that work in Viet Nam? Any Viet Nam-specific tips? Any and all suggestions are welcome.

My Short Attention Span

I have many things I should be blogging about. Those really yummy Tempeh Reubens I made last week, for example. Or the fun things Finn and I did together this past Saturday while M. had a much deserved golf outing. The bits and pieces of Olympic coverage I managed to catch (those speed walkers are really freaky, don't you think?). Even the disappointment I felt when I heard Joe Biden was selected as Obama's running mate (I'm keeping an open mind, but I can't deny my initial reaction of, well, blah).

Instead of concentrating on one of these topics, however, my mind keeps returning to the clock. 1:30 pm, the time scheduled for MommyEsq's c-section, was very, very slow in arriving. But arrive it finally did. And it left. As did 2:00, 2:30, and 3:00. Just when I was starting to worry a little - did something go wrong? Or is her doctor keeping her waiting AGAIN? - my cell phone rang. It was Grammy (my mom) with some of the essential information. I don't want to steal MommyEsq and Husband's thunder, so I will not post the names or weights. But Baby A and Baby B are here and everyone is doing well.

As I type this, I realize how little I really know. The big stuff, like how well is "well?" Is NICU time a possibility for either of the tykes? And the smaller but still important stuff. What time were they born? Who came out first? Birth order is very important, you know - my sisters and I are all classic eldest, middle and youngest children personalities, though we were born only 3 minutes apart.

I was hoping that this tidbit of news would be enough to get me back to concentrating on, if not an articulate and thoughtful or humorous blog post, at least my, er, job. While I'm still antsy to get my sister on the phone and have her tell me all about her babies, I guess this will tide me over for a little while.

About that job... I must really get back to it, at least for the next hour or so. Then I get to go pick up my baby, something that I look forward to every day. But before I go, back to those yummy reubens, and a shout out to my fellow vegetarians Jen, Yson and G. You really MUST try this recipe. They are sooo good (M. doesn't want me to admit this, but he liked them, too) - I had three last week and I'm still craving them:

Tempeh Reuben Recipe

(adapted from www.yumyum.com)
8 oz tempeh
2 tb soy sauce or tamari
1/3 c red wine vinegar
1/3 c water
2 ea garlic cloves, pressed
1/4 ts black pepper
1/2 ts caraway seed
1/2 ts dillweed
1 ts onion powder
1/2 ts paprika
8 sl rye bread
1 c sauerkraut, heated
4 sl Swiss cheese
Thousand Island dressing

Slice tempeh in half crosswise. Slice those slices in half through the middle as though splitting a cake into layers. In a shallow baking dish, combine soy sauce, vinegar, water & seasonings. Add the 4 tempeh slices & marinate either for several hours or overnight. Turn occasionally. Preheat oven to 350F. Bake tempeh slices, covered in their marinade, until hot, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve on rye bread with a slice of Swiss cheese, smothered in sauerkraut & Thousand Island dressing.

The Unveiling

I'm feeling a lack of cleverness, wittiness, willingness to ramble, diarrhea mouth - whatever it is that normally powers my posts. So, I am taking the easy way out and doing a photo post. For your enjoyment, the big unveiling of our newly remodeled basement. Mark and I slaved all weekend on painting (mostly Mark), shopping (mostly me) and fighting with the towel racks (mostly me). We now have a fully functional bathroom, and an empty but beautiful future office. Ta da!

From the office entrance:

Looking toward the closet:


A view of the vanity and infamous toilet:

Just a note about the towel racks - can we say Aargh?!?!? So frustrating to install. And behind one of the two racks is an extra set of holes, otherwise empty save for some dry wall screws, marring our new, pristine walls. Shh, I won't tell if you don't...

The teeny-tiny shower:


The tile that we agonized over (at least for as long as allowed by a cranky, hungry toddler):

Not sure why I can't get this photo to be oriented correctly but don't worry, the soap dish is not on the ceiling. The super-expensive interesting tile runs in a horizontal line at about eye level (or at least what's considered eye level to me) in the shower.

Just like his Grandpa Mike, who faithfully scrubs the toilets every Sunday, Finn is showing a predisposition toward toilet cleaning:


And some bonus photos...

At the Splash Park:




I didn't know Rambo worked in an office:
My next post will try to have more, you know, words and stuff.