Emmie is grateful

I am a punctual person

It pains me to be late. I view it as the height of arrogance, the
assumption that my time is somehow more valuable than that of the
people with whom I am supposed to meet.

I just misse the first flight connection of my life. I was ON the
plane already. We deplaned, against my will, because of a desire to
stretch legs, use a regular bathroom, and feed the baby. Marantha was
convinced the fligt reboarded at 6:42. I was convinced that it left at
6:42. She was more convinced than me.

So we are dinner and changed the baby. And got back to the gate at
6:45. Flight was still there. But they wouldn't let us on, because
they started boarding 20 minutes earlier.

Our bags--including baby paraphenalia--were in our seats. This is
going to be a long night. We were able to get onto the 8:40 flight.

My screenplay

I'm working on a screenplay. It is tentatively titled, "What OSHA has to say about Birkenstocks" with a subtitle of, "Why hippies don't work in machine shops."

The plot centers around a guy who is finishing up a woodworking project for a buddy, and thoughtlessly goes down to his shop wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals. While in the shop, he accidentally drops a 4 1/2" steel C-clamp on his little toe.

I'm shooting for an NC-17 language based on violence and adult language.

I've got one thing to say to you...

Emerson has started saying things. The trouble is, she says them once--
enough to get whomever is in earshot good and excited--then
steadfastly refuses to say them again. In the last 24 hours, she has
said "Teddy" while pointing at her stuffed bear, and "juice" when I
packed up her juice for daycare. I guess she has decided that it is
easier to point at things.

Baby signing time

Her vocabulary of signs now includes more, all done, milk, dog, hungry/
food, and cracker.

I have tried, in vain so far, to get her to sign "crazy cracker"

This is the reward--Saltines--for her request of "more cracker". In
retrospect, maybe she just wanted to server to come back.

It's been a tough few days

For those of you that follow me on Twitter (@philgrad) or Facebook, you've seen the status updates and tweets (grr) coming in about Emerson. We've been riding the wave of illness in this house since last Friday. Short story: everyone is fine. It all takes place against the backdrop of my first attempt at a "staycation", taking a Friday/Monday combo off so I'd have a nice, long weekend.

It initially appeared to be a low grade fever, just under 100. This, we thought, could be due to the three molars she is working on simultaneously. Friday morning she woke up and was much more feverish, around 101.5. Marantha, too, was sick, sporting a nasty cold and pink eye (for the third time). Good times.

The fever got worse, although Emmie was a trooper. She hit mid-103s a few times on Friday, so we got her in to the pediatrician on Saturday as soon as we could (although we couldn't get in to see our regular doc). After a negative strep test, they surmised that it was a viral infection, so the typical 72 hours should suffice for fever, and we should just keep an eye. Any fever under 103, Emmie was acting almost normal. She was eating, drinking, and playing. Then things got worse. We saw the fever hit 104.8 on Saturday and Sunday, and she started to not want to eat. She got listless. Sunday was pretty bad.

On Monday we took her back to the pediatrician--our own this time--who did a urine culture (negative) to rule out a UTI, then sent us to Children's Hospital. There they did a CBC and chest X-Rays. Both were negative, so no pneumonia, and no bacterial infection. So we were back at the viral diagnosis, although now we'd had 5 days of fevers, most of which were 103+. Scary stuff. The best guess was roseola, which presents with high fevers and few if any other symptoms. After the fever breaks, you get a nice red rash (non-itchy, thankfully). Now we have no fever, and no rash.

It's good to see her smile again.

Mexican night!