Hey, Y'all!

The caf

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, my husband and I have lunch together, usually in the university cafeteria.  The food's not bad.I like fried chicken Fridays a lot and they have great Parmesan Peppercorn dressing on the salad bar.  I've never minded eating in a cafeteria, as there are usually several decent dishes to choose from.  When I was in college, however, I caught the cafeteria blues somewhere around the end of my freshman year.  You see, our cafeteria wasn't that great.  They offered a lot of fish (the smell alone would drive you out the door) and creamy things (I'm lactose intolerant), so I usually ate in the food court or at Chick-Fil-A.  Our food court offered things like pizza, baked potatoes, Mexican food and burgers, but they also had a spot called "Mom's Kitchen" which boasted home cooking.  In all honesty, Mom's Kitchen usually featured something they had done with yesterday's cafeteria leftovers. (Meaning NOT APPETIZING!)  My sophomore year, they opened the PHD cafe (Pro-Health Dining) upstairs in the student center, and I ate there on Thursdays because they served spinach lasagna.  Otherwise, it was usually Chick-Fil-A for me.

I rarely ate in the student center on Saturday evenings, mostly because I had pressing social engagements to get to.  I usually swung by Sonic or McDonald's or went out to eat with friends.

SIDEBAR: The only places to "go out" in Ruston, Louisiana at that time were Shoney's, Huddle House, Ryan's Steakhouse and Pizza Hut.  By about your third week in town, you were completely and totally sick of all of those options.

Anywho, one particular Saturday night, we didn't have reherasal, a work call in the theatre or a party to attend.  Faced with *gasp!* free time, my friend Kimberly and I decided to grab dinner in the caf, then head over to the Lady Techsters game.  I figured I'd end up getting a made-to-order pizza, since we had some time to kill, but I decided to stroll by Mom's Kitchen to see what scrumptious delicacy they were offering that evening.  I didn't think anything could be nastier than their version of beef stroganoff, which looked like they took 3 year old egg noodles and poured half and half over them, but I was mistaken.  There in the little silver serving bin, floating in about 4 inches of grease were the most charred pieces of meat I have ever seen.  They looked like hockey pucks.  I had to know what they were.  I asked the server "What IS that?" and she pointed to a makeshift sign (translation:  A napkin taped to the glass and scribbled on with a sharpie) that read:

FILLET MINYAN.

And then I went to Chick-Fil-A.

I should be writing an exam

But instead, I'm writing a blog post that would fit into the Potpourri category on Jeopardy!

Have I shared with you the fact that my husband has a special talent for finding the absolute WORST program on tv or the radio and tuning into said program?  Right now, for instance, he is watching a show about Alabama State Parks that he DVR'd. Doesn't sound that bad, right?  WRONG!  It looks like I taped it with my camera phone and the host keeps saying "idear."  Marcus is actually sitting here watching and nodding. I keep looking at him to see if he's serious, especially when they start quoting Thoreau, and he's like "What?" One time when we were driving back to NYC from DC, he was listening to talk radio. Talk radio immediately puts me to sleep.  I can't help it, it just happens.  I tried to stay awake to keep him company, but when this crazy man called into the radio show and started talking about seeing Big Foot three times in a month, NOT COUNTING the time he appeared to him IN A FIRE, I think my body just passed out to save me.  (Ok, now he's bobbing his head along to the goofy banjo music on the state park show.  I'm going to have to leave the room.) 

My class has their first exam next week.  Since there are so many of them and only one of me, this exam will be multiple choice with the possibility of a few true/false questions.  I am not a big fan of true/false questions, so I always hate to throw in too many of those.  I wrote about half the multiple choice section today and can I just tell you how hard it was not to make "Your Mom" one of the answer choices???  It just fit so well in some places!  For instance:

Early Greek theatre was performed as a praise offering to:

A.  Dionysus, Greek god of wine, fertility and festivals                                                                    

B.  Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love

C.  Zeus, King of the gods

D.  Your Mom

(the answer is A, by the way)

(The tv host just said "idear" again.)

Today was the first day in over two weeks that it didn't rain.  Dean and I have had cabin fever, so we jumped at the opportunity to go play at the park.  Orr Park, which is where my "About Me" picture up there in the right hand corner was taken, features some beautiful carvings on some of the trees.  Today was the first time Dean has noticed them.  I showed him an old man's face in a tree and he looked at me and squealed with delight.  Then he stuck his finger up the old man's nose.  I showed him the squirrel and he gave it a kiss.  His favorite was the snake.  He celebrated by making the "sssssssss" sound all the way back to the car.

When we got home from the park, I gave Dean a big cup of milk, which he gulped down quickly . Marcus got home soon after that and we all played on the floor together.  Dean crawled up onto my back and I bent over so his head was over mine and all of a sudden I felt something warm...then I smelled it, then I saw it go SPLAT on the rug in front of me.  Apparently we were playing a little to rambunctiously...and Dean spewed...IN MY HAIR.  It was dripping off the front of my hair onto the rug.  Marcus was on the phone at the time, so I started waving my hands, trying to get him to help me.  He looked over and said "What should I do?"  I replied "Um, get vomit boy OFFA ME!"  Dean is fine, he was just over-stimulated.  After running around in circles gagging for ten minutes, then showering (I washed my hair with a washcloth at first so I didn't have to touch it), I felt ok, too.

You'd better believe that story's going in the baby book.

09-09-09 = FAIL

A short list of why today did not rock:

1.  Dean slept between Marcus and me last night....always a recipe for disaster. He also woke up every hour and a half SCREAMING.  No fever, no obvious pain, just screams.  Sometimes it was because he wanted some juice. (At least I think he wanted it. He stopped screaming when I stuck a sippy cup in his mouth, so Yes! He wanted juice.)  Other times, it was like he was trying to start a conversation.  Dean goes from zero to sixty in no time. He'd be conked out asleep, then suddenly screaming "Daddyyyyyyyyy!  I go!" at full volume.  My favorite wake-up time was when he stuck his monkey Stu's head in my mouth at 4:45.  Good times.

2.  I woke up feeling like sleep-deprived, congested poo.

3.  I was still tripping on cold medicine during my class.  This led me to make bad choices such as teaching them vocabulary words like "pouf" and "pumpkin pants."  What's worse?  There were illustrations. Done by me.

4.  Marcus and I tag-teamed taking care of Dean this morning since we kept him home from school.  He had a doctor's appointment this afternoon at 2:50.  At 2:20, I figured I'd start getting him ready to go.  I got his shoes on, his bag packed and went to grab my keys.  Nowhere to be found.  I texted Marcus, who was teaching at the time.  Behold our conversation:

J:  Any idea where my keys are?

M:  In my pocket.

J:  Nice, Lane.

M:  Sorry? I love you?

J:  Yeah.  I guess I'm cancelling the appointment.

M: Wait!

J:  I'm calling to cancel the appointment.

M:  No!  One of our office workers is on her way with them now!  Did I mention that I love you?

We made it with 30 seconds to spare.  Not that it mattered.  We spent 30 minutes in the waiting room getting infected with God-knows-what.  The best part of this story, however, was when they asked for my co-pay and I discovered that in Marcus's pocket where the keys were living?  Was my debit card.

5.  Once in the exam room, the nurse lifted Dean's shirt to take his temperature and we discovered a rash all over his abdomen.  I, being the cool, calm, collected and mature woman that I am, immediately started shouting something about Scarlet Fever.  You'd be surprised how fast a pediatrician will run into an exam room when she hears "Scarlet Fever" being shouted in a southern accent.

6.  Turns out, it was a heat rash. He'd been hugging me tightly for our entire stay in the waiting room and was blotchy.  We did, however, get to endure testing for the flu (swab up the nose) and strep (2 swabs to the back of the throat), both of which came back negative.

7.  The nurse doing the swab test missed one side of his throat the first time, so she had to swab it AGAIN, which made Dean gag and then barf all over my arm. It will be a very long time before I'm able to see or smell Annie's Macaroni and White Cheddar sauce again.

The moral of this story:  At least we don't have the Hamthrax.

Here's hoping your day was better.

This post is grosser than I originally intended

I diagnosed myself with Swine Flu on Saturday.  Friday evening, my throat got a little scratchy.  By Saturday morning, my nose was running and I felt super-icky.  Dean had been snotty for a couple of days (he's a daycare kid now!), but I thought that was just because he was teething.  I woke up Saturday a little queasy, but I never ran any fever.  Instead of calling the doctor, of course, I called up Dr. Google, who referred me to her partner, Web M.D.  This is the most alarmist website in existence.  Not only does it provide you with all the symptoms and common treatments for what ails you, it often provides death rates (close to 600 deaths in the U.S. from swine flu) and, often, a gruesome picture, just in case you weren't freaked out enough.  Seriously, when I first got diagnosed with PKD, I looked up "polycystic kidney disease" and was greeted by fun facts about dialysis and a picture of a kidney that looked like it had been smoking 3 packs a day for 40 years.  I guess it could be worse.  I could have dermoids.  (I am totally disappointed that link has no picture.)

Anyway, back to my Hamthrax story.  Everyone was still feeling funky Saturday night, but we all slept.  Dean woke up ok on Sunday, but he wouldn't eat. Like at all.  He had maybe 3 bites of scrambled eggs and 4 dry Cheerios.  By mid-afternoon, he crashed.  We were on Skype talking to my mom when suddenly, he crawled up in my lap and just kind of stayed there.  Before bed we took his temperature, which had been 100.4 the last time we took it, and it was up to 104.4.  CUE FREAK-OUT!  Marcus ripped Dean's shirt off and wrapped his entire back in a cool washcloth and demanded that I call my mother immediately!  My mom had the brilliant idea of  "Why don't you call the doctor?"  Oh yeah! We have one of those!  Granted, it's Sunday night of Labor Day weekend, but SURE! Let's call the doctor!  The answering service (once I finally got there after phoning every phone number in Alabama, as per our doctor's office's voicemail's instructions) was very nice, but said it could take up to two hours for a nurse to call us back, what with the swine flu epidemic.  Of course, in the back of my mind I'm thinking "WE ARE THE SWINE FLU EPIDEMIC!  ONE OF US IS GOING TO SPROUT A SNOUT AT ANY MINUTE!  CRAP,  I SMELL BACON!" She recommended we not go to the ER, as we would probably pick up something even worse than what we already have, plus we'd probably have to wait at least 6 hours to be seen by a doctor.  So we thanked her and waited for the nurse to call us back in 2 hours.

Thankfully, it didn't take 2 hours for her to call, more like 50 minutes.  In true Jen form, the first thing I asked was "Does he have swine flu?" Because you know, she can tell from talking to ME on the phone whether or not DEAN has swine flu.  She told me our symptoms sounded more like a cold or an ear infection.  She gave us permission to up his dosage of Motrin and told us to tag-team Motrin and Tylenol every few hours to keep the fever down.  At that point, Marcus and I broke our number 1 rule of baby-rearing and woke Dean up to give him Tylenol.  He was NOT happy, but took his meds with no struggle.  Then he slept until 4:45, at which time he woke up gagging from post-nasal drip.  I'm pretty sure he shot a small portion of his brain out of his nose this morning directly onto my pillowcase, or at least that's what it looked like,  but at least he can breathe better now.  He had a big cup of juice and Pedialyte and 4 dry Cheerios first thing this morning, then Marcus got us all breakfast from McDonald's and Dean enjoyed his favorite thing ever:  The Hash Brown.

We all seem to be doing better today. No one has fever and the drippiness seems to be slowing down.  I've been doing laundry and slowly starting to disinfect everything in the house.  And you'll be proud:  I've only checked out the symptoms of swine flu on Web MD 3 times today!

Now everybody go wash your hands.

"2 Weeks in DC" OR "A Barf Story"

Wow.  I've been gone from the internet so long, every site I visit is asking for my password instead of automatically signing me in.

HI THERE!  Next time I decide to go this long without real internet (my phone does not count...cannot blog on phone...cannot read the blogs on the phone...sad day), someone slap some sense into me, k? K.

I'll tell you specific stories about things we did in the next few posts, but here are the funniest parts, mostly about vomit.

Our trip to visit Marcus's side o' the family in DC was lovely.  It started off VERY rocky, but, fortunately, improved.  Our flight out, the only direct flight from Birmingham to DC all day, was delayed. And when I say delayed, I mean we sat in the airport for SIX HOURS.  Did I mention how maticulously we had planned out our airport time?  How we left the stroller at home because OH! We'll only be in the airport for a little over an hour, part of which will involve Dean sitting in a highchair to be fed, so we don't need no stinkin' stroller!  Um, pretty much wishin' we'd brought the stroller, y'all.  Dean was a trouper.  He made friends, had some snacks, took off his pants and wet through every single diaper we brought in our carry-on.  Seeing as we were the last flight scheduled to leave, we had the airport to ourselves, so he could run free up and down the aisles without disturbing anyone. UNfortunately, seeing as we were the last flight to leave, all the shops closed before I could run in and buy some milk for him.  A very nice bartender named Kenny sold me a bottle and the day was saved.  He was great on the flight. This will be the last time he doesn't get his own seat when we fly with him.  He didn't sleep much, but was in good spirits when we arrived.  Pop Pop (Marcus's dad) picked us up in his shiny new car, complete with pretty new carseat for Dean.  Dean didn't fall asleep on the ride home, which we thought odd, but didn't really worry about much.  We arrived at G-Mama and Pop Pop's house at 1:30am. I got out of the car, opened the back door and said "Dean, we're here!" just in time to see him projectile vomit all over the nice clean car and carseat. 

After hosing down the car and carseat and bathing Mr. Motion Sickness, we slept the sleep of the dead.  The rest of the first week was packed with trips to the park, the zoo, train and carousel rides and playtime with Adam, Dean's cousin.  I got to see Kitty, my best friend from my NYC days.  She and I worked together at Cornell and even shared a house for two years.  Seeing her brought me a joy I cannot begin to describe.  It was like I unzipped a coat to find a part of myself that had been hidden during a long winter.  I laughed and smiled like I haven't in a long time, probably since the last long visit I had with my other best friend, Meredith.  Kitty and I went to the mall and shopped at Bath and Body Works, just as we did when we were young working gals with nothing better to spend our money on than flavored soap.  We tried on scarves at Macy's and shared sob stories about having feet too small to buy "big girl" shoes.  After our shopping excursion, we came home, where Marcus took one look at the relaxed smile on my face and said "Oh! You found Jen!"  I needed some girlfriend time, yo.

During our second week, Marcus and I each had a case of the morning queasies, which we thought to be caused by eating at Red Lobster.  However, once Dean threw up all over the breakfast table, the floor and his grandmother, we decided we might all have a tummy bug.  That particular "puke rally," to borrow a phrase from the college crowd, sent us to the ER where Dean received baby motrin for his 102 degree fever, a pedialyte for dehydration and a popsicle for being cute.  Oh, on the way to the ER?  He barfed in Pop Pop's car AGAIN. 

Anyway, he felt better pretty quickly, so that night, Marcus and I were able to go on a little date.  Our friend Cliff was performing in a play in downtown DC, so we went to see it.  We enjoyed ourselves so much!  Not only was it great to see a show neither of us had any hand in creating, the entire cast and the script were fantastic.  Afterwards, Cliff took us to a pirate-themed place where I had an enormous basket of pommes frites while actually facing the table.  (Any time I can enjoy a meal or snack facing the table instead of sitting sideways to face Dean's highchair is a huge treat for me.)

Each night after dinner, we took the boys to the park, played on the slides, walked around the pond so we could see the beavers and turtles, then returned home for a popsicle on the front porch. Dean liked to share his popsicle with the neighbors' dog sometimes. (*gag*) 

We were sad to see our week come to an end, but ready to get home, as I have contracted a lovely summer cold.  Dean started coughing the day before we left.  Our flight home was going swimmingly;  we discovered the man sitting in front of us went to Marcus's high school and that his youngest son had just come off the road with a national tour of a show we liked.  Dean looked like he was settling in to sleep when suddenly...you guessed it.  BLECHHHH. All over Daddy.  The flight attendant was so sweet.  She brought a bucket of water, some rags and about 300 miniature lemon-scented moist towelettes for us to clean up with and stayed with us until we were sure Dean was ok.  We channeled our inner theatre artists, doing what I must admit was one of the smoothest quick changes of a baby's entire outfit ever in an airplane.  And poor Marcus had to  ride all the way home with barf on his jeans.

Good times.

Wordless Wednesday: Dean vs The Blackberries

Feeding Frenzy

Today, we hit a milestone.  Deano the Bambino learned to feed himself with a fork.

 

We've been making good progress with the spoon for a while, though he'd still rather fling stuff off the spoon than actually put it in his mouth.  Usually, we give him his fork and this happens:

 

He takes the food off the fork with his fingers and puts it in his mouth.  He still did that some today, but most of his lunch was eaten from his fork.

That is, until this happened...

 

Uh, Dean, how bout you give Mommy a second to rinse off your fork since you just threw it on the FLOOR, then you can eat with that, ok? OR you could just dig in with your hands.

Lookit, Moooooooooooom! These come offa here!

 

These bowls are quite tasty.  Can I have some parsley to go with this?

 

Helloooooooooo in there!

 

Woops, dropped a little...lemme just get that...

 

Whaddya know?  Still tasty!

  All done!

I missed my blawg

But alas, I am too tired right now (you will soon see why) to give you much more than a brief update.  It will come, though, complete with pictures. 

I got to Oxford Thursday evening, where Dean and I enjoyed dinner and a fun evening at home with my dad.  The next day, I got to spend a good amount of time with my mom in the hospital.  Her hip surgery went really well.  She was in some PAIN at first, but once she got up and started walking, the pain started to get better.  She kept improving and was told she'd be set free today.  She was happy because hospital food is very, very bad.  I took her some carrot cake cookies yesterday.  I'll give you the recipe in the next day or two, since I missed Comfort Food Saturday this week.  Yesterday,  Dad, Dean and I had dinner at the new and improved Chinese place.  Dad gets excited when I'm there and will eat Chinese food with him because Mom's allergic, so she can't go.  After that, we tried to do a little shopping, but didn't find anything much, so we headed home.  About an hour later, Dad came down with what can only be described as a stomach-bug-food-poisoning-stress-induced phenomenon, which sent him packing to the ER around 9 last night. (BIG shout-out of thanks to my parents' friend, Debra, for taking him to the hospital. I had to stay with Dean.  And I can't handle vomit.)  It was an eventful weekend!  I am so glad I got to go. I needed to see my mom. And she needed cookies.  Dean was a perfect gentleman. He was a dream in the car, sleeping most of the way there and home.  He got to hang out a lot with my grandma, who we have recently dubbed "Grandwillie" (her first name's Willie), while I was at the hospital with Mom.  They had a lovely time together.

Given the fact that Dad got home from the ER around 5:00 this morning (that's 7 hours, for those keeping track of how long he was there), I didn't get much rest last night. And I have a doctor's appointment of my own at 8:15 in the morning, so to bed I go.  More soon.  I missed you, blog friends.

Happy Easter!

If anyone needs me, I'll be over here in the Haz Mat suit...

Marcus is sick with what can only be described as "The Crud." Apparently that is a medical term here in Alabama. It's what the urgent care doctor told me I had last time I was sick. The Crud. And one of our co-workers thinks she has the shingles. Half our students have pneumonia or some version of the dreaded Crud. Welcome to February in Alabama! 70 degrees one minute 21 the next. And how 'bout those 50 mph winds and tornadoes? Good times, I say, good times.

I'm currently obsessed with the idea of keeping myself and Dean healthy. I chugged a big glass of juice today and shoved countless Zicam swabs up my nose. I even gave Dean two servings of juice water. (All "the stuff" I've read about juice and obesity and aaaaaaaaah, evil suuuuuuuuuugaaaaaaaaaarrrr has sufficiently freaked me out, so I give Dean 1 part juice to 2 parts water. It's just how I roll. Yet I let him eat Gerber baby fruit roll ups. Go figure.) Anyway, we are all up on our vitamin C now.

I knew Marcus was really sick when he asked me to call in and let the secretary know he wouldn't be teaching class OR having rehearsal today. Usually he'll just try to push through. Not so much today. He got up long enough to eat some Fruity Pebbles and sit with Dean while I showered and got ready for work. When I came downstairs, they were watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Well, watching is a generous way to describe it. Dean doesn't really watch it per se, he mostly just plays til the Hot Dog Dance comes on, then goes nuts. Marcus was conked out on the couch and Dean had his little hand on his Daddy's knee. It was kind of the cutest thing I've ever seen. As I got closer, I understood just how clogged Marcus's nose must be because MY GOD the poop. I quickly took Dean up for fresh pants and dragged Marcus back to bed. Once he was settled, I closed our bedroom door and sealed it with Lysol. Oh, yes, I did.

I do not want to get sick. I will not get sick. (knocks frantically on wooden tray table) I deny the existence of The Crud. And now I go to stick another Zicam swab up my nose and chug one more glass of juice before I settle in for the night. In our guest room.

Well, well

Dean had his one-year well-baby appointment today. You want the stats? You got it!
Weight: 22 lbs. 1 oz. (50th percentile)
Height; 29 1/2 inches (50th percentile)
Head: 18 1/8 inches (75th percentile--way to go, Dean!)
Vaccinations: 3
Band-aids: 3
Books as birthday gifts from doctor: 1 (cool, huh?)
Prescriptions for nasty, horrible eczema: 2

He had his first taste of whole milk today. He spit the first sip out, but that's usually what happens with his first sip of anything. He should be walking any minute now and is finally able to eat table food for most of his meals.

The eczema is awful and I only write about it because a)I want to have a record of it and b)it might help another parent. He had a huge, nasty patch behind his knee, which is where I used to get it when I was a child. There are little patches scattered all over his body, but that one was the worst. It had gotten infected, so the dr. gave us a very mild steroid cream to help speed up his healing and an oral antibiotic. She told us to stop using the creams we'd been using and lube him up with Lubriderm. We also stopped using Johnson's baby wash in favor of (get ready) a plain white Dove beauty bar! The doctor said that is what dermatologists recommend for eczema. It was weird to have him emerge from the tub smelling like he'd just taken off his make-up instead of like a baby. Just another step in our growing process, I suppose.

The oral antibiotic has already been an adventure. When I brought it home from the pharmacy, I realized that the bottle was sealed and contained powder instead of liquid. There were instructions telling how to mix it, but I didn't really trust myself with that task. (Plus, for what it cost, the least they could do was mix it up!) I called the pharmacy and the lady said "Oooooooooooooooh, yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah." People in Alabama sometimes talk slow, you see. "We shoulda mixed that up. Come on back." So, back to the pharmacy went Marcus. When I opened the now-correctly-mixed bottle, the aroma of orange Sweet Tarts (or in Marcus's opinion, a ground-up orange Safety Pop) hit me. We tried our usual "give it to him in the bathtub" trick, which didn't work. He spit it all over Marcus's sleeve. We tried again before bed. He gargled it. GARGLED. How does a one-year old even know how to gargle? Anyway, tomorrow morning it's going in the cereal. And I may wear a Haz-Mat suit.