Oh What a Night

Last night we hit another milestone: our first trip to the emergency room with 'Rad.  After his immunizations yesterday he started to develop a fever, and when the thermometer read 102 degrees we called the doctor's office and headed to the ER.  (Before I continue, a question for the UW Medical System: Why is your Emergency Department all the way at the back of the medical campus?  I think if I had stepped on a rusty nail and headed to your ER, I would have developed gangrene by the time I actually got to the entrance.)  As expected, the pediatrician told us that it's common for a fever to spike after shots, but we just needed that reassurance coming from a trained medical professional.  They gave him some tylenol and over an hour later he was given the ok and we headed home at 2 a.m.  And woke up at 6 a.m.  It was all worth it, though.  We were able to sleep - albeit for much shorter than we wanted - peacefully and 'Rad woke up as his usual, babylicious self sans fever.

Aside from physically delivering a baby, I didn't realize how much having an infant takes its toll on your body.  As I imagine myself back at work in front of the computer in an office chair for eight hours a day, I see myself as Quasimoto - hunched over, my right arm moving in a limited arc (only as much as is needed to mouse through documents and orders on my computer), working in a cave that to others may look like a relatively sunny cubicle.  Not to mention that my back has started to twitch where it hasn't twitched before and my left knee is occasionally giving me grief.  How old am I?  Yeah, I need to work out more.  Or at all.  But how am I going to fit that into my day?  Honestly, I don't know how parents do it but I'm going to figure it out soon!

I'm surprised by how excited ok I am with going to work on Monday.  Is there something wrong with me that I consider work a break from child rearing while at the same time mourning that fact that my hours with 'Rad will be woefully cut short each day?  If I can give anyone advice from a rookie mom, it's this: Don't read too much on the internet or even listen to too many people regarding what's "normal" about how you should be feeling and what you should be doing with your child.  The only thing that's seemed to accomplish with me is to make me paranoid and unsure of my feelings and actions.  Is this normal?  Is that normal?  Really, it's ridiculous to question how you're feeling because it is what it is; you feel how you feel.  It's where you go from there that makes you sane, wise, crazy, or just you.  I say that, but I'm working hard to put it into practice.

When do you start getting that holiday feeling?  It usually takes me until Thanksgiving day or sometimes even later to get that warm fuzziness inside my body, the kind that makes me warm up to everyone and want to strike up congenial conversations while waiting in lines.  With 'Rad in the picture, though, I feel that it's important for me to get that feeling sooner.  That sounds like a strange need, to rush the feeling of something, but I want his first holiday season to be special not just for him (because what is he really going to remember of it?), but for us as a family with our first child on his first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's.  And it seems like the best way to do that is to get into the holiday spirit sooner than later to make the most of it since the holidays always rush by in such a blur.

An oldie but a goodie: My mom sporting the turkey hat I knitted back in '08

Do you have any holiday traditions?  I'm looking forward to creating some of our own and sharing existing ones with Rad-a-dude.  It will be fun fitting him into our annual holiday picture!