Speaking in Tongues

It's never too early to introduce a foreign language! Jonathan has taken it upon himself to learn little bits here and there. For example, when he wants to be picked up, he speaks a kind of pseudo-Italian: "Uppia!" Sometimes he keeps speaking English, but adds on a foreign accent. If he finds anything green in his food, he'll pick it up and show it to us. He slurs his words in a way that sounds vaguely Spanish: "DunLIKit!" That translates to "Don't like it!"

Other times, it's English, nonaccented, but the free associative quality makes interpretation very difficult. Jonathan came to the top of the stairs this morning to give me a hug as I raced off to work. I was wearing an abstract print tank with lots of geometric forms. Jonathan poined to a region around my collarbone and announced "Mommy have coconut!" I wondered for a minute where he picked up that particular slang term, and if "mazoomas" and "knockers" were coming next. But I looked on my tank and sure enough, there was a brown oval. Jonathan made it even clearer by saying "Like chicka boom boom!" That's a reference to one of his favorite alphabet books, and it explains where he learned what coconuts are.

Meanwhile, Alex keeps speaking fluent Klingon. Snort!

Fever

Of all the symptoms when the boys get sick, I think fever must be the one I hate the most. When they throw up or have a rash or a cough, I can focus on getting them feeling better. But when their temperature climbs, it's as though a little red warning light has gone on. Involuntarily, my mind starts listing all the horrible things that can cause a fever: leukemia! Kawasaki's disease! Rheumatoid arthritis! My mind becomes split in two: the rational physician portion looks at my son, sees him wilted but otherwise okay, and does a pretty good job of not worrying. But the mommy portion, combined with a little more education than most, quietly but insistently keeps worrying and fretting until everything goes back to normal.

Alex, seven weeks old, has one week of daycare under his belt. All the kids in his room had colds last week. Jonathan started running a fever and running at the nose a day or two later. So when Alex started to feel warm to us on Sunday, my rational mind knew he most likely had the same cold, especially when he started snuffling. On the other hand, my rational mind also knew that a high fever in an infant less than eight weeks old was supposed to get a more formal evaluation. We went about our usual activities on Sunday, taking his temperature throughout the day. The pediatrician's office had given us a number - anything higher than 100.4 and Alex had to come in. He hovered around there until Sunday night, when the temperature registered 100.6. I put a few things in a bag, kissed Chris goodbye, and drove Alex to the ER.

It was crowded, but I managed to work my job and title into conversation with the front desk staff and we got in within half an hour. Alex's fever was even higher - up to 101.6, definitely a fever. The ER attending recommended a full fever workup and admission. Everyone agreed that Alex had been exposed to kids with colds, and that except for his temperature, he looked pretty good. Still, here he was in the ER, and with a fever, and so young. Who could say no? My education and experience were enough to be a torment and not enough to be much help. I knew that most of these fever workups would be negative - would not find anything seriously wrong. But what kind of odds were they? I didn't know. I knew that the ER had done lots of tests on my own patients that I found unnecessary - but which tests could I decline safely? I wanted to use every skill I had to protect Alex and make him better. But I had to worry that applying my skills might also endanger him, however slightly. I was going to be allowed more leeway in decided Alex's course of treatment than non-medical parents, and I wasn't sure what to do with that leeway. There are so many different ways to approach a medical problem. I didn't know whom to trust, and Alex had to trust in me.

He got the full workup. I asked about the experience of the ER intern in doing spinal taps on babies, and the attending quickly offered to do it herself. Alex did amazingly well through the whole ordeal. He sucked on my pinky finger during the IV and the spinal tap and barely cried at all. He did hate the nasal washing but quieted down thereafter. I had cried when we decided to put him through all that, but smiled and wiped my tears when it was time to comfort him.

We're home from the hospital now. We were there two days while Alex got antibiotics and waited for all the tests to come back negative, which they have. In talking with Dr. Ranney, there were other options that night that a more experienced pediatrician might have offered. But in all, she thought doing the full workup was one reasonable option of several.

Alex, I'm sorry you went through all that poking and prodding at such a young age. It was so hard to drive you to the ER knowing that was likely to happen, but too scared to keep you at home and watch you with your fever. You and Jonathan are probably going to have several episodes like this as you grow up, just because you're mom is a doctor. I won't be looking in your ears or palpating your abdomen - I'm going to have to defer to your own doctors and sometimes I'll have to quiet my doubts and let them do their job. You may get more tests and treatments sometimes than I might feel are absolutely necessary. I can just promise you that I'll be there as your mom the whole time, and do my best to speed us through the waiting room.

Sing like canary, grunt like hippo

Jonathan may hold the world's record for having the longest-commuting babysitter. Dad flew over from Belgium to watch him for a few days while Chris, Alex and I went on a job interview. (In our defense, Dad had planned to come all along, but the ostensible purpose of the trip initially was the course he was teaching. When that got cancelled, he graciously agreed to come over anyway, rather than derail our plans.) Jonathan and his grandpa had a terrific time! Auntie Iz joined them for a day and a half. Each time we called to check in, we could barely hear the updates over his delighted shrieks. Grandpa has learned, however, that if he's going to break the house rules, he's going to get ratted out. He fessed up to one mishap before Jonathan related his version: "Big truck go boom. Jo-fan go boom too!" I guess Grandpa thought that was all the news I could handle, because he left it to his small accomplice to detail the rest of the weekend. We were getting the boys ready to go to the store on the last day of Dad's visit when Jonathan chirped "Grandpa, watch race cars again?" And that's how I learned about the Nascar fix.

Alex behaved beautifully on the trip, for the most part. He slept almost all the time on the plane flights and didn't require too much attention in the airports. He had been sleeping a little better at home, but got off his schedule and was up a lot at night. The only incident had to do with his penchant for snorting, groaning, and other vocal adventures. We dubbed him Mr. Grunt a week or two ago - it is pretty striking and we're sleeping much better since we started putting him down in the nursery to sleep. Anyway, I was carrying Alex into the South Bend airport while Chris wrestled the carseat out of the car. There was an older man ahead of us. Alex let out his usual loud flurry of grunts as he settled into the Baby Bjorn. The man turned around and gave me a bewildered and somewhat offended look - I'm sure he thought I was the grunter, and he the gruntee.

Do you ever stop talking?

What a contrast with just a few short months ago! We've had numerous people ask Jonathan that question in the last week.

Fireman Joe thought he was pretty loquacious. Our nanny and her friend had the brilliant idea to take Jonathan and Cara on a trip to the fire station. Firefighters are the nicest people. They welcomed us with open arms. Jonathan was soooooo excited to go into the "firetruck house" and get up close and personal with Charlottesville's entire fleet. Fireman Joe gave us a twenty minute tour. We saw pumper trucks and ladder trucks. We saw the chief's car and the little tank they use for rural areas. Jonathan scattered kitty litter and watched the water leak out of the trucks. He loved every second and was determined to appear cool in front of his heroes. Fireman Joe would ask him if he knew what a particular knob or button did, and Jonathan would say "Yeah!" By the end of the visit he was reduced to running around and saying "Dat! Dat!" - he was so excited. I was proud and pleased, however, to see he remembered his manners. He said "thank you" very nicely several times. We have been talking ever since about the visit. Jonathan wears the little fireman hat that Joe gave him all the time and mentions that was "Nice of him! I said thank you!"

The checkout clerk at Harris Teeter also gets a kick out of Jonathan's verbosity. We went last night for our weekly stock-up. Jonathan sat in the car portion of the cart and watched the unloading. I think it's time to make him do the shopping, because, according to him, all the food was for is personal and private use. "Jonathan's eggs! Jonathan's cheese! Jonathan's applesauce! Jonathan's meat!" I was a little worried when she rang up the Starr Hill Amber Ale, but just for a minute. He informed the clerk that was "Daddy's beer!"

Sometimes, you have to know what books Jonathan's been reading in order to understand him. We went to the playground a lot last week once the weather got nice. The bathrooms are undergoing some major renovations and the building was surrounded with debris. Jonathan ignored the slides and swings to stand by the fence. Finally, having gathered his thoughts, he told me that was a "chicken coop! Farmer's wife - clean up!" It took me a while to place it, but he was referring to Small Pig.

New photos!

We have some great new photos, with Jonathan as Harry Potter, playing with heavy equipment, and channeling Emeril. BAM! Go look. And compare pictures of Alex and Jonathan at the same age. Chris thinks they look the same but I'm not so sure.

Baby elephant walking

Jonathan and I are having fun with an imaginary game these days. It came about as an attempt to save my ponytail and my back after several rounds of elephant rides. I asked Jonathan if he wanted to be an elephant with me. He lit up and said "Yeah!" and dropped down on all fours. Then he looked at me expectantly - what does an elephant do?

Well, I thought, first we can get a drink of water. I lumbered over to the blue playmat and pretended to drink. Jonathan thought this was terrific fun. He kept his eyes locked on me and matched me, slurp for imaginary slurp. I sat up and he copied me in that as well. I asked him "What now?" and he made his general "Huh?" sound. It was clearly up to me to keep this going.

After water comes food, I thought, and looked around for a toy food source. I decided the fireplace gate could act as tree branches. We crawled over there and I showed Jonathan how to strip pretend leaves off the branches and "eat" them. He started to make Cookie Monster sounds, but I told him we were dignified elephants, not noisy monsters.

We went back and forth from food to water a few times, and he stayed riveted through all of it. I thought our repertoire needed expanding, so I told him it was time for elephants to go to sleep. First I circled around on the rug - I know that's really a dog thing, but I am not up to date on elephant ethology. Jonathan managed to circle while whipping his head around to keep watching me. Then we did a big elephant stretch, and I plopped on my back, all fours up in the air. I lay there while Jonathan wriggled over on his back to get close to me. With each snore my legs went up - I figured we might as well incorporate a little abdominal workout in the game.

After sleep comes breakfast, and soon we were back on the food-drink circuit. All of a sudden, I stopped and said "Oh, there are lions!" Jonathan froze. He looked up at me, wide eyed, and breathed "Lidons?" I had thought that particular phobia of his was much better. I said "Let's go hide behind the chair" but Jonathan had other ideas. He curled into a little ball and held his hands over his eyes. I felt bad that he was scared, so I crouched over him and told him that Mommy elephants always protect baby elephants from lions. He relaxed instantly and we snuggled like that for a few minutes, until he said "Lidons all gone!" and we went to get a drink of water.

Now, every evening after dinner, he asks to play the elephant game. Sometimes the hearth gate is leaves, sometimes not - yesterday, it was ice cream. We compete to see who can make the longest and loudest slurps at the water hole. And when the lions come, Jonathan now sprints over to the toybox and selects a few toys that need protecting too. So I crouch over my little boy and his firetruck and airplane - it gets a little crowded. Jonathan has taken to calling himself "baby elephant" when he needs comforting or a cuddle, and he always smiles happily when I call him my little elephant. Alex may have supplanted Jonathan in his role as the smallest human in the family, but we've found a way for him to stay my little baby.