The week, in review

Or part of the week, anyway. (Deep breath.)

Q's Trileptal increase has gone well. The boy was giggly and giddy this evening. He and G were playing--Q grabbing at G's face and laughing like a maniac when G pulled away. They must have done it for a half hour earlier in the evening (it's only 12:30pm here, so I'm pretending it's still Friday. Bear with me.). There's just nothing like baby giggles, is there? Still earlier in the day, a little person placed a little toy rattle that's shaped like a phone receiver next to Q's ear and he talked to it. Really! Babbled for almost a full minute! Plus, my dad swears Q's trying to say "balloon". Fun-ny baby.

Q had his first bath in his bath seat tonight. I swear the boy is bent on drowning himself. In the pre-bath seat era, he would twist himself around to get to the water with his mouth (all things must be tried orally) and end up snorting a quantity of it, giving his sinuses either a good cleaning or plenty of bacteria for a nice little infection, and freaking out his mama to boot. In spite of lots of spluttering and choking, he always wanted to get right back to trying that again. So I got him into the bath seat and he started to slowly lean and scoot, scrunching himself down toward the water, trying once again to snort up the contents of the tub. The bath seat slows him down considerably, but I'm sure with practice he'll figure out how to get around this too.

The chair is working nicely. I've had to wash out the straps a couple of times already to get the cereal out; Mr. Drooly-pants likes to sneak some right out of the corner of his mouth and then work it in with his chin, the goofy boy. Nothing like rice cereal to make a lovely paste, eh? The chair is so adjustable that Q joins us when we're playing a game on the floor, at the table at mealtimes or if school is in full swing. Funny that he hasn't yet fallen asleep in it, especially with the Trileptal increase making him more sleepy. Perhaps he's so stimulated at being upright and interacting that he can't shut off in the chair?

I asked Q's PT this morning if she thought that we should be looking ahead to ramps and other significant modifications to the house for Q, seeing as how we don't know how long 'til he walks or how efficient he'll ever be with it. She said she thought it would be smart to begin looking at that now. (Aw, crud.) Also, I'll be contacting the nice DDD lady to ask about coverage for a therapy swing for Q. I have the plans needed to build one and could probably order the parts and eventually figure it all out, but I lack time. Energy is also in short supply. All the nice people here are sorta overwhelmed with their own perfectly legitimate stuff--I believe it's called "a life"? So I'm going to ask about getting it covered. We'll see.

In other news, I made it to the nice doctor yesterday. We discussed my general feeling-like-crap and it's symptoms. (Why isn't there some little packet of stuff to swallow for this? Get right on that, will you? C'mon. You'll make billions.) Low-grade fever, chills, seriously nasty back pain, yadda yadda. (TMI alert--breast milk discussion approaching--you have been warned) I'd had a plugged milk duct about two weeks ago, but with careful attention, managed to head off a full-blown case of mastitis, thank God. So the end result of my visit? PT, Muscle relaxant and Vicodin scrips--a hoot, really, because I've never ever in my life, not even for those hideously impacted wisdom teeth, or stitches following babies, finished a narcotic Rx. Also, the lovely Internist (and she really is--I'd recommend her in a heartbeat), as we were wrapping things up, said, "Well, C. I don't know. I think you need to take better care of yourself." (Ya think?) "Better nutrition, better rest, better sleep." (Hmmm. So you'll be coming home with me to help out with that?)

Yeah. I know. Sigh. . .

I'm feeling a little better every day and, Lord willing and the creek don't rise (don't lay any bets on that one this winter), I'll finish up this nasty thing, whatever it is, and have some smoother sailing ahead. I'm looser in my back today and feeling perkier. Hallelujah, glory be. Somehow, through all of this (more about breast milk--brace yourself) I'm managing to continue to produce quantities of what looks like it really is almost pure cream. Huh. Our all-time favorite pediatrician teased me a bit with K (#3) when she had gained, in her first 17 days of life, about 18 ounces over her birth weight: "What're you, producing cream?" Apparently so. (Email me and I'll tell you how I know.)

Since I managed to get to bed before midnight last night, I'm going to head that direction now and try to take better care of myself. Maybe, while you're working on a packet for that other thing, you could come up with one to swallow for Taking Better Care of Oneself? Thanks. Let me know what I owe you.

Sweet, lovely dreams to you. Extra hugs and kisses for your babies and beloveds.

'Night.