Fall Cleaning

Big changes are afoot. We decided Alex would be better off with a nanny instead of daycare. So this coming Monday will be his last day at daycare, and hopefully he won't be getting as sick, as often as he was. We interviewed and signed on a nanny this Saturday who we feel really good about. She is a bright, good-natured English major (kudos!) with infant CPR certification. We were very impressed and her personality seems very compatible with ours.

Meanwhile for the next two weeks, Grandma Carla will be with us! She is wonderful and loves hanging out with Alex.

Last week, Dana saw a cockroach downstairs, and this has triggered a major, major cleanup of the first floor. This nicely coincides with our move to the new bedroom upstairs!! I hooked up the lights and outlets last week. Everything works as it should.

So as we moved things upstairs to the new room, after carefully dusting, we commenced a huge mop, sweep and dusting operation downstairs. We moved the couch from the dining room into the old bedroom, and also moved the TV, stereo and a few other odds and ends there. Now we have a brand new "Playroom" for us and Alex.

The new playroom

Once things were moved into the new Playroom, space was cleared in the living room for yet more cleaning. So I moved the couch, the bookshelves, and everything else in there. I also rearranged the furniture, which I like to do every 6 months or so anyway. It's been tough the last few years not getting to scratch that itch regularly.

Here are a few more pics from the new bedroom upstairs:

This is the new, old closet door (transplanted from the old closet). The wires above are for the new smoke alarm

In the process of deploying all the books in the new built-in bookshelf

One of the new windows. The built-in shelf in the background conceals some framing for the faux eaves that we could not chop off.

The new light fixture, also showing the new doorway to the hall, and the new attic stairs in the hallway

We had one last gift certificate for Babies'R'Us to spend, so we made the trek down to Broomfield to do some shopping for Alex. We picked up a really neat walker. Alex fell in love with it as soon as he tried it out. Finally, those little legs can do what they're MEANT to do!

Alex, tooling around in his walker

Now, at the end of a hard day of cleaning and walking around, it's hard to pass up an ice cold beer...

Gimme Gimme Gimme!

Ahhhh that hits the spot, mate!

Now that's living!

Uh oh, I feel kinda funny... Hey, what's IN this stuff anyway?

To Hell and Back In 24 Hours

The best we can tell, Alex picked up a 24-hour stomach flu from daycare last Monday. He didn't get sick until last Tuesday evening, and couldn't keep any milk down until Wednesday evening, right after we saw his doctor to make sure he wasn't dangerously dehydrated. We finally broke through by feeding him Pedialyte, which he kept down all night, plus some milk.

Last Thursday morning, I woke up feeling very nauseous. It was pretty easy to see where this was heading. Sure enough by mid-morning I was absolutely miserable. Our tried and true babysitter and friend Jane actually came over to pick up Alex (and probably to check up on me too). I was in a baaaad way all day, and Dana came home early from work to take care of me. As I've said many times before, she is an angel. I am so happy that she is in my life, and that she is the mother of my son. We're both lucky to have her.

One of the worst feelings is being so completely helpless, as I was for all of last Thursday and most of Friday. I thought how horrifying it would be to not know what was wrong with me, or to not know how long it would last. Fortunately in my case I knew it would all be better within 36 hours, but that was small comfort in the throes of whatever ugly little virus had hold of my stomach and intestines. The worst part of it was not being able to step up and contribute to my family's well being or functioning. This may surprise you, but raising Alex takes a considerable amount of work, and while I was sick I could do almost none of it. I became lightheaded standing up and moving around for more than a few seconds, and without any liquids during 90-100 degree days, I was in trouble. On top of that, missing even more work put my job on hold. If this kept up I would not be a bread-winner, but a bread-loser. This really makes the case to me for life and long-term disability insurance on a practical level.

I turned the corner late on Thursday night when I managed to gulp down some fast-acting liquid maximum-strength Tylenol. Somehow I kept that stuff down long enough for it to absorb. Within an hour, my 100+ degree fever was gone and I was able to sit comfortably. I even got a nap in.

By Friday evening, I felt good enough to go out to the Derby Grill for a burger with Alex and Dana, although I only ate half of my Duke -- and absolutely NO Busch this time around!!

Now this week, everyone's healthy. Yay!

Dana has begun her second year of law school at DU, taking Constitutional Law and Patents. Her schedule this Fall is more forgiving than the previous two semesters. She is only in class Mondays and Wednesdays from about 6-9pm.

We are planning to switch Alex from daycare to a nanny. The 1-on-1 attention will be good for him I think, and he will not be exposed to thousands of bugs every week. That will give us a chance to stay healthy through the long fall and winter months. We can re-evaluate the situation next year.

On the Mend

The 3 of us are recovering from the flu that Alex brought home. It was a doozey! I have not been that sick in years. The last time I think I was that sick was Freshman year at Berkeley, right before the Fall semester final exams. I came down with a real nasty flu. On a tip from one of my dorm mates, I tried drinking 3-4 1/2 gallon cartons of orange juice per day. It didn't help. I don't think the flu was the cause of my horrible grades that semester, but it sure didn't help any.

The doctor reported back to me last week that I had Strep B. But that is naturally occurring in the flora and fauna of the GI tract, so it seems odd that it would "infect" my throat. Anyhow he prescribed penicillin, which has done nothing at all. I think I'm recovering slowly on my own.

We spent a good part of the weekend sorting through old papers stuff away up in the back bedroom. Most of these papers had come over from our respective pasts in California, having been untouched in 4-7 years. We will be doing quite a lot of recycling next week! It is very refreshing to get rid of a lot of that extra baggage. As I keep telling Dana, I want to live in a home, not a warehouse. As a recovering pack-rat myself, I understand how difficult this can be sometimes.

I didn't get to the wiring in the attic yet. It's just been too hot up there most of the time. If I can get up there tomorrow morning before work, while Alex takes his morning nap, I should be able to wrap up.

Bad Times

Bad times with the Vicodin cough syrup ;-(

Dad's wicked sore throat

My unfounded optimism yesterday about this "little flu bug" is rapidly waning. Last night was sheer torture. Not only could I not swallow without immense pain, but throughout the night it felt like my airway was closing up every 5 minutes. The only position I found comfortable was sitting up or standing. In desperation I took two of Dana's leftover Vicodin from her pregnancy (which of course she never needed). All that yielded was a very loopy Dan for about 2 hours, then back to misery, plus with a brand new throbbing tension/hangover headache, and nausea.

I guess I should have prefaced this entry by warning you that I am merely here to complain and seek sympathy. But hey, it's my blog, so I'll whimper if I want to.

Quick update on Dana & Alex. They are recovering steadily. Dana still has a scratchy or very slightly sore throat, and Alex is not quite back to his usual chirpy self, but both seem to be pretty comfortable. Dana has been an absolute angel over the past 5 days. Even when she was at the zenith of her own symptoms, she was scurrying about taking care of Alex and I, who generally just rolled around on the floor moaning. I love that woman so much.

Around 10:30, after we'd dropped Alex off with our wonderful sitter Jane, Dana drove me up to the Urgent Care clinic in Fort Collins. We prepared for a lengthy waiting room wait, with our two books and our lackluster conversation. But remarkably, they had me in and out of there in about an hour!

Less remarkable was the news. It does not look like Strep, although they are waiting on lab results in 2 days. Otherwise I'm healthy as a horse. The good Doc just told me to get plenty of rest, fluids, blah blah blah. Then he gave me a huge Rx for Histinex HC, a vicodin-laced cough suppressant, pain reliever and "whatnot". This, after I mentioned that the earlier vicodin experiment made me nauseous. They said it acts more locally. Whatever.

Dana and I have come to take a pretty jaded view of most of the professional medicine racket. By and large, these people just dispense the least litigious advice possible that may or may not be of any help. Generally this means that all we ever get are "duh" answers that I could have either come across in Wikipedia or deduced on my own. (That being said, we have had some wonderful doctors in the past too). Thinking about this situation more, it seems like maybe the Naturopath people are on to something. Although I have not taken the time yet to research it, at least the practitioners are in it to actually help people, and are probably much more likely to TALK to patients, try and find out what's really going on, and actually propose solutions, not just crazy narcotics to mask the symptoms.

I feel pretty lousy all around, particularly for missing so much work right now. We are on the cusp of releasing a major new project to the open source community that has the potential to really help out a lot of projects and communities, and push forward the legitimacy and palatability of lots of really great software. I would usually be at least indifferent to missing a day or so of work, but I feel like I'm living in a vacuum right now. Sorry guys if you're reading this.

So here I am again sitting at home with a fever, unable to drink much water. I just took a dose of the magical elixir and some ibuprofen for good measure. We'll see if I can catch some sleep before it all wears off.

Here's one thing at least that has worked very well:

Fresh peach and yogurt smoothie, yum!

P.S. Thanks again Michael & Moira for that awesome blender. It can blend the rocks off a Colorado 14'er!

Sick As A...

Last week Alex started at daycare, where he's enrolled Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It's very close to my work, so I can drop by at lunchtime to see him and play with him. So far it has been okay. They are very nice and good with the babies, but their caregiver to baby ratio is a bit too low for our tastes. If nothing else, it will be a good stop-gap measure until we come to a better long-term solution. All options are still on the table. Tuesdays and Thursdays we have our good friend Jane helping us watch Alex. She was the very first person besides us who watched Alex, way back when he was just a month old or so. She is fantastic!

As a special present for us, Alex brought home one nasty little flu virus. He first started showing signs of it on Thursday. By Friday night it had set in like a thunderstorm. Dana and I both came down with a persistent mid-grade fever, slight congestion, aches and pains, and overall exhaustion. Alex had a slight fever, and presumably most of the same symptoms. By Saturday it had manifested itself in a raging sore throat. While Dana and Alex have turned the corner, I am just miserable in the sore throat department. Codeine does not seem to do the trick...

For his part, Alex was completely miserable all weekend, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night we slept in shifts, since Alex could only breathe well when mostly upright. So we traded off sleeping with him on the couch sitting up. Even with that concession, he was not a happy camper. We had him on infant Tylenol drops, and regular saline nasal spray and aspirator suction. Blah. He really hates that, but he could sure breathe easier afterwards.

On a happier note, the weather has been nice. It has been a bit hot during the day, but almost every day since we've been back we've had a huge thunderstorm. The winds and rain on Friday night were enough to knock out power all night on our block.

In other great news, the upstairs bedroom remodel is nearly complete. The finish trim work is complete and it looks fabulous, very faithfully reproducing the look of all of the dark reddish-brown woodwork downstairs. I am especially pleased with our new built-in bookshelf, which is already stacked to the brim with our books. We had all of the carpets cleaned on Saturday and the only things left to do are to hook up the electricity and hook up the heat. I hope to get these done next week (after my throat is not killing me), and we should be moved in by this time next weekend.

Alex and Dana lounging on the new, clean carpet

Our lovely new built-in bookcase, with room for lots (but not all)) of our paperbacks

Return Home

Sorry for the big delay in posting. Dana and Alex flew home from Seattle 2 weeks ago Wednesday, and I drove home starting Wednesday evening after a hectic afternoon of packing and cleaning the condo.

Both of our trips were uneventful. I took I-5 south to Oregon and picked up my trailer there full of goodies from Grandpa. Then I headed East through Washington and Idaho down to Salt Lake City. From there I headed across Wyoming and down into Colorado. Thursday and Friday were two very long driving days. I do not recommend making that drive in 2 days! Fortunately, on Thursday night I had a warm bed waiting for me at Alison's lovely home in SLC's Sugarhouse neighborhood. What a relief it is to arrive there and be greeted by the friendly "woof" of a couple of greyhounds. I slept in Friday and then Ali and I had a relaxing breakfast at the cafe down the street.

By the time I got to Laramie, it was dumping rain. Plus it was getting near dusk. I just don't do very well driving in the rain at night. But fortunately I know the roads from Laramie to home like the back of my hand, having driven them so many times. So I just took it slow and got home with no problems. It was such a joy to get home and see my two favorite people there to welcome me with open arms!