Wanderlust

Where are you?

Where to begin. It's been a crazy two weeks. I guess I will start with about two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago we cleaned out the garage and cleaned out the camping stuff. Why the camping stuff? Because last weekend we were in Moab. More on that later. So most of that week, Kaz prepared for camping and prepared to join to workforce. As the camping stuff was organized and packed, Kaz had a trial run at the babysitter's house. It went well and by the end of the week, we all were ready for some camping.

On Friday we left for Moab, or more specifically, Arches National Park. The scenery looked very prehistoric, and camping with a 15 month old was interesting. It went much better than we expected, but we learned that you need to let little kids walk. And when I say walk, I mean you can't let the little one sit in the car seat, or in the backpack for longer than an hour or two. Because 15 month olds need to walk. They don't need to play necessarily, they just need to walk. And when they walk, they need to be allowed to walk anywhere they want. Or fussiness will ensue. So we had lots of little breaks of us following him around and turning him around when he went to close to something bad, like the road, or a large cliff.

We haven't camped for almost two years, and we had an excellent time. Owen did really great and seemed to like camping. He generally likes being outdoors so camping is perfect. He even put a hole in his boots from walking so much. He enjoyed his backpack, and even fell asleep a couple of times in it as we hiked and climbed over huge boulders. We've got a ton of pictures, and will post a bunch when things are a little more normal. Read on....

On the way back, the truck started to act up and seemed like it was losing power. It was a nerve racking ride home, I really didn't want to be stuck on the side of the road with all of our camping gear, smelling like poo because none of use have had a shower in over two days. Not fun. But we made it back okay, and the truck is parked, waiting to be diagnosed. I think it is either the fan clutch, a misfiring pistons, or an O2 sensors. O2 sensors are on order, hopefully that will make it work.

So this past Monday, Kaz started her new job, and Owen started at his babysitter. Everything seemed great, and we all were anxious to see if this conversion to Stay-at-Home Mom to Working-Mom will work for us.

On Tuesday, the babysitter called to say that her kid has been diagnosed with RSV, which is a nasty highly contagious virus that most kids in Utah get before they are 3. So I took Owen to the doctor, who was a dick, to see if Owen was okay. As we waited in the office, Owen's cough seemed to get worse and was becoming plemmy. Owen got a chest X-ray and had a little fluid in his lungs, and the doctor, who was a dick, said he didn't think Owen had RSV but it either a virus or bacteria. The Doctor, who was a dick (I am still upset about his dickiness), gave us a prescription for some powerfull antibiotic.

We decided to keep Owen at home, which means one of us gets to stay home from work. As you may know, Kaz's job will eventually transform into a home office type job, but it's her first week. So I stayed home. During Wednesday, it actually snowed about 2-3" and about 1-2" that night. While Owen and I had a good time, Owen was getting sicker.

On Thursday, I stayed home in the morning, and then we transfered the bundle of joy in back of Kaz's office so I could work. I worked late, and when I got home, Owen was a mess (except he did smile and say night-night to me). We waited to give him his antibiotic because we didn't think he was that sick, and we aren't going to pour that shit down his throat because some dickhead doctor wasn't sure what was going on. But since he was getting worse, obviously he needed some help in the form of medicine.

Since the antibiotic is potent, it made Owen puke that, his supper, and his Tylenol everwhere. In his high chair, the bathtub, and the shower. And on Kaz. Everywhere. Owen was breathing fast and short and sounded like shit. Since he wasn't keeping things down, we decided, after some advice, to take him to the hospital emergency room at 8:30pm. He needed fluids, and some medicine, because we weren't sure about making it through the night.

The Doctor looked him over and discovered, in addition to the nasty cough, runny nose, little fluid in the lungs and fever, that Owen had an ear infection. So basically, Owen top half is infected, with either a bacteria, or virus. The Doctor said it didn't matter which, the treatment is the same. The Doctor was awesome and gave Owen a shot of steroids to open his wind pipe, and a prescription for antibiotic that doesn't make kids puke over everything. I think we were all in bed by 11pm, which I was happy about.

Kaz lucked out and her boss let her work from home on Friday. So I got to go to work, but, I woke up with a nasty sore throat. And I cough. And a slightly runny nose. So I worked, but came home early so I could vegetate with the family.

Today Owen's seems better, still sick but getting better. Kaz might have a cold as well. So I guess now the dogs are going to get sick and we will all have to be quarantined so not to infect the world with our germs.

The past two weeks has been a test for the whole family. The dogs haven't been walked in a week and are wondering what the hell is going on with this family. And with Kaz's new job, we all have to step up to maintain a family and a household. Owen has surprised me the most. Through all of the changes, he seems pretty damm happy. Even when he was at the hospital, he was goofing around and smiling. He seems to be a really happy kid, and can roll with whatever Kaz and I throw at him. He rarely gets really fussy, and when he does, it's because of hunger, tired, Mommy not around, or he got in trouble for sticking he gooey fingers where they shouldn't be (I can tell the tantrums are around the corner). And not to get too sentimental, but through all of this crap, it's been really cool to be a parent and a family. I'm starting to realize why all those people say stupid things about how great their family is and it's so great and wonderful blah blah blah.... Having a kid it the most stupid wonderful thing I've ever did...

Posted by George at April 21, 2007 2:19 PM