Filed under: Peanut
The Good: Peanut gets her cast off tomorrow! Yay! We’ll finally all get some sleep!
The Bad: After we drop Peanut off at Grandma’s, Big Daddy will come back home and meet the vet, who will be putting our sweet old cat, Bridget, to sleep. I will not be there, because I have truly reached my limit when it comes to the stress I can handle right now.
She has been a good cat, and we’ll miss her. Particularly Peanut, because Bridget is the only one that will tolerate her “petting” and will sit next to her for any length of time. It sucks.
Filed under: Uncategorized
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS
MARINE FIGHTING SQUADRON 223, MARINE AIRCRAFT GROUP 24
FIRST MARINE AIRCRAFT WING, FLEET MARINE FORCE
C/O FLEET POST OFFICE, SAN FRANSISCO, CALIFORNIA
29 FEBRUARY 1944
Mr. and Mrs. William E. Stewart
Poynette, Wisconsin
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Stewart,
It is with the deepest regret that I confirm the telegram previously sent you notifying you of the death of your son, Major Harlan E. Stewart, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.
Major Stewart was killed in action on February 25, 1944 when his plane crashed after it had been struck and damaged by enemy anti-aircraft fire. His body was recovered and was buried in the cemetery at the advance base from which this squadron is operating. You will understand of course that for reasons of security, the location of this base cannot be divulged at the present time…
World War II Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard Casualties, 1941-1945
Wisconsin Dead
*******
Major Harlan Stewart Killed in Action in Pacific
In Command of Forty Fighter Planes
According to a telegram received Saturday by Mr. and Mrs. William Stewart of Route 2, their son, Major Harlan Stewart, 28, U.S.M.C. flight commander, whose promotion was announced last week, has been killed in action in the Southwest Pacific … Surviving him besides his parents are two sisters, Mrs. Doris L.– at home with her parents [because she had a newborn while her husband, my grandfather, was stationed elsewhere], and Catherine, a radio instructor formerly at Truax but now of Scott Field, Ill. [a Morse code instructor, she was not married because her fiance had also been killed in action in Europe], and one brother, Kenneth, on Route 2.
Filed under: Peanut
She did these, and finds them hilarious. I went to high school with girls whose hair looked remarkably like Belle’s there.
My belly button is starting to turn inside-out.
This is news, because it didn’t happen the last time around. In fact, I am now almost as large as I ever got with Peanut, and I just might post the pictures to prove it. It helps that small cats weigh more than she did when she was born.
There are several things that either are new or I am anticipating will be new this time around. For example:
- I never felt Peanut do flips. She did one, when she went from transverse to breech, but that’s it. This kid, I get it a couple of times a day. It’s weird, like I’m on an upside-down roller coaster.
- I never was woken up or kept awake by Peanut moving. I am discovering this may have been a blessing.
- I never got hemorrhoids.
- I never had an internal exam, so I have no idea if or how much I was ever dilated.
- I never experienced labor. I had one contraction that woke me up from a sound sleep around 33 weeks, but just one.
- We never had to babyproof. We do have some clamps on drawers/cabinets, but only because we got tired of holding the door closed while she tried to open them.
- I never gave a wiggly newborn a bath. She didn’t move much the first weeks, and then she was in casts for months and couldn’t have baths, and then she was afraid of them.
- I never cleaned her umbilical stump. We were in the hospital a full week, and it fell off as soon as we got home.
- I’ve never held her hand while walking across the street or in a parking lot. She needs two for the walker, and she’s too slow to let her walk at all at an intersection. So I’ve never had to worry about her running off and getting lost. Or bouncing on the bed, or climbing the furniture. Though she’s certainly managed to fall and bump her head.
I’m not whining about these things. It’s just weird to me that I’m having my second kid, while having so little experience with some things that are supposed to go along with it.
I was also not working when I was this pregnant with Peanut, and stayed at home for 18 months after. So that whole maternity-leave thing will be new too. It’s the only part I’m sorry to have to experience.
Things around here are much, much better. Peanut still wakes frequently and needs help going back to sleep, but during the day her mood is pretty much back to normal. It would be nice if she would eat something other than buttered toast, but we can’t have everything, can we?
My dad is not doing especially fantastically with his rehab. He seems to have an unrealistic idea of how much he’s recovered, and thinks that he should be driving and out and about on his own, when in reality, he still has trouble walking.
My dad hasn’t been known for his athletic abilities for a long time, so it isn’t so shocking to see his physical decline. What is hard is the mental part. My father is/was a force of nature. He could and did speak about nearly any topic with at least some authority and a strong opinion. He could argue circles around me, and I’m not known for being particularly wishy-washy. This was a guy who did the Times crossword in pen, in order, but now doesn’t read the whole paper because he can’t quite follow the news stories. His significant other says that now when they go to restaurants, the staff doesn’t speak to him. I tell her that’s an example of ableism (or disableism), and you can tell she hasn’t ever thought about this before. I guess the mental decline might be a blessing if it means he hasn’t noticed this himself, because it’s his idea of a living nightmare.
It’s also an interesting bit of karma. He’s maybe not a full-on bigot, but that’s probably more a matter of degree. But according to my mother, he was at his most contemptuous with regard to people who were disabled, particularly if they couldn’t speak clearly or follow complex conversations well. Which now describes him. And yes, this attitude has made things somewhat strained regarding his lovely granddaughter.
Sorry about all this pointless rambling, it’s just an issue that I’ve been dealing with lately. So on to the little nut news!
Peanut: Mama, you’re already a super-hero.
Bad Mama: I am? What are my super-powers?
Peanut: Hmmm. You can SUPER-EAT!
Bad Mama: Is that so? Anything else?
Peanut: You can super-smell, and super-taste*, and SUPER-SLEEP!
And my kid has, if not super, then at least average powers of perception.
*Strangely enough, I am a super-taster.
So apparently I spoke too soon. After being screamed at because it was insufficiently dark outside at 2:30 am, what with the security lights and all, I have come to the conclusion that my child had some sort of Jekyll/Hyde experiment done on her. I know some of you can’t understand what the fuss is about, but seriously, this stuff is just so unlike her. She wasn’t like this when she was two. And it’s happened like a switch got flipped.
Even better? Big Daddy will be gone all next week for work. I might just show up on your doorstep with, or possibly without, a smelly, sweaty, screaming kid in a pink cast in tow. Just a head’s up.
For those of you that have commented with support and questions, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I promise to respond soon. If you have not had the experience of this overwhelming support from total strangers before, maybe it is hard to believe, but it really means so much. Big Daddy was blown away when I showed him the number of page loads that this blog got on Monday and Tuesday. I forget myself how unnecessary it is to say something profound or especially eloquent in the comments when the writer needs support. Just knowing that people who don’t have to took just a few moments to jot a note to you makes a big difference.
So maybe I will not be selling her on Craigslist after all (three years young, some body damage, a little loud but prone to sudden naps).
Whatever chemicals have been addling her brain have finally been metabolized out, and I have my kid back. For example:
Last night’s conversation:
Peanut: Be Ariel!
Bad Mama: Hi, I’m Ariel.
Peanut: Noooooooooooooooo!
Tonight’s conversation:
Bad Mama: It’s time to go to sleep.
Peanut: Okay! <starts nattering on about how the thermometer was really a sword sticking in her arm>
Bad Mama: Peanut, you have to be quiet.
Peanut: <whispering> Okay! <continues story while whispering>
Bad Mama: Very funny. I mean stop talking.
Peanut: <makes kissy noises, clucks, waves her arms around, etc.>
Bad Mama: <gives up>
Filed under: Uncategorized
The anti-nausea meds worked, the fever broke (though she’s a little warm again tonight), and she says she’s not in pain. However, for some reason she has decided that all those terrible-twos tantrums that she didn’t have a year ago should be thrown right now. Like the ones where only Mama can make and bring her toast. If Daddy makes it but Mama brings it, that isn’t good enough. If Mama doesn’t set it just right on her lap, it is an occasion for screaming. Her voice is still hoarse because she will literally scream for an hour, and it isn’t out of pain. Reverse psychology does not work–she will happily tell you she’d rather you shave her head than wash vomit out of her hair, or go hungry rather than, God forbid, Daddy make her any toast.
We will get through this. I am needing to look at those pictures of her smiling in the cast from the last time to remind myself of this. She hasn’t smiled, much less laughed, since Monday morning, and I really miss it.
Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask, because Big Daddy thought I was crazy: Does anyone else remember the Shel Silverstein poem “The Unicorn”, but as a song? I think we had it on a record somewhere, but I have no recollection what one. I still remember the tune. “And there were green alligators and long-necked geese/Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees/There were catsandratsandelephants, but sure as you’re born/the loveliest of all was the Unicorn“.
I’d like to imagine I made up the tune myself, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
She’s been up pretty much most of the night because she cannot keep anything down, not even a sip of water. Big Daddy called the resident-on-call around 5 am, who pretty much blew him off and said if she was still throwing up later in the morning we could call the clinic during their regular hours.
This was not an acceptable answer.
After she had puked twice more in 45 minutes after having literally two sips of fluid, I called back, and politely but firmly requested a prescription for a suppository. It was granted. I’m not quite sure why exactly it was we were supposed to wait until she was actually dehydrated before getting something to prevent dehydration. I am waiting for it to be filled right now. If he had refused again I would have called her pediatrician, who I think would have granted it, and *then* called the clinic, making absolutely sure her doctor knew about the resident’s response.
She is so weak and pale. She’s also been running a low-grade fever. We’re supposed to wait until it’s been 24 hours with a temp above 100.5 before we report that. She has never been so sick after returning home after surgery before.
I’m supposed to go back to work this afternoon. I am out of all paid time off. I am hoping the new meds will work well enough that I can leave without feeling quite so guilty about both leaving her when all she wants is Mama, and leaving Big Daddy, when he is exhausted and running second-best to Mama.
