Tag Archives: Two years

Updates of a Hatchling and other random stuff

1. You know what’s nice? Having friends who invite you over for dinner and make pulled pork, macaroni salad, baked beans, and fruit, followed up by homemade blueberry pie, all of which is so good it’s probably illegal in several states. YUM. (Thanks, Eric and Scott!)

2. Funny Hatchling story: so we’re having brunch with the sibs this last Sunday, and the Hatchling is playing on her own in the living room while the rest of us gorge on bacon and pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream. Mr. Squab, who is sitting where he can see the Hatchling, starts to chuckle. “What’s she doing?” I ask. “She’s pouring herself shots,” he says. We all turn around, and sure enough, she’s taken the cap from one of her bottles (which is shaped remarkably like a shot glass), set it on the coffee table, and is pouring out little tots of water from her water bottle into the “glass,” downing the shot like a seasoned pro, and then pouring herself another one. I swear to god, I don’t know where she gets it.

3. Toddler grammar is weird, and the Hatchling’s especially so. Like lots of little kids, she substitutes “me” for “I,” but she also tends to invert the usual subject-predicate order when she’s making requests or statements. “I want” comes out as “Want me”; instead of saying “I eat” or even “me eat” when she’s hungry, she says “Eat me.” (I know, I know.) There’s also “Up and down me” (when she wants to get down from the table or out of her crib), “Outside me,” “Book me” (when she wants you to read to her), or “Stuck me” (when she needs help getting out of or off of something). The emphasis is definitely on the “me,” and she adds in a little helping syllable between the predicate word and the “me,” so “I’m stuck” comes out sounding like “Stuck-a-ME” It’s the damndest thing I’ve ever heard, but she’s perfectly consistent about it and I guess it makes a weird kind of sense. I’m putting it down to her superfluity of Kraut blood. Stupid Prussians.

4. Mmmm … iPhones. The new ones look so very yummy. I think Mr. Squab and I will be getting some, as a combo Mother’s Day/Anniversary/Father’s Day present to ourselves.

5. And speaking of the anniversary: we went to a great Cuban restaurant for dinner where we ate delicious food and drank Red Stripe beer while sitting on the patio. We then went to see Indiana Jones 4, which – well, you know what I thought of that. You will be pleased to know that I did, in fact, wear underwear. As to whether or not I had to use my snakebite kit … a lady has to have SOME secrets, dammit.

6. Finally, and I can’t believe I almost forgot to blog this, today while running errands at Target someone mistook me for the Hatchling’s GRANDMOTHER. Admittedly, it was a grandmother herself doing the mistaking, so … maybe her eyesight wasn’t so good? And she felt terrible about it afterwards and kept apologizing and complimenting my hairdo (which is a total joke since I had literally not washed or combed my hair in two days), BUT STILL. Fuck. I either need to invest in some trendier clothing or start applying cover-up to my chronic under-eye bags or SOMETHING. Do I really look as tired as I feel? Y’all would tell me, right?

It’s no wonder they get irritated

The Hatchling is at that point where her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds (like, 4-5 new words a day, lately), but her pronunciation is lagging a little behind. Most of the time I can figure out what she’s trying to say from context, and she’s remarkably good natured when we can’t understand her, but I’m sure she occasionally wonders why we’re so stupid. Take, for example, last night. As a special treat, we’re watching some Noggin before she goes to bed, and they’re showing an episode of the Backyardigans, a show she hasn’t seen in a while. I’m showing off my knowledge of the character names to Mr. Squab (because I’m awesome like that) when the Hatchling starts pointing in the direction of the TV and saying “Bugga.”

The Hatchling: Bugga.

Mr. Squab (to me): What’s that mean?

Me: I have no idea.

The Hatchling: Bugga.

Mr. Squab: Bug?

The Hatchling: Bugga.

Mr. Squab: Bugger?

The Hatchling: BUGga.

Mr. Squab: Booger?

The Hatchling: BUGGA. Bugga. Bugga!

Stumped, we redirect her attention to something in the show. About five minutes later, a little light goes on over my head.

Me: Boo-boo, were you saying Backyardigans?

The Hatchling (looking at me, like, DUH): Yah. Bugga.

Really, she’s very patient with us.

I hate viruses

The Hatchling woke up this morning with a temperature of 103.6. She’s been hovering around 100 for the past few days, but this was high enough to send us to the doctor’s office. The pediatrician took one glance down her throat and said, “Oh, yeah – she’s got some nasty looking tonsils there. She’s got tonsillitis.” Then he started asking all these questions about other symptoms: had she been vomiting? (no) Nosebleeds? (no) Rash? (ummmmm …) See, the thing is, the Hatchling, like her benighted mamala, has a tendency towards eczema, a tendency that is exacerbated during allergy season. In other words, now. So, she does have some red bumpy patches, but I thought they were just eczema. But apparently not so much, or at least not entirely. So the doctor looked at her rash, and then looked closer at the skin on her back and face and said, “so she hasn’t been vomiting …” “Nope.” I said. “Except she did this morning, but that was just because she was really pissed at us for taking her temperature. Why?”

Seems the Hatchling has petechiae on her back and face. Those are those red dots that you get sometimes if you vomit really violently or cry really hard – broken capillaries under the skin basically. Only the Hatchling hasn’t been violently vomiting or crying. So the doctor says we’d better do some tests, because sometimes petechiae are caused by other things, like viruses – he mentioned mono – or, you know, low platelet counts. Gulp. So they swabbed her throat to test for strep and poked her little finger to run various blood tests. Fun times! The results came back negative for strep and mono, with a good platelet count but an elevated white count. So the doctor says keep her hydrated and tylenol’ed and bring her back in if her fever hasn’t gone away by Saturday. Oh, and also keep an eye out for unusual bruising or nosebleeds, because if her platelets do start going down we want to know about it asap. But probably it’s just a virus or combination of viruses.

So of course I’m now totally convinced that the Hatchling has leukemia, only I don’t *really* believe that but I kind of superstitiously think that maybe if I preemptively worry about it now it won’t actually come to pass. Because – let’s face it – I am TOTALLY INSANE. Fortunately, I talked to a friend who had just taken her toddler into the doctor and was told that they’re seeing a LOT of young kids with exactly the Hatchling’s symptoms, and there’s some kind of virus going around. Which made me feel better. But dude: if there are four words I do not want to hear at a visit to the pediatrician’s office, they would be “platelets” and “elevated white count.” You know?

Random Tidbits on a Tuesday

1. My hair is driving me crazy. It’s at that in-between stage where it’s not long enough to really do anything with but it’s too long to leave alone. I have to decide if I want to leave it for another month, at which point it will be long enough to put up or back, or chop it all off. I’m leaning towards the CHOP.

2. The Hatchling has two new words that I find extremely cute. #1: for hummus (one of her all-time favorite foods) she says “hummy” which is an excellent combination of hummus and yummy, if you ask me. #2: All wheeled, pedaled, manually (pedually?) propelled vehicles are now known as “whysicles.” This kills me every time she says it.

3. The other evening, during “nakey time,” the Hatchling took a crap on the stairs, stood over it asking “whassat?” until I came in from the kitchen and called her father’s attention to the fact, and then did a little poop-butted dance around the entryway while Mr. Squab and I scrambled for wipesfortheloveofgodWIPES. Her complete equanimity in the face of (butt of?) her own excrement makes me think that maybe she’s not quite ready for the toilet training.

4. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I am now the sheepish owner of a Facebook account. I believe this officially makes me a tool. (But it’s waaaaaaay better than MySpace and the scrabble application makes it all worth while! I tell myself.)

5. This weekend we had a two hour photo session with Katy to capture the Hatchling’s two-ness. This pretty much sums up the Hatchling’s attitude towards the proceedings. Fortunately, Katy is so good that I know we’ll get amazing shots anyway.