Pneumonia, Bronchitis, Infections, oh my!

It’s been a rough couple or three weeks around here. Z. celebrated his first birthday by going to the doctor and learning he’s going to need tubes to stop the ear infections. Just what every kid wants: a pony, a Hot Wheels track, and minor outpatient surgery.

We’ve all been fighting one bug or another. M. had bronchitis and maybe still does. For over a week I put up with no sleep, a hacking cough, and a sinus headache that felt like Tiger Woods was teeing off with my melon, before going to a doctor and finding out I had pneumonia. And Z’s temperature has been jumping up and down like a ten year old full of Mountain Dew on a trampoline.

Even the four legged critters are getting in on the act. Molly can barely bend her back legs these days and walks around like Freddy G. Sanford, Zo’ hasn’t kept a meal down properly in ages, and one of the cats has been leaving little prezzies all over the basement floor. (We’re always thankful for small favors: Zo’s accidents have all been in the garage and the cats are doing all of their damage on the concrete slab floor of the unfinished basement. So it could be so much worse.)

The specific ailments and general malaise put a bit of a damper on Z’s first birthday, so we decided to celebrate it a couple of times. On his actual birthday, he had doctor’s appointments and some other matters to attend to, so by the time he got home he barely had time to blow out the singular candle on his birthday cupcake. But as gifted and talented as young Z’ster is, we’re pretty sure he can’t read a calendar yet, so we decided to spring a second, more formal shindig for him the following weekend, over at M’s folks’ place in Nebraska.

I don’t think Z. knows from birthdays. He has no preconceptions of Chuckie Cheese or rented clowns or pony rides, and we’d like to keep it that way for a while. Give the boy a couple of other kids to play with, some good food, and a yard full of dogs, and he’s happy as a clam.




He’s been to Nebraska four times now, and he has the routine down: sleep for two hours on the drive there, run around like a maniac playing with the other kids, stuff face full of food, then sleep for a couple of hours on the way home. He seems to be a pretty good traveler; he even slept through the blue light special when someone’s lead foot got away from him.