Daisy's First Thanksgiving

On Thursday we went up the hill to Grammie's for Thanksgiving dinner. Party of 12 in a 1,000 square foot house, including two eight month olds and a three year old = crowded but fun.


The house Joss grew up in.

Daisy was especially glad to find at least eight other willing arms to hold her up as she marched around the house. Since I've put my back out, I've been really reluctant to indulge her in her desire to be walked everywhere when she can crawl to where she wants to go but, since it was a holiday, I let it go for the most part and let her enjoy some time with her Uncles, Aunts, and grandparents.


Co-opting Uncle Justin

Now that Daisy and her cousin, Ezra, are pushing 8 months, they're getting more interactive and it's fun to watch them attempt to play together. I say "attempt" because right now Daisy is slightly more mobile and so tends to have the upper-hand when it comes to grabbing for or playing with toys. So, what typically happens is that Ezra finds something and Daisy steals it from him - the pacifier in his mouth included! Of course, we're trying to teach Daisy the principle of sharing but the reality is it's a bit early and mostly it's become tuition in how to snatch things gently.


Something tells me that, between his willful sister, Adah, and his cousin, Daisy, poor Ezra is really in for it!

But, Daisy loves to have other kids around her. She lights up like a Christmas tree and squeals with delight whenever she sees another baby or child and Ezra is no exception. Yes, it does make me feel just a teensy-weensy bit guilty for 'dooming' her to be an only child - just not so guilty that I want to go through pregnancy, c-section, and the first 3 months again! She'll just have to have a lot of friends around.

Anyway, it's not just kids that she likes. Just being around people changes her personality entirely. On Sunday we went to Burger King (because Daddy was hung over and wanted to try a burger and fries) and Daisy held court at the front door, turning to watch people enter and leave the restaurant and screaming at them in greeting as they walked through the door.

We attempted to feed Daisy a concoction of Thanksgiving delights but, lately, she's not much into savory foods. I'm trying not to let it trouble me that she only wants to eat fruit, yogurt, and sweet potatoes.

Here's a slideshow of some pics from the day, as well as some others from Saturday, Daddy's 35th birthday celebration.



Meanwhile, Milestones are being hit seemingly daily.

Daisy now has four teeth through - all four front ones (sorry, not through enough to grace us with an easy picture yet) - and now seems to be rubbing her gums in the back. Overall it's been a pretty uneventful experience for us so far. The most inconvenience we've had has been the odd cry out of nowhere. I count us as very lucky - I know teething can be brutal for some kids.

Since she's crawling and climbing, we've obviously had to baby proof the living room where she spends most of her time. This includes erecting a large baby fence to prevent her from getting to un-proofed areas when we're in the bathroom or kitchen for a few moments. This fence has now been dubbed "Baby Jail" since Daisy will pull herself up on it and shake the bars madly, yelling to be let out.



Although I vowed not to let our house be overtaken with baby stuff, safety ends up taking priority. Thus, we also have a foam mat over our ceramic tiles in the entry way, to prevent concussions. I try to let all the changes go because I know it's all temporary and because, at the end of the day, Daisy is happy and healthy.


Look, Mum! Bet I can let go of this hand too! (Reasons why we have a 'Baby Jail')
The activities that entertain Daisy are also changing rapidly. Where before lights and music , things to smack around and thing to chew were the #1 motivators, now she's becoming more nuanced. She loves to hug her furry friends - Boo Bear, Booby Bird, Tommy Tippee, Henry Horsie, and Beefy Bear - every morning after her bottle and, when she's tired, she'll often collapse head-first on top of one of them for a quick snuggle. Books are now reached-for about as often as toys and she delights in seeing you turn the page and point things out to her making the most popular books the ones with words and pictures rather than stories. Demonstrating that she really is trying to take things in, she'll also sit for a good fifteen minutes as you go through all of her word-and-picture flash cards and I'm pretty sure that she knows what a tongue and an ear is by this point. It could be a fluke but she usually pokes her tongue out when the word comes up.

As I was writing this post her nanny called me to the top of the stairs to show me Daisy attempting to clap for the first time. Instead of delicately tapping her hands together, Daisy's version of a clap is a simultaneous shoulder-to-fingertip, head-to-waist, fling. I think her hands make it together in there somewhere but not clearly enough to result in an actual clapping sound. However, it sure is cute and she looks super excited to be doing it.

Finally, in general, Daisy is becoming more vocal. She'll now yell at pictures of people in magazines, waiting to see if they talk back, meep at random people in restaurants and stores in hopes of making a friend, and babbles with some "bu", "ba", "wu", "wa", "mu" sounds as she's playing. Nothing that really makes a word yet (although we could have sworn we heard her say "up" the other day) but I'm sure it won't be long. I just can't wait for the day that she starts screaming my name over and over and over again. (Not.)

In short, her development seems to be speeding up exponentially and she's turning into a little girl vs. a baby before our very eyes. It's so true what they say: it DOES go fast!

More on Free Range Parenting

I'm really getting into this Free Range Parenting thing. I like the concept a lot, although I'm not the sort to blindly follow any sort of "movement" and prefer to pick-and-choose and make up my own mind.

Anyway, this is the basic guide to Free Range Parenting - sort of the 14 commandments. I like it!

Daisy and her new zebra bouncer

HERE I COME!

As I have been telling you, Daisy has been crawling and climbing for some time. However, I have been slacking somewhat on providing video evidence. So, here goes.





I have started to think about Christmas for the first time, now that sickness and family drama seems to be behind us for the time-being.

Questions this year:

• Where to place the tree to avoid out-and-out disaster? I can just see our 8ft tree tumbling toward her head in slow motion, while electrical lights tangle around her neck and glass balls pierce her skull (since everything seems to go straight for the head.)
• Where (and if) to take Daisy to meet Santa for the first time? I say yes, Hubby is not so sure. She'll probably take one look at him and cry but I think it's worth a try, right?
• What to buy munchkin that won't be forgotten about, worn-out, or tossed-aside in 3 seconds flat? I have my eye on a 3-in-1 trike for the main gift and possibly the Learning Home from Fisher Price (although that just reeks of 5-minute-wonder to me.) I'm also looking at some things that probably won't be useful until her 1st birthday, for instance a bicycle seat so we can enjoy bikes around the neighborhood and over to Nan's together. Honestly, I think she'll have more fun unwrapping the gifts than playing with whatever's in the box anyway, so I'm going to stick to one or two bigger things and some stocking stuffers that I'm going to triple-wrap in paper or something. Should keep her busy for, oh, 15 minutes!

OINK OINK

Well, well, well. WHAT a long weekend.

As you know from my previous post (and status updates on FB, if you friend me there), we have been an H1N1 household - or, at least we ASSUME.

For those of you who haven't personally experienced the H1N1 merry-go-round, here are some facts you may not already know:

1. H1N1 does not always present with fever. MY PCP told me that swine flu presents with a high fever so, if you don't have a fever, you don't have swine flu. H1N1 was, therefore, ruled out for me right away. Daisy did not have a fever. Although she was warm to the touch, her temp was only 98.0. Her pediatrician tested her for it anyway and she tested positive. The ped said that some kids are presenting with mild forms of the flu (thankfully, Daisy) but that doesn't mean that it isn't H1N1. Of course, this also makes me think that the actual cases of H1N1 are under-diagnosed. If you don't have a fever, you're less likely to go to the doctor and, if you do, some doctors are not on-top of the latest info enough to know to still test you.
2. The test for swine flu in infants IS NOT FUN. It's basically a cue-tip on steroids, shoved up their nose and to the back of their throat and held there for 10 seconds. Because I already had the flu when Daisy had her appointment, I didn't go into the pediatrician's office. (Didn't really want to wear the mask and be looked-at like a lepper by fearful moms and dads.) Poor Daddy, therefore, was left with the task of holding Daisy down as the doctor shoved the thing up her nose. He came out crying and said that it was the first time he had ever seen real fear in Daisy's eyes. Of course, that made me cry too. Parenthood makes weepies out of the best of us.
3. There is, actually, no specific swine flu test. It's just a test to determine if you have Influenza A or B. H1N1 falls within Influenza A. They don't have a test that differentiates between types of A viruses, however, so, if you have A, doctors are treating you as if you have the oinkers. So, we could actually of NOT had swine flu. Who knows?

On top of all of this is the weird circumstances around how we think we caught the flu.

The weekend before we all got sick, Daisy's nanny, Brandy, reported that her husband had the flu. He went to the emergency room and was tested for H1N1; they told him he didn't have it. Then Brandy got sick on Tuesday. Then I started to cough on Wednesday night and Daisy woke up sick on Thursday. All circumstantial, rational evidence suggests that we caught what Brandy and her husband had.

BUT Brandy's husband tested negative for the swine flu and both of them had fevers and really bad aches over the course of several days, while Hubby, Daisy, and I did not have fevers and were really only sick for a few days. In addition, my doc diagnosed me with a sinus infection on Friday morning, while Joss and Daisy were both examined for the same and told they did not have one.

And, yes, if you're reading this and thinking it's all a bit confusing, well, it is. In the absense of any information (see my previous posts on flu issues), poor information (as in my conversations with the pediatrician's receptionist about Daisy's second flu shot, or my misinformed PCP), or confusing information (as in the "is it swine flu?" question) people tend to worry, fret, and panic. Just yesterday 5,000 people lined up around a Sacramento school from 8am in the morning to get one of 2,000 H1N1 vaccines being offered at a free clinic that wasn't even opening until 3:30pm. (Of course, more people probably caught the flu from standing in line than actually were saved from it by getting the vaccine.)

Now, of course, the question arises: Do WE still need to get vaccinated? Given that we still don't know if we actually had swine flu, perhaps we do? Obviously, that's another call to the pediatrician. All I can say is that I'm going to wait for Mercy to get it in; I am not standing in a line of 5,000 people for 8 hours.

As for how we're doing now, our residual symptoms seem to be a cough and a stuffy nose. Otherwise, we're basically out the other side... for now. I'm sure this won't be our last brush with sickness over the course of the flu season, however, so I hesitate to breathe a sigh of relief yet.

Beyond better, Daisy seems to have emerged from the oinkers with renewed vigor, leaving Hubby and I trying desperately to keep up with her. She's crawling around at lightening speed, pulling herself up on every surface available, trying to take steps on her own (but falling and crying), attempting to climb the stairs, and seems magnetically pulled to just about anything that can cause her harm. Despite how exhausting and frustrating this can be when you're tired and sick (or, in my case, immobile with a bad back), it's so fun to watch her jam around the living room, pulling toys out of her toy box, hitting things to make noise, rattling her rattles, pushing her balls, and flipping through books - all on her own! It's amazing how far she's come so fast. She's barely 7 months old!

As soon as I get my wits about me again, I'll try and post some pics and video of her in action.

Speak of the devil...

It's pretty interesting that flu vaccines were the topic of my last two blog entries because now we actually HAVE flu. And wouldn't you know it, our first brush with full family sickness had to be with the biggest, most-dreaded beasty of the flu season - H1N1.

Yes, oink, Daisy has the swine flu.

I also have flu (which strain I don't know) and a sinus infection and, as for Hubby, he's got something a-brewing - he actually got tested for strep throat.

AWESOME.

Fortunately, we caught it soon enough for her to be able to take Tamiflu, which we started today. She doesn't have a fever and so we just have to keep our eyes open for breathing difficulties, which might indicate that she's heading toward pneumonia. Also, any signs she is getting worse not better, mean an immediate trip back to her pediatrician.

Poor thing, though. Her nose is running like a tap, her eyes are swollen and red, she's coughing, sneezing, and she can barely breath. Eating is hard - probably because of the breathing thing and the amount of mucus stuck in her throat. She may also have a sore throat... how would I know?

Anyway, she's upset right now and so I have to go; she's had a grand total of 45 minutes in naps today. Ack! I'll blog more on her progress later.

Wish us luck!

Flupdate

Yes, I know... enough already with the play on words.

Just a quick update on the info I got from the pediatrician when she called back on Friday evening.

1. Only 10% of the seasonal flu vaccine needed for 2009 was produced because the manufacturers switched to producing H1N1. She doesn't know if they will be able to produce any more.
2. Only once in the last five years have manufacturers produced enough of the seasonal flu vaccine to enable healthcare providers to vaccinate all kids 2x, as recommended.
3. Two shots is best but one shot is better than nothing. 90% of my pediatrician's patients won't even get the first shot and so I should consider Daisy "lucky". (WTF?)
4. As for H1N1, Mercy Med Group is on the waiting list for the vaccine and calls the manufacturers weekly to determine availability. (I'd like them to change that to daily, but that's just me. Bug the crap out of them until they roll-over and send the shipment my way!)
5. Even the scheduled county H1N1 vaccination clinics may need to be pushed-back and restrictions made even tighter re: who gets it, because the vaccine is not getting shipped fast enough.

Interestingly, our pediatrician decided to try and turn our conversation into a "down with government involvement in my health-care" conversation, to which I informed her that I come from England where everything is provided by the government and that everyone I know in England seems to have no problem getting vaccinated thankyouverymuch.

As far as I can tell, the six major manufacturers of the flu vaccine are private entities, so, it may actually follow that more government involvement might have been necessary, since the private sector seems to have failed to meet demand in four of the last five years.

The H1N1 issue, however, remains a mystery re: when we, the lowly public, will get it. The CDC website shows 2,953,000 doses have already been shipped to California, most of which has been given to healthcare workers and, coinkidentally, to Kaiser Permanente patients. (Funny how KP is the primary provider for state workers. Hmmm...) Anyway, the Sac County public clinic remains unchanged since 11/6, despite the fact that I'm hearing rumblings that these dates may need to be pushed-out. I'm sure standing in line for these clinics is going to be "fun" also. As for when our actual health-care providers will get the vaccine. Who knows?

Meanwhile, we can all sleep safely tonight knowing that the folks on Wall Street are well protected.

Conflusion

Today was supposed to be Daisy's booster shot for the seasonal flu vaccine. Yesterday, however, the pediatrician's office called and left a message on our answering machine to say that they no longer had the vaccine and our appointment was cancelled.

That's it. Cancelled. Not, needed to be rescheduled. Not, here is some more information about what else you might do. Just cancelled like, oh well, nevermind.

All I've been hearing for the last two flippin' months is what a doozy of a flu season it's going to be and how smart parents will get their kids vaccinated, stat, for both the seasonal and H1N1 flu. I'm all about that. Better to be safe than sorry, right? But, it seems, all of that is just a load of hyped-up rubbish. Aparently, there's no rush or panic at all, at least on the part of Mercy Medical Group. (Which, on more than one occasion in the last few years, has proven to me that it's a thoroughly worthless organization that doesn't understand the meaning of health care. If it wasn't for a couple of great doctors - my PCP and our pediatrician herself - I'd be gone to Kaiser with Hubby. Yes, to Kaiser. It's THAT BAD.)

So, this morning I called the pediatrician's office. You know, one of those WTF!? calls. I was told that they are no longer offering booster shots of the seasonal flu vaccines, period, due to a national shortage and that my daughter was already covered from the first shot anyway. Of course, I asked the million-dollar question - so, why the **ck did you need her to come in for a booster shot in the first place, then? After much stumbling around her words, the receptionist (who clearly needed better information if she was going to be on the front-lines of defense against a bunch of freaking out parents), told me that the booster shot was about protecting Daisy from the next flu season and so she may just now need to get two shots next season.

Clearly, this makes no sense, especially since everything I'm reading online tells me that babies need two shots, one month apart, for the vaccine to be effective. So, either all that is a lie we've been told in years past just to get us in for a second co-pay OR it's a lie that Daisy is protected with one shot. It's one or the other. I asked the receptionist to get the doctor or a nurse (someone who understands the medicine) to call me back to explain to me why and how Daisy is protected with, what I'm still assuming to be, 1/2 the dose.

I'm well aware that this may change nothing -a national shortage will not be averted by this explanation or my anger - but I'd at least like to have straight talk and solid information. Ya know, the "care" part of the health care equation. Honestly, I get better care for my car from my Nissan service center - they at least tell me what my car needs and when and then send me reminders and coupons to ensure I come in and take care of it. A car, for chrissakes! My car gets better service than my daughter. Sometimes I think this country is going to end up going to hell in a handbasket; the priorities are all upside down.

At the same time I was on the phone getting BS'd about the seasonal vaccine, I asked about the H1N1 flu vaccine. When we were there for seasonal-flu shot #1 last month, we were told that they didn't know when they would be getting one in and that they were not taking names for a waiting list but that they would know more at our next appointment for the booster shot. NOW, aparently, there is, after all, a waiting list. (Thanks for letting me know, folks.) BUT they still don't have the vaccine and have no idea when they'll be getting it in. Which is just bullshit (yes, I said shit on my baby blog - get over it) in my opinion because I've seen plenty of moms on FB getting themselves and their babies vaccinated.

My sister-in-law who works with lobbyists at the Capitol and who knows this kind of stuff, says the County did get some vaccines in but not enough, yet still gave some to Kaiser Permanente. My company is even hosting a flu vaccine clinic in two weeks that offers the H1N1 for a $25 fee to anyone over 9 years of age, not just at-risk groups. Aparently if you're willing to pay, your age and need is no object. (Why am I shocked?)

So, the question remains: why can't Mercy Medical Group get their act together and advocate on behalf of their patients to get their most at-risk customers - babies and kids - protected?

Again, the part that gets me is how the fear of GOD has been put into us for the last two months about how important this is, whipping parents up into a frenzy of should we or shouldn't we, and now it's all like, calm down, everything's going to be ok, we'll get it at some point and call you!

While I'm being peddled (false?) calm on one front, I'm being sold panic on the other.

All news is that January will bring around a second wave of swine-flu that will knock our socks off. Yet, Sacramento County readily admits that they only got 45% of their anticipated swine flu vaccine shipment and their goal of getting all at-risk groups vaccinated with the first shot by December 31st, may be in jeopardy. So, if we can't get Daisy vaccinated with the first shot until December, then her second shot (which she aparently does need for the H1N1) won't be until January, right in the middle of wave-of-panic-number-2.

You know, I could blame the government or the vaccine producers for this - I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around - but I don't pay the government for my health insurance. You can't have it both ways - keep out of my health care Mr. President but be to blame when it all goes wrong. So, I'm not going down that path. I do, however, pay Mercy Medical Group for my health "care" and so, what makes me the most irked, is the lack of good information from them.

And it just makes no sense.

I am 100% confident that I was not the first, nor will I be the last, person who is calling, worried, angry, and trying to figure out how best to protect their kids, their spouse, their mother or father. You would think that, instead of putting non-medical staff in charge of responding to these negative calls, and allowing frustration and misinformation to build in the process, there would be some kind of mass communication effort from the health group, out to patients, explaining to them where good and up-to-date information can be found.

I'm in communications every day and, when something goes wrong with the software at the company I work at, I don't wait for 500 different users to call me pissed off because they've been trying to access the system all day without succes - because, not only would this be a collossal waste of my time, I know it would make my customers even more frustrated. What I do is send out an email to each of them, letting them know what's going on, how we're planning to address the situation, and what they should do as a result.

Ok, so maybe they don't have everyone's email addresses. (Which is ridiculous in this day and age but likely true - I've never been asked for my email by any of my doctors.) Anyway, that's besides the point. They surely have patient phone numbers. If local politicians seem to be able to raise enough money to place automated robo-calls to my home number each month, asking for my support, why can't multi-billion dollar health organizations do the same with important information about the health of me and my family?

My suggestion, Mercy Medical Group:

1. Set up a swine-flu website - a real one with updated information specific to your group and its patients, not just some place-holder with information about hand-washing that I can get from Google, just so you can say you have a swine-flu page.
2. Send out a robocall to all your patients letting them know the current status of both flu vaccines, clarifying what they're doing to address that at the local level, and providing the url of the website in #1 to help them get more information.

My company sent out an email this week to say that premiums had risen 13% just in the last 12 months for our health insurance. I would hope that, with the 13% on top of all the other billions of dollars these corporations reap on the backs of sick people, they could at least handle a basic communications plan.

I guess I hope for too much.

Bottom line: none of us is currently 100% vaccinated for the seasonal OR swine flu.

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Edited to add: As soon as I posted this, our company sent out an email to say that the company swine/seasonal flu clinic had been canceled because the company that administers the vaccines did not get their shipment of the vaccine.

New Tricks and Treats

Daisy is fully mobile people. And I mean, FULLY MOBILE.



Beyond crawling she is climbing (up us, up the furniture, you name it - as you can see above) and just dying to walk all the time. It kills our backs to have to prop her up as she stomps around the living room all day. She's a persuasive little missy, however. One look at that pouty-face and we're all "Okaaaay!"

Now that she has figured out that she can sit-up in her crib (see previous post) she now utilizes the space to it's full advantage. She moves all around as she's moaning herself to sleep and then has now taken to throwing her binkie out of the crib in a "I refuse to nap!"tantrum. (She only gets a binkie for naps, not for bedtime.) Unfortunately, all of this means some reconfiguration of the crib bumpers and the crib linens. I have a feeling that "reconfiguration" is going to become the new team sport around here.

Saturday, as you all know, was Halloween and Daisy slept all the way through a potential Halloween fair I was going to take her to in old town Folsom. Instead, we settled for just trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.



As I suspected, the plush monkey-suit lasted all of, oh, about 15 minutes. We made it around the key houses, grabbed some candy for Daddy and then headed home where we proceeded to meltdown. Even despite the crying, I couldn't help but feel immense pride and excitement when I head down our street with our little money in my arms, ready for her first trick-or-treating experience.


Daisy and Brad, our next-door Neighbor.

After all the excitement, we put Daisy down and got dressed-up for our adult party. It was kinda weird to be thinking about going out when we'd normally be scrubbing bottles, tidying toys, and settling down for the night. And boy, lemme tell ya, was it hard to get up @ 6am the next morning. That's parenthood, I guess!