Drugging my children and proud of it…

Anyone here ever had to drug a baby? Show of hands, please?

My daughter got her first ear infection at three months. Armed with a prescription for Amoxicillin, I prepared to dose her twice a day for ten days. I held her gently in my arms, and inserted the medicine syringe.

Daughter: What is this crap? Are you kidding me? Do you really think I’m going to swallow that garbage?
Me: Hold still. Drink it.
Daughter: Oh, hell no. ::squirm, fuss::
Me: (prying her mouth open and putting her in a headlock). Drink it, damn it! You have to!
Daughter: Nanananana…no I don’t! And you can’t make me!
Me: Wanna bet? (squirts the syringe into her cheeks, holding her upside down)
Daughter: (gives me an evil eye and spits the medicine in my face).

Repeat for 10 days. Need I say more? The child didn’t get the required dose, we ended up back in the pediatrician’s office, and she got a Rocephin shot.

3 months later:
Doctor: She’s got an ear infection. I’ll give you a prescription.
Me: Give her a shot.
Doctor: Well, for insurance purposes, we have to try the antibiotics first.
Me: She won’t take it.
Doctor: You just have to hold her down and force the medicine.
Me: (hysterical laughter)

My son is polar opposite. He thinks drugs are candy. If he could have medicine every day, he’d be thrilled. As for my daughter? She thinks it’s rat poison…

He could wrap his legs behind his head . . .

My husband is a human pretzel. This is likely because at the tender age of three, his older brothers and sisters (five of them) would gang up on him and put his ankles behind his head. When I met him, he could put both ankles behind his head, balance on his palms, and walk around the room. It was quite the party trick, I must say.

Then there’s me. I have the flexibility of a concrete slab. I had dreams of being the next Shannon Miller or the Nadia Comaneche (sp.?). At the age of seven, I was turning cartwheels and trying my best to do the splits. I think my legs managed to get twelve inches apart, at best. After two years of trying to stretch and learn the splits, practicing every night, I gave up. My hips just don’t go that way. :hissyfit:But, I loved every minute of it, even though I ran into the vault and landed upside down on my head. Yes, I was very coordinated. A natural.

(A natural klutz, that is).

This actually factored into the naming of our children. We decided that we could never name our daughter Grace because of my er…delicate sense of balance. “Way to go, Grace,” would be a sarcastic remark, should she inherit my genes.

So imagine my shock when my son when to a birthday party and was asked to straddle his legs to warm up. The other children had their legs in a neat triangle position. And my boy was doing the middle splits.

You watch. My poor daughter will have Olympic aspirations and be unable to do the splits. And my son will wrap his legs around his head.

Classrooms and Reunions

I’m about to venture back into my classroom today. This past weekend I attended the 25th anniversary of the Notre Dame Folk Choir. It was fun meeting up with old, familiar faces. We were nicknamed the “OC” by the current college kids. At first, we thought they meant we were like the young, hip actors on the television show by the same name.

Uh, no. That would be “OC” as in Old Choir.

Sigh.

As any teacher might tell you, going back to your classroom after a sub is a bit like entering a war zone when the battle is over. You wonder which children showed their evil side, which children were good, and how many papers are waiting to be graded. Of course, the kids will demand, “Why didn’t you grade my paper?” Me: Uh, because I just got it five minutes ago?
Kid: But I want to know my grade!
Me: That’s nice. Sit down.

Sometimes I fantasize about a job with Flex time where I could actually leave the work at the office and pick up where I left off when I return. Do those exist, I wonder?

In any case, it’s good to be back home. I’ll be blog-hopping like mad later today, catching up on everyone’s news.

Frantic Cleaning

Do you ever go into high gear, cleaning frantically when relatives are coming? I do. This is not to say that my house is a complete mess, but my office where I work is, er, creative. Usually when the relatives come, I fling everything on the desk into a big box and hide it. The problem is, I’ve done this for the past four months which equaled four boxes of junk. Finally when my husband was away, I spent all day Sunday going through the boxes, sorting, filing, and throwing stuff out.

Today I have 11 people coming to my house for my daughter’s baptism on Sunday. To top it off, the poor baby came down with a virus. So I have a sick, screaming baby, a house that needs cleaning, and ELEVEN people coming for dinner tonight. Can we say–AAAAHHHHH!!!

I bought a bottle of wine for dinner tonight. I might just have to find myself a corner and savor it to keep my sanity.

Now, off to scrub toilets. Which house cleaning job do you hate most? :batman: (I hate mopping).

History trivia: In Victorian times, the seaside was considered good for your health. A bathing cart (completely covered) would take a woman into the ocean from the beach, they would dunk her (clothed in a woolen bathing suit) a few times, and then the cart would return. This was to maintain a woman’s privacy. Dunkings were considered quite healthful.

Alone

I’m alone, I’m alone!!!

Well, almost. My husband is on a trip out of town, my 1 year old is asleep, and my 3 year old is engrossed in The Jungle Book. Life is pretty sweet right now.

It’s like having a box full of your favorite candy and not knowing which one to taste first. Do I write pages on my new book? Do I clean my house with reckless abandon (pardon me, while I pick myself off the floor laughing.)? Do I read a favorite book?

What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re alone?

A spoof on Star Wars

If anyone here enjoys Star Wars, the new trailer for Episode III has been up for a while. Watch that trailer first. Then watch the spoof on the trailer here. Right click whatever size you want to view ( I did medium sized) and save the target to your desktop. Then watch the spoof. It’s hilarious. I love corny humor.

In other news, I’m still waiting to hear from Mills & Boon. They need a smilie with twiddling thumbs. I’m going to try and knock out three new pages on my book and see where that leads me. I have several storylines that are going to collide in this next part, and I have to make sure each one is fleshed out enough. I tend to layer when I write, getting the bare bones first, and then going back over and over, adding a little more with each revisions as I work my way toward the new part. It’s an …er…interesting process. But I get there in my own sweet time. I’ve also updated my bio page in an effort to procrastinate.

History trivia for today: (**Updated) Underwear was first fastened using ties. Buttons were not used on underwear until the middle of the seventeenth century. The modern zipper was not in use until after the first World War.

Happy, Happy Birthday Baby

It’s my baby girl’s first birthday today. I can’t believe she’s one. The time has really flown. Of course, a baby photo is required to mark the occasion. Here we go:

The real reason for my excitement is that we get to flip the car seat around, AND no more formula! I swear, the rule of no milk until age one, must have been created by Enfamil and Similac. But it’s whole milk for us! Saving lots of money, money, money! Yippee!

For today’s history trivia, here’s the history of the birthday cake:

Some say the Greeks used to take cakes to the temple of the Goddess of the moon, Artemis. They took round cakes to represent the full moon. Another view is that the tradition of the birthday cake started in Germany. A bread was made in the shape of baby Jesus’ swaddling clothes. Geburtstagorten is another type of German cake that has been used for birthday. Hundreds of years ago it was customary to add small surprises to birthday cakes. When the guests received a slice, the different items were used to predict the future. Coins meant great wealth, a thimble meant you’d never marry.

**Can you imagine how ticked off a guest might have been if they got a thimble in their slice?

Victorian recipes

All right, here we go:

From The Boston Cook Book, 1884 by Mrs. D. A. Lincoln

Pound Cake by Miss Ward
1 pound butter
1 pound sugar
10 eggs
1 pound flour
1/2 wineglass wine
1/2 wineglass brandy

Cream the butter; add the sugar, yolks of the eggs, wine, brandy, whites of the eggs, and the flour. Put currants into one fourth of the dough and almonds, blanched and pounded in rose water, into another part. Leave the remainder plain. Fill very small round tins three quarters full. Into half of those containing the plain dough put small pieces of citron, three in each, inserting the citron upright a little way into the dough. Sift sugar over the tops of those containing the citron and almond before putting them into the oven. Bake twenty minutes. Frost the plain and currant cakes. Pound cake is lighter when baked in small cakes than in loaves.
**Notes from Michelle:
Notice how she didn’t have an oven temperature?? I imagine it must have been very hard to cook without any way of knowing how hot the oven would be. Also, half the ingredients were in the directions and not the initial list of ingredients. What is citron? Candied lemon?? And rose water? I’m guessing she was making the equivalent of almond extract.
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Wine, anyone?

I love a good glass of white wine. The problem is, I haven’t found enough types of wine that I like. I hate the really dry wines, but I don’t want them as sweet as Kool-Aid either. When I went to Italy with my husband, we had some WONDERFUL house wines, but I didn’t have a clue what I was drinking. They just came with the meal.

So, I’d love to know, what’s your favorite white wine? Doesn’t have to be a brand name, but is there a particular kind like Riesling, Chardonnay? I want to try some new things. Recommendations would be great!

Another historical tidbit for you: In medieval Ireland, it was rare for a man or woman to marry only once. Divorce was common, and either side could back out of a marriage for various reasons (including impotence!). Even priests could marry. It was only after the 12th century when the Anglo-Normans invaded that matters began to change.

The most romantic gesture ever

Some husbands give flowers and candy to be romantic. Mine just gave me the most romantic gift ever. He stayed home with our sick baby for two days, and this morning when I came home from teaching to take her to the doctor, I came home to a clean house. The living room was clean, the kitchen was spotless with counters wiped down, and the kids’ rooms were immaculate.

In the past, he’s brought home flowers spontaneously. But, in my book, this is the biggest bouquet he’s ever given me in my life–a spotless house and taking care of a sick baby.

What’s the most romantic thing your spouse or significant other has done for you?