Toby's Farm Animals

Before we left for daycare this morning, Toby INSISTED on putting all of his farm animals into his toy farm. This is no easy task with the number of animals he has on the go -- he hadn’t yet realized that there weren’t enough stalls to accommodate all of them at one time, but thankfully he also (apparently) doesn’t yet realize that co-habitation of pigs and horses or cows and dogs aren’t a good idea.

And so the many animals that Toby owns were all nicely tucked away together in variously unique and inappropriate sleeping arrangements and off we were to day care.

Yeah, right. Not so fast.

“Animals sleeping. Mommy sing song?” he said quietly, still on his knees in front of his precious farm.

I suggested to him that maybe HE could sing them a good night song before we left.

“No.” he said definitively. I thought it might be sweet to hear him sing so I tried to convince him further, ”Oh, come on, Toby, sing a song to your animals. They’re all going to sleep and need to be tucked in…”

My tough boy would have none of that.

“No!”

I then suggested he sing another song. Maybe Old Macdonald had a farm?

“No.”

If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands?

“No.”

What about Jingle Bells? (Toby LOOOOOVES jingle bells…)

“No. Toby go to Daycare.”

And so up we got and walked over to the front door. But just as I turned and started to put on my boots, Toby’s empathetic side overpowered his manly exterior and he went racing back to his farm.

Thinking I couldn’t see him, Toby knelt down to the farm and whispered into the window in the softest whisper I’ve heard him use “Jingle bells jingle bells….night night animals…I love you”

I pretended not to notice and gave him an extra hard and manly pat on the back on the way out the door….and an extra big kiss, too.

The Trip to Florida

With the visit to Florida already quickly dissipating from my memory, I feel some anxiety about jotting down my experience so I have at least SOME record of it on my blog in which I don’t complain about customs or sick kids. It’s not an easy task, reflecting on vacation while drowning in mounds of paperwork and anxious patients that seemingly sat on my doorstep AWAITING my return from a FULL WEEK AWAY. How DARE I.

So to make writing and reading easier for both of us, I present to you – my week in Florida -- Randy Gangbar style.

Destination: Florida

Leaving on the trip:

1 toddler

1 elderly-wheelchair-dependent-eager-yet-slightly-confused-grandpa

2 vivacious and energy charged women full of vim and vigor, (with an optimistic bottle of gin in hand)

People who returned from Florida 1 week later:

1 tired toddler (+antibiotics)

1 doting grandma (10lb lighter)

1 tired, cranky mother with a few extra grey hairs

1 slightly-younger-seeming-still-wheelchair-dependent-slightly-confused-but-just-as-excited-and-doting-grandpa

The 1-ounce of gin that remained….

Number of hours spent in transit: 19

Number of flight delays: 1

Number of hours spent on the plane during a normally scheduled naptime: 6

Number of hours (the toddler) actually spent sleeping on the plane: 1

Number of trips to the beach: 4

Number of hours we spent playing with balls: 26

Number of beach balls we purchased on the trip: 3

Average beach ball cost: $1.99 (maybe that’s why we had to buy 3…)

Number of seashells collected by my father: 47

Number of seashells we managed to smuggle home through customs for Daddy: 2

Number of different bodies of water we could see from our condo: 5

Number of times Toby went swimming: 0

Number of times I tried to GET him to go swimming: 6

Number of times my dad leapt out of his wheelchair, dropped his blanket and insisted on walking down to the ocean to put his feet in the water to show Toby that it wasn’t scary but, in fact, exciting: 1

Length of time it took to get my dad from the wheelchair to the ocean: 10 min

Number of women it took to help him down to the ocean: 2

Number of times my dad hopped out of his wheelchair and attempted to RUN on the beach with Toby: 1

Number of years it has been since I’ve seen my father run: 10

Number of years I am going to remember this moment for: …1000….

Number of times I got to go for a run on the beach: 3

Number of times I indulged in a lunch of corona and lime chips: 5

Number of novels read (by my mother and myself): 4

Number of jigsaw puzzles completed: 2 1/2

Cumulative number of afternoon naps taken: 19

Number of times we ate out at a restaurant: 3

Number of times we got food poisoning from a restaurant: 1 (my mom - -hence the 10lb weight loss…)

Number of dependents I was then left to feed, clothe and entertain by myself as my mom recovered: 2

Number of trips to local urgent care centre: 1 (for Toby)

Percent more that the doctors in America charge than we charge in Canada: 600%

Number of medications prescribed to Toby: 3

Number of meds that are “banned in Canada” that he was prescribed: 1

Number of corvettes seen: 3

Number of old gray haired couples NOT wearing matching outfits: 0

Number of times my dad asked where we were: 5

Number of times Toby asked where we were: 35

Number of Alligators at the Naples Zoo: 8 (7 live, 1 plastic)

Number of holes we played at Jungle Zoo Mini Golf: 15

Number of times Toby got a hole in 1: 2 (SERIOUSLY!!! The kid has talent…)

Number of times my mom got a hole in 1: 2

Number of times I got a hole in one: 0

Number of pedicures: 2 (my dad and I)

Number of years my mom has been nagging my dad to “get his ugly toenails dealt with”: 5

Number of times my father has ever had a pedicure before: 0

Number of minutes it took to convince him: 0

Number of large, loud American women who laughed and chatted him up during his pedicure: 3

Number of times they said he was “cute”: 5

Average number of temper tantrums per day: 7 (Toby: 6, Mommy: 1)

Number of boxes of goldfish crackers we went through: 3

Number of successful baths: 1

Number of attempts at bath: 6

Number of times I had to carry the kid out of the local store kicking and screaming: 3

Number of items I purchased something in order to avoid a temper tantrum: 3

Number of times it worked: 0

Number of diapers mommy packed: 38

Number of diapers used by Toby: 39 (don’t ask)

Number of hours it took us to get home: 8

Number of hours waiting for our luggage: 1

Number of kisses Daddy gave to Mommy and Toby when he picked us up at the airport: 100

Number of kisses Mommy gave to Daddy: 101…

The trip was an adventure of ups and downs. I wouldn’t call it the most RELAXING week of my life, but in hindsight the trip was never really about MY relaxation; it was about something much bigger and greater than that. Sometimes in life you are given moments that you recognize at the time will stay with you forever – I only wish that Toby could someday look back on and remember for himself the week he spent with his beloved Gaga and Papa; laughing, hitting balls, and running in the sand together. I guess that’s one of the many things I will just have to do for him, and I will remind him of it with laughter and nostalgia (and maybe leave out the parts about the urgent care centre and the 39^th diaper…)

The U.S. Medical System and us

(This post was written 3 days into our trip to Florida...)

Today I was given the gift of my first real interaction with the US medical system.

Poor Toby has had a cough and cold for 2 days now. Yesterday night he developed a fever and then today his cough got more and more ominous. Luckily, (as any parent of a previously intubated child does) I had made a mental note of the urgent care center on our way into town. Which, as it turns out, is about a 2-minute walk from our condo. After some deliberation, we decided to venture over.

The first difference I noticed was that it was EMPTY. The second difference was the $200 price tag on a visit. I have to admit, the receptionist was very kind; she cringed a bit when quoting me the cost of the visit but didn’t even flinch when I suggested that I could set up my own clinic on the front lawn, charge half the price and still enjoy a 600% raise.

It still took 20 minutes to be seen even though we were the ONLY ONES THERE. But the physician assistant was very nice. He even offered to let me listen to my own kid’s lungs (which I declined), and then offered to prescribe him the cough medicine of my choice. I sweetly thanked him but explained that ALL cough medicines for children under 5 are BANNED in Canada. He still prescribed me one.

I have to admit- - he was VERY thorough. And Toby didn’t even cry when he was poked and prodded; this gentleman had a lovely demeanor. After a full 20-minute visit, Toby was diagnosed with bilateral ear infections and croup.

Yes, that’s right. Croup. We are constantly under the shadow of the dreaded croup. But this time we are armed with antibiotics, decadron and COUGH MEDICINE (!!!) to help combat it.

On our way out the door we were handed the $200 bill and FIVE large stickers. I have to admit -- although our rates are significantly lower at our office, we only ever give out ONE, maybe TWO stickers. (And not usually the big ones, either.) Relieved to be done, I leaned over to the apprehensive receptionist and admitted to her in a whisper, “OK…that was well worth it…”

Carefree Travels : Part I

Today is one of those days that I will remind myself of ever time I’m complaining about another boring lazy day at home with the kid.

Today we set out on an adventure; my mother and I decided to take the 2 year old and my 82-year-old father to Florida for a week. By ourselves.

Toby has never been on a plane before. My dad has but probably can’t remember. They both need a nap right around the time the flight was due to take off and travel with more carry on and checked luggage than is currently acceptable with the new security measures. Yet still we remained optimistic. We allotted 3 hours lieu time and ended our strategic conversations optimistically discussing what duty free items we would reward ourselves with at the end of the day.

As it turns out, three hours was pushing our luck. It took us an hour in itself to get the two “chair” dependents and their gear to customs. And another half hour to get them over to AGRICULTURAL customs. Never been there before? Neither had I. Until my mother decided to pack a SINGLE tangerine as a special treat for Toby. I have to say—that wasn’t her downfall. What was her fault was TELLING the cranky customs agent about it.

Agricultural customs is an interesting place. There are a lot of sketchy looking people there. We would know- - we stood in line with them. Seriously -- what harm could a big tattooed leather jacket-wearing individual do with AGRICULTURE? If they were being biased why didn’t they send the guy to “guns and rock and roll customs” instead of AGRIGULCUTRAL customs. We kept our mouths shut and our eyes to the floor as we humbly approached the head honcho in our conga line of wheelchairs-strollers-oversized-luggage-and-bags and declared our measly little tangerine.

You would think the “wizard of agriculture” would LAUGH at our paltry piece of fruit, or even scold his humble disciples for delivering him such feeble offerings. Oh, no. He took our tangerine VERY seriously. My mother had to keep a straight face while elaborating on WHY she had brought this tangerine with her and WHRE she had gotten it and when PRECISELY she had planned to consume it. Even Toby’s wailing, “GO!!! TOBY WANT TO GO!!!” Didn’t deter him from his intense citrus questioning. This man may have been arrogant. He may have been a complete prick. But he had found his calling and was doing the job he was MEANT to do. And he did it with finesse.

We were then borderline behind schedule. If you can quantify yourself as “behind schedule” when still 1.5 hours before departure.

Next step : security. My mother chose that moment to comment on the stupid agriculture guru. Our porter even cringed-- had she not READ the news headlines about NOT making JOKES in the airport? Even TOBY cringed. Or maybe it was stroller cramps setting in. Either way, we didn’t get any royal treatment at security. We found ourselves helping the cripples out of their vehicles, taking their shoes off and then crossing our fingers that hey wouldn’t fall or temper-tantrum through the security body check device without their devoted women by their sides.

We took a brief repose to allow Toby to throw yoghurt all over us and him, and my mother and I to take a nauseating bite of some overpriced stale sandwich, and then headed through the next security “total body search” line. At least these guys were SOMEWHAT more understanding. As Toby launched himself into a full on limb flailing temper tantrum on top of the strip search table they shrewdly ASKED if I could call my mother over to help out so I could be “patted down”. No one likes to be “patted down” (especially, as it turns out, Toby) but it was kind of them to ask my mother to help. It made the whole thing seem somewhat more humane. Sort of.

Another half hour later we arrived at our gate. I was drenched in sweat and the tears, snot and yoghurt of my (still wailing) kid, while my mother was drenched in similar fluids while sporting a few new wheelchair pushing blisters and bruises she acquired from holding down her limb flailing grandson.

It was then that I was informed that our flight was delayed.

I dropped the 4 bags and 1 child that I was holding and fell to the ground. I’m not sure if it was relief, frustration or anxiety, but the feeling was soon interrupted by my father’s innocent questioning from his wheelchair, “What COUNTRY are we in?”

It felt like we were a million miles from it, but, as it turned out, dad- - we were still at home.

The 1 Year Anniversary

We’ve had a terrible weekend, here.

To start with, the kid has gastro. Vomiting, crankiness, awful smells and lots of reruns of Sid the Science kid replaced our weekend plans to enjoy the beautiful weather and go skiing with Rob’s parents.

Rob, meanwhile, decided to pick this weekend to install our brand new dishwasher. Six hours and one trip to town (for a missing part) later, our kitchen was in mass disarray, but he was finally done. The last thing we had to do was peel off the protective coating from the stainless steel exterior. And what did we find? A HUGE dent. It reminds me of those mirrors in the fun houses at the Ex. If we weren’t so annoyed (or distracted by another barf episode) we could have laughed at our contorted reflections in it. We didn’t.

Rob called Sears but apparently they could not replace our BRAND NEW dishwasher because we hadn’t called within the first 24 hours.

To make himself feel better about things, Rob then decided to change one of the burnt out light bulbs in our 17-foot ceiling. To do this, he had purchased a long pole like contraption with a suction cup on the end. He got it up there and on the light bulb OK, but in the process of pulling it off, ripped the light bulb, socket and ceiling down with it.

As pieces of light bulb and ceiling fell around us, Toby burst into tears while Rob finally “released” his anger. I just sat there and stared at the hole in our ceiling.

IN case you thought it couldn’t get any worse, not two hours later, Rob and I came down with Toby’s flu bug. Rob had it worse than I did – simultaneously erupting from both ends as his stomach cramped and released…. I wasn’t sure if my own nausea came from watching him or from a milder version of the bug.

At the pinnacle of our misery, Rob turned to me and with a weakened moan said, “I can’t believe our luck…could things GET any worse??”

Yes, they could.

January 10^th is an anniversary I hate to remember- -but do. It was this day last year that Toby fought for his life while we helplessly looked on. That his struggling lungs finally gave out and ventilators and tubes and central lines were inserted into his little body to give him a chance. That the Sick Kids crew spent 6 hours up in Orillia stabilizing him enough for the ride down. That we got those 3 sickening phone calls on the way to sick kids saying the ambulance had had to pull over to “restabilize”. That we were given a key to the room that only the parents of the sickest ICU kids at Sick Kids Hospital were granted access to. That they wouldn’t let us see him for 3 excruciating hours while countless doctors, nurses and RTs took over.

It was a year ago today that he made it.

If only I’d had a crystal ball this time last year, I could have seen us one year later…A DENT in a dishwasher? A hole in the ceiling? The 24-hour flu? A weekend cooped up in the house with the two people I love the most…the normalcy of all of it would have had my sobbing with relief.

By bedtime tonight, my two boys were finally well enough to muster up the appetite for some dry toast. As we sat around the kitchen counter, surrounded by ginger ale, dishwasher-installation manuals, barf buckets and pieces of our ceiling, Toby very sweetly asked that we say grace. We bowed our heads and said with gratitude, “Thank you for our Toby. And Thank you for our incredible luck.”

My morning surprise!

Am I allowed to mention barf again on my blog? I mean, how much is TOO much? Because I’m thinking right now that it’s about to cross the line into TOO much - -at least for my liking anyway.

Toby was sick last night – very quietly, yet messily, sometime between the hours of 7pm and 8am. So this morning I was unsuspectingly greeted by 13 hour-old-dried-up-yesterday’s-lasagne-regurtitated-by-my-two-year-old-and-then-rolled-in-all-night. Complemented by the smell.

It is now near the top of the list of my LEAST favourite things to wake up to, second only to a lethargic, feverish and croupy Toby from just about this time last year.

It kind of baffles me that someone (even being only 22 months old) is able to vomit without making more than a grunt and then spend the next several hours sleeping IN it. Should I get my child’s olfactory system checked out? How could this not have bothered him???

I asked myself these questions as I went about our (newly revised) morning routine cheerfully (so not to upset him) as if we ALWAYS strip the bed, wash his bear, have a bath and take his temperature first thing in the morning. I didn’t THINK I’d informed him of his nighttime escapades until I was drying his hair; he looked up at me with his big wide-gastritis-infested-eyes and said, “Toby have BARFS in the HAIR?”

Not entirely grammatically correct, but hey, it was a 6 word sentence so we’ll give him points for that.

I then set about cleaning his crib - -again, trying to be somewhat discreet so as not to upset him. (Toby is somewhat particular about his crib – usually, when it’s not barf infested – the first thing I do in the morning is put all the animals who have somehow fallen out over night back into the crib, at his royal highness’s request, of course) So I distracted him with some puzzles and (who am I kidding?) Sid the Science Kid video and set about my cleaning job. I basically had to dismantle the entire crib to get into the crevices his sneaky stomach contents had managed to get into. All the while Toby kept very helpfully popping his head in to check on his animals and ask incredulously, “Mommy DOING!?!?”

I’m cleaning up your barf, kid.

I won’t enlighten you on the events of the rest of the day as I’m feeling (and smelling) that the line has now officially been crossed. Thank goodness I didn’t go into pediatrics - - at least I have the respite of Monday at the office to look forward to…

The Christmas Experiment

People have sometimes asked me if Toby likes to play with dolls. After spitting out whatever is in my mouth, I usually manage to produce a firm “NO!” without making the questioner feel TOO badly about their utterly UBSURD question. But the other day it occurred to me that perhaps Toby doesn’t play with dolls because he has never been given the opportunity to so. He has always been so obsessed with cars, balls and hockey that there’s never even been ROOM in his playroom for a doll…

So for Christmas this year I bought him one.

She is a lovely plastic blonde with pigtails, red lips and a pink dress, which matches her hair elastics and shoes. She comes with her own diapers and a sippy cup and straw. When you lay her down her fake eyelids close shut and if you squeeze her belly she giggles. And she only cost $9.99. PERFECT.

I think, perhaps, it was the Christmas gift I was MOST excited to give to Toby.

Being true to the scientific method, I also had a few control arms: a few gifts of trucks, trains and balls, and Toby’s good friend Meredith (who loves dolls and babies) was given a truck for Christmas.

And the verdict is in…

Toby was quite excited to rip the wrapping paper off of the doll. He was also excited to see the doll. He picked her up and promptly threw her on the ground. Then he grabbed her sippy cup and straw and used the straw as a stick and the sippy cup as a puck and started a game of hockey with himself.

I pointed out to him that the baby was crying because she had been (brutally) thrown onto the floor. He paused his game to come over and stare down at her and then looked to me quizzically as if to say, “What do you want ME to do about it?” I suggested he give her a hug and rock her. “Mommy do it!” he said, pointing to the poor doll lying face down, abandoned on his imaginary hockey rink.

I picked her up and cradled her lovingly in my arms and rocked her from side to side. I then handed her off to my son.

Toby put his “hockey stick” (the straw) and “puck” (her sippy cup) down and picked her up. With one hand on her right leg and the other on her left arm he swung her from side to side without even looking down at her. I praised his feeble attempt at gentleness and suggested he give her a hug. Toby then swung her up to his shoulder and gave her a few brisk smacks on the back before dropping her again; face down on the floor, to resume his hockey game.

When we came back from our Christmas at the farm, the doll was still lying there right where he'd left her. Even her straw and sippy cup have since been usurped by the fabulous hockey stick and balls that he got from others for Christmas. A few times I’ve asked him about his doll and the answer is always the same; “Baby sleeping.”

Meredith, on the other hand, enjoyed her new truck. Apparently she just likes to sit on it.