Maybe she caught a touch of the southern twang

Sam caught a nasty stomach bug last week. He's got kind of wonky digestive issues so we really weren't sure at first if this was a virus, something he ate, or just Sam. When I called the school office to tell them he would be absent the woman in the office asked if he would be out due to illness or some other reason.
I said, "Illness. He has diarrhea."
"Oh," she balked, "TMA. You know. TMA." First of all, you wussy, you mean TMI as in too much information. Second, no it's not. I'm sharing this little detail hoping that you might tell me if this is something going around the school right now in order to help us determine the possible cause of Sam's illness. It's what people do even in polite conversation:
"I've had this terrible sore throat."
"Oh, my friend's daughter had that and went to the doctor who said that's been a common complaint at his office lately. Guess it's going around."
If I had wanted to really gross you out I could have told you about how I went through 6 diapers with Sam all in the span of 15 minutes because the poop just kept flowing. And at one point it was coming so fast and furious that I didn't have time to cover up his visceral spout and had to jump out of the way of the frothy brown geyser. My description would not be complete without adding that we tried to rehydrate the poor boy with fluorescent orange Pedialyte, and because his bowels had been so violently emptied, he shat orange liquid within minutes of imbibing the glowing drink. So there's your TMA you prudish clod.

Morning paper

Reading the paper this morning and read about an ancient American Indian burial site unearthed in a city nearby. The reason it was discovered is because workers were building a new retail and residential development. Residential? Ancient Indian burial site? Two words: they're here. Apparently a bunch of tribal reps from one of two tribes that deals with Indian burial sites in the county showed up to the site. The Chairman of the tribe said they deal with this stuff all the time and wouldn't discuss how the tribes and developer planned to move forward. I'm such a cynic. As I read further into the article I had to share with David. The following conversation ensued:

"Wouldn't say how they planned to move forward. I'm sure the developer just pays 'em off."

"Shit. It's like Poltergeist."

"'No biggee. Just go ahead and pave over our ancestors. But if you want us to remove the curse that will be an extra $4 million.'"

"'And in that corner over there could you build us a little casino?'"

Mr. Bell's secret fertilizer

Those of you with children may be familiar with the songs of Raffi. I like Raffi. I may be a bit tired of him after listening to him for almost 6 years, but he remains a decent fellow in my opinion. Some of his songs are downright fun like "Bananaphone;" others, more serious, convey his respect for nature. Some are full of lessons and meaning and others are empty but entertaining. Yet all of them are acceptable for listening. There remains one song, though, that I can't figure out. "The Changing Garden of Mr. Bell" is a haunting little number about a man who has a colorful and everchanging garden in his yard. Seems innocent enough, right? And it could be until our attention is called to a photo on Mr. Bell's mantle that pictures what may be his missing wife and child:

I once saw a photograph, upon his mantle shelf
Of a beautiful lady, a child in her arms
And the young Mr. Bell himself
I wondered out loud about them, and he answered
In the strangest way,
He just said "look, see how the garden grows,
It's always changing ev‘ry day"

from The Changing Garden Of Mr. Bell
(Janice Hubbard/Michael Silversher)

Do you get the feeling that Mr. Bell might have some skeletons in his garden? You might think that I'm reaching but for the closing lines of the song:

Life's a mystery, full of secrets that might tell
In the changing garden of Mister Bell

Convinced now? It gets even weirder:

See the sun through the curtain lace
Dapple his face and hands

What man in his right mind has lace curtains? Clearly there's something very wrong with Mr. Bell. And I'm left wondering what a song about a man who possibly murdered and buried his wife and kid in his garden is doing on a children's album. What was Raffi thinking?

The cheese stands alone

There's a little boy in Sam's class who has always puzzled me. He's a funny little guy who has the appearance and mannerisms of a rat. Now before anybody takes offense at the audacity of me comparing a child with special needs to a rat... just stop... because you haven't seen him. He does bear a striking resemblance to a rat. There's nothing wrong with this either. Unless you find rats to be particularly vile and disgusting creatures then there should be no issue with simply pointing out that an individual shares an uncanny likeness to a small, furry rodent. Have we cleared up the whole political incorrectness crap? Because I do like this little boy. Okay, so part of my affection for him does come from the entertainment value he provided for the week I spent in Sam's class. Shit, there I go again. I feel like I have to clear the air once more. Forget it. He's a cute kid, special, a real dear, a true angel. Have I got the special needs party line down yet? You've heard it before. He's a real blessing... but he still reminds me of a rat!

So the whole time I was in Sam's class this little boy was busy. He always seemed like he had something to do or somewhere to be. He had a plan. You could tell this by the way he would lay his index finger next to his mouth and pause for but a second. Then he would set off to carry out whatever it was that he had been scheming up. But the end result was never to his satisfaction... and he would stop and re-start the activity then stop again... only to pause with his finger aside his mouth to think things through once more. Meanwhile he would make little grunting noises as if caught up in the effort of the plan. It was like watching a rat in a box maze frantically searching for the right path that led to the cheese. Turning this way and that, hitting a dead end, going back to the beginning, rushing and twitching for that cheese. Only for this little boy it was becoming quite clear that there was no cheese at the end. He never seemed to find satisfaction with his plan. Then one day he tried to engage me in his impossible plan. With my hand in his he led me around the classroom. Over to the light switch. Was I to turn it on? Off? No no... that wasn't right. We went back to the beginning. To the light switch again. Still the solution did not appear. So we tried the refrigerator. Nothing. Hand me the toy phone then. Shall I talk on it? Do you want to? No, not that one? How about this block? Oh, back to the phone. The block. The phone. The light switch? Finally I said, "I'm done getting the run around. I'm stopping this madness and staying right here." He stopped and looked up at me with his beady eyes. Then he took my hand once again but I wouldn't budge. He pulled and instead of yielding I twirled him around. And again I twirled him until his little face lit up almost into a smile. I'm on to something, I thought. So I twirled him again and saw him smile for the first time. Then he nudged me while still holding my hand and I twirled for him. Together we twirled and I heard him laugh. We twirled several times until I began feeling dizzy but I didn't want to stop because I realized that this was the longest I had seen him participate in any one activity and it was good to hear him laugh. I was dizzy and happy and he was happy and dizzy and together I think we found the cheese.

If only we weren't so damned concerned with safety

The mini-van shopping has begun. Somehow I thought we'd be able to fit 3 children into a Honda CRV. Little did I know that carseats are super-sized now. Is that because cars are getting bigger or children? We even tried fitting Jackson in between two carseats without his booster. It can be done but not exactly safely. In the event of a side impact his little head would be crushed between the two very hard outer shells of his siblings' carseats. And, as of right now, he's the child who holds the most promise so we're not willing to take the risk. I have never wanted a mini-van. Actually, I do believe that I swore once on my mother's life that I would never be caught dead driving one. Boy she's going to be disappointed. I used to think that a mini-van represented all that was wrong with the world. Gas guzzling cars that accommodated more children than any two people had the right to conceive. They were a sign of how we raped and overpopulated the earth. I was such an idealist back then. Oh, how things have changed. I still agree with the basic premise of my previous belief; I just don't care so much anymore. That's not completely true because I have given our situation some justification... er, I mean, thought. First of all, mini-vans have improved on gas mileage. Second, although it's true that we're over-populating by having more kids than there are parents, reproductively speaking Sam is a dead end. Okay, really we're considering a mini-van because we're looking at future wheelchair lift potential; something most new car buyers fortunately don't have to consider. Still the old me will be having a good laugh at the new me if and when I get behind that wheel.

And the result is....

It was pretty clear from the ultrasound this morning that we're having a girl! I probably should have waited to write about the sock issue after finding out the sex of this baby but I had a pretty good feeling that I wasn't carrying another dirty-sock-desk-cubby-stuffer.

Boy? Girl? What it really comes down to is socks.

Tomorrow I go in for my ultrasound which should reveal the sex of this baby. Honestly, David and I will be happy with a healthy baby of any sex. A baby is a baby. I will admit, though, that at some point I would like that baby to turn into a girl; maybe this could happen around the age of 3 or 4. I've talked to my friends who have little girls and there is a difference between boys and girls. Really. Now I know there are pros and cons to both. I would never assert that one sex is better than the other. At least not on a public blog. And I like my boys. What I don't like is their dirty socks laying all around the house. Wherever David removes his socks they remain... for days... until I pick them up. Sometime last year Jackson decided to follow his father's example and began leaving his socks laying around. Since I'm bigger than him Jackson actually listened when I threatened to throw away any dirty socks I found laying around. For several days it seemed as if Jackson was depositing his dirty socks into the laundry basket. And then I found about five days worth of soiled socks shoved into a cubby of our downstairs desk. Later that day when I told this story to David he said, "Oh yeah, Jackson mentioned to me a few days ago that he was doing that." Now you would think a good father would ask his son to remove the socks immediately and put them in their proper place, but in David's world and in the world of boys a desk cubby is a perfectly acceptable place to stash dirty socks. Are you beginning to understand why this household is in need of some more female influence? I've found socks in so many various places inside the house and out that laundry day can be like a treasure hunt. Only the treasure is a dirty sock. Now that both boys are in school I'm feeling like I have more time to have some fun with this before the baby comes. I'm thinking that after I do laundry I'll hide the clean socks around the house for David and Jackson to search for every morning as they try to get ready for work and school. Maybe I'll even mix it up a little and hide a mismatched pair here and there.

School day horror

Sam spent his first day at school without me today. When I told the teacher that I would be letting him fly solo today she asked sarcastically, "So soon?" Fine. So I'm a little attached to that little bugger and couldn't bear to leave him alone last week. But I think I did the teachers a favor because he gave them a taste of the real Sam today. When I arrived to pick him up ( a bit earlier than school actually let out, of course), Miss Peggy told me he had poked himself in the eye. This eye poking and scratching was something I had been warning them about all week but they had yet to see it for themselves since I had always been there to mitigate. Fortunately, the damage was not bad at all but I let the teacher apologize and sit with her guilt for a bit. Then she told me how Sam had scared her because he got upset about something while she was changing him on the changing table and nearly hurled himself off. Another little thing I had warned them about. Apparently she didn't know how strong and determined he could be. He ended up peeing all over his clothes while his diaper was off during this struggle. I had forgotten to bring an extra set of pants which is why I found my son dressed in some god-awful blue polyester britches about 2 sizes too small for him. I swore I would never be one of those moms who dressed her poor retarded child in some get up like green sweats banded at the ankles, a yellow turtle neck and sneakers that they haven't sold in any reputable store since the mid-seventies. And never would my child be caught dead in polyester. I should have taken a picture so that you could experience the true horror yourselves. But there shall be no photographic proof of this catastrophe. And if any of you mention this traumatic event to me in polite company I will deny it and call you a poopy faced liar. The true chiller here is that Sam had a doctor's appointment right after school and I did not have any pants for him in the car. Not one to let my child be publicly humiliated we rushed home to grab some pants. Jackson was extremely distressed over the fact that I didn't change Sam right away but I assured him that I would change him out of that freakish apparel as soon as we got to the parking garage at the medical building. And you better bet we found a parking space in a dark corner away from public viewing.

The happy chair

Just look at this adorable child.

This is Sam sitting in his chair at school, enjoying circle time. He loves circle time. There's singing and clapping and music and kids who say hi to him and instruments that he gets to shake and jingle. Then there's the chair. The chair fits him so perfectly. He can rock in it and lean forward without falling onto his face. He likes the chair.

Okay, that's all you get for now. David and I have so many mixed emotions about sending Sam to this school that I'd end up writing a novel if I got going. So I'll give you the chair and leave it at that. The chair is Sam's happy place. I think I need a chair like that to sit in when I go back to school with him tomorrow.

Five year olds are weird

When David was little he used to take his marbles to school in a Crown Royal bag. At his last birthday he received a bottle of Crown Royal inside its purple bag and we discussed the slight inappropriateness of a child taking this bag to school. So what does David do with this bag after removing the alcohol? He gives it to our 5-year old son. Jackson's not big into marbles, but he does like animals. Instead of storing his small, plastic animals inside, he crams into it a large, stuffed dog. Lily is the dog's name and the Crown Royal bag became her new sleeping bag. This was all kind of cute until I realized that Jackson sleeps with Lily every night and now Lily would be snoozing alongside my son in a tossed out booze bag. Eventually Lily must have gotten tired of the old whiskey sack because she only slept inside of it for a few nights. At this point the bag was elevated to the level of Jackson's other stuffed animals who shared his bed at night. There it lay, the empty sack, next to Lily and my sleeping boy. This was far more unsettling than using it as a marble tote.


Just the other night Jackson came to me, beaming with pride that he was able to stuff Lily, Flower the other dog, and Violet the lizard all into the sack. He took them to bed this way. Apparently they were all going to have one big slumber party inside.

A small pat on the back

Sam had his 3 year check-up the other day and I'm happy to report that he's a whopping 29lbs. That may not mean much to you but what it does mean is that he's in the 25th percentile for his age. What? You're still not impressed? How about if I told you that most children with Joubert Syndrome affected to the same degree as Sam... and some less affected... are fed via g-tube? And some of these children have had g-tubes put in as late as 3 years of age due to an inability to receive adequate nutrition by mouth. I'll make sure not to leave out the part about it taking us 4 months of working with Sam until he could properly latch onto a bottle and coordinate his suck-swallow-breathe reflex. And despite his recent set-backs in feeding due to illness he's up in rank on the growth chart from his usual 10-15th percentile. Of course, some of this success is due in part to the extreme stubborness exhibited by David and me, and our near refusal to let any doctor cut a hole in our little boy's tummy. But a big part of the congratulations should go to Sam and his amazing propensity to awe even us with his multifarious abilities. Good job, precious boy.

Dino Attack

Last week when we were up visiting my family, Jackson had a sleepover with his younger cousin, Kai. According to my brother the boys did not fall asleep until well after midnight. The following night was Christmas eve and we all stayed over at my brother and sister-in-law's house. Jackson and Kai had been together for two days, up way too late the night before and were very excited about Christmas the next morning. So it should have been no surprise that a few minutes after putting them to bed in the same bunk one of them would be crying. I don't know exactly what happened but from Kai's hysterics and the guilty look on Jackson's face I knew something bad had gone down in that bunk. While my brother took Kai from the room to comfort him I launched into Jackson with questions about what had happened. But the kid wouldn't talk. I could tell I wasn't going to get anywhere with him unless I played the really mean mommy card; I threatened to burn every single present of his under the tree. He fessed up and told me he had done a "dino attack" on Kai. What?! "Why did you do that?!" "I don't know! Don't ask me that. It's too hard to explain!" I stopped the questioning because his last answer made perfect sense to me. When you're a five year old who has been anticipating spending time with your only cousin for weeks and you've played intensely together for the past two days while dealing with physical exhaustion and the excitement of Christmas, the next obvious thing to do with that cousin when put in close quarters together with a complete lack of adult supervision is to go dino on his ass. Am I wrong here in thinking that Jackson's actions were completely justified? Certainly not the way one should behave, but behavior to be expected under the circumstances. Once I understood it from his point of view the night went much more smoothly. Sometimes it helps me to get in touch with my inner 5 year old.

I'm going to cheat here... but just a little bit

I've been following all the media hype concerning the bullshit about mandatory "Christmas" cheer. While I would love to offer my completely invaluable take on the whole crock I'm too busy gearing up for the misunderstood holiday with the rest of my herd. Instead I'll offer you these completely hilarious thoughts by Powazek.

This one's about poop

Turns out the world is not going to hell it was just trying to warn me. Everything I wrote about in my last entry was the work of some higher and wiser power trying to stall our holiday vacation plans. And for good reason. We left for our family fun trip early Saturday morning with Sam's Pediasure and half of the Christmas toys that we had ordered through the school. Arrangements had been made to have the other half shipped to us. And Sam's wheelchair was finally on its way. I embarked on our trip feeling good, powerful, like I had faced the evil forces of stupidity and apathy and had emerged the victor. Little did I know that my moxie would soon bite me in the ass. So as I was saying, with my battles won, we set off on our road trip. Upon arrival we encountered small hassles like the driving rain that soaked us and our stuff every time we walked back and forth between my parents' house and their motorhome where the four of us were sleeping. I also had to deal with my extreme allergic reaction to my parents' house; a little thing I always seem to forget until about 15 minutes after arriving when I find myself surrounded by piles of my own snotty tissues. And if snot dripping out of your nose is not obnoxious enough, try fits of sneezing so body jolting that no amount of Kegeling will save you. Now let's add in a husband who was feeling sick to his stomach and a 3 year old up past his bedtime who hadn't pooped in days. On this particularly fateful night David went to lie down in the motorhome while I was left to deal with Sam. Sam had grown very irritable and despite the fact that he really could have used a good dump, was dead set against letting anything gas or solid escape from his bum. So while I struggled to get him into his pajamas, he wiggled and contorted all in an effort to keep those butt cheeks closed. Then snotting and sneezing, through the rain the wriggling child and I went. As soon as we got to the motorhome I layed Sam on his bed and David emerged from his exclaiming, "Oh shit!" Apparently David's ass wasn't quite as tight as Sam's that night and he immediately required the use of the bathroom in the very small, not well ventilated motorhome. The ensuing sounds and smells sent me into a fit of dry heaving while Sam writhed on his bed still trying to keep everything inside. I gagged and heaved all the way back into the house where I was able to get myself under control. I felt terribly guilty leaving my children out there with their sick father so I went back to reclaim Sam since Jackson had slept soundly through the events. After several more trips through the rain to collect all the items we needed that night, Sam and I settled down to go to sleep in the house. However, Sam's determination not to poop was stronger than I could have foreseen and the little bugger refused to relax until 4:30 in the morning when sleep finally overcame him. But he still hasn't pooped.

The world is going to hell

It must be. Everything is going wrong lately and it must mean that the end is near. I'm in disbelief over all the miscommunication, mistakes and oversights that I've dealt with lately. I have to reason that something is terribly amiss with the world because there can't be that many imbeciles in the small circle in which I operate. I was being kind when I referred to the miscommunication, mistakes and oversights; these people are just plain retarded. Harsh? Yes. Judgmental? Okay. Totally un-PC? You betcha. But really there's no other word that is more appropriate. Unless it's worse. Maybe these people know exactly what they're doing and they just don't care. Is it possible that the man at the medical equipment company and the woman at the insurance company don't care if my son gets his new wheelchair? Could it be that the pharmacy and the insurance company (again) have no concern whether or not Sam receives his Pediasure, his main source of nutrition? And possibly the woman at Jackson's school who (mis)organized the holiday toy catalog orders to raise funds for the school is callous to the notion that many of the kids at school will not have their Christmas presents on Christmas morning. I don't know. Stupid or apathetic. The world is going to hell either way.

An eye opening experience

Earlier this week David and I had a meeting at a school nearby to discuss Sam's IEP (Individual Education Program). We walked into the meeting room and were greeted by a team of therapists, educators, health care professionals and administrators who have been working on Sam's case. All 759 of these people introduced themselves...okay, really it was only 10 but what's the difference when you're talking about all those people for one little boy? I started wondering what the hell I'd been doing these past 3 years busting my ass trying to fill the role of all of these people for Sam. No wonder our schools are in financial trouble when they pay these people just to do one job. They should hire themselves a few good moms.

After the 3 hour meeting was over we were able to visit the classroom which Sam would be in next month. We were aware of the type of program Sam was being enrolled in. We knew the student-teacher ratio was low in the class due to the severity of problems most of these children had. And yet I was not prepared. I was not prepared to walk into a room full of 9 children of various disabilities and picture my little boy fitting in. Logically I realized that Sam does not walk, talk, crawl, feed himself or even sit unassisted. But that's just Sam, you know. Everything atypical about him is just typical to me. But these children.... And then it hit me: this is how others see Sam. When we enter a restaurant out in the "normal" world of walking, talking, romping, laughing children, and I wheel Sam by some unsuspecting diners, they're caught off guard. Sam's stroller does not contain their idea of what a child should look and act like. Because they do not know Sam they can't see past these differences to the beautiful child. And it probably disturbs them. Of course I've seen many children out in public with disabilities, but my reaction in the classroom was different because Sam was clearly being identified as belonging with these children. And, as his mother, I was having a hard time making that connection. Don't get me wrong; I know after spending time in the classroom with all the other children I will get to know them and see their individual personalities. Then this will all seem less intense. But that day was overwhelming.

I swear I won't make any jokes about bananas

The other day Jackson and I were watching the Discovery Channel series "Walking with Prehistoric Beasts" where they use computer generated images set in real locations to recreate what life was like a very long time ago. One of the shows followed the life of some super-sized mammal from birth through the first 3 years of life. We witnessed as he fell out of the birth canal, learned to walk, avoided being eaten, had his first swim, weaned from his mother, and attempted to interfere with the mating between his mother and another super-sized mammal. Now this last part is important because the show portrays a male of the species mounting the mother from behind and humping away while the juvenile looks on scared and confused. Jackson, having seen animal sex before but not really understanding fully, didn't bat an eye. The next show in the series featured a group of apes, Australopithecines, that walked upright and are much more closely related to humans than the super-sized mammals. Like the previous show we again follow along as different life experiences are encountered. So when the boy ape started putting the moves on the new girl ape I expected we might see some ape sex. But, no. See, unlike other animals Australopithecines do it facing each other. Instead of mounting from the rear, which to me suggests anal sex and is just wrong, Australopithecines sex evolved into a more civilized act. (Okay so that last part was completely my opinion and does not reflect the opinion of any other parties, especially my husband). Anyway, you get the point: this ape sex more closely resembles human sex. So when boy and girl ape start getting down and dirty their images are suddenly blurred out. They could have handled this in a more cinematically pleasing manner by having the two apes lie down in the tall grass so their bodies are obscured and maybe play some romantic music to drown out the moans of pleasure. But, really, how far of a stretch would it have been from seeing the super-sized mammalian sex to seeing the ape sex? You do the hokey pokey and you turn the ape around. That's what it's all about. Now before you start thinking I'm making a big deal out of this because I really wanted to see some primate porn let me tell you that I was mainly concerned with how Jackson would interpret this censorship. Suddenly the mating of two animals has become something that must be hidden from his eyes. Really it would have been much easier to explain, in 5-year old terms, what the two apes were actually doing instead of why we shouldn't be privy to it. I swear he's going to be more curious than ever now to see exactly what it looks like when two apes mate.

Not just another old wives' tale

I was searching online for the Bella Band which is a stretchy band of fabric that you wear around your belly during pregnancy. The band allows you to wear your regular clothes a bit longer and fit into maternity clothes a bit earlier. Genius, really. But this stretchy band of fabric sells for $28. So I was trying to figure out how to make a cheap duplication of this product with material I might have at home. The closest thing I could come up with involved the use of, you guessed it, duct tape. Which leads me back to my internet search that brought me to a page with an ad picturing a smiling woman holding a pregnancy test pee stick and the caption said, "Want to know the sex, too?" Well, yeah. I clicked and found the Baby Gender Mentor. With a few precious drops of blood, a stamp and $275 a pregnant women can now find out the sex of her baby as early as five weeks after conception! The website is full of testimonials from satisfied customers. Parents who used the kit express their gratitude for being able to begin their gender-specific baby shopping early. The test claims a 99.9% accuracy rate so I wasn't surprised not to find any comments from disgruntled parents who had to repaint the nursery after the baby came out the wrong sex. Curiously absent were those comments from parents who used the test for gender selection. "Thank you Baby Gender Mentor! You saved us a lot of grief and financial hardship. We were able to successfully terminate my first 3 pregnancies after the test results showed they were all boys. We finally have our precious baby girl to enjoy without the distraction of 3 rambunctious brothers." I wonder if the makers of this test are marketing to China?

Deja Blue

I had to resuscitate Sam the other night after his day at the hospital. After the dumb ass anesthesiologist, who thought he knew everything, shoved a tube down Sam's throat several times with much difficulty because he refused to accept that David and I had any knowledge of how Sam would react to being intubated. So we brought Sam home with a very sore, swollen throat and something set him off and he started crying... but he couldn't catch his breath because his throat was so thrashed and then something in his brain just shut down so when he finally relaxed his airway he still didn't breathe. And I had to breathe for him until he came around. It's been over a year since I've had to do this and, yet, it all came back to me. And it still sucked just as much as it always has.

Surviving the Joint

Sam before going under general anesthesia for some dental work....

... and Sam after.

Today's hospital visit took me back to when Sam was first born and we spent 3 1/2 weeks imprisoned in the NICU. Today's visit was not nearly as unpleasant as the NICU stay, but there were moments during the day in which I was reminded just how inhospitable hospitals are. Awhile back I put together some tips on how to survive the neo-natal intensive care unit and thought I'd put it here on my blog for the sake of any parents who might be facing a similar stay:

~ Trust no one. Doctors can, will and do lie. And the nurses often have no choice but to back them up. It helps to have a contact on the outside to get factual information. Hospital visitation hours serve well for these purposes, but if that doesn't work info can be passed along via the card accompanying a nice bouquet of flowers.

~ Shift changes are the best time to learn “private” info about you and your baby. Nurses will tell you there are no visitation hours during shift changes (yes, the parents are considered “visitors”) and you must leave, so try to arrange to breastfeed (or pump) in the middle of shift changes. The nurse at the end of her shift won’t want to wait until you’re done because she’s eager to get home. She’ll share all the updates with the nurse coming on while you sit and pretend to be involved with your baby (or pump).

~ Sleep with one eye open. Bad things happen at night. If you’re not watching an x-ray tech might try to come into your baby’s room at 2am to flip him onto his back and x-ray his lungs, putting pressure on the surgical site where he just had brain surgery earlier that day, all this despite the fact that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your child’s lungs. And when you, in your groggy state, try to convince him he has the wrong room he will continue to argue with you while fiddling with your sleeping babe who had a hard time getting to sleep in that room with the beeping machines. You’ll have to have a clear enough head to rip his files from his callous hands and point out that the name on the file does not match the name on the ankle band of this baby who is now crying because some dumbshit woke him up.

~ Better yet don’t go to sleep. Did I mention bad things happen at night? When it’s time for your baby’s scheduled middle of the night feeding one of the “compassionate” nurses might decide to let you sleep and shove a tube down your baby’s nose and into his throat to feed him while he screams his protests. Because she just hates to see him “struggle” with the bottle. Then you can secretly cheer when he vomits the pumped breastmilk into the nurse's mouth... and politely refuse to consent to an HIV test.

~ Lie, lie, lie. They do it why can’t you? When talk starts turning to GI tubes for feedings you do everything you can to convince them it has only taken your baby 15 minutes to drink 4oz... when it’s really taken 45.

~ Avoid eye contact. Sometimes the doctors and nurses don’t want you in the room while they’re performing a procedure but sometimes your baby just needs you anyway. If you can avoid eye contact with the medical staff while they politely ask you to leave and focus only on your baby they will usually leave you alone – as long as you don’t interfere with their work, of course.

~ If you want the private room then birth at home. Doctors and nurses hate those germs you bring from home and like to keep you and baby separate from the other patients. They call it quarantine but I call it a private room with a view.

~ BYOB. If your baby was one of the lucky ones to have been born on the outside then you’ll have to bring your own beverages. The staff treat their own new mothers to complimentary sippers full of gatorade... but maybe this is just to make up for the fact that those mothers got nothing but ice chips during labor.

~ Kiss up to the nurses. Say whatever you want behind their backs but make nice when they’re looking. Your stay will be a lot more manageable with the nurses on your side.

~ Do whatever you can to (reasonably) avoid going back to that place. Doctors might tell you that your child is an “urp and a burp” away from death or that if you don’t get him to the hospital he might “meet his maker” but sometimes they have to say these things just to cover their own a$$es (those dollar signs aren’t just there to soften the word). And what if you heard this, “When I was an ER doctor I saw kids brought in with exactly what your son has and they died shortly after arriving.” Why the heck would anyone want to take her baby somewhere to die? I’ll keep him at home where he’ll be safe, thank you.