a day without work and a blog length to prove it

It turns out that I require antibiotics for one swollen, infected eczema ear.
The doctors at Kaiser really do seem to assess only that which you verbalize and point directly at, even if you’re pointing at something only half an inch away from a swollen, red, pus-filled, scabby ear. I woulda thought I didn’t need to point that one out to him. Anyway, one of the many blessings of marriage, for men in particular, is a woman who will hound her husband for his health, and compensate for the man’s lack of interest in doctor visits and medicine. Hooray for the wif who triumphed over doctor negligence (he was a man, after all), and got things done. I hadn’t even bothered to look at the state of my ear, but in the course of the day’s pooklet photography, I discovered just how bad it was.

I believe in patient responsibility, that we shouldn’t needlessly raise the cost of healthcare by going in every time we have a sniffle or an ingrown nail, but that we should practice preventative healthcare (Kaiser facilitates this well – we live off their advice nurses). I, however, have a tendency to be lazy on the whole with my body, and too easily forego healthcare in general, the clinic and the self-preservation.

Since Pooklet has been grabbing things more and more recently, I offered my face in his crib yesterday when his arms were flailing around in search of something, anything. He promptly grabbed at my face. He even picked my nose.
He’ll also grab the toys we dangle in front of him, which is a good thing to be doing according to the excruciatingly boring video “Wee Exercise.” I sure hope there are better infant exercise videos on Netflix than that one.

This morning as I fed the pooklet, relishing in my second day of pooklet in place of work, I was singing, “I love Isaac in the morning, I love Isaac in the af-ter-noon…” and he stopped drinking to smile at me. That just rules. Such a good baby is he. It makes me wonder when his innocence and wonder will fade. Anyway, this was part of my recent efforts to start using his real name instead of raising him to respond only to “pooklet.”

I’ve also been reading to him from some great children’s books. Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad, Kim Lewis’ Hooray for Harry, Boynton’s What’s Wrong, Little Pookie?

One thing that I’ve noticed is that our belches startle him, which serves as a pretty effective (and long overdue) admonition to the pookies.

There’s a lot of joy in feeding him and just looking into his eyes as he looks up at me, all while listening (and singing along to) the songs on ‘Sing Over Me.’

I try to keep our most useful tool, the cloth diaper, everywhere. You don’t have to use an actual cloth diaper, but it’s perfect for wiping up (and catching) spit up and drool, a necessity when feeding. So I drape one over the glider chair, his crip, in our bedroom, so I’m never far from one when the pooklet runneth over.

I've been loving our backyard lately, as everything is blooming. Today, I made a second trip with the pooklet in our baby bjorn (plant color model), and let him grab at a few leaves.


I took advantage of the good weather and our proximity to Kaiser, to jog there and pick up my antibiotics, and request a copy of my eyesight prescription (available in 2 hours). It’s been a while since I’ve run, and I suppose it’s not the best thing to do when you have a virus and an infected ear, but I was elated to avoid driving. Now my lungs feel taxed. But driving in california has become a real drag to me. Being in chicago recently made me realize how much i miss driving there. i also miss riding my single gear bike. come to think of it, i also miss the cool footage i shot of the wif and me riding our bikes a year and a half ago. i'm gonna go look for that.