Close Encounters of the Fungi Kind

Before having kids, I used to have a beautiful vegetable garden every summer. Each fall, I would can, freeze, and pressure cook vegetables until the pantry was full and I had lost half of my body weight in sweat from working in the steamy kitchen. But no more. Turns out, vegetables really don't do well when surrounded by weeds three times as high as they are. Who knew?

Luckily for me, raspberries have no such requirements. In fact, if this year's crop is any indication, they seem to thrive on neglect. I've been picking raspberries every other day, and ending up with approximately 4 cups of berries with each picking. In the coming days, I'll post some of the recipes that I've been experimenting with in my attempts to use up all these berries.
Last night, I made a fresh berry tiramisu. It turned out to be a lot of work, especially since I had two whiny children at my feet and in my hair (and it turns out, they can be both places simultaneously). At one point, I was starting to lose my temper, so I decided to step outside to get some fresh air and get away from it all for a minute. The problem is, "it all" followed me outside. Natalie wouldn't let me put her down, so she came out with me by default. And Sammy came running behind me, in his sock feet, saying, "Mommy, I want to come with! Don't leave me!" So instead of going for a short walk, like I had intended, I sat down in the grass and put my head in my hands for a brief meditation while the kids milled around.

It wasn't long before I heard Sammy say, "Natalie, don't eat that! Mom, Natalie's eating something!" Thinking she was eating a blade of grass, or a weed, I didn't react at first. When he repeated it, I finally looked up to see Natalie spitting something out, and Sammy pointing at the humongous mushroom she had just sampled.

Um. It seems that every story I've heard about amateur mushroom hunters hasn't turned out well. And even though it didn't look like she had actually swallowed any of it, I had no idea how much of that particular mushroom it would take to cause ill effects. So, I gathered the kids up and ran in the house to make my first call to Poison Control.

The man on the other end of the line was very helpful. He had me describe the mushroom, and reassured me that it didn't sound like it was an overly toxic mushroom, but to be safe, he wanted me to take a picture and email it to him. I did that, and a few minutes later, he called me back to say that the worst she would probably experience was stomach upset. And since I thought she hadn't swallowed much, that odds were she wouldn't have any symptoms whatsoever but if she did start showing symptoms, to call him back right away.

She ate supper shortly after that, and went to sleep. Of course, I checked on her all night long but she was totally fine. So, all's well that ends well.

Edited to add: The Poison Control called back this morning to follow up. I'm very impressed at their helpfulness! Although I hope I won't have to do any more "business" with them.

Learning About Bees

Colony collapse disorder has been in the news a lot lately. It’s scary stuff, especially since no one knows for sure what the cause is. I’ve heard of everything from a virus to cell phone radiation as being possible culprits.

Evidently, wasps are not struggling with the same problem. This seems to be a record year for wasps in our area. We took the kids to the zoo on Saturday, and were swarmed by wasps looking for a free meal while we were trying to eat our lunch. Amazingly, no one got stung. That day, anyway.

Thursday night was a different story. Ron drank some soda and left the empty can on the picnic table. An empty soda can is equally attractive to both wasps and young children, but I didn’t notice the can until the inevitable had already taken place. I heard Sammy’s screeches of pain and turned around to see him still clutching the can, so I guessed what had happened even before Sammy blubbered, “I got a bee stung”.

He wouldn’t let me touch it to try to scrape the stinger out, so all I could do was wash the area and apply an ice pack. His cheek turned bright red and swelled up, but after an hour he didn’t complain about it anymore. Friday morning, he crawled into our bed at 5:00 a.m., like he does every morning, and after a few seconds he obviously remembered what had happened. He sat upright in bed and said, surprised, “My bee stung not hurt anymore!”

Yesterday, he went into the garage to throw something in the garbage can. After about a minute, when he didn’t return, I yelled around the corner to ask what he was doing. “I throw something away,” he said. I waited another minute. Pretty soon, he came around the corner, still clutching the garbage. “There a bee on the garbage can,” he said. I went to help him and shooed away the “bee” – a housefly. It’s good that Sammy has a healthy respect for bees/wasps now, but I guess we should work on insect identification.

Fever

Natalie's fever, which was more of an aside on yesterday's post, got worse as the day went on. By noon, I thought she may have actually become grafted to me, what with the resistance that I got when I tried to put her down.

Sammy was a sweetheart. When he came home from daycare, he was very concerned about her and wanted to do what he could to help. I gave him a cold, wet washcloth and he dabbed her head very gently. He brought her a binky, a blanket, and a bottle. He suggested I take her to the doctor. When I explained she'd already been to the doctor, he told me to bring her again.

I carried her around in a Moby wrap all day. When she fell asleep and I took off the wrap so I could lie down in the recliner with her, Sammy asked Ron to help him put the wrap on. Then he came over and wanted me to put Natalie in the wrap. He finally settled for a stuffed gorilla instead.

At 5:00, Natalie's fever was 103 and she was becoming inconsolable. I thought a lukewarm bath might help cool her down, and soothe her. I took off her clothes and, as I was running the water, she peed all over my leg. And the bathroom rug. And the towel. At least I had proof that she was getting enough fluids, and wasn't dehydrated. When I tried to put her in the bathtub, she clung to me like a baby monkey, and howled like one, too. So much for the bath.

She slept on my shoulder most of the evening, and at 10:00, when I was ready to go to bed, I brought her with me. The first hour passed peacefully. Shortly after 11:00, I woke up to blood-curdling screaming. I picked her up and she continued to scream bloody murder. She would calm down a little bit, then shudder and scream some more. Ron and I seriously considered calling an ambulance, or waking Sammy up so we could go to the ER, because I have never heard her cry like that before. It took about 15 minutes before she calmed down, and then the rest of the night passed without any more crises.

By this morning, her fever had broken but she was stuck to me like Velcro. It took an hour for me to leave the house, because she would get so upset every time I'd leave her sight. It was much worse than the separation anxiety-type-crying which is so typical these days. I did finally leave, and so I'm back at work today, while Natalie is home spending some quality time with Daddy.

I still don't know what the incident overnight was about. Fever-related seizure? Disorientation due to the fever? I learned something this morning from the nurses I work with. The way to tell if a baby is having a seizure is to hold one of their extremities. If the "convulsion" stops, it's not a seizure. I hope I never again have the opportunity to use that test.

On another note: Do you think Sammy might be getting a little big for his bed? Maybe it's time to upgrade.

Both of my kids are extremely early risers. It's a rare day when they aren't both up by 5:30 a.m. This morning, Sammy decided 4:00 a.m. was a good time. Nuh-uh, no way, no how. It's been hard enough to adjust to 5:30, we are NOT moving the wake up time any earlier. So Ron went to lie down with him in Sammy's room (or so I thought).


When my alarm went off at 5:30, Natalie was still sleeping soundly next to me in the bed. I lined the edge of the bed with pillows to keep her from falling off, walked out to the living room and turned on the lamp just to hear Ron grouching quietly at me from the recliner, with Sammy on his lap. The light immediately went back off, and I stumbled around in the dark, getting my pump parts put together, then retreating to the office to read my email while I "made Natalie's breakfast".


A few minutes later, I heard Natalie waking up in the bedroom. She sounded happy enough, so I decided to wait until I was finished cleaning my pump before going to get her. About 10 seconds later, I heard a sickening "thump" and knew right away that she had somehow fallen off the bed. I went running down the hallway, and when I was about halfway to the bedroom, the shrieking started. I was shocked to see her lying on the floor, about three feet from the bed. I have no idea how she managed that - she must have had a running start. And I still don't know how she got herself past the pillows, since they were undisturbed.


Anyway, I sat rocking her while she sobbed her little heart out. I could tell she wasn't badly hurt, just really shaken up. When Sammy was about this age, he rolled off the bed too, and I fuh-reaked out, sure that he would have a concussion/cracked skull/permanent brain damage. After calling his doctor, who assured me that a fall from that height was very unlikely to cause any damage, I felt better but checked on him every hour, all night long. One thing that I've learned in the past couple of years is that kids are very resilient and a lot tougher than they look, so this time I didn't panic; I just felt terrible for not coming to get her as soon as I heard her wake up.

By the time she quieted down, it was time for me to leave for work, but I wasn't even dressed yet. I tried to hand her off to Ron (who of course was awake after all the commotion), but every time I gave her over, she would stick out her lower lip in a perfect pout, whimper, and reach her arms out for me. It would take a much stronger person than me to be able to resist that plea, so of course every time I picked her up and gave her more cuddles. Which made me an hour late to work, but that's the way it goes.

Even through her sadness, she lit up every time Sammy walked in the room. She just adores her older brother. She has this new game, which she thinks is hilarious - Sammy, NOT SO MUCH - where she steals his binky right out of his mouth. Since Sammy had just woken up, we hadn't confiscated the binky yet, and he came over to lay his head on my lap so I would stroke his hair. Natalie would giggle as she stretched her little body as far as she could to reach his mouth, and in one quick motion, swiped his binky and popped it in her own mouth. Sammy grumbled, took it back with an air of resignation, and laid his head back down. Natalie started giggling in anticipation of Round Two. She could play that game for hours, but Sammy will only put up with it for a couple of minutes before he leaves to find a quieter, safer place to nurse his binky.

So, yeah - I think she's going to be okay. Me, on the other hand? I'm still feeling guilty over the time when Sammy fell off the bed. I think it's going to be a long time before I'm okay with what happened this morning.

I don't even like typing out this story, but I'm hoping Sammy will read this someday and it will help him to understand why I have a head full of grey hairs.

We've been remodeling the basement, and over the weekend Ron was nailing up baseboard in one of the completed rooms. Sammy was very interested in the process and wanted to help, so he kept following Ron and trying to put nails in the holes that Ron had drilled in the wood. That was all fine and good, but then yesterday I went downstairs to clean up all the drywall dust in that room, and Sammy followed me. I turned around just in time, to see him about to stick a stray nail into the wall socket! Every other outlet in that room has outlet protectors, but I think Ron removed those protectors to use the sander, and they never got replaced. Believe me, they are back in now. I keep thinking about how close Sammy came to getting electrocuted - what if I had turned around 10 seconds later! - I can't even go there. I know I scared Sammy, too, because he almost started crying. Usually he ignores me when I lecture him, but he could tell how freaked out I was over this whole thing!