There goes March

Another month, fairly flown by.

This month was, by all appearances, the Month of the Medical Professional in this household.

First of all, Hannah--who never gets sick, but when she does, she doesn't do it half-heartedly--got an ear infection in each ear. We'd noticed that her hearing had been deteriorating over the period of a couple of weeks. Hard to tell with this kind of thing whether it's selective hearing loss or not, but I was getting sick and tired of repeating everything 2 or 3 times for her. Then she started complaining that her ears hurt. And running a fever. So we took her to the pediatrician (and, wonderful surprise, our dear friend Celine--one of the homebirth midwives we saw when I was pregnant with H--is now a PA there). She was put on a 10 day course of antibiotics. She loved the bubblegum flavor and the bright pink color.

The following week, Jonah had a checkup with his orthopedic doctor at Shriner's Hospital in Sacramento. It's an awful long way to travel to have someone tell you your child's feet look terrific. I could have gone over to Mickey's for that. Sure, she's no orthopedic surgeon, but she knows a nice set of feet when she sees one. Jonah walked and ran and jumped and tip-toed around the room and generally acted like your run-of-the-mill two-and-a-half-year old. This included, of course, whining the whole way down to Sacramento that "My feet are straight, I don't need a checkup. I want the doctor to come to our house so I can show her my somersaults" then "I need another checkup" the whole way home.

The very next week, it was my turn to take antibiotics. Sitting in the waiting room, blessedly without either of the children, was an interesting anthropological experience. Turns out I was there on "trailer park reunion day" as half the patients seemed to know each other from having lived in the same trailer park. One woman was there to have staples taken out of a wound on the back of her head; she was being pressured to just take them out herself. A mother and her son sat and made fun of everyone in the room. They were not even using their inside voices. The wait was long; I nearly read all the way through Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation while I was there.

On Monday, we took Fuzz to the vet. She'd been limping for a couple of days. She and Hannah cried the whole way into town. X-rays were very cool and showed nothing broken. The vet was kind, cautious, quick and efficient. Other doctors could learn a lot from him. Fuzz seems to be doing much better now, though I keep getting the impression she is trying to tell me something.

Somewhere in all of this, we made a trip to Portland so that John could attend the American Philosophical Association's meeting there. We had a nice time, especially riding the streetcars and hanging out with Kori and her family. Jonah can't stop talking about how "I know a girl named Darbi who has straight feet like I do."

We end the month with a 3-day weekend (tomorrow is Cesar Chavez day and I still am unclear on how you celebrate. Refrain from buying lettuce?).

I've a couple of stories to share. Check back.