Blowout!

For all of my bragging about how I had managed to not get puked, peed, or pooped on I never realized how stunned I would be when it finally happened.  I had enjoyed picking on Emilee because she had borne the brunt of the body fluid attacks.  I actually started to feel bad for her too.  She had been the victim of full on vomiting and she had been peed on several times.  The worst of the attacks resembled the spatter from a shotgun attack.  Anna Grace actually shot poo all over Emilee, the dresser, the crib, and the changing table AND all with a smile on her face.  Emilee however; was not overly amused.

So Emilee had been the victim, and me being the loving supportive husband I am totally teased her about it.  Of course Gracie had not pooped on me because I was her favorite.  Of course this was a look into the future regarding child/parent relationships.  I was sure it would never happen to me.  And I was right for five and a half weeks.  Let me preface this with a simple HUGGIES SUCK!

I am now under the impression that my luck was somewhat due to proper equipment.  You see we had been using Pampers and then switched to Huggies.  We are really grateful for all of the diapers we received as gifts, but we were cruising with the Pampers.  They fit better, are more absorbent, and apparently have better gaskets.  I never had an issue with leakage with the Pampers, and they are much easier to put on a wriggling potentially poo flinging kid.  Oh, and they have the "wet" stripe that turns green when wet!

The Huggies we have fall short in all of the above categories.  Just how short you ask?  At 3 AM Sunday morning I am up for the "feed and clean" session that Emilee and I try to take turns handling.  I had settled into another episode of Las Vegas when Anna Gracie emits the most guttural groan I have ever heard and a fart that would make Jim Carrey proud!  The only problem with this fart was the moisture that flowed with it.  It kind of reminded me of the following joke:

           SON:  Hey Dad, are farts lumpy?

           DAD: Only the good ones!

Yes, it was quite impressive.  SO impressive in fact that it blew out the "O" ring on her diaper.  My beautiful, precious, perfect little GIRL had managed not only to fill her diaper but overfill her diaper; and astonishingly so!  She had managed to cover parts of both legs and had actually forced poop halfway up her back.  She had blown it THROUGH the diaper and then soaked her clothes.  All of this while she was sitting in MY lap.  Now I have run into some interesting things in my EMS career, but this was a new one.  My daughter had actually taken a dump on me!  And sat there with the biggest smile I have seen on her face yet!

As I jumped into the shower to hose off I had to wonder if this was a preview of OUR relationship in her teens.

Keep Smiling,

Rob

The John Adams Project

Just a quick heads up to say that this is NOT a fatherhood blog.  Well I guess it could be; I mean my daughter will grow up in a country being overrun by idiots and traitors. 

I must say that I was not surprised by the two items I am going to discuss in this blog.  Well not surprised after I thought about what I had heard.  I AM surprised however; that with US Citizens like the one's I am about to discuss we still have a standing nation.  The audacity of some and the idiocy of others merely shows how resilient a Democracy (or Federalist Republic) can truly be.  Although the name sake of this particular article had other thoughts...

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide - John Adams

On my way home from work Wednesday night (4/7/10) I was listening to CNN and Anderson Cooper.  The discussion  was centered on the Governor of Virginia calling for "Confederate History Month".  Apparently he is upset about all of the other history months and the slant that modern textbooks place on the Civil War.  Now I am not going to downplay the significance of our Civil War,  but we are 145 years removed from the end of it.  So I am pleasantly ignoring the droning of talking heads when I hear an obviously white male speak the words...."but the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery."

His defense of this was that the Southern states were only interested in State's rights and that slavery never factored into this.  He actually said that it was okay for slavery to be in place in the US because "it was in place all over the world ."  The problem with that theory is that other than Russia slavery had already been banned in the other countries of the developed world, but I digress.  Guess who the counter point guest was....You guessed it, a black male.

That is all it took.  One ignorant talking head and we are now back on the "the white man has been holding us down" super highway.  Forget the fact that we have one of our Governors trying to drum up publicity for a subject designed specifically to drum up support from his white voters.  Forget the fact that it could have been a great debate about the importance of state's rights.  Forget the fact that the more we get sucked into bullshit debates the further we get from dealing with the true issues we face as a nation. Forget the fact that 12% of the population hijacks the debate to keep 100% of the nation from moving forward.

When are we going to learn?  When are we going to learn that we have more IMPORTANT things to do than debate what happened 150 years ago?  Why is it important to have a "Confederate History Month"?  It's not! Why is it important to have any history month?  It's not!  What it shows me is that our education system is in such miserable condition that we have to have focus group history lessons. This is a very simple example of how ignorant the leadership of our country is.  The true fact however, is that this is an example of the AMERICAN VOTER.

So there I was broken from my gentle hypnotism that was my 45 mile drive home; disgusted at where we are as an American people and about to become more severely disappointed.  Thanks Fox News.

The discussion here centered on the Attorney General of our nation (Eric Holder) declaring that he felt that the attorneys at Gitmo defending the"Al-Queda 7" were patriots.  Here is his quote:

"Let me be clear about this: Lawyers who provide counsel for the unpopular are -- and should be treated as what they are -- patriots."
 

WTF?  Lawyers that defend unpopular American citizens are doing a job that is provided for by US Law.  This does not make them patriots.  Doing your job does not make you a patriot.  You may be a patriot and decide to do a job (i.e. military) but just doing your job in itself does not make you a patriot.  AND, these "people" were not US citizens and committed terrorist acts against our country.  SO these lawyers may be doing their jobs, but they are not patriots.  Now I will tell you why some of them are traitors and should be hanged as such.

Many of these lawyers worked for the ACLU.  (Side Note: I am shaking as I type this because I am so pissed off.)  These "patriots" decided that in the spirit of John Adams heroic defense of the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre they would give these "people" a patriotic defense.  I guess they missed the part in the history books that teaches us that we (The Colonies) were STILL UNDER British Law at the time.  Colonists broke the laws of the land and John Adams was defending the governing power.
 

Anyway they (The ACLU) launch the "John Adams Project".  The goal of this project?  To photograph CIA operatives in the home countries of these "people" and then provide these photographs to the "people" they are defending.  These photos then get passed, through lawyer privilege,  to the assholes in the Middle East that constantly want to ruin our way of life.  CIA operatives that provide information that protects you, me, our families, and everyone else on US soil were sold out by US citizens.  I hope Jason tries to defend lawyers on this one!

You and I are LESS safe because we allow people to be in positions of power that actually believe that the US is the evil empire.  We should all be ashamed. I hope that more people become aware of the nightmare approaching us.  I am glad I will miss the true end even if I am not missing the decline of the most powerful nation of its time.  But I am very sad my daughter may be around to see it.

Stay Safe,

Rob

Yet Another Ultrasound

Five weeks ago today we welcomed our daughter into the world.  We were excited, tired, and nervous.  Since that day we have found new challenges and rewards.  We have passed most of the first month milestones with flying colors, and the one's we missed were minor.  But today we hit a major one with mixed but good results.

Before Gracie was born we were informed that she was "skipping beats".  Basically her little heart was jumping around a little bit.  After she was born we had a couple of EKG's done on her and we discovered that she was having PAC's.  PAC's are premature atrial contractions.  This simply means that the top chambers of the heart beat early sometimes.  Sometimes this comes from a defect, but is not an uncommon finding in newborns.  You see, they have shunts that run through their hearts and these have to close before the heart can function correctly.

We were also told that she was having occasional PVC's.  These are premature ventricular contractions; meaning the bottom chambers beat early sometimes.  These can be more dangerous because if they are bad enough they do not allow the heart to pump enough blood to the body.  If this happens in adults they feel like they are have palpitations, or they might feel dizzy and weak.  When it happens in an infant it can lead to under development of major body systems.  We have been worried about the both of them for the past five weeks.

Until today; today we had an appointment with the pediatric cardiologists at the Sibley Heart Center.
Everything we had heard about this group was amazing.  I know several parents who have taken their children to this practice and ALL have had wonderful things to say about them.  Even with such a great reputation you worry.  So we set out this morning hoping for good news for our daughter and our nerves.

We had a great experience. The staff was amazing.  They were very professional and very patient with us and our questions.  First Gracie had an EKG tracing done and there they were; PAC's and PVC's.  Not good news.  Initially (5 weeks ago) we had been told that in 90% of the cases the irregular beats would just go away.  SO at least we know we know Gracie is in the top 10% of some group already; Just not the right group.   Then the doc tells us we have to have an "echo".

An echo cardiogram  is basically an ultrasound of the heart.  Good thing Gracie is used to radio waves bouncing off of her!  This should be routine.  Fortunately it was.  The technician running the machine gave us a guided tour through our daughter's normal heart. At least structurally normal.  He let us know that Gracie's heart is perfect as far as he could see.  After the echo the doc walked in a confirmed everything the ultrasound tech had told us.  I can't tell you how relieved we were.

It has been an amazing five weeks.  Poop is smelling now and coming in greater quantities.  Crying is MUCH louder; kid has some pipes.  She is managing not to be as much of a bobble head and she is starting to grab things and pull; like my goatee!  But most of all we are learning how to become a family.  It's pretty exciting to us; I just hope the happy times just keep rolling.


Keep Smiling,
Rob