Back from Phoenix...

Well, we’ve been back for a week now and I think it’s safe to say that Phoenix was a blast. It hasn’t ever taken me an entire week to unwind before, so you know we had a good time.

Good time =

For those of you that didn’t know, Jared whooshed us out west last week for a (much needed) vacation. We were all pumped up for some desert sun, but unfortunately we had a weather trailer in tow…we brought the rain and muck out with us. Yuck.

But that’s par for the course when Ohioans visit. Jared and Brandi can both attest to that. It seems like any time a Buckeye sets foot in Arizona, the clouds dip down and the skies open up, sandy mountains grow lush and green with vegetation, and it only stops raining when the buckeyes are fast sleep.

This visit wasn’t very different. The first two days were cold, then on the last day the rain subsided and the air temp warmed to a balmy 72 degrees…just in time for us to board our flight. Perfect. Nevertheless, golf was played, babies were squeezed, and we were able to sit back and relax. So much fun!

Since there was a nip in the air, I decided to drink it. Even though we stayed in quite a bit, it didn’t appear to hold us back. I seriously think I drank the Phoenix/Scottsdale area out of Crown Royal (or at least Jared’s Condo). I even came up with a new drink: the King Ben.

2.5 oz Crown Royal, Chilled
2 Benadryl Tablets, Pink

Directions: Take tiny pink tablets one hour prior to going out. Go to comedy club and do extra large shots of Crown Royal. Repeat. Giggle at inappropriate times (i.e. intermissions, standing in front of urinals, photo ops with the opening act, Ari). When it’s too late, remember that you took a double dose of Benadryl. Repeat giggling.

Yep, that was a rough night. For some reason I took the Don’t mix with alcohol warning as a dare, but I can guarantee you that dare will never be double-dogged. On the plus side, however, my allergies are now suppressed for the entire month of March.

This is how I felt...

I have to mention that golf was entirely too beautiful - partly to make Chris jealous and partly because I forgot how pretty the desert can be. Even though the day was cloudy and my play was horrible, I kept taking a couple of steps back just to breathe. Jared booked a tee time at a great little resort and the views were awesome. Hole 17 was particularly amazing. It was a short par 3, situated on the side of a mountain. I had a 180 degree panoramic view of all of Phoenix. There was about a 400 foot elevation drop from the tee to the green, so you were literally hitting off the top of a mountain to the bottom of a mountain. Here’s an artist's rendition:

On a sidenote, something should be said about hitting a ball Out of Bounds in Arizona. It’s a little more disconcerting than your average OB shot in Ohio, considering everything to the left or right of the fairway is labeled “Rattlesnake Habitat.” Needless to say, sometimes you need to just take your drop and move on to the next shot. I definitely left some soldiers behind on that battlefield.

As I mentioned before, we hit up the comedy club to see one of my favorite comedians, Joe Rogan. If you are a preschool teacher and you gave birth to me, I wouldn’t recommend Googling any of his work; he’s a little much for the use-your-words-not-your-fists crowd. But Rogan killed and we had a great time.
It was also the first time that we ever left Tenzin with a sitter. Sure he’s been watched numerous times by friends and family (either voluntarily or forcefully), but this was the first time we’ve trusted a complete stranger with our seed. Jared’s fiancé, Erin, had a sister that was nice enough to volunteer her services for our adult evening. While I’m not sure how much of her job was actual babysitting and how much was “knowing there’s a sleeping baby upstairs,” I was, in actuality, surprised that we were able to leave him so easily. I was proud of us! Not once throughout the evening did we freak, geek, panic, frighten, fret or fluster. We came home and, sure enough, the little man was sawing logs. Erin’s sister was not covered in bodily fluids, the house was not on fire, and we had enjoyed a poop-free evening…I think…like I said, I had the King Ben that night.

So a special thanks to the Phoenicians for hosting us last weekend. It was great to get away. I really wish we could say that it was nice to return, but yeesh…

We got off the plane flustered from travel, carrying enough luggage to make a sherpa crumble, only to find the temperature hovering at around 14 degrees. It wasn’t so bad that it was cold because, now, seeing as it’s almost Spring, we’ve grown accustomed to the cold (I can hear Rachel now saying “speak for yourself.”). But thanks to the TSA and their streamlined security, we were standing outside the baggage claim wearing flip-flops. Not good.

My folks were nice enough to pick us up, so they met us at the airport in the monster truck. Seeing our tired, spiritless faces, they offered us a warm meal. We’re not one to turn down a free lunch so we headed out to grab a bite, braving our tootsies in the frosty Ohio wind. Dinner was great and we got to recap some highlights from the trip, Tenzin tried tortilla soup and munched on some chicken fingers, Rachel and I enjoyed tall beers with our meal, slooooowly unwinding from the flight. We were so relaxed…and then it happened…the clouds parted and the snow started falling. And falling. And falling.

In the 45 minutes we sat in the restaurant, three whole inches of frosty goodness fell from the skies, all while twenty teeny tiny toes stared up at us from beneath the table. It was bound to happen; the weather we took out to Phoenix was back. It’s off the plane, it picked up its luggage, and it was now following us through the streets of Columbus.

Little man didn't like face planting too much...



That's all for now. I’m having an unspoken contest with everyone in my office to see who can eat a Girl Scout’s weight in cookies...and I’m winning. So much to do. I'll also try to transfer the rest of the movies we have on the camcorder to YouTube. Any other requests, let me know.

Until then, here's this...

Fluids and snow...

I knew my son would get some of my DNA, but I had no idea to what extent. What am I talking about? Well apparently Tenzin got a large dose of my shit for brains, because we're now battling the 5,637th ear infection (sorry Grandmothers, I had to lead with that one).

Sunday night, with his fever peaking at 103.84, I was back in oh-shit-Rachel-just-said-her-water-broke mode with one foot out the door. Time to round up the jumper cables, bottle of Clorox and the monkey wrench. Moments prior, Rachel and I had vowed that 104 was "go time" and it appeared as though the Gods were testing me.

.16 more degrees and we were off to Riverside (Heaven forbid our son ever get sick at 8:00 am on a Wednesday).

We're now pretty sure that this is the same fever he had a week ago. But prior to today, we were certain that Tenzin had conquered the evils of daycare germ warfare and had that thing kicked...

...but it was back...with a vengence...and apparently Tenzin had talked trash about its Momma.

Just to recap the week prior, those of you without children might not know this, but:

Motrin

+

Whole Milk

+

Sick Baby

=

Such was the case for poor, unfortunate Rachel. We had just got done feeding Tenzin and as she went to carry him down the hall, Mauna Loa erupted and the alligator tears began. He had just received his innoculations only two days prior and was already not feeling well, but we had just assumed that it might have something to do with him acting as human pincushion at the doctor's office. Now, as Rachel stood before me, looking like she just said "I don't know" on You Can't Do That on Television, we were pretty sure he was, in fact, sick.

After the eruption, everything was pretty uneventful. Our weekend was shot, so we missed a family trip to Great-Grandmas in order to stay home and pump him full of pedialyte and OJ. He did well. He was receptive to the occasional cracker-or-two and began eating more and more. The fever inevitably broke and he was back to his high-fiving self (you've got to see it...it's pretty cool). Crisis was averted, or so we thought.

So Saturday (this week) rolls around and out of nowhere, he spikes back up to 102. He had been fine all week, but apparently just listening to Amy Winehouse on the Grammys can trasmit diseases.

We strip him down, dose him with some Motrin, start the fluids, and by morning he seems fine. I had battled a mild fever on Saturday and thought that I that I might have been the carrier, but we decided it was teething. This little man is cutting some major molars. And even I, as a kid, ran super high temperatures, so we knew that while it might be above average teething-temp, we didn't think it was impossible with my medical history.

So morning comes and he's your average everyday poopmachine, playing like a normal child in the family room with all the boxes his toys came in. He's eating regularly, drinking fluids and crying big, watery tears. All is good, yes? Then the sun goes down and he spikes back up again. He is literally on fire.

It's now Sunday night, the thermometer is almost 104, and I'm debating on wether or not I should double-knot my shoes before I jog him to the hospital. We've tried everything; he's been stripped, showered, cold compressed, rolled in the snow, wrapped in a case of beer, slooooowly unwarapped one-by-one, washed on the "delicates" cycle, and taped to a window-unit air conditioner.

Nothing.

This was about to be the longest .16 degrees we've ever had to wait through.

I don't have much more else to say and I'm not really sure where I was going with this post. The fever subsided and he seemed fine. Then he had a small fever again at my mom's house on Tuesday, so we snuck him in to the doctor in the afternoon. Turns out he has a half-infection in one ear, a full-blow infection in the other AND a sinus infection. I, to Rachel's dismay, requested a shot to get the antibiotics rolling and he now seems like he's getting better.

Like I said, I'm not really sure where I was going with this. Our son was sick and is now getting better again. Big deal. But there's a large part of me that really really really wants to vent and another part of me that should probably just let it go.

Basically, this is now his 4th strain of antibiotics in 16 months and it's driving me crazy. I hate the fact that he's taking them because I feel like they're detrimental to his immune system. But what are we supposed to do? There aren't any options. If we leave the ear infections as they are, he could lose his hearing (which could always be a plus, considering we're going to Phoenix in two days and Brandi likes to whistle). So give him the antibiotics and let him get well. Yes?

But it's the ear infections. I know a lot of this is par for the "winter" course and four infections is on the high --not absurd-- end of the spectrum. But I feel like we can't go a month without the Zen being sick. It makes you feel helpless as a parent. And while I can assure you that my blessings have been counted and I understand just how fortunate we are to have a usually-healthy child, I want it to be over. Done. Finished. No more staring at his red cheeks at 3:00 in the morning. No more night sweats. No more wife covered in pink goo. Seriously. I'm almost yearning for pink eye, or lice, or poison ivy...just something other than ear infections!

Anyway, I just needed to get that off of my chest. He's a tough little guy and he bounces back super quick, but it kills me to see him lacking in spirit. There's nothing worse than seeing him lay there, lethargic, staring off into the distance.

In other news (besides the fact that the Zen is better), we'll be in wonderful Phoenix, Arizona in just 1 1/2 short days. Jared, being the wise financial advisor that he is, decided to invest in smiles and is flying us out to his neck of the desert. It's one of the best Christmas presents we've never had to unwrap. Money is tight and we couldn't even think of flying out there for family fun in the sun, so this will be a VERY WELCOME vacation. I think the day after Jared hinted at the trip, I already had my golf clubs washed, polished and bubblewrapped. We're bursting at the seams with excitement. In fact, Tenzin was so excited that he peed himself! Then he pooped a little. Then he peed again.

We can't wait!

And speaking of West Coast, happy birthday to Deena. She and Chris just returned from a much-deserved birthday vacation in Las Vegas. Happy three decades, ya old fart!

Hehehehe....

Many of you might not have known this, but Tenzin has been crying for the last year...

That's my boy..

Smells like goldenrod...