Coming Attractions...

I've spent much of Sunday morning, juggling a rambunctious baby on one knee while navigating around the computer trying to figure out the best way to post some short videos to our blog. I'm not thrilled with the quality or process but for now, here's Fiona, starring in her first short motion picture, It's Saucer Time. Just click on the link(s) under Great Clips to the left to view. Coming Soon: Happy Mexican Independence Day; Belly Frustration...
I'll continue working on shorter flicks, better resolution, and ease of uploading.

Who's the fairest of them all?...

Fiona, just checking to make sure I hadn't dressed her in white after Labor Day.

It's a relief to feel fall in the air. Mornings are cooler and I don't have to race to get a "wog" in before it's 100 degrees. Fussy Fiona always settles down with a change of scenery, particularly outdoors. She loves to join me while I water plants (yes, me, watering plants), sit on the front steps, or just hang out on the patio at Starbucks. If I'm lucky I can get in a grande drink and a few sections of the paper before the squirming grows out of control. She's soooo active--basically there are two modes: asleep or active awake. We still carry her around in the Bjorn sling a lot or she can entertain herself in the saucer for 10-20 minute intervals a few times in the morning and mid afternoon. It's amazing how much cleaning, washing, internet surfing, and Swifting I can whirl through in such a short time. Bewitching hours still run between 5 and 7 pm and we do what we can to feed & exhaust her before finally tucking her away for the night.

This tooth right here...

Poor boo, I think she's had reason to cry. Those two bottom teeth have company on top. One is clearly pressing through there on her right and it looks like three more little white patches on her gums next it. Keeping track in her baby album I looked over the pre-laid out page for recording teeth and found she's months ahead of the typical time frame for all of these, at least according to Hallmark. We've been making fun, picturing Fiona by Christmas with a veneer like smile chewing on a pig ear. One thing that has increased in difficulty is breastfeeding. Sparing descriptive details, I've been seriously bit on more than one occasion!

Could there be a happier Typhoid patient?

Outbreak

Instead of malaria, as reported in a previous entry, it turns out Jim contracted a different, nasty infectious disease. Think turn of the century, tenement slums, and an Irish house maid named Mary... Yep, the few the proud, Jim is now one of the 400 or so Typhoid cases reported annually to the CDC. After much speculation and a copious amount of "lab samples" the official diagnosis that put a close to the three plus weeks of malaise, fever, chills and night sweats is Paratyphoid, caused by Salmonella para typhi bacteria. No pretty way to say it, someone in India didn't wash up before prepping dinner. Although it sounds wretched this was the best diagnosis from the options Jim's doctor presented--everything from a cardiac valve infection to cancer. Before the bug was even identified he was hospitalized, placed on broad spectrum IV antibiotics, given a CT (with a liter of tasty banana flavored oral contrast), an echo cardiogram, and multiple chest x-rays. Last Tuesday, after a week on isolation in his little basement room at Mercy Hospital, Folsom, he came home, 7lbs lighter, detesting bananas, and sporting a home IV catheter coiled around his right upper arm. He's feeling great, symptom free so by next week this should all be a distant blog memory as I get back to work (I had to prove I was OK for the hospital), Fiona fusses over a mouthful of teeth, and Jim finishes up antibiotics before his next dreaded work trip.