Just call me Lovey

I have heard people say that once you have kids, you become more conservative.. like you morph into a republican when you walk out of the hospital holding your new bundle of joy. This has not happened to me, and it's hard to imagine under what circumstances it would.. maybe if I got amnesia then had a lobotomy.

But I have noticed that I have become conservative in other ways. Jack and I went to Arizona last weekend to visit my mom and the sun. It was a lovely vacay and Jack is a great traveller. On Saturday night, my mom watched him while I went to the roller derby with some friends from high school. It was a lot of fun except for one small part. The roller derby was in west phoenix.. west phoenix makes south seattle look like beverly hills. I am from west phoenix so I know it well. And the general scene around the derby brought back more of those high school memories. I used to have to take the city bus home from my high school which was 25 miles east of my home. I went to an all-girls catholic school and I sometime forgot clothes to change into so I had to wear my uniform on the bus.. and the bus picked up lots of high school kids from the public schools of west phoenix. My uniform was a plaid pleated skirt and theirs was mostly whatever was worn in the latest Winger video. Let's just say I don't recall us ever really getting along. And now those people have grown up and on Saturday nights they take their grandchildren to the roller derby.

As I drove home, I thought that I would make sure Jack never had experiences like that. I want to shelter him from the west phoenix people. Then I realized how snotty that sounded but unfortunately, the feeling is genuine and not fleeting. Hmmm.

Here we are at (where else?) the country club:

Healed!

Thankfully, Jack is now feeling better. He had the stomach virus for 9! days. It caused a lot of suffering .. Jack gave it to Ryan, Laurie, Bridget and Lily. Lily gave it to her mother and grandmother. Now things are great.. in that way that happens after you think you might have some fatal disease and it turns out to be nothing. Life is just a little brighter.

These days, Jack has learned to point to his nose when you ask him where it is. He claps a lot but I can't exactly figure out what he is trying to communicate when he does it because he does it very randomly. He is also very into showing you how big he is with his arms (so big!). We also just learned we have a place at a daycare in July (Bridget will be leaving us within the next few months). I feel pretty mixed about the daycare thing .. but it will only be three days a week and it could be fun for Jack.

This is Jack playing with his favorite toy: the recycling.

Sickie

For the last 7 days, jack has been sick. It started out as a virus. We know this because 2 days after Jack got sick, Ryan was sick and then our poor friend Laurie who was nice enough to bring us lunch one day, got sick. It was a horrible stomach bug that passed through the adults in 24 hours.. but not Jack. He threw up for three straight days and a little more erratically for the last four. I have talked to doctors who keep saying its a virus but at this point that is hard to believe. After a year of being harassed by the medical establishment about Jack's low weight, now they don't care that he is losing weight.. a little more than 10% so far.

I am trying hard to be optimistic and believe that he will be ok soon. But a very bizarre kind of fear grips me when something is not right with Jack. It's hard to overcome with a cheery attitude. Fortunately for me, this fear seems to grip most moms. I have talked to a few mom friends who were all very concerned and freaked out on my behalf. I found that oddly comforting.

No pics today since Jack has been so sad. Hopefully the next post features happy and eating jack with happy mom.