Parenting Fail: Part 1/529224315

On Monday I took young Nava to the doctor because she had been coughing a little on the weekend and her eyes had been red and runny. This was the first time she's ever been even a little sick and I wanted someone else to tell me that she's fine. As is always the way, her symptoms evaporated completely by the time we were in the doctor's waiting room. But I'm stubborn and anyway I had nothing else scheduled, so having gotten this far I decided there was no way we were leaving without seeing the doctor about something.

Not-sick Nava. Because she can't say no,
she has to wear elephant ears and bunny boots.
This is how we incentivize learning to talk. 

Happily (I guess), there was something! The infant had developed a pretty grody rash behind her ears. It was flaky and nasty. Now, my ignorance is a silky and voluptuous creature whom I hate to discourage, so I hadn't done any research or even much thinking about this rash and had simply put it down to "some kind of cradle cap or something". Despite knowing better, I also had a slight nagging worry that it was a symptom of psoriasis, my own familiar skin condition, which I obviously hope my daughter hasn't inherited. 

And so we waited at the doctor's office. One patient was a teeny weeny baby that must have been less than a week old. His (her?) parents looked exhausted and held their little bundle in that awkward super-newborn way where you're just trying to prevent the kid's head from dribbling down your front like a wet squid. It made me realize how much old Nava has solidified in the last three-and-a-half months. 

There was also a cute toddler girl who was tinkering with toys while her mother and grandmother were intently focused on some kind of cell phone game. At one point the girl dragged this mini rocking horse out from under a table to play with, but she only pulled it out halfway, so that once she got on she inevitably smacked the back of her head against the countertop. 

The girl's mom leapt up and over me in time to prevent her child from bumping her head a second time. Then she shot me the same look that you give a turd that has failed to flush. I was sitting closer to the rocking horse than the kid's mom, and, you know, I wasn't playing with my phone, so I guess it was my job to intervene and save her toddler's skull, but I was holding a baby and also I didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. The kid didn't even notice she had banged her head. Whatever. So this other mom gave me the squint and I tried to act like a dignified turd who has better shit to worry about, so to speak. 

After that tiresome interlude in the waiting room, which I feel like doctors (and perhaps bloggers) insist on just to make a little more mountain out of what would otherwise be a negligible tad of molehill, we finally got in to the doctor. 

He instantly dismissed the suggestion that Nava was sick, so as planned I brought up the rash behind her ears. 

"Uh-oh, a rash?," said the doctor, who looks nothing like Santa but sort of talks like him sometimes. "Well, we had better take a look!" He carefully turned the baby's head from side to side to inspect behind each thumb-sized ear. 

He looked at me. "That is just dirt." 

"Oh," I said, deflated. "Just dirt?" 

Oh. 

"Yes, dirt," he said, slowly, as if explaining to a turd that it is not supposed to stick around but rather should swim away with its brothers. "One does actually have to clean the babies. I would suggest treating the ears with a washcloth and soap, and later applying almond oil. That should do it."  

Flushed, I left. 

Nava Gets a Gift

Hooray! My good old friend Denia is in town. I don't get to see her much because she lives in California where she does brilliant nuclear stuff and where I assume she and her colleagues gossip about quarks and Snapchat with Nobel Prize winners. 

Anyway, because Denia is lovely and still condescends to speak to the likes of me, we had a great time chit chatting and playing with the baby, and then Denia and I went out for a walk (and by walk I mean she waited with me at my gynaecologist's office, because that's the kind of stellar feminist friend she is). We talked about literature, meditation, iron-rich vegetables and the recent work of a transgendered Stanford professor of neurobiology. Actually, she talked about those things. I talked about baby poop and my episiotomy. 

Unfortunately, however, Denia was generous enough to bring young Nava a lovely baby book as a gift. Predictably, it is about rainbows. It opens with the sentence: "Little Rabbit and his mother were sitting under a big, red flower petal." You see, that's where they were waiting for the rain to stop. 

Denia and Nava. Looks like Nava just finished reading her new book!

The book is about what rainbows are made of. I always thought rainbows were made of light refracted through tiny water drops suspended in the atmosphere, but apparently that's wrong. It turns out rainbows are made out of RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE and PURPLE.

Thanks a lot for this super educational book, Denia. I thought you were a scientist. 

Okay, actually the book is really cute and has this whole thing with pop-out ribbons that build into a rainbow. And Denia is a wonderful person whom I love. Thanks so much for visiting, Denia, and thank you very much for the book. 

Bagel Foot

I once saw this episode of Taboo on National Geographic that was all about bizarre body modifications, and the weirdest one of all was the "bagel head" phenomenon.  What they do is attach a saline drip to the fool's expressive individual's forehead and pump it in until a big bump forms, much like you'd imagine would be created by vigorous facepalming. Then, with a finger, an indent is pushed into the middle of the bump. The end result: the recipient looks like she or he has had a bagel implanted in their forehead, at least for a few hours until their bodies can absorb all the saline. Great success!

Watch it for yourself here:

I bring it up because yesterday I realized that I can do the same thing with my enormously swollen feet! And just when I thought that there was no upside to this condition, too. BEHOLD (the spots on my foot, by the way, are psoriasis, because I'm not allowed to take my usual meds because pregnant... it's awesome):

Now I know how EYE'LL be spending my Saturday. And you?

P.S. I had to go to the hospital again yesterday for yet another scan (all's well), and spoke to the head doctor about inducing labor. Basically she said I should show up on Tuesday morning with a car seat, cashew nuts and a suitcase full of giant underpants because I'm not leaving again without a baby. Thank Gof for clarity. 

Underpants and The Dangling Bough

I didn't post anything yesterday owing to a major laptop-related disaster. But today I'm back to talk about the underpants and share a very short video that I made of the laziest tree branch in the world.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Because the infant continues to make herself scarce, yesterday I again trooped up to the 18th district for a CTG (cardiotocography). A CTG measures your fetal heart beat and also any contractions you may be having by way of two transducers (had to look that one up) that are strapped to your heaving belly for about half an hour. Occasionally a nurse walks by and gives your gut a hearty jiggle to wake the baby up. This little exam takes place with increasing frequency after your due date, plus they do an ultrasound to check whether your kid is in the preferred head-down start position and make sure that your placenta and umbilical cord still work.

This might all be really boring for you, but for me it was totally riveting, not least because this was the only opportunity I have ever had to be concurrently in the company of several enormously pregnant women who all have their panties showing.  This is because the "CTG Lounge" (true story) at the clinic fits four girls at once. Last time I made the mistake of lying on my left side so I could watch the heart monitor. This time I made sure I could peer up everyone else's skirts. (And if I could have taken a photo to post, I would have).

The exam involves baring your belly so that the thingies can be strapped on. Thus everyone has a solid opportunity to scope out how bad everyone else's stretch marks are and see whether they too are wearing absurdly unattractive underpants. And they were!

The skinny, well-dressed woman had the same ones as me but in a different color. But so did the woman in a dun-colored headscarf who had had arrived with neither ankle nor wrist on display. And so did the other girl, who had (rather sweetly, I thought) come in to check whether she was actually in labor (The answer was YES, that lucky bitch, whom we all ogled with fear and envy as she was escorted out in a cloud of encouraging incantations and breathing exercises). So, in case you were wondering, all nine-month-pregnant women wear the same underpants. Science, you're welcome.

And speaking of labor and other ungainly transitions, then there was this tree. I was walking down the hill from the clinic when I brushed shoulders with this fat cluster of leaves that was hanging from above, like a glow worm on a thread. At first I thought it was dangling near my head because some giant limb above was about to snap off (so, terror) but actually, it was just hanging on a 20-foot, noodle-like branch that was hanging from another saggy branch.

It was just a lazy ass branch. It couldn't be bothered to stand up, but it also couldn't let go. The image was as pregnant as a simile, and though I wasn't sure which I filmed it.