Happy New Year

Well it's a New Year. 2006 is upon us and I can only say good riddance. Aside from the birth of our son in August, 2005 seemed like a pretty bleak year, even for a positive sort of soul such as myself. If it were a child it would have received coal for Christmas. Nature, politics and the world in general seemed to have decided that 2005 should be as crappy as possible. There were many horrific occurrences this year, such as the birth of this blog, so it seemed only fitting that a year destined to be as crappy as possible not disappoint. Yes 2005 can now go rot in whatever chronological hell awaits it. I haven't been this happy to see the back end of anything since I got that swimsuit calendar. So given the state of the year in general it was with no surprise and a cruel and ironic twist that I found myself exactly where I was 31 years ago to the day.

Our Christmas had gone remarkably better than last year's, but when you consider last year's saw all but myself crippled with some mystery uber-virus that caused bodies to expel fluid from whatever available orifice it could find that's a pretty low bar to get over. I had logged my last two working days in the year and was headed home for a nice 3 day weekend. I walked in the door only to find the wife holding what I thought was dinner. It was tightly wrapped and smoking hot. It turns out that said parcel was not dinner at all, but was in fact the Rainybaby! Yes folks he had decided to attempt a burst into flames, the likes of which not been seen since Johnny Storm. Since we were fairly sure that his superpowers have not yet developed, it was determined that the medicines that had been applied to knock down his minor fever were failing and it was time for some professional attention. The wife bundled him up and took him to the walk in clinic that works in place of our regular doctor whenever he is unavailable.

After a few hours of turning him this way and taking samples of various fluids it was determined that he likely was fighting a urine infection. The wife came home, as she was about to fall over from fatigue, and it was my turn to run him to the next stop, the emergency room. It was clear that any plans I had made for the next night were about to end up here. I decided to jump in the van and make a run for it. Saving a bunch of money on gas by placing his flaming body on the dashboard to heat the cabin as we raced down to the emergency room. Upon our arrival I was dismayed to find that the admissions nurse wasn't allowed to medicate the poor little guy and neither should I.
The pediatrician was to be along shortly so I wasn't worried. After an hour of his steadily climbing temperature we were ushered into a room where the pediatrician told us that they would return in a minute or two. After two more hours they finally sent a nurse in to check him out and after finding his temperature all the way up to 104F a flurry of activity ensued. Before I knew what to do a catheter, and IV and a dose of meds were all applied to him.

We were dispatched to the upper floors to get some rest. Since it was 4:00am we were comfortably resting by about 4:30 only to be awakened by 8:00 for vitals checks and a battalion of other sleep destroying activities. We passed the time playing with Rainyjakob's new friend Standly the IV pole. After a while we were dispatched to the lower levels of the building where his body could be pummelled with sounds waves would have dolphins pounding on the walls screaming "Cut that racket out, we're trying to get some sleep down here.


After a few more shots of meds through Standly we were given the prognosis from the doctor who said that the little guy was on the mend and we only had to spend two days with Standly. Needless to say this was well received by the little fella. The only complication was that they will have to have him back in once he is well recovered for a few tests to make sure that his innards all are doing what they should. That certainly go his attention. The good thing is that he seems pretty content about coming home though.









All in all it was a pretty crappy way to spend a birthday and a New Years. So now it's your turn. What fun things did you do this New Year's Eve, or if you don't like that then regale us with tales of your worst birthday. Come on now people don't be shy. You've just read a post on how foul baby pee can impact the holidays.