McBean’s bad day

We went off to the doctor to get McBean’s little willy checked out this morning.  On the way, we ran into a friend with a new baby, so McBean and I walked FenFox the rest of the way to school (she was going late due to extreme camp exhaustion) while Lazyboo stayed to chat.  On our way back to Lazyboo, I tripped and fell.  McBean was on my hip in the sling, and his head hit the road with a sickening thud.  Now that’s a sound I’m not likely to forget in a hurry.  So we hurried back to Lazyboo, McBean sobbing and me freaking out.  So we all traipsed off to see the doctor, now with a brand new concern.

We have two regular doctors, and neither of them were available today, so we had to see the practice leader, who is a rather distractable older jewish man that neither of us are overly comfortable with. Despite that, he managed to reassure us fairly quickly that McBean was ok and hadn’t suffered any major injury in the fall.  Phew.  So we took his nappy off to find out the problem with the little willy. The verdict was that the foreskin is infected (either fungal or anaerobic), and that it’s a fairly common problem (he said he sees about one a month).  The next part was problematic though because he told us it was due to poor hygiene (not sure how this happens given it’s cleaned several times a day and then he’s bathed) and that we should be retracting the foreskin to clean it.  This surprised me so I questioned him, and he didn’t really answer but made noises about how it’s hard to know what to do when when… I kindly finished his thought and admitted that we don’t know a great deal about pen.ises.  Hmm troublesome.  After asking a few of the other mums of sons that we know, we’re comfortable with not trying to do anything with the foreskin, though we will make sure he actually sits in his bath every night to give it a good soaking. The doc also said we should keep him out of cloth nappies until it’s healed, and why would we want to bother with them at all anyway?  Sigh.

So our poor little lad has ended the day with fungal creams and antibiotics and a lump covered in gravel rash on the back of his head.  But despite all that, he’s still been a cheery little guy, exploring and laughing and chatting and smiling away.  Now if only I can get the sound of that ‘crack!’ out of my head….

And to end MY day on a similarly bad note, FenFox has reappeared an hour after bed time coughing and spluttering with a very congested sounding chest… here we  go again.

Nekkid boy

McBean spent a  portion of the day running around nekkid -no nappy, no clothes, just a cheery nekkid little guy.  He has a bit of a problem with his little penis at the moment – the end is all red and inflamed and this morning looked quite swollen – hence the nappy off time.  By the end of the day it looked less swollen but still angrily red.  It doesn’t seem to be hurting him, but Clark is quite concerned (I don’t know what to think about it) so we’re off to the docs tomorrow.  I hope it’s not serious.

The one good thing about the warmer weather is that he can happily run around in the raw.  It really doesn’t seem to make any difference to him if he has a nappy and clothes on or not, he behaves in exactly the same manner.  It’s nice that he can do that, and will be nicer still when he is potty trained and we don’t have to run around after him with a pee rag.  Just as well we have wood floors.

Took him out today in our brand new hand me down back pack.  Apart from the insistent hair pulling when he was bored, it was great.  He could see everything but not touch (going fruit and veg shopping at the market with Mr Grabby Hands can be challenging) and it was reasonably comfortable for both of us.  It’s always fun going out with McB, you get spontaneous smiles wherever you go, he’s such a friendly, smiley (flirty) little guy.

Hot

It’s too hot for anything much right now.  Some of our loveliest moments of the last few days have been spent on the trampoline, which appears to be McBean’s new favourite thing.  Here’s the boy and his Baba hanging out:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This is a question I am asking myself a lot lately.  I am, officially, stuck in an employment rut.  I have a job, it (barely, maybe not really) pays the bills.  I had, once upon a time, hope that this field would provide me with a career path and to that end I enrolled in a Masters degree to further myself.

McBean has derailed me.  Well, more to the point, going through TTC and pregnancy and the first year of McBean’s life has made me reevaluate what I want and what I am willing to put up with in my employment life – and where I’m at and where I’m currently heading doesn’t cut it.

Alright then, that being said, what do I want?  Good question, and one I don’t have an answer for yet.

I am a little jealous of Clark really.  She’s spent the last few (many) years working towards a particular career goal, and now she’s reached that qualification and has enough experience to know that yes, this is really what she wants to be doing, and now it’s just a matter of her finding a suitable position.  Which is taking a little while much to her frustration, but will eventually happen and when it does we know that she’ll love what she’s doing and be happy doing it.

It’s amazing and awesome that she’s found this in her life.  I absolutely couldn’t be happier for her.  And I’m very glad that one of us has got to that point.  It merely serves to highlight the listless and unfocused state I find myself in.

WTF am I going to do with myself?

If we had all the money in the world, as the saying goes, there are plenty of things I’d like to try.  But alas reality rears its ugly head and I am stumped with what I can do given our current and very limited circumstances.  There are not really a lot of lucrative careers for antisocial smartasses who don’t play well with others and have no qualifications in anything.  Well, maybe politics.  But you need to have money for that to begin with.  And absolutely no morals and/or ethics, or a willingness to disregard said morals and/or ethics.

Unfortunately I am a principled antisocial smartass.  Uh oh.

I won’t bore you with a wish list of things I would like to be doing.  Conceptually I’d like to be in a field which is beneficial to both our bank balance and to society/the world at large.  And that I can work by myself.  Don’t like my chances.

Sunday Snapshot

Despite the heat ridiculously early in the season, today has  been a beautiful day of blissful domesticity.

It was Lazyboo’s turn for a sleep-in (something that only ever occurs rarely, I’m ashamed to say) and McBean decided that 545 was a good time to start the day.  So I stumbled out of bed and went outside to lounge on the trampoline with him in the cool of the morning while he jumped around excitedly.  After breakfast, Fenfox emerged from her room so we rushed some food into her and then went to the park for a couple of hours.  McBean walked a really long way and the dog ran herself into exhaustion even before we went to the playground.  At the playground, FenFox impressed me with her monkey bar antics and her newfound ability to swing herself (finally – it was like she had a mental block).  McBean scrambled up stairs and ladders and down slides, ate dirt and asserted himself with an overly friendly little girl.  Much fun was had.

Once we came home, Lazyboo was up and the rest of the day was spent in quiet relaxation (for the girls anyway, McBean ran around playing, messing, exploring, shouting, dancing as he usually does). We had a lovely sunday roast (foolishness on a 34 degree day but yum nonetheless), we gathered and labelled and packed up FenFox’s gear for her very exciting school camp to Mt.Eliza tomorrow.  And then I had a two hour nap, as had McBean a little earlier.

When I got up we headed back outside where it was cooler than our little hotbox of a house and watched McBean jump on the trampoline again.  FenFox sat under a tree and continued to read (her third book of the day).  Lazyboo and I hung out some washing and installed the toddler seat on the back of my bike.  Then it was time to get FenFox all washed and fed before she headed off to church with her Dad and R2 (it was a guides thing and I sure wasn’t going!)  There were some lovely moments while FenFox was finishing her dinner and all of us (including R1 and R2) watched some video of FenFox as a 9 month old, exclaiming how R1 had hair then, and my hair wasn’t yet gray, and how we were babies with a baby.

After watching a little guy splash around in the bath (which ended suddenly after he repeatedly pulled the plug out), Lazyboo and I headed back outside with a beer (me) and some gin (Lazyboo) for a chat in the lovely cool evening.  Then we came back in and cooked my favourite meal (beef madras) to eat tomorrow night, and a leftover frittata for us to eat tonight.  FenFox was delivered home asking questions about why they use words like thee, thou and ye at church and exclaiming about the boredom of it all then she headed off to bed.

McBean has just woken up after discovering for the first time how to remove his nappy cover – I am glad that we chose the two part option and not the all in ones!  A quick cold bottle and he’s back off to sleep.

Today was a good day.