Here's what we in the Lopez Household have been up to in the month since I last posted a blog entry about the adventures of parenting the Juban Princeling.
September 28, 2009: Day 1Juban Princeling develops a stuffy/runny nose and cough.
September 29, 2009: Day 2Princeling definitely sick with a cold. He's miserable, which means I'm miserable. Since the weather is crappy anyway, we just stay home all day.
October 3, 2009: Day 6Cold over, though cough lingers.
October 5, 2009: Day 8Princeling had two loose bowel movements this morning. Then another in the afternoon. Then another.
October 6, 2009: Day 9Still loose poops. I call the doctor's office. Nurse tells me a stomach bug is going around. Since the weather is crappy anyway, we just stay home all day. I email all my mom friends whose babies have been exposed to the Princeling in the past 48 hours to put them on high alert.
October 8, 2009: Day 11The Princeling celebrates turning 1 year old with just three or four loose poops the whole day, but he still can't have dairy, so no buttercream frosting on the piece of cake we give him. He mostly just smashes it into his high chair tray anyway.
The cake I made for the Princeling for his birthday. Note the piece in the corner cut out before I frosted the cake with homemade chocolate buttercream. Not that it mattered, since it mostly ended up pulverized beneath the Princeling's Fists of Fury.
October 11, 2009: Day 14Princeling finally seems healthy.
October 12, 2009: Day 15Weather's crappy. We stay in.
October 16, 2009: Day 19Princeling goes to bed seemingly healthy, but three hours later develops a harsh, deep chest cough that keeps him -- and me -- up all night. No fever, though. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention sends someone in a white coat to study us.
October 17, 2009: Day 20Husband's birthday. He celebrates with a 10 AM appointment at a dental surgeon getting an infected and impacted wisdom tooth removed. When he comes home, half his face is numb and he's drooling. The Princeling's nose is running like a broken faucet and his eyes are red and puffy. The two of them together are like a disgusting version of a human Niagra Falls. It's cold and rainy. I mentally wish myself to a tropical island with a pina colada and the guy who plays Puck on "Glee" rubbing SPF 75 sunblock onto my back, but it doesn't work. I bake a pumpkin cheesecake for the Husband, since it's smooth and mushy and won't hurt his oral surgery.
October 19, 2009: Day 22Princeling's 1 year well-baby checkup. Doc takes one look at him and declares he has pink eye. I have to put an antibiotic ointment on his eyes three times a day for seven days and keep him away from other babies for 24 hours. I email or call everyone the Princeling has been in contact with in the past 72 hours, including our entire playgroup and everyone who came over for Husband's birthday, to put them on high alert. Various family members and friends threaten to send us their doctor bills if they so much as suspect they've caught pink eye.
October 21, 2009: Day 24Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz declares the Lopez family to be a public health hazard. Nevertheless, I take Princeling to a playground, where some little girls steal the new bouncy ball I just bought him. I hope those girls' parents get pink eye.
October 27, 2009: Day 30The Princeling develops a low-grade fever. New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg sends the Lopez family to a leper colony.
October 28, 2009: Day 31Princeling still has a low-grade fever, but a dose of baby Motrin later and it's gone. President Obama has us declared agents of biological warfare.
October 29, 2009: Day 32Princeling develops a rash on his neck and tummy. Leper colony banishes the Lopez family to an isolated island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
October 30, 2009: Day 33Rash has spread to Princeling's entire body. Nurse at his doctor's office tells me it's a "classic" reaction to last week's MMR vaccine and he's not contagious. I send a message in a bottle to the leper colony to please let us come back, as we are low on diapers and fresh water.
November 1, 2009: Day 35The Princeling develops Bubonic Plague. Bono and Brad Pitt organize an international concert event to raise money to have the Lopez family shot into space.
November 20, 2009: Day 54Princeling develops Martian Plague. Martians banish us to one of Jupiter's moons.
So, that's what I've been up to in the past few weeks while I've been posting my Super Mom interviews. Being a parent is awesome.