Little Jaxon is Fine

One of the new challenges of parenting is how you never get to sleep anymore. By that I mean that you may close your eyes for a couple hours at a time but you never have a fully restful sleep. This explains why I got a couple things wrong in the last post. While Amanda is great and probably would have given similar advice, Lara consulted her coworker Jeannine Laux, an excellent Nurse Practitioner and recent new mom, if we should take Jaxon to the emergency room – my bad. Also, forgive the typos and misspellings, grammar faux pas and a lack of sleep go hand and hand.

That notwithstanding, when last we left off, Lara and I had just returned from the hospital, wondering if we horribly scarred our child for life due to a presumptive incorrect placement of a monitoring device. I can safely say that Jaxon and lil’ Jaxon are fine. We know that now after three medical visits and an almost $400 ER bill.

After the initial inconclusive ER visit Sunday where they prescribed doses of strong antibiotics, the next morning we visited a pediatric dermatologist who, upon inspection, gave Jaxon a clean bill of health. As a thank you, Jaxon attempted to pee on everyone in the room. Luckily, I warned everyone to stand back and stand by so we avoided a calamity. While we left with fewer questions, we were reassured that the boil had resolved and there didn’t appear to be any lasting impacts to his nether regions.

On our way home, we stopped off to pick up takeout breakfast. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to risk anyone’s life over an egg sandwich. While waiting in the car, we talked about buying a new home. As a budget analyst and formerly poor person, I’m generally pragmatic about spending money, although some of our know that I’ve made some mistakes (cough “Baltimore” cough). I like our relatively small home in our relatively lower middle class neighborhood. It’s efficient and practical. It’s a great bachelor pad. But with a child, that arithmetic changes. Lara and I now think about schools, space to grow, the opportunities that exist in communities with a Starbucks close enough to walk to so that someone can get a Carmel Apple Spice anytime he wants. If we want to remain in the District, which we are currently committed to doing, there are options but there will require lots of money, and maybe the transfer of a couple vital organs to make it work. Again, kids, man.

The following Tuesday morning, we attended our rescheduled one month doctor’s visit. There, the medical team verified that the constant, almost hourly feedings have resulted in weight gain – although you wouldn’t know it by the metric ton of poop Jax has created in his short time in our universe. I think he’s about 5 lbs, 2 oz – correct me if I’m wrong in the comments. The doctor examined Jax, including his wee wee, and found that everything appears to be in working order. Other than a little newborn acne, he’s good.

The Pediatrician and her newly minted resident said he was a sweet and cute baby. The thing that was most astonishing is that he was completely calm during his examination. I found this to be very disingenuous of our son. I mean, we warned them that, “hey, he could blow like a volcano”, but no, he made us look like little liars by being a perfectly behaved cherub – the nerve. While Lara asked pointed medical professional questions, I asked if his currently lumpy head would ever even itself out. Probably was what I heard.

Anyway, the ER got back to us with test results. It appears that Jax had minor staph infection. Lara says that this is normal although the circumstances of how are probably a little usual. Again, we think that the cause of the infection was a poorly applied baby pulse monitor that clips on to the front of his diaper. To avoid that happening again, we have Jax sleep in pants and clip the monitor onto the pants. Seems to work well. Also, we impulse purchased a $300 monitor that attaches to his foot. In a former life, I may have given some thought before making such an expensive purchase that – honestly – has somewhat limited utility. Nope, just buy it. Have we used it? Nope. However, Lara and I now can feel comfortable that we we have this equipment sitting in a chair in our living room.

So other than the mind altering fatigue, everything is fine.

I take that back, I’m getting too invested in Dawson’s Creek. Help.

Thanks everyone.