B.R. 12/21/08 -- Catching Up

So, it's been a week since the last post and I admit, December has been somewhat spotty in terms of baby reports. "Mea culpa," says the baby. Ok, that was me. To my knowledge, she has not learned anything beyond canine speech, body language, and a smattering of English. If anything, she'd have said "私の自身の欠陥", however, I don't think Enn's muhmuh's efforts at teaching her Japanese ever took root.

Anyway, there's been a lot of excitement around these parts that quite frankly contributed rather directly in the precipitous decline of baby reports and other postings. And what excitement are we talking about? Well, nothing good that's what.

Firstly, there was the case of the horrific tapeworm. It seems that our feline addition came with a friend -- Mr. Tapeworm. I didn't realize this until one fateful evening as I spied little white nasties wiggling about in his yump when I went to scoop out said yump from the litterbox. Although I've seen some godawful things in my life, the sight of those little wiggly nasties is one of the grossest, retch-inducing things I'd ever seen. Needless to say, that image has been permanently seared into my mind's eye. I'd have shared a pic with you gentle readers but I'll spare you the sight. Suffice it to say, if you really want to lose your appetite, just google "tapeworm" and you'll not eat for quite some time.

I didn't immediately know that it was a tapeworm infestation because, well, except for pictures in biology books, comic asides, and one story from a classmate of mine back in high school about seeing and feeling some things in the course of her bms while she lived in the Indian sub-continent that no one believed at the time but rather thought it a desperate attempt to draw attention to herself, I've never had a first-hand experience with any parasitic worms. However, the identity of the wiggly nasties was quite evident upon googling. Unfortunately, the positive identification of said parasite only made me feel more ill because all those little yellow sesame-like thingys that I've been seeing wherever Memphis had been, i.e. all over the apartment -- items that I thought were dandruff -- were in fact dried up segments of tapeworm. *RETCH*

Needless to say, a trip to the vet for medication was on the top of my to-do list. Followed by a weekend filled with A LOT of vacuuming, washing, and cleaning.

Luckily one dose was all it took and I've not found sesame seed droppings and/or seen white nasty wigglies falling from his bum since. I hope that is the end of that. That said, I've been quite vigilant in checking the baby's yumps because she did gobble up a chunk of his yump back in the day. Bleh.

Secondly, as most parents know, it wouldn't do if only one child got sick, right? Spread the joy as it were. So, it happened that the baby took ill. With what I'm still not sure. She was ok one moment, and listless the next. She didn't want to eat or play, not even with I tried to tempt her with her favorites in both. Added to this, her stummy made the most horrible sounds and she shook as if she were out in the cold. So, I worked from home that day while she stayed quivering in my lap. This went on for the entire day, and continued to the next. Because I didn't want a passed out pup on my hand, I was going to feed her some Nutri-cal should she not eat anything for a second day, but luckily (for her!) she ate some chikum and some jerky (her usual treat). Although she was still acting weirdly and wasn't quite herself, she did seem a bit more lively -- not a difficult feat considering she didn't do much other than lying in a lump while shake uncontrollably the previous day. o_O

That night I was awoken by the baby's middle-of-the-night maneuverings, and followed her out of bed and into the b-room. I couldn't see much without my glasses and without any lights on, but I did make out a slight shadow of something on her sinkle pad so I reached down to see if the baby needed some cleaning and felt something not quite right. When I flipped on the light, I saw that the baby had in fact had a bout of explOOsive D and needed her bum scrubbed.

Although I was horribly tired the next morning due to my middle-of-the-night activities, the baby seemed right as rain. Whatever had been bothering her had been excised in that nocturnal bout of liquid discharge.

And thus ends our catch-up of life's goings on in our little household.