Domestic Disasters June 21 - July 5, 2004 When is the best time to have a house full of guests? When everything breaks down, of course.

	A gift from Suchýš - baby lifesaver - turned out very useful.

We had expected that by the end of June, several visitors were going to arrive to our home. A certain company tends to organize conferences at this time of year, so we have the pleasure to see Suchýš. Further I had found that one of my virtual mothers-in-arms is a wife of Suchýš's colleague, hence the list of our guests grew by Peter, Blanka a Jackie. We did not, however, expect that our Wagon would break down at the same time, that our baby would get sick, and that Norwegian rats would move under our house. Within a few days, our peaceful life crumbled down in ruins. But all in good order.

Our Wagon is a '98, it looks good, but as Indian Jones says, "it is not the age, it is the mileage." At hundred sixty thousand miles (which have been in part on and off dirt roads), our main four wheels are overdue for retirement. During last fifty miles we said goodbye to a clutch, a radiator, head gasket -- and now a transmission waves farewell. Naturally there's never a good time for things to break (our radiator gave up during a desert trip), hence the tranny began squealing a day before I was to drive to the SF airport, on a day when Tom got fever for the first time in his life.

	Love at first sight

Tom's illness was perhaps the most unnerving event -- our Junior is a very sturdy baby and had never been ill before. After he slumped apathetically in our arms for the whole afternoon, with a temperature over 100°F, giving an occasional tiny squeak, we headed for the doctor's. This was a Wednesday, of course -- the only day "our" pediatrician has off, so they handled us there for a while like a hot potato. During this delay Tommy came to in a most unbelievable way -- he bounced, chewed on chairs and instructional leaflets; he hollered at nurses and other children in the waiting room. The doctor finally had him tested for temperature altogether five times, for she could not believe that such a nimble child would have 102°F. Eventually she concluded that given no other symptoms, it would most likely be the roseola (aka sixth disease) and we should get ready for three days of fever, followed by two days of rash.

And of course Wednesday was the day when Blanka with Jackie arrived. We originally had lots of plans with Blanka, yet now Tom's illness crossed them somewhat. Nevertheless I had already promised to lend Jackie our old car seat, so I simply had to go to the airport. Sid (who, by the way, did not feel well himself) took a day off and stayed at home with our sick Tommy. Jack is theoretically of same age like Tom (or rather would be if Tom had waited with his birth for his proper term). It was a reason for my doubts whether the seat would be tool small for him. Fortunately Jackie is a more petite baby and at least this phase went well.

	Meeting the abominable Jack was a hard lesson for Tom...

Tom spent Thursday dozing off in my arms, with a fever. Blanka called all frozen from San Francisco that she would rather come with Jackie anyway on Friday to thaw beside our swimming pool, so we concocted a complicated logistic plan how to make Jack avoid catching the virus. Fortunately Tom got miraculously better on Friday morning -- which ripped apart all our plans to isolate both babies from one another. After first twenty minutes we simply released the boys, leaving everything in God's hands. During the next half hour the boys managed to give each other a nice, well salivated French kiss. We computed that with average incubation period of the said illness, Jackie will really get it after returning to Czech Republic, and Blanka simply added Tylenol drops for babies to her shopping list.

	... who had to quickly learn how to crawl...

Meeting with a mother of equally old child was a refreshing experience, mostly because Blanka is of my blood type -- there's no cooing over "our shweetesht cutie". It appears that Jackie has been greatly benefiting from her loving care without excessive protectiveness. Jack is a dynamo -- he crawls everywhere, checks out every corner, does not get fazed by irrelevancies (like falling over etc.). Tom, who had so far been rather static, was fascinated by this elemental power. You could literally see thoughts chasing around his mind, about how it is possible that this small baby can in a blink of an eye with a sleight of hand gather all Tom's toys and disappear with them into a safe distance. Bottom line became self-evident: he had to start crawling as well. Within two days Tom established a style not unlike a paraplegic fallen out of his wheelchair (sometime dragging his feet behind), and ever since that he mimics most of Jack's rascalities (e.g. tipping waste baskets over). Thanks to Jackie, Tom had discovered that a step between our family room and our kitchen can double as a very exciting gymnastic equipment, and bravely climbs it up and down (and falls from it occasionally). Suddenly there's not a single safe place in our house. Every moment now, small hands wrap themselves around wheels of my office chair, tiny fingers creep into cracks in kitchen cabinet doors, gripping for sharp knives in my dishwasher, not counting one tipped-over computer and attempts to pull wires out of power outlets, or devouring of lights on our network router.

	An expedition is resting in a redwood grove

Blanka's husband came here mostly for business (= work), so Blanka spent about half of her time with us. One Saturday we went for a family trip. We were apparently something to see -- imagine Hippo the Patriarch, accompanied by two women and kids... People often thought that the boys are twins, or at least brothers. A waiter at a Thai restaurant in Santa Cruz congratulated Blanka to having babies only two months apart -- I wonder what his anatomy grades were in school.

	Warming our hams on a beach

When Blanka came visiting the second time, I noticed that Tom welcomed Jack with much less enthusiasm. He held on to me like a tick for the whole day, yelling preventively every time Jack just looked at him cheerfully. Though I understood this as a frustration from being so behind Jackie, I was somewhat disappointed that we should have such a unsocial and spoiled child. The next day, however, several more teeth appeared in Tom's gums -- upper incisors and canines -- and the problem was over (well until next tooth a few days later).

Blanka exhibited a unique approach to teaching babies to swim. Her way has been visibly effective and therefore successful. Watching Jack merrily dipping in our pool convinced us to do something like that with our Tom. So far I have been reading about gradual conditioning babies to the fact there's water -- you wipe their faces with a wet palm etc. Well when we wash Tom's head in our tub, we simply pour water over him, to which Tom originally reacted by slightly shaking; today he does not let it disturb him in playing with his toys at all. Hence I tried an advanced trick -- I put Tom on my forearm and "swam with him" a bit. Sid, our good old Herodes, eventually just took Tom and following Blanka's method, he submerged our baby completely (I could not manage to do that, being a frightened mother). Tom shook again slightly, and did not say anything substantial; thus I declare this method to be suitable to getting babies used to water.

It appears that a visit of a baby of (almost) same age was an overall improvement for us. Alas, our Wagon is still in disrepair, and the cold we caught from Jack, we pass around like in a relay race. Rats who emerge from under our house into our garage, found the poison Sid bought so tasty that they ate about a pound of it (they even opened a pail with the blue pellets and took some more into their den). We hope that this product has not been politically corrected to the point that it is only harmful to people. I simply keep hoping for some better times soon...

Copyright © 2004 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.