Labor Day August 23 - September 10, 2004 About our offspring getting better, a wasted trip up a hill, and a refreshing visit to a movie theater.

	Tom eats standing up, would actually prefer to run around while eating, just to make sure not to miss anything.

I should probably start with Tom's illness, since it rather wore us out this time. Antibiotics had take on better than we would like - within some thirty six hours we had our merry little Omnivore back, alas, an Omnivore with a diarrhea. I proscribed white yogurt to replenish his intestinal flora, and blueberries, since that used to be a traditional remedy to any stomach malady where I come from. Still our pooper continued to poop six times a day. Even that would not be so bad in the era of disposable diapers and running warm water, but after a week he developed strange diaper rash and I got another opportunity to chat with my favorite telephone nurse. Until then I felt that I had done all there could be done to stop him from having that rash. I vented his skin (let him run around our back yard without a diaper (and mumbled curses every time he had opened a door to our family room just to get in and pee on the floor), I kept hosing the backyard off, I kept washing Tom with running, clean, warm water (in our kitchen sink, as it is located quite near the water heater, and our showers are not, hence the warm water reaches our showers only after several minutes), I dried him up with a hair dryer after every diaper change, and so on.

	...sometimes he even takes his milk, standing up...

There's a telephone service at our doctor's, which deals with hysterical mothers, going through descriptions of deadly symptoms, sorting them into cases fit to be seen by a specialist and occurrences of maternal dementia. I tend to fit diaper rash into the latter group, but still -- I began to sort of run out of ideas while Tom's condition kept worsening. Eventually I was glad that I had called -- the nurse said that it most likely was a yeast infection as a result of the antibiotics treatment, and recommended (besides all that I was already doing) to apply a special lotion. All in all Tommy's sickness had dragged on for some two weeks. And I caught his cold, of course, the one that started it all. But since I am a mother, I could "sweat out" my high temperatures and sniffling somewhere right between diaper changing and floor mopping. Oh where are the good times when I could take time off work and lie down in my bed with a book and a mug of hot tea...

Meanwhile, Tom had shaken off all signs of illness - to the contrary - it seems that he just picked up more energy for his pranks. He has elegantly solved his dilemma whether to sit comfortably down and eat, or whether to keep rascalling around -- he now refuses to sit and eat; he prefers to feed himself standing up, holding his table/seat, stuff his face and keep all options open, especially reaching for everything that falls on the floor (if he's locked in his chair, he seems quite moved by the prospects of all the fallen down food). Lately he has been trying this new buffet style with milk drinking as well. Not limited by his seat belts or motherly embrace, he can use his freedom to surprise his parents in a blink of an eye.

	An upturned travel bag and Tom, having a snack. Note his perfectly innocent facial expression.

He manages to bring me to the edge of hysteria about three times a day, performing his tricks usually in whole series and always in my helpless moments. For example I am standing in our bathroom and trying to put on my contact lenses. Rolling my eye with the lens already on like a chameleon hunting for a fat fly I notice that Tom is splashing his hands - again - in our toilet bowl. I'm cursing whoever used the bathroom last and did not put down the lid (most likely I'm cursing myself) and one-eyed I'm dragging my kid away, we wash hands. Kid is released again and before I pull the other lens out of its holder, he has managed to unroll some ten feet of toilet tissue. Having confiscated the tissue, I turn back to putting on my lens. Tom appears to be choking and heaving. A blue twine is hanging out of his mouth -- our Omnivore could not resist and had stuffed my tampon in his mouth, one that he pulled out from my travel bag which used to be in a closed drawer. Tampons exhibit a property to soak up moisture and increase their volume -- I think that it has caught Tom unprepared. Tampon is confiscated, we are breathing easily again. Follows: climbing up atop our living room table and turning our TV on; pulling down from the highest shelf and tasting of petroleum jelly; unplugging my mouse cable; removing all wine bottles and some cans from our storage cabinet, followed by half a minute of quiet concentration -- Tom finds another travel bag of mine and in it a box with his favorite cereals, which he opens and carefully pours all over himself, thus moving on to munching them thoughtfully.

	A well crowded Stinson Beach

That was, of course, only one sample day -- now imagine having five of these in a row. And before you the image of and extended weekend equaling three days with Hippo Authority. Unfortunately Tom took only Saturday and Sunday morning to transform his daddy into a trembling wreck. He also refused his morning nap, making himself noticeably crankier, not to mention depriving us of an hour of silence, during which the worst household catastrophes can be fixed (e.g. by sweeping or mopping up the floor etc.). Around noon, all three of us were ready for a mental institution -- and so we stuffed our buckling child in our car and drove out. We're lucky to have a traveling midget -- before we even made it to the freeway, he dozed off and Sid and I could finally start a conversation with normal voices, without having small sticky hands pull down our pants (Tom's new way to give us a hint that he wants to be held right away).

We had concocted a flawless plan for a one-day trip -- we clearly needed to stick with the coast -- the day was beautiful without its typical coastal inversion, yet cooled down by our sixty degree Pacific to a bearable level (at our home, some 20 miles from the ocean, was about eight already at ten a.m.). Alas, as it happens with ingenious plans -- the same idea befell a majority of the six million people living here in the Valley. We plowed warily through a molasses-like traffic of San Francisco, having to resort to an alternative slow route through a park. Golden Gate Bridge reminded of an anthill, we dismissed Point Bonita and still holding on to our optimistic vision we followed the gradually emptying roads towards Mt. Tamalpais. That optimism lasted us all the way to a carefully locked gate with a sign that the park was closed for the public. There was no other information as to why and till when -- only an unyielding, robust steel bar across the road. Later back at home we checked out several relevant web sites, but none ever mentioned the park being closed.

	OK, I allow for sand, but don't dip my feet in this!

Given the fact that we were on our way for over two hours, our situation quickly escalated to critical. Tom woke up and demanded to be fed and above all released free. And we were trapped in front of a closed gate on a road bulldozed into the side of a mountain, where you cannot reasonably park. We condemned all eko-terrorists and similar park officials (for they could have posted a sign about the closure way down at the freeway exit, or at any other earlier spot, before we climbed all those switchbacks!), yet that did not feed Tommy, not did it relax him.

The nearest acceptable alternative happened to be Stinson Beach. We had never been there before, and so we turned toward the ocean. But of course there was not a parking spot left there - Sid had to drop me and Tom off with a heap of stuff and drive away. The actual beach was a sad surprise, being one of the few locations where San Francisco goes -- and it looked accordingly. Thick crowds, whole families, sunshades, kiddies, dogs, teenagers... OK, so maybe in Italy this is how the less crowded beaches look like, but here it is usually colder at the ocean, so red bellies don't flock to it so much -- it's more likely to see people taking a walk wearing anoraks (I don't include kids among people - for they merrily bathe in the sixty degree water all year long). We were genuinely overwhelmed by this crowd.

	This granny can tire even two babies!

Finally Tom had something to eat and we could walk around a bit with him. We tried to dip his little feet in the surf, but Tommy shares an aversion to cold water with his granddad Karel -- he tried to pull his feet up so high he almost wrapped them around his neck, just to avoid touching the water. So we checked out local dogs and seagulls -- and opted for returning home. Altogether we had thus spent some five hours driving in our car, to land for almost an hour on an overcrowded, relatively ugly beach... while twenty five miles from home we got much nicer and certainly less populated beaches (they are many and there's no big city like San Francisco nearby).

On Monday -- which was a holiday -- the weather got hot up to a drop-dead point already by ten in the morning -- we wasted no time, packed a few things and rolled out for the ocean again -- this time, however, we went south, to Monterey. Since Tom's grandmother happened to be there at the time, she eventually got to be the one enjoying time with him on a beach, and Sid and I enjoyed a quiet lunch in our favorite sushi restaurant, as well as a great treat -- a visit to a movie theatre. For a long time we tried to pick a movie that would be worthy of our attention, and it came down to What the BLEEP Do We Know? Sid shall, hopefully, write a review, I'd only like to mention that it was rather refreshing turning my attention to slightly more complex questions than, "has he pooped yet?", respectively "what should I give Tom for lunch?" Nevertheless a day, when I could spend a few hours not having to care for Tom, was very pleasant -- and it fits the local custom of celebrating Labor Day by not working -- which I find very, very civilized.

On Labor Day I also made an appointment with Martina that I could come pick up a sandbox during the ensuing week. Madeleine, who's almost seventeen now, shall most likely not find much use for it anymore, and on the other side, Tom might slowly get into the age when sand cakes become fun (I hope). Visiting at Kren's was remarkable mostly because of Šmudla - Tom and Šmudla meet sometimes, but we used to limit their mutual contact -- this time we had plenty opportunity to let them sniff each other. Tom, to my surprise, threw himself towards the doggie with a recognizable HAF, HAF. Well, I will have to accept that a dog makes a stronger impression than a parent -- our baby still does not even try to say MAMA or PAPA. I tried to curb Tom's expressions of affection towards Šmudla -- I myself carry all over my body several scratches, pinches, bit marks and traces of torn out hair -- not to mention that Tom always drools thoroughly all over me -- I was not sure that a dog would interpret correctly all these things. Their mutual jealousy was funny -- the moment I began to play with one, the other immediately rushed in, just not to miss anything. In the end all went well -- except that Martina had to spend most of the time by taking away interesting objects from Tom's reach. When we both thought that all was safe, Tom grabbed his toy car and began smashing it into clear glazed patio door... only hope remains that our Omnivore won't deprive us of our friends (so far, he has taken away most of our sleep, money, mental balance, and lifestyle...).

Copyright © 2004-2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.