Doctor Pediatrician is pretty good at treating black lung. He's got an M.D. after all. He's got certificates on the wall. And, even though Collin can't read them, and I don't bother reading them or reading them to Collin, I'm pretty sure that they probably say stuff like, "Can treat Black Lung." Since that's what Collin's got, and what he's been trying to convince me he's got for the past three weeks, what with all the midnight cough attacks and the keeping me awake and all, I am glad we got to go see him today.
Yeah, that's right, we went to the doctor. Daddy went with us and it's the first time he met Dr. Pediatrician since he's usually at work when we have to go. Daddy was surprised by him since he's not used to the guy. We like him but Daddy's not used to a guy who talks as fast as a windup toy and just as much. He's an awesome doctor but pretty hyper.
The whole visit was pretty fun, especially since no one else was there. Weeeee germy waiting room toys all to ourselves! That meant no six hour wait in the waiting room, getting in relatively close to the appointment time and out again quickly too. That's awesome for around here. I guess everyone is on Christmas vacation, even germs, well at least germs that require a trip to the doctor.
The long and short of it is antibiotics for ten to fourteen days and maybe some cool fake Benedryl (what the military hands out for free!!!) if coughing persists at night. Black Lung translates to sinus infection. Apparently, Collin wouldn't have died if left untreated, but this mommy was sort of torturing him by leaving him unmedicated and she was certainly torturing his parents by letting him continue to cough all night. I felt kind of bad about the whole thing.
Dr. Pediatrician made me feel a little better because he said that Collin wouldn't necessarily have acted sick. So, that's a good thing...phew, I'm not a neglectful parent. And, phew I can take a temperature so it's not me being crazy by thinking he didn't have one. Anyway, meds for ten days; if he doesn't improve until about day 8 or so, go get more. Since Collin loves medicine, I don't think that will be a problem.
Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, having Black Lung has not slowed down his playing...or his love of being in boxes one bit.
So, Mommy to the rescue! Candy cane time! We tried our first last night. Mommy and Collin shared a candy cane last night. Daddy thought it was pretty gross to swap spit that way. Anytime Daddy thinks it's gross for Mommy and Collin to share spit when we split food or take bites off one another's plate, I just remind him that Collin and I have exchanged a good deal of bodily fluids and he has flashbacks to the murder-scene-like hospital room that was the birth of our child and he shuts up.
Anyway, as expected, Collin LOVED the candy cane and only followed the "no biting only licking and sucking" rule, which sounds totally pornographic even when saying it to a toddler, only for a little while. I was afraid of him choking on shards of pointy candy cane, so I just wanted him to suck the sugar off and let me bite it down. Still, he figured out pretty quickly that the good stuff is in the biting...something I'm addicted to with hard candy by the way. It's impossible for me to suck on any hard candy. This is the reason I cannot eat an everlasting gobstopper; I'd totally break my jaw because I am always looking to chomp it immediately. 
Speaking of figuring; I figured something else out. In all the shockingly cute shots that Daddy took of this wonderful experience for our toddler, our awesome new camera has a great close up feature that makes my skin look very realistic close up. I choose to blame the lighting of the garage for weirdness of my complexion. What do you think?
My favorite shot of the night was when I got a turn at the candy cane and Collin, thinking he was sly, decided to suck on what he thought could only be more candy cane, and was dismayed to find out it was, in fact, plastic! Heee heeee. He looks pretty ticked off, doesn't he? Serves him right. 
Tomorrow, it's off to the doctor for me because I have the black lung. I've been coughing on and off for about three weeks. I'm not sick, no fever, no other symptoms and I behave completely normally; yet, I continue to cough sporadically and with vehemence when I do. So, it's time to visit the old doctor man. I've not decided how to behave there. Gramps and I have been discussing it at length and in secret today.
Mom made coconut macaroons for Gramps today, drizzled with bittersweet chocolate. She didn't give me any. I'm pretty mad about that. She says I can have one tomorrow. We'll see. There will be plenty left since she hates coconut; something about it reminding her of eating hair. She's weird like that. Cool picture she took of them though, huh? 
She also went to the mall today for some other stuff and happened to swing by T.J. Maxx and she came home all jazzed. They had Spode! She said something about teacups and she got all excited about putting it in the china cupboard for it to await the other stuff that is still shipping from Macy's. What is with this stuff? I'm just going to break it when it gets here anyway. Blue Italian or whatever it is; it's all just smashy smashy to me! Boy, it's going to take her a while to fill up that cupboard with my breakage rate, isn't it?
So, that's my day in a nutshell! Tomorrow, I'm thinking of kicking the doctor or spitting at him. Okay, probably not. I'm supersweet most of the time at the doctor. But, like I said, I've been running around like I'm a maniac all evening, so I figured I'd try something out of character (like "wearing a hat" out of character for me). What do you think? 
He was pretty awed by the bubbles last night though. I could almost see the wheels churning in that cute little head of his. Oh yes, his head is little. In fact, if you listen to those percentile charts, it is in fact, smaller than everyone else's head around. Anyway, those wheels were cranking out a message that was saying: WHAT is this strange substance? Aw shucks, who cares, it's COOL! 
Then, today, Daddy decided to introduce him to Candyland. We got it for him...oops, I mean Santa got it for him, for Christmas. He got an easier game too, Goodnight moon, and he seems to actually enjoy that and understand it somewhat; so Daddy thought he could graduate to Candyland. I tried to warn him that he kind of would need to learn his colors first.
Well, the sight of the two of them at the kitchen table, Collin bashing the little players around the board was just too much for me to take. Seriously, adorable. The "game" lasted about five minutes. But a valuable lesson was learned: Collin is not ready for Candyland. He is however, interested in bashing pieces around the board and climbing on top of the kitchen table. I think we'll stick with the easier "Goodnight Moon" game for now. Hey, at least he's playing a game, right? Taking turns is hard for a kid his age, so I'm impressed already. 
Mommy got to order her first set of Spode china from Macy's the other day, so she let Collin flip through the Land of Nod catalogue with her to do some browsing. He picked out a few things and dog eared the pages; not that he'll get to buy anything anytime soon. He'll have to save up his allowance, of which he gets none.
But, it was a fun time nonetheless. He helped Mommy identify the appropriate body parts on the baby's faces on some of the pages. It's a good thing too because now she knows where everything from eyes to eyelashes are. Smart kid, huh?
Then, Daddy showed him how the candle whirlygig thing works on the kitchen table. When you light the candles, the whirly thing spins and it jingles the bells. Cool Christmas decoration. Collin doesn't know what to call it, neither does anyone else. The funny thing is that since Collin doesn't know what to call it, he calls it a monkey. Weird. 
Collin has spent the better part of the day still enjoying the heck out of his playroom. It's hilarious because while the "big" toys in there are all new, most of the other toys are all things we'd had forever, but boxed up and stuck out there for a sort of "toy rotation" plan Bryon set up. He'd gotten bored with the toys he had inside and stopped playing with all of them, so we started doing a trade off, keeping some in storage and rotating through them. So, most of the stuff out there is old news; but it's suddenly cool beans again. Whatever, it's keeping him entertained.
I never did tell you all that Bryon is the coolest hubby ever. He got me the watch that I've been begging for forever and horseback riding lessons. It sounds kind of crazy but every time we drive by the ritzy neighborhood and we see the money people riding their horses, I say how much I'd like to learn to ride a horse. For some reason, which is beyond me, he tends to listen to what I say. What a surprise to see that certificate. Cool, huh? I think I'll wait until my bottom feels a bit better to try that out though. Still, I'm totally excited to try it...and scared! Horses are huge! Of course, if you listen to Collin, horses are cows and cows are horses. I'm convinced he just says that to annoy me. 
And, aside from that, Bryon agreed, begrudgingly, that we could order the top for our buffet and make us a full-fledged hutch-owning family. His mom convinced him that we should own one. Cool to have his mom on my side on that one, especially since it also involved her ganging up with me to convince him that aside from the Christmas Spode china she's started me on, that I should own other china. So, we ordered some...just a start. We've got a ways to go on the collecting. Still, now I've got half the place settings for Christmas and half for other. If you want to eat a fancy dinner at my house and you bring more than yourself and your partner, too bad, we'll only have four plates. Oh yeah, and ignore that we'll be serving you out of normal stuff because we're still working on getting the other stuff too, like the serving bowls and platters. It takes time to get that stuff, and I'm looking forward to the collecting. But, all the same, a pretty good Christmas. At what age do we go from being excited to get a toy to being totally enraptured excited to be getting plates? Seriously, I can't wait for the UPS guy to get here.
Alas, the room looks awesome. We still want to paint the divider wall and it kind of stinks that our drywall is gross, but oh well. I think it looks pretty darn good considering it's half a garage.
View B....
We wrapped the door. Seriously, how do you wrap a room?
Collin loved it. This morning, when he finished his presents from under the tree, he saw the door was wrapped and realized there was something else out there for him and tried to tear all the paper off the door. Needless to say, he LOVES the playroom. Who wouldn't love their own room filled with toys! Thanks to the grandparents who made this room possible!
Anyway, Christmas morning with the kiddo was the most special day ever! We started with stockings, snuggled in bed with Mommy and Daddy and he loved his Christmas "cock!" Yep, we still call it that. Sad, but true. He really got the hang of opening presents by the end of it. He was so excited to see what Santa left under the tree, he tried to tear downstairs before he could even get his diaper changed.
Daddy insisted on his getting dressed...because Daddy's weird like that about getting dressed in the morning...even on Christmas. You'll see Mommy is not of the same persuasion, especially on Christmas. Hey, I brushed my teeth at least! Anyway, by the end of the ordeal, we had him so jazzed about presents that I'm pretty sure we might have trouble keeping his mitts off the presents left under the tree for Gramps and Nana who are coming this weekend. 
Ahhhh, the joys of not living where it's freezing. Yeah, it was chilly. But, just that, chilly. So, everyone where it's cold, sorry you have to shovel snow, sorry you have to see your breath when you go outside, sorry you have to chip ice off the car, sorry you don't get to see the waves on the shore and sorry you don't get to be here because we miss you.
Just so you don't feel too bad, I did have to wash my jacket when I got home because I picked up so many shells filled with so much muddy sand and goop that my pockets were filthy. There, feel better? 
Then, when he decided to serve pizza and ice cream to anyone who would "eat" it, that was priceless. I'm still pushing for the kid to go to the Academy one of these days, so who knows, maybe the tea party days will be beat right out of him. 
Of course, if Aunt Robyn has anything to say about it, she says Oregon State. She's subliminally "suggesting" the crazy beaver school to the kiddo with sippy cups...which he loved. I think he's just fascinated by them because they are clear. Whoa, you mean I can SEE my drink! Wow! I mean we are talking about a kid who just had a tea party that same day, so it is hard to trust his judgement. 
Anyway, he punctuated his bouts of fussing by insisting that he wanted "up," which we figured meant "out" of the "ca," which we also figured meant "car," with alternating weird behavior. Like, poking Robyn's face, picking her nose, snatching her hoodie strings, and then, strangest of all, insisting that she take his clothes off.
Yes, that was the best part of all. At first, she complied with his demand, letting him talk her into somehow fenaggling his shirts off beneath his buckles; but, she drew the line at the pants. Heck, she took his socks off...what more could he ask for?! 
Well...certainly, he couldn't ask for a comb right? And, let me tell you, by the time we arrived at Granny's house with a completely barechested, sockless (or cockless...tee-hee) child, it was quite the sight!
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