Our First Vacation

It all started out so well.

We flew to NYC on a full flight.  The JetBlue "Even More Legroom" seats are TOTALLY worth the extra $30-35 per flight.  We had this on every leg (ha ha) of the trip, and it was a godsend.  I have never been more comfortable on an airplane (I always fly coach).  The Spawn shifted between my lap and the E-i-C's, but she was in a good mood and the lady who shared our row was very friendly.  We arrived at JFK on time, caught a cab without too much trouble, and made it to the hotel.  The Benjamin is a little close-quartered, but hey, it's Manhattan, right?  Real estate is tight.  The Spawn slept in the Peapod tent we got for the purpose, but she really didn't like it; I'm not sure if it was the zippy noise the nylon made when she moved, or the claustrophobia of the tent itself.  She spent half of the second night in bed with us. 

Sunday in NY was a good time.  Satoko, a childhood friend of the E-i-C's, and her two sons met us at the hotel.  First stop was nearby Ess-a-Bagel, since I had requested Real New York Bagels as a destination for the day.  Tasty, and with real (non-whipped) cream cheese.  Next was Grand Central Terminal, where we ogled the market, oohed and ahhed over the grand concourse architecture, visited the railway museum, and mumbled to one another in the "whispering chamber."  Good times.  From there, we went to Bryant Park, where the Spawn lunched and we all (except photographer E-i-C) rode Le Carousel under the watchful gaze of Goethe.  

After that, we escaped from the quickening rain into the New York Public Library, where we saw neat antique photos of French countryside and historical landmarks; a Gutenberg Bible; Christopher Robin Milne's original stuffed animal toys; and a great number of excellent portraits and murals.  If only we had more time and less children, we could have spent a week in there!  Back to Grand Central to have lunch and bid farewell to Satoko and the boys.  We started to walk up Madison Ave to a shop the E-i-C wanted to visit, before realizing that the street address numbering system in Manhattan is not one hundred per block, but in fact not directly associated with the blocks at at all and somewhat closer to ten per block, and we had roughly fifty blocks to go.  So we hailed a cab.  

Using cabs with the car seat/stroller turned out to be much easier than anticipated, once we got the hang of it (i.e. by our second cab ride).  All the cabs have middle seat belts, so one person would jump in, the Spawn (in her seat) would be passed in, the fist person would buckle her seat in place while the second person collapsed the stroller frame and popped it into the trunk.  By the time the second person got into the cab, the Spawn would be all settled in and we'd be ready to roll.

After shopping at Calypso and getting the dress the E-i-C wanted (on sale!), the rain let up and we walked back downtown along Madison Avenue.  Our feet were just starting to tire when we saw a Marie Belle cafe on the second floor of a shop across the street.  Mmmm, hot chocolate (or, in my case, iced chocolate).  And omiyage for the Floridians.  Afterwards, we continued downtown, crossing at Central Park South.  We then realized that we didn't have the address of our hotel and couldn't remember the precise address.  In fact, we weren't even sure if it was on the East or West side, and, as it turns out, guessed wrong.  We ended up catching a cab from Rockefeller Center and taking the three block trip back to our hotel.  Guess we were closer than we realized.  

We called down to the concierge for a recommendation for a nearby restaurant that would be stroller-friendly, and at which it wouldn't be difficult to get a table.  She suggested Cellini, saying that it would be no problem to just walk in and get a table.  We walked over there and found that (a) it was decidedly not stroller-friendly, being so cramped that the waiters had to walk sideways between the tables, and (b) there were several parties in front of us, including at least two that had reservations for 10 minutes previously and still were waiting for their tables.  After waiting for about ten or fifteen minutes ourselves and not even being acknowledged by the maitre d', we gave up and went in search of another place.  The E-i-C had in mind a steakhouse very near the hotel, which she had previously seen while we were circling the block in cabs.  After a while of directionless wandering, we found it again - Smith and Wollensky, which is apparently a tourist-trap chain (we saw another branch in downtown Boston the following weekend).  But oh, it's a good one.  We waited at the bar for a table, and I had a Hendricks martini without vermouth (er, that's just gin, isn't it).  I ordered a filet Oscar, which I cannot recommend enough - it seems like a lot to slather on a steak (some sort of cream sauce, lump crabmeat, asparagus tips), but the steak was still very predominant.  The E-i-C was happy enough with her filet au poivre, but felt that the pepper was just a little bit overpowering.  We had cold leek-and-potato soup (much like a vichysoisse) for a starter, and creamed spinach and hash browns for sides, both very good.  We ended up getting a single giant slice of carrot cake to go, because we were far too full to eat it just then.  Milos, our Belgradian waiter, was refreshingly courteous, appropriately friendly, and quite helpful, especially considering the unpleasant lack of service at Cellini.  We came out of dinner feeling very good about New York again.  

Which was nice, because Monday morning it was off to JFK.  The Spawn slept through a good portion of the flight - around two out of the three hours of flying time.  Another friendly lady shared the row with us - we had good luck on that score.  We arrived in Tampa feeling fairly good, picked up the rental car, discovered that we could not fit two suitcases and the stroller frame all in the trunk at the same time, put the stroller frame in the front seat, and headed to Great-Grandma June's house.  We got lost about two blocks from her house, because of lousy directions from Google Maps (I ended up finding the way from memory). There the Spawn met, for the first time:

• Great-Grandma June
• Grandma Kathy
• Cousin Ben
• Great-Uncle Ron, and
• Great-Aunt Joyce.

We all went swimming in the backyard pool, exchanged omiyage, cooed over the Spawn and took pictures of one another.  The Spawn was in an excellent mood, and smiled for everyone.  

After that short visit, we drove up to Ocala, where Grandma Kathy and Cousin Ben live (along with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Audrey).  Ocala would be our base until Friday.  We arrived late to Silver River State Park, just outside town, where we had rented a cabin; Grandma Kathy, knowing we would be late in arriving since we took the long way along the Interstate (and left later than she did, and had to stop for diaper changes), checked in for us at the ranger station, which was good, because I realized at fifteen minutes to closing time that the reservation printout I had didn't list the phone number.  Grandma Kathy lent us a playpen that she had acquired, used, for the visit of her other granddaughter a couple of years previously, and the Spawn was quite happy to sleep in that, since she's accustomed to using them at day care.  

The E-i-C spent Monday evening and almost all of Tuesday working from her laptop at Grandma Kathy's house, while the rest of us hung around either in other areas of the house or at our cabin.  We did get to go to Silver Springs on Tuesday morning, which is always fun.  On Wednesday Grandma, Ben, the E-i-C, the Spawn and I went to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch, where Ben astounded us all with his ticket-garnering skills and the E-i-C and I indulged our competitiveness in the arcade.  Later in the day, we went to Bennigan's for dinner along with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Audrey (you may be beginning to recognize the dearth of dining options in central Florida).  

The E-i-C noted that the Spawn was seeming kind of lethargic; earlier in the day, I had mentioned that the Spawn's noggin was feeling particularly hot.  On the way back from dinner, we stopped at CVS and purchased a pacifier-style thermometer.  Yep, she had a fever, over 102.  No other symptoms, though.  Her appetite was good, no rash, wasn't tugging at her ears...  nothing but a hot head and a listless gaze.  We called the pediatrician's office; the Spawn's doctor was not there, but one of the partners was, and she suggested just using children's Tylenol to reduce the fever and call back if the fever continued.  Well, about 4 hours later, the fever had increased to 103.6 even with the Tylenol, and by that time the pediatrician's office had closed.  Off to the ER.

10:15 PM - Decide to go to the hospital, depart from the cabin.

10:45 PM -  Arrive at the hospital, check in at the ER.

about 11:15 - Initial examination/triage.  We find out that the pacifier thermometer is somewhere around 1.5 degrees F on the high side... should we even have bothered taking her to the hospital?

about 11:30 - Registration and insurance information taken.

about 12:00 AM - Triage nurse checks temperature again, administers dose of Motrin.

about 2:30 AM - We are moved from the waiting room into an examination "room" (i.e. curtained-off area) in the ER.  Next door is a woman with a kidney stone.  Later a 78-year-old man with appendicitis comes in.  There is one chair in the examination room, which the E-i-C and I trade off using.  The AC keeps the hospital nice and cool, and we are wearing t-shirts, shorts, and sandals.

about 3:00 AM - The doctor (there is only one in the ER) examines the Spawn.  He can't find anything else wrong with her, either, and thinks it could be either a viral infection or a urinary tract infection.  He wants to do a urinalysis.  His minions return about twenty minutes later with a "PD bag," a plastic bag which adheres over the Spawn's private parts.  We tell them, that's nice, but she had four wet diapers while we were out in the waiting room, and nothing to drink since we arrived. You can't squeeze water from a stone.  They give us two bottles of Pedialyte which, the E-i-C sees after the Spawn has finished drinking, expired three weeks previously.  The doctor says he wants to insert a catheter to her bladder, but we can overhear the nurses having problems finding a tube small enough for a baby.  We're already concerned about secondary infections, and this does not reassure us.  We argue against the catheter, and express our doubt that it's a UTI at all, since she has expressed no discomfort while peeing.  The tube they finally present looks so big I'm not sure it would even fit in my urethra.

about 5:45 AM - The Spawn, having fallen asleep about 90 minutes earlier, finally pees into the PD bag (and her diaper, and the gurney).  

about 6:30 AM - The doctor informs us that her urine "is dirty."  No actual details on the test results, but he is satisfied.  We depart the hospital with a prescription for Augmentin, a multifactor antibiotic (the ER does not have the infant/liquid formulation on hand) and a cold that follows us for the rest of the trip.

about 6:45 AM - We arrive at CVS down the street from the hospital.  I turn in the prescription.  There's only one pharmacist working, and he tells me it may be about 30 to 60 minutes before he can fill the Spawn's prescription.  The E-i-C and the Spawn are waiting in the car.

about 7:10 AM - Prescription filled.  I also pick up a better thermometer, and some Airborne in the hopes of fending off the cold I could feel coming on (it came on anyways).

We went home, fed the Spawn, gave her her first dose of Augmentin and another dose of Tylenol and slept.  I got up at about 10:30 to go to Publix for Pedialyte, water, and ice cream (for the E-i-C).  The remainder of the day was spent sleeping, with occasional interruptions for doses of Tylenol.  We finally got out of bed at around 6 pm.  We had originally planned to go out to the new Indiana Jones movie on Thursday night while Jeff and Audrey looked after the Spawn, but this was clearly no longer an option.  The E-i-C had bowed out of all her work meetings that she had been scheduled to attend during the day.  Grandma came over for a short visit after we woke up, and then we foraged for dinner (me: Sun Chips and hummus that I had bought on Tuesday; the E-i-C: fried chicken, biscuits, and a root beer float from a combination KFC/A&W).

We talked to the Spawn's actual pediatrician.  He was also uncertain about the hospital's diagnosis (but more because he doesn't trust anything but a catheterization for sterile collection of urine), and suspected a viral infection, probably roseola.  However, he didn't want to contradict the hospital's prescription without examining the Spawn himself, so he said to continue with the Augmentin.

By now the antibiotic's side effects were showing up, i.e. diarrhea, loss of appetite, and irritability.  We had to give her each dose on a full stomach, which meant that we had to feed her.  See the quandary?  It only got worse; by the end of the trip she was refusing all solid food, and only drinking a little bit of formula at a time.  I also realized my worst fear about checking the rectal temperature of a baby with diarrhea.  Oh yes.  

Later Thursday night the Spawn's temperature went up to 104.6.  We gave her Tylenol, turned up the AC, stripped off her clothes, and washed her down with cool water, and it went down to 102 shortly.  By Friday the fever was mostly gone - not much above 100.  But Grandma called to say that her AC was busted.  We stopped by in the morning to pick up the E-i-C's laptop, but refused to take the Spawn out of the air-conditioned rental car; even at 11 in the morning it was over 80 F.  We all went to Jeff, Audrey, and Ben's house and hung out there for a little while before going to Longhorn Steakhouse for a farewell lunch, a fine dining establishment that Cousin Ben was very excited about (there are few chain restaurants that have a gluten-free menu, and this happens to be one of them).  Grandma had to depart early to let in the AC repairman.  We made one last pit stop at Publix and headed for Orlando.

Around the time we arrived at the airport hotel, the Spawn busted out in a rash - red speckles all over her face and trunk.  We googled roseola in the hotel business center, and the description completely fit the bill: extremely high fever for 1-3 days, which abruptly disappears, followed by a rash that sounded just like the Spawn's.  Roseola is a viral infection, which means that antibiotics like the Augmentin that was having such nasty side effects are ineffective against it.  However, Augmentin also has rashes as a possible side effect - so maybe it was just that?

We dined that evening at Hooter's, a first for all three of us (though I've had their wings, picked up "to go," in college), and a true Florida experience.  We were pleasantly surprised at the number of couples and families with children that were also dining there.  The E-i-C thought we had the cutest waitress in the place, but I reserved judgment.  

Saturday morning was the flight from Orlando to Boston.  The flight was less than full this time, and so the Spawn slept in her own seat almost the entire flight - so nice!  The only problem we had was as we were taxiing to the gate, when the Spawn, having just finished a bottle, emptied her bowels so extensively that she needed a complete change of outfit in the terminal bathroom.  We were met at the airport by the E-i-C's friends Tomomi and Jill.  They put us up in their condo for the night.  The Spawn was out-of-sorts due to the Augmentin and lack of food (due to lack of appetite); just before giving her her evening dose, we got a hold of one of the pediatricians again, and told her about the rash.  He said, "either it's roseola, in which case the Augmentin won't do any good and you should stop giving it to her, or it's an allergic reaction to the Augmentin, in which case you should stop giving it to her."  I cannot say how relieved I was to hear those instructions.  I poured the Augmentin down the sink (sorry, Boston Harbor!).  By this time, though, we had begun to notice that the Spawn was refusing to smile at the E-i-C or me, though she was very friendly and social with everyone else - flight attendants, waitresses, Tomomi and Jill, complete strangers on the plane.  A week of close quarters and she was just done with us.  Two days of rectal temperature-taking probably didn't help.

We went for a stroll in Coolidge Corner, the neighborhood of Boston/Brookline where Tomomi and Jill live.  Coffee at Peet's, dinner at Shiki.  The Spawn started getting irritable again towards the end of dinner, but managed to mostly hold it together while we went for ice cream at JP Licks around the corner.  Back to the condo, where the Spawn crashed out on the futon while the rest of us stayed up and chatted until around midnight.

About twenty minutes after the E-i-C and I squeezed into the full-size futon with the Spawn, the latter woke up wailing.  She cried inconsolably for about 5 minutes (which is an eternity in the dark, at half-past midnight, with two other people trying to sleep in the next room), until the E-i-C stuck a bottle of water into her mouth.  She sucked at that for a couple of minutes, accepted a pacifier afterward, and fell asleep - for about 2 minutes.  Then she woke up again and repeated - for about the next three hours.  Finally, around 3 am, she fell asleep for good out of complete exhaustion.  Until 6 am, when she woke up crying again.

In retrospect, we think the problem may not have been her illness nor the drugs.  We think she may just have been annoyed at us sleeping so close to her.  Even when she shares a bed with us at home, or the previous night at the hotel in Orlando, we have/had a king-sized bed, with plenty of room for everyone.  Tomomi and Jill are both 5'1" tiny.  They have a full-sized bed, and probably lounge around on it like guinea pigs on a football field.  But the Raelist family are built to a different scale, and even teetering on the edge of the mattress we were bumper-to-bumper.  Once the E-i-C and I got out of bed, the Spawn went right back to sleep for a couple of hours, until we had to wake her up to start the day.

Tomomi and Jill made coffee and brought us bagels for breakfast, then drove us around Boston to see the sights.  Our tour was a little derailed by a footrace going through downtown, so we had to cut it short to head to Logan airport.  

The flight home....  It was again underbooked, so the Spawn got her own seat again, but this time we asked ahead of time and so brought her car seat on board.  In retrospect, this may not have been a good idea.  She'd been riding in it - either in cars or in the stroller - all week, and was sick of the car seat.  And as mentioned previously, she was sick of us.  She was sick of all the toys she'd been playing with all week, sick of jarred baby food, sick of sitting on our laps, sick of getting her diaper changed, sick of airplanes.  The only thing that interested her was novelty - and on a 6-hour flight, this pretty much consisted of other people, walking up and down the aisle (to look at the other people), and standing in the galley (for no more than ten minutes, please).  Other than that, she would not go more than about 30 seconds without crying.  THE WHOLE FLIGHT.  Well, she did sleep for the first two hours, I will admit.  But after that, it was all downhill.  We were all three of us miserable.  Probably everyone around us was miserable.  It was pretty much everything you might fear from a plane ride with a baby, except that she managed not to vomit or have another leaky diaper.

The Pacific fog on the car ride back to our apartment was like a cool bath after a trip through the desert.  Sleeping in our own respective beds was like the ultimate luxury.  After a good night's sleep, the Spawn's rash has disappeared, and she is generally back to normal, though still pretty bored with us.  The E-i-C and I are still afflicted with a cough and congestion.