Ry and Coop Dot Com

I’ve been a staunch conservative most of my life.  I even had the unique distinction of serving as President Bush’s youth coordinator in New York State from 1999-2001.  Scary eh? The longer I live though the softer I get.  Democrats seem to have some traits that I feel more strongly about, things like health care reform and education spending.  I still hate taxes so I hold pretty firmly to that as a litmus test when I choose candidates to vote for.

Now, I have a new litmus test.

I’m voting for any candidate who’ll support real pharmaceutical reform.  Not the kind you’re thinking though.  Sure, I like the idea that everyone who needs a particular medicine should get it and that it’s reasonably priced but I’m talking about a different reform. Last night was Ryan’s first real crack at his new medicine and though I couldn’t bring myself to take a picture as he was spewing his medicine across the room, he did eventually take it after I spent 20 minutes splitting up the individual beads of medicine inside the capsule.  If you’ve never broken open a capsule you’d be surprised to find there are literally hundreds of small beads that make up the medicine. Amazing! 

I digress.  Anyway, I’ve decided that any candidate who’ll force drug companies to make children’s versions of their drugs that taste good and are easy for them to consume has my vote and all the campaign contributions I can muster. Now that’d be real reform we could use!

This past Wednesday, Ryan had a meeting with Dr. Nichter, a pediatric neurologist, to evaluate the little guy in light of some inconsistencies that were found on his EEG test. Quick side note, the EEG is short for Electroencephalogram.  I’m glad they made that short. 

So, the bad news is that Ryan needs more tests to confirm what the EEG discovered, namely there was some general seizure activity in his brain.  We started him on medication to control that activity and it seems that no one is particularly concerned about Ry-guy’s immediate health.  Now, we look to what’s causing this activity and how we can more permanently stop it.  This is where parents lose sleep, grow lots of gray hair, have stomach ulcers and generally get really nervous.  Jenn and I are holding up though and are anxious to find out more.

Dr. Nichter appears to be a certified genius at least in the area of neurology (which is where you want your geniuses in this case) and he was very comforting in spending over an hour with us explaining and answering questions.  What’s best is that he sported a very bright, clown-like bow-tie.  I’m thinking that any man who’s comfortable enough to explain the complicated workings of a child’s brain while sporting a colorful clown-like bow-tie is, without question, the doctor for me.  Here’s to Dr. Nichter and his bow-tie.  Now, help our little guy get better!

There’s no mystery in the fact that Ryan is a picky eater.  I blame this entirely on his mother.  Restaurant owners throughout New York cringe at the site of Jenn walking into a restaurant because they know, as sure as the sun will rise, that their neatly planned menu is about to be torn apart with requests like, “Can you put that on the side without this and only that slightly grilled.” 

So I figured that Ryan’s picky eating habits were inherited and that we’d simply be forced to work around them.  Then, this morning, I get a text message from Jenn that read: “He likes the nasty floating meat links :)” with the attached picture: 

Look at these things!  They’re called “Meat Sticks” and they make me want to puke in my mouth and yet I haven’t seen a smile that big on his face since his first taste of ice cream!  They look like a jar full of thumbs! 

I want to share an email I received yesterday from my mother-in-law.

So hey guys,
I was looking at Jenn’s facebook and checking out the INFO page and I read your anniversary date as July 7th – so then I checked Dave’s page and it read July 7th…hmmmm…
thinking back – I arrived on Wednesday before the wedding and it was not July 4th …. so, I checked the calendar for 2006 and indeed Saturday is July 8th – – we left on Sunday to bring Joey back – I took him to Ra cha cha on Monday to catch his plane for Georgia – and he entered the service on Tuesday the 11th, his birthday….so wussup?
Didn’t you guys get married on the 8th of July???? 🙂

Confused mamakins in Corning, NY!
Love you,
Mom 

This was an interesting email, mainly because it reminded me that the love of my life and the mother of my child was indeed joined in holy matrimony with me on July 8th, 2006 and not July 7th.  I’d like to blame this on Facebook, senility or even excessive drug abuse but the reality is, I wanted to believe it was July 7th so I could add a day to our wonderful marriage.  Is that enough to bail me out? Stupid Facebook!

The adrenal gland is an amazing organ. I’m told every mammal has one, no matter their size. After today I believe it. Ryan is just around 18 pounds and I’m convinced that his adrenal gland weighs in around 10. Today, many of our good friends and family joined us to celebrate Ryan’s 1st birthday. The day was a beautiful, sunny 84 degrees and everyone was in good spirits as we all oooed and ahhhed over Ryan stuffing his face with cake and playing with the packaging of his new toys. Jenn and I had the day planned out pretty well down to the early start of 11:30 AM.

Up until June 19th, 2010 there were a few things you could count on. You knew the sun would rise, that coffee would taste delicious in the morning, the Mets would choke well before October and Ryan would take a nap between 9am and 11am. Not today. We tried to get him to sleep but, in the end, it was no use. Guests started showing up a bit early and it was too late, Ryan wasn’t going to nap. He partied hard for the rest of the day, flashing smiles and making everyone laugh with his infectious giggle. It’s pretty clear to me that he was running on pure adrenaline that was pushing him through. His only rest was a twenty minute cat nap on great-grandpa’s lap. Good for him an his adrenal gland!

One year ago today I embarked on this wonderful journey called parenthood.  June 16th, 2009 was a bad day.  I know that’s not what most first-time dads say about their son’s birthday but it was.  To tell the story, I need to bring you back to June 14th, 2009.  Jenn was home excited preparing for her friend Susan’s baby shower which was scheduled for the next morning.  All day she’d prepared small bags of chocolate covered cashews as part of the thank you gift for visitors.  We returned from a brief shopping trip to discover a very upset young lab who’d decided she’d try to eat all of these bagged cashews…bags and all. 

In the end, we discovered that she’d eaten 13 of them in all.  I called the vet who suggested we keep an eye on her and we’d have to monitor her for at least 24 hours or until we could find all of the bags in her “droppings.”  Yeah,not fun.  That night we decided we’d meet some friends for dinner, if just for an hour, so we could take a breather.  We knew that there were precious weeks to enjoy our freedom before our little man would enter the world. 

Little did we know that would be a lot sooner.  Jenn woke up in the middle of the night with terrible stomach cramps and we rushed her to the hospital.  It turned out that was the right thing to do.  Jenn had preeclampsia with an added does of HELLP syndrome.  Hellp, otherwise known as hemolysis elevated liver enzymes and low platelet count, is nasty.  I’m not a doctor (or a nurse, or even an EMT- in fact I can’t even put a bandaid on properly) but everyone told us that she needed to deliver fast in order to save hers and Ryan’s life.  That was scary.  At this point my parents had taken Maddie so that I didn’t have to go back and forth from the hospital checking for bags of cashews in piles of “droppings.”  Thanks guys!

So, it was a rough day. 

Today was a huge relief though and Jenn and I can now look back at June 16th, 2009 with more warmth and joy.  A few more days like today convinces me that bad days fly by but the good ones stick around.

We spent this past Saturday on a crazy road trip which reminded me how family is important and Ryan is terrible in the car.  Saturday afternoon we left home for Tarrytown to celebrate my cousin Bobbi’s 16th Birthday.  Having just spent the week preparing for Ryan’s 1st Birthday party, it was important that we spent this monumental occasion with family.  You only turn 16 once, of course.  Ryan cried the entire 2 hour trip which turned into 3 with frequent stops.  We even lost our only bottle when Jenn forgot she put it on the trunk of our chariot. That was extremely unfortunate.  We arrived around 5:15 and had a good time with family and friends until Ryan decided around 7 that it was time to go home.  So, after an hour and 45 minutes we packed up the family wagon and left for home, in a terrible rain storm.  So, after a trip like that, you really think it was time wasted.  Then, you see pictures like this one and you realize that a little time for a life-long memory seems worth every minute of frustration.

Don’t worry, it’s not what you think. I’m driving into work this morning and I see a small baby deer, no more than six months old, running toward the highway. Immediately, momma deer jumps out after the young broodling and chases the baby back into the woods. This got me thinking, the one year old teething stage isn’t so bad. I’m just glad to not have to chase my offspring out of the road…yet.

It seems that the line between sane and insane is getting a little blurry as of late. Work is becoming increasingly stressful as more and more people rush to get last minute projects done and my young neonate has decided that he could care less about ESPN or its many hard working employees all struggling to be ready for this year’s FIFA World Cup tournament. Master Ryan has recently taken to practicing his high A scream at 11pm every night and dutifully practicing off and on until at least 3am. What’s worse is his kind; loving and nurturing mother is in the final days of the school year and is equally stressed.

So as I prepare to go to bed earlier than I have in days, I’m thinking about the early morning hour when I’ll be called to answer Master Ryan’s call and ask myself why, it’s all answered in the smile of a first swing. That’s pretty cool.

It’s Monday.  Monday’s are painful.  You know what’s more painful?  Long-winded meetings where people spend ten minutes telling two minutes worth of information and two minutes sharing ten minutes worth of information.  It seems that important information is hard to come by but the opportunity certainly isn’t.