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Attack of the Hound
My cold has spread to some of the rest of the family, and still lingers for me. It wouldn’t be so bad, except that it has this energy-zapping effect, so that I feel like I am on a sleeping pill most of the day. I’ve managed alright, but I’m still going to complain about it, believe me.
Merritt is at least consistent, going to sleep in his crib between 7 and 8:30, and then joining us in our bed between 1 and 3 a.m. each night. He’s been crying out when he stirs, like he’s in pain, but then quickly settles. I think it’s something like my cold. He is still working hard on his words. He refuses to attempt Hakan’s or Carver’s name, and we think it is because of the hard “k” sound in both. We’ve gotten him to try it on its own, but he makes a “t” sound, so at least that’s something. He seems keen to learn his letters this week. He seems able to identify “o” and “a,” but is pretty hit-and-miss with the others. He is going through a real clingy phase, mostly to Kira. Yesterday, we went to the mall and then Costco for a cheap dinner. He was making eyes with a family a table away from us, but as soon as they waved at him, he erupted into tears like they had just decapitated his best friend in front of him. He reached for Kira for comfort. He’ll cling onto me most of the time, but when it’s bed time or he wants some comfort, he is a mama’s boy. He turns 2 in a couple of weeks.
Hakan easily had the worst week of the family. On Wednesday, he was outside with Kira. Kira was chatting with a neighbor who was out walking her two dogs. The neighbor warned that one of the dogs was a jumper, but the other one was calmer, so she held back the jumper while the kids patted both. After about 3 minutes, something spooked the allegedly calmer dog, because it freaked out and lunged past the jumper to snatch Hakan on the arm, giving him a nasty gash.
The woman was horrified, and all were confused, but Kira got Hakan into the doctor for bandages (no need for stitches) and antibiotics just in case. He also got a DTP booster. She advised Kira to make a police report and get records of the dog’s shots, just to cover all bases in case something came of the wound. Kira did not want to do anything without the owner’s knowledge, so she talked it out with her, and she brought by the shot records and then they went to the police station yesterday to file the report. The little canine now has a record, so it’d better be careful.
When I was getting him dressed yesterday, I noticed that his arm that got the shot looked awfully red around the bandage, for about a 4 inch diameter. Kira took some time to check with the doctor, who said it’s a pretty normal reaction, but to keep an eye on it to get worse. It’s almost all gone today, so he should be just fine.
After his week, we’re forgiving his crankiness just a little.
It’s been a pretty standard week in other ways. I decided to bake my statistics students cookies, because it came up in class a few weeks ago that I bake, and so I made them M&M cookies, and asked them to write down how many of each color of M&M they got in their cookie, so that I could keep a count, and we’ll use that information to calculate a chi-square analysis for whether the colors appear with equal probabilities. Learning can be sweet.
Not much else to report, but who knows what adventures are in store?