keep piling it on...

Well, I guess I shouldn't complain because this falls under the category of job security, but it can't go un-commented. I have received 2 new assignments in the past week. Not to replace anything I'm currently doing, but in addition to. There weren't enough hours in the days before, so you can imagine what this is going to mean for my work schedule. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about it and an open mind. One of the projects - well, it's not really a project because that would suggest it has an end - is handling a multi-million dollar budget for the creation of educational courseware. It's my first time to do this kind of work, so this will be a completely new experience for me and an opportunity to learn. I'll be working with external vendors and internal financial people, and I've got some great people supporting me as I learn so hopefully I'll gain some good project management experience. The down-side is that I'm taking this responsibility from someone who got laid off. She was gracious enough to give me an orientation.

The second project that landed on my lap is to manage a project that converts DITA source to a format consumable by a Notes database. This one most definitely will have an end date, but this project runs in parallel with the other development project I handle, so it's a significant increase in workload.
We'll see how it goes. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to complain, just processing what this will mean to my work/life balance.

Taos ski report

We're back from a wonderful mini-break. A big thanks to Grandma and Grandpapparazzi for taking Trent for 4 whole days!
We headed to Houston on Thursday afternoon, just in time for dinner. We got Trent settled in and spent some time hanging out with Bri's parents.

Friday
7am flight to Albuquerque, NM. We got up soooo early, not that I slept anyway. Arrived in ABQ at 8-ish and picked up the rental car. A Pontiac G5. What a piece of crap that car is, but it seemed the lesser of all evils given our choice. I picked it because it was cuter than the other options, but it's downsides became apparent very quickly. Massive blind spot, useless rear window, oddly small trunk opening and a cavernous trunk, and the worst feature: MASSIVE doors. Like to get out of them you had to practically back out of the car. Anyway... won't spend too much time dwelling on that but it was worth a mention.
We arrived in Taos around 11:30 or so and had no trouble finding the condo, which was right above Terry's Sports. Tara was there, Mike was already on the slopes. We settled in, radiod Mike to come in for lunch, then after lunch we suited up, rented our gear, and spent the rest of the day throwing ourselves down the mountain. The lift ride up is long and the face of the mountain is intimidating, but there were many great easy and medium runs. The weather was perfect. Not too cold, and beautiful blue skies. That evening we hung out in the hot tub, made a small dent in the giant bottle of Makers Mark we brought with us, and had a pasta dinner.
Grandpa reported that Trent hadn't mentioned us even once! Glad to hear Trent isn't missing us. That must mean that he's enjoying spending the day with Grandpa.
Saturday:
Up early, yummy egg breakfast, and off to the slopes. The morning was lovely and sunny and after we went in for lunch, Tara joined us on the slopes in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the weather took a turn between when we came in for lunch and the time we got back on the mountain. The wind had picked up and the temp. had dropped drastically, which made it less enjoyable to ski.
Again, we spent time haning out in the hot tub, drinking whiskey and cokes and enjoying the calm and relaxation of not having a toddler around, and spending quality time with our friends. Valentine's day dinner was prepared by the men. Steak and asparagus on the menu, two of my favourite things. Delicious!
Trent had a fun day with Grandma and Grandpa and was being a perfect little boy. Awh!
Sunday:
Pancake breakfast! mmmmm. I traded my skis for a snowboard this morning. Brian and Mike headed up the mountain while I spent time on the bunny slope trying to get reaquainted with the snowboard. It's amazing how little of what I learned last time I snowboard stuck with me. The theory was there, but the execution was horrendous and I spent a lot of time on my arse or flat out on my stomach. But I persevered and kept getting up and trying again. By the end of the morning I was able to get down the hill without falling over, but was ready to go back to skiing so I could end my trip on a high note. Brian made me lunch. Least said about that the better, I think, other than it was a nice thought ;-)
While on the bunny hill, I noticed a lot of little kids learning to ski. By little, I mean as young as 3. They were so cute in their little tiny ski outfits, and so fearless. It made me miss Trent and Brian and I decided we would take Trent skiing as soon as he was old enough.
The afternoon's skiing was wonderful. Brian spent some time going down the black diamonds with Mike (and some time hiking back up one that was beyond his abilities - haha). I stuck to the blue runs, mostly because the black runs have mogels, which I absolutely can't stand. I did make one attempt to do mogels as we were heading down to see how Tara was doing on the bunny slope (Mike had managed to talk her into trying skiing again so she'd have a more positive experience than the day before - Tara's such a good sport). During my mogel attempt, I managed to lose control and not only fall over, but take out Brian as well. Poor Brian ended up on the ground with his skis buried all the way up to his boots! I managed to lose a ski and gave up trying to get it back on on the hill and hiked down swearing a LOT.
We ended the day with a visit to the clam bake that was going on at the base. Sadly, all the clams were gone, though. We went to dinner at Tim's (something or other) Tavern and I tried the green chile that New Mexico is so famous for. MMMMmmmm. good.
More hot tubbing, more whisky and coke, and finally, off to bed ready for an early start the next day.
Monday:
We got up at 6:30 and packed up the cars. We were on the road by 7:30 and back in Albuquerque by 11 or so. Uneventful flight (thankfully) and back in Houston. Trent was indifferent at first when we showed up. He walked into the kitchen, saw me, smiled, and walked back to the living room to get a toy! About 5 minutes later, though, he gave me a big hug. Grandpa looked a little exhausted but we could tell he and Trent really enjoyed spending time together. We ate dinner in Houston then headed home to Austin, arriving around 10:30, just in time to go straight to bed.

Taos here we come!

Ski trip imminent. We took all our ski stuff over to Mike and Tara's last night. They are going to drive there, so they are taking our bulky items with them.
Brian and I are heading to Houston tomorrow to drop Trent off for 4 days of fun with Grandma and Grandpapparrazzi. I think it will be fun for Grandpa and Trent, who will get to spend the whole day together on Friday and Monday. This will be the longest time we've spent away from Trent. I'm gonna miss him soooooo much, but I know that he's in the best hands possible.
On Friday we fly from Houston to Albuquerque, then rent a car and drive 3 hours to Taos. Half a day of skiing on Friday to get reacquainted with the sport, then hopefully 2 days of snowboarding to follow.
The condo has an indoor hot tub so we're definitely going to take advantage of that with our aching muscles.
Mum & Dad, I'll be sending updates via twitter from my mobile phone periodically. Updates will display here in my blog, as well as on my Facebook status. So stay tuned :-)

eeeeee! excited. Tonight we have to pack!

Quick update

Turns out that my voice loss is not from all the singing and woo-hooing at the Suede concert. I actually have a sore throat and congestion :-( Boooo! Hopefully it'll all clear up before this weekend's ski trip, but regardless, I'm gonna tear it up on the slopes.

fun night downtown

The front row of the Suede show is always crazy. Michelle and I spent the entire evening there, from the second song all the way to the very last, dancing our arses off. The crowd starts off thin but by about 10:30 there's only hip shakin' room in front of the stage, and by midnight a whole bunch of crazy comes out. I always find mystery bruises on my knees the next day. I finally figured out why last night. The stage is exactly knee high to me, and the crowd behind me was particularly pushy last night. I banged both knees several times! Bruised knees = Suede tattoo. Mike took some awesome pics of the band last night. I imagine he'll put them on his web site soon: www.johnmichaelharris.com. I haven't looked at my camera yet, but I imagine it's a whole bunch of pics of me and Michelle taking pictures of ourselves as usual! Oh, I can't belive I almost forgot to mention this, John Popper, of Blues Traveler fame, sat in. Good stuff!

I woke up this morning as hoarse as can be. I sounded like an old smoker!
Note to self: Nobody can hear you singing at the top of your lungs with the band playing, so turn it down a couple a notches. Sure was fun, though. Michelle was sounding a little raspy when I talked to her this morning, too.

the good news... not conjuntivitis!

The bad news... double ear infection, sinus infection. Nurse Grace prescribed an antibiotic for the ear infection and eye drops to clear up Trent's snotty eyes. Poor kid, it's so hard for us to know when he's sick because he never ever complains. We have one tough kid. Sometimes I wonder if his pain receptors work, but I get confirmation that they do whenever he bumps his head (often) and says "hurt! hurt!" and rubs it.

A good end to a bad week

It's been a very, very rough week. It started off ok on Monday, but on Monday evening Brian came running in like his arse was on fire... except it wasn't his arse, it was the car. Ok, well it wasn't on fire, but it was smoking. Between stopping for petrol half a mile from the house, and getting home, something happened to the Subie and it was leaking coolant all over the garage. Lucky for us that Brian has become so handy lately, and could diganose the problem, and even more lucky that we have such great friends who would loan us their vehicle so we could take Trent to daycare on Tuesday!
Tuesday got progressively worse. As Brian took the day off to fix the car, I started my morning with optimism that soon gave way to shock, then incredulousness, then nervousness as friends and co-workers pinged me to tell me the news of all the layoffs happening that day. People you'd never in a million years expect to be cut got cut. Whole departments. Managers, too!. Rumours were flying and it felt like someone had walked into a conf. room with a machete and started slashing. By noon I was completely convinced I was going to be given bad news and was contemplating all the things we would need to change in our lives if both of us lost our jobs.

Around noon I couldn't stand the waiting any longer and so I aksed my manager to put me out of my misery. Thankfully, the news for me was not as dismal as the news others had recived that day, but you can't help but be affected by it. Later that day Brian was also told that his job wasn't selected for the "resource action". We both felt a mixture of relief and guilt, for obvious reasons. I found it interesting, the choice of words many managers used when telling those of us who were not laid off. "Not affected". Everyone is affected by a round of layoffs, especially one like that that hit over a third of the people you know! You can't just go about your business like nothing happened. You feel for the people you know who's lives are about to take a major change that wasn't their decision. You feel guilty that you get to keep your job and they don't. You feel angry that this is happening to people you care about. You feel helpless because there's nothing you can say or do to make it better for anyone. You feel relief that you aren't in their shoes, then more guilt! You feel disenchanted with the company and its leadership. It threw me off my game for most of the week.
On Thursday I quit early and went to happy hour with a bunch of people from my old dev team (Brian's current dept). A few of those who were laid off were there, and I was so happy to see them and know that they were in good spirits, despite the crap that just happened.

On a more positive note, I am happy to report that Brian fixed the subaru on Tuesday, so it was only out of commision for one day. Thankfully, we made it through this bad week with only a few mental scars and a couple of bucks spent on fixing the car.

What we can take away from this experience is that life can take a turn at someone else's hand, and you need to be prepared for that.

Weekend of fun

Well, I'm officially done celebrating my birthday. This weekend was the icing on the very delicious birthday cake. I spent the whole day with Trent on Saturday, which is both exhausting and fun at the same time. He's so much fun to be around these days because he's so interactive and he's constantly making me laugh. It's exhausting because I have to think of ways to keep him engaged and entertained. Brian saved us $400 this weekend by fixing the Subie's roof rack himself. It'd been rattling and annoying both of us for some time, and the Subaru service dept. said to fix it they'd have to take the whole roof liner out and all the interior panels to get to the bolts. Brian decided he could do that himself. I remember when I met Brian how completely useless he was as a handy-man. And in the last week he's saved us hundreds of dollars by doing the 40K mile maintenance on the Subie, and now this. I'm happy to report that the annoying rattling is gone and the interior of the Subie looks exactly like it did before. Way to go, Brian.
On Saturday night the girls and I headed down to Cedar St. to finish off the birthday week with some ass-shaking, and that's exactly what we did. I didn't sit down the whole night. Lucky for me I was wearing my super comfy kick ass boots. The girls got me a birthday cake and balloons and ensured I always had a vodka soda in my hand. True friends never divulge your age, and I was entertained by the fact that my cake said "Happy 29th Birthday Amanda!" hehehe. We all spent the evening in our usual spot right in front of Brian Lee, dancing and being generally goofy. Brian is as entertained by us as we are by him. As usual, the night got crazier with every passing minute. I saw a small cat-fight break out nearby at one point but it was diffused quickly. The band learned 2 of my favourite Bon Jovi songs and played them back-to-back! I felt so honoured. Danny came up to me later and told me that they learned those just for me! what a wonderful surprise.
On Sunday, Trent slept until 9:30! what a good boy, then Brian took him downstairs and let me sleep a little longer. We spent the day playing and hanging out, then ended the weekend at Hula Hut with Tiff & Brett and many people I hadn't seen in ages, to celebrate Brett's birthday. Trent was so perfectly behaved and Brian and I were so proud of our little guy.

In other news, I got a good rating on my yearly assesment at work. I hope that this will help me survive the current round of lay-offs happening this week. Brian also got a good rating. Cross your fingers :-)

Another year wiser

I just want to point out that I am not one year older. I am only one day older than I was yesterday. My day started off pretty well, but had a few minor hiccups in it as the day progressed. Brian and Trent treated me to breakfast today. I had that delicious coffee cake with the raspberry cheesecake stripe down it! mmmm! I got to open a present from Kevin & Darice. I am now hooked up with a Bluetooth headset to go with my awesome new phone :-)

Then I got a call from mum and dad on Google Video Chat. That turned out to have way better video and sound quality than we've experienced lately on Skype. I also learned that my mum is on Facebook! That's so cool!

About 30 mins or so into our chat, my great morning started to take a turn... my laptop crashed. No blue screen, no warning message. Just flat out turned itself off and then refused to boot. I tried a bunch of things to get it back up, including safe mode, recovery mode, and even swearing like a sailor mode. Finally I resigned myself to having to take it in for recovery by the pros at work, and set about getting my other laptop up and connected to the intranet. Lucky for me I have 2!! Meanwhile I'm still desperately trying to boot my regular laptop. After about 15 or so reboots, it came back!!! Tenacity does pay off. But that little eye-opener prompted me to continue to get laptop #2 connected and loaded with everything I use on a daily basis, should this happen again.

Next, I had to set up an appointment for Onyx to see the vet. She has blood in her urine again, and I was tired of schlepping the poor cat 15 minutes in the car to our old vet, plus she always wants to run a barrage of tests on her that cost a fortune. So I switched Onyx to a new vet who is only 5 mins away. Onyx didn't even put up a fight when I shoved her into the carrier. A sure sign she's not feeling well. I like our new vet. He seemed a lot less judgemental than our previous one when I said I wasn't interested in running a bunch of tests, and wanted to just make Onyx as comfy as possible. He didn't even take blood or urine, but instead read her file that they had retrieved from our previous vet, made an educated guess on what could be wrong, and we're treating for that to see if it helps. He thinks she has sterile cystitis. We're giving her a special diet and an anti-inflamatory. If Onyx responds to the treatment, then we'll do some kidney tests to make sure that her kidneys can handle the medication. I am pretty sure our previous vet would never have prescribed something without a mountain of tests, so this makes me very happy.

Ok, so one disaster averted and one positive prognosis for the cat has rescued my day. I'm looking forward to dinner with friends this evening.

Trent and daddy comparison

Courtesy of Grandpapparazi, here's a comparison of Trent and Brian. SO cute!

Sick boy!

Trent seemed to be having a bit of a tummy issue on Sunday. During breakfast he didn't eat much and had a minor throw up of his french toast. Didn't think much of it, assuming he managed to gag himself, which he does every once in a while. At lunch time he barely ate his leftover grilled cheese from Saturday's visit to Spicy Pickle, though I did convince him to eat some lasagna. A move I would later regret. His demeanor seemed normal, though so I figured he was just not hungy. We met Barbie and her family for dinner at TX Roadhouse, and I ordered a kids meal with steak and mashed potatoes for Trent. He just played with it. He even refused the cupcake Barbie's dad offered him. He just poked the frosting and ate a couple of finger fulls of it. In the car on the way home, all hell broke loose. First came the suspicious smell, which I blamed on Brian... and Brian couldn't recall if it actually was him so he graciously took the blame ;-) As we pulled into the garage, Trent chucked up the bit of frosting all over himself and his car seat. Ugh. I stripped him down and bathed him, at which point I discovered the source fo the suspicious car smell as it smeared onto my trousers! After his bath he seemed a little lethargic. I put on his PJs and right after I was done dressing him, he threw up all over himself (and me)! I sent Brian out for some pedialyte while I continued to comfort Trent as he threw up the remainder of whatever he'd eaten. Poor Trent emptied his entire stomach on me, himself, several towels, the floor, and his his giant stuffed lion.
As a parent you try not to overreact to these things, but with it being both diarrhea and vomiting, and he has a minor cold as well, I just wanted to get an expert opinion, so we called the doctor. The doc seemed unconcerned. We sat up with Trent till we were sure that he was done throwing up, then he willingly went to bed.
The next morning when Trent got up he was fine. No signs of anything wrong. Weird! We kept him home for the morning to be sure he was ok, and then he went to school in the afternoon. School reported a normal day. I have no idea what that was, but Trent was such a big boy about it. He never once cried or fussed while he was throwing up. Way less of a baby than I would be under those circumstances. I dunno if all kids are like this, but I feel like Trent is a tough kid. He never complains about being sick. Even when he had the shingles he didn't scratch or anything.
I'm happy to report that the poop came out of my trousers after I washed them in hot water and Oxyclean.

18 month checkup, etc...

Trent had his 18 month checkup today and we're so impressed with the little guy. He only cried for about 20 seconds when he got his injection, and the doctor said that he's already hitting many of the 2 year developmental milestones, most notably his language skills, his affinity for mummy, and his independence. His projected adult height is 5'10". Not bad considering the height of my family :-) I don't know how accurate that can be at this point, though.

While we were at the doctor's office we witnessed some parenting techniques that could benefit from a visit from Supernanny, to say the least. Brian and I try not to judge because everyone's parenting philosophies are different, but this woman was a complete control freak and her poor daughter was just trying to express herself. She actually took her to the bathroom and spanked her. We could hear the girl howling in there. I couldn't help judging. I hate that I did, but it's so clear to me why her kid was acting like that when she clearly sets such a bad example and completely and publicly invalidated her daughter's feelings. Of course, I've never been in her situation so I don't know how I would act under those circumstances, but I'd like to believe that I'd show Trent some consideration and try to diffuse the situation without resorting to violence.

Completely unrelated sidenote: Last night when Brian and I were about to watch a movie, I had to laugh when the DVD player reported that the disc was an unsupported format and Brian walked over to the DVD player, took the disc out, wiped it on his jeans, and put it back in. I wondered if that was an advanced technique I hadn't heard of yet for correcting a badly formatted DVD ;-)

Happy 1.5

January 4th was Trent's 18 month birthday :-) He's officially a big boy now, and boy does he let us know it! He's fiercely independent right now and gets so mad if you try to help him without him asking for help. But he does ask for help and it's sooooo cute. He signs help and says "hap! hap!". He's just chatting away all the time now, too. We really have to be careful what we say around him. Yesterday he said something that sounded like "shit". Brian and I looked at each other and tried not to laugh. I'm also loving that he says the word "mummy" with a "U" not an "O". It's very distinct.
He's in a major mummy phase right now, which is quite flattering, but sometimes can be a little inconvenient.

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The boys are back in town!

After a week at grandma and grandpa's house, the boys (aka Trent and Brian) are now back home. Quick update on Trent's rash... we went to see the dermatologist this morning and she shares my suspicion that the rash was shingles. The reason being that the rash contained itself to a specific muscle group on his body, which is characteristic of shingles. She suspects that it was from the chicken pox vaccine that Trent received. It's not common, but it does happen. The good news is that you generally only get shingles once in your life, and it's much less painful and easier to recover from it as a child, than as an adult. The rash is pretty much gone now. Just a few scabs remaining. Trent doesn't seem to be too phased by it, though now that the rash is healing he indicates that there's some nerve tingling in that region, which is common after shingles. I'm just relieved that it's going away. It's quite alarming to see a rash like that show up on anyone, but when it's your kid, it's a million times more scary!

In other Trent news, he's learning new words every day now. The rate at which he's picking up vocabulary is astounding. Every day he busts out new words that indicate understanding of the world around him. They're not just words he's repeating from hearing us. I'm so impressed with the little guy.

Yesterday I got to babysit Jett for the first time. It was only for an hour while Barbie showed a house, but we got a lot done. See for yourself: http://picasaweb.google.com/trent.bauman/Jett#.
Later on we had a visit from aunt Jen and cousin Ethan. It was so cute to watch the two boys play together. I think Ethan will make such a wonderful big brother ;-)

Happy New Year!

It's that time of year again. My favourite time of year, in fact: New Year. The mother of all holidays (for me). I prefer it over all other holidays because of what it symbolizes. Out with the old and in with the new. A time of new beginnings, and a time to reflect on the happenings of the year behind us, rejoice in the victories, learn from the failures, and look forward to all that the universe offers. New year's day is filled with good intentions. We resolve to do something or stop doing something with the aim to generally better ourselves. This year I have no new year's resolutions to speak of. But in in 2009 I hope for the following:

To have the awareness to see the opportunities before me, and the courage to take those opportunities that suit me.

Some of the highlights from 2008:

• Nothing is more important than the well-being of my kid, and that anything or anyone blocking that mission is going down.
• I've learned to let go of my need to have a tidy house and have adjusted my tolerance level of mess.
• I changed jobs, even though I was perfectly happy in my current job. The opportunity presented itself and the signs from "the universe" were received loud and clear.
• I've made new friends and reconnected with some old friends.
• Girl's weekend with Kris
• I can eat a Dove bar every night, and as long as I work out it's ok!
• Tequila is my frenemy.
  
• Eventually, a cat will figure out a way around the child gate.
• You can smuggle veggies into almost anything, and both husband and kid will be none the wiser ;-)
  
• Some day Trent will wake up and see me watching him sleep and get creeped out. LOL!
• Mineral make up is the only way to go.
  
• Johnnie got married!
• Social networking is fun, but one should always be aware of one's internet footprint.
• I finally have enough pairs of shoes. Is that really possible?
  
• All those cute trousers in my closet are too big, and I'm ok with that. I should get rid of them.
  
• Brian has never let a day go by without saying he loves me :-)
  

testing

Just installed Flock. I'm testing to see if this actually makes it to my blog :-)

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Horsey horsey don't you stop...

Just let your feet go clippety clop
Your tail goes swish and your wheels go round
Giddy up we're homeward bound.

That's the song I've been singing to Trent all morning while he rocked his new rocking horse.

This morning we used the web cam and Skype to spend xmas with both sets of grandparents. One set here in Houston, and the other set on the other side of the Atlantic in England :-) it was quite successful. Nana and Grandad got to see all of us open our presents, and got to watch Trent play with his new rocking horse that they sent him. Trent's napping right now and I took the opportunity to shower and catch up on some web surfin ;-) The menfolk are all outside doing manly things, such as car maintenance, with the new man-toys they got from santa.

It's wine-thirty :-)

Xmas eve

It's xmas eve. 11:05 to be precise. Only another hour before mum gets up at the crack of dawn (6am GMT) to open her presents like a kid waiting for santa ;-)

Trent enjoyed his first xmas dinner. Not that it's his first xmas, obviously, but last year he was too young to eat solid foods. Today he drank BBQ sauce and sampled almost everything on the menu. He's such a great kid. I'm happy to report that his rash is looking WAY better. Of course, it's a relative term. I mean, someone looking at it for the first time would still be somewhat horrified, but having seen it progress over the past week, it's actually looking ok.

After Trent went to bed, Brian and I, with a little help from Grandma and some heckling from "Onion" (more on that in a sec), put together the rocking horse that his Nana and Grandad sent him. I can't wait to see his face tomorrow morning when he sees it!

Onion: Kevin's been trying to teach Trent to say "uncle". It sounds exactly like "onion" when Trent says it. Who are we to argue.

I've been tracking Santa for my own amusement. It's amazing how elaborate the tracking web sites are. Take this one for example: Norad Santa tracker You can even see youtube videos of santa making stops!

Merry xmas from Texas, y'all!

mystery rash

Last week Trent got a little rash on his right hip. We didn't think much of it and I put some diaper cream on it. The next day it was a little bigger, but still nothing to worry about. Then daycare called and mentioned it, and I decided it was time to take Trent to the doctor. We got in that day and saw the doc, who could not identify the rash, which was now red and raised with tiny blisters all over it and extending from his hip up the side of his torso about 6 inches. The doctor told us to bathe him twice a day with Dial soap and to call him the next day to let him know how it was looking. It looked bad. Had spread quite a bit. Anticipating that he'd advise us to see a dermatologist I made an appointment before speaking to him. The dermatologist narrowed it down to 3 possibilities, 2 viral and 1 bacterial. She took a swab and sent it off for testing, and in the mean time we would treat it for a bacterial infection with a topical antibiotic and a steroid. It took about 3 days of that to get the rash under control and meanwhile it had spread over to his butt cheek and down his right leg.
The surprising thing in all this is that it didn't seem to phase Trent at all. He never scratched it, and he never indicated that he was in pain or that it bothered him. He was marginally irritable on Thursday after we took him to the pediatrician, but beyond that he was his normal, charming self.
Yesterday, the last time I saw the rash, it was looking so much less angry and the blisters had turned into tiny red scabs. This morning the dermatologist called to tell me that the tests came back "normal". I asked her to clarify what she meant by "normal" since it could mean that it was an expected result taking the symptoms into consideration. However, she clarified it to mean that there was no virus and no bacteria. I should be relieved, right? He doesn't have a virus, and his skin isn't showing any signs of a bacterial infection, such as staph. But I'm not relieved. I want to know what it is. Of course, when the rash became a concern I googled it and found many sites with descriptions and pictures, none of which matched exactly. Some pictures of shingles matched, but the description didn't. And the way you get a bacterial infection, such as staph didn't match either. Usually you have to have an open wound that gets exposed to staph, and Trent never had a scratch on him. It's just so puzzling and frustrating.
Since the rash is responding to the current treatment, we'll continue to use it. And we see the dermatologist next week again so I hope to get some better answers.

The Queen's English?

I had to laugh today when I got a text message from my mum & dad on Skype, and they actually used the word "Y'all"!!!

It's nice to see them embracing the Texas side of the family :-)