ever-fixed mark

On Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Minor developed a fever and started pulling on his ear, so we decided to commence our Grand Tour of Urgent Care Centers of the Middle West.

It was a pretty good experience. No, really! We don’t have urgent care in our corner of Massachusetts, forcing me to utilize the emergency room for after-hours visits, so I didn’t know what to expect. Tulsa has a center that specializes in pediatrics at Saint Francis Hospital. They checked us in with a minimum of fuss, although I’d never been there before, and they charged me a bargain-basement $25 for the service.

The pediatrician was very nice. He took one look in Minor’s ear and wrote me a script for an antibiotic, warning me that it sometimes caused loose and colorful stools.

“I was in the Peace Corps, doctor,” I told him. “I’ve seen stools of every hue and consistency, so don’t try to cheer me up with promises of bright-red poop.”

His hand hovered over his prescription pad as he mused, “Do you want me to write you a script for Tylenol with codeine?”

I perked right up. “Boy, howdy, do I!”

Then I figured out that he meant for the baby.

Following is the text of an e-mail I sent to American Airlines.

Dear Customer Relations,

Several weeks ago, I made a reservation for my husband, my three-year-old son, my ten-month-old son, and me to travel from Boston to Tulsa, Oklahoma via Dallas-Ft. Worth. Since my older son is allergic to peanuts, two weeks before departure, I called the reservations desk to speak to an agent to request that no peanuts be served on either flight.

The agent told me, “American Airlines doesn’t serve peanuts on its flights anymore. We haven’t done that for years. There are too many people with peanut allergies.”

The night before departure, I called the reservation desk again to confirm the information I had received. Another agent told me, “I can guarantee you we won’t be serving peanuts on any plane. American Airlines doesn’t serve peanuts any more, just pretzels.”

Half an hour before departure for the first leg of the flight, Flight #887, I asked the gate agent to confirm that no peanuts would be served on the plane. He said, “I’m pretty sure they don’t have peanuts, but I need to check with the flight attendants. Remind me again before we depart, would you?”

Now, the fact that you have a gate agent who couldn’t keep my request in his head for twenty-five minutes was some cause for concern, but I trusted that the two original agents I spoke to had the correct information. My trust was bolstered by the fact that I’ve flown an average of four times a month for the past ten years, and the only time I’ve been offered peanuts in recent memory was on long-haul flights to Europe in business class. In fact, in coach it’s a minor miracle if you’re offered anything to eat.

Nonetheless, as the flight attendants made their way through the cabin with the snack service, we were offered a lunch-for-purchase that contained a package of mixed nuts.

I asked the flight attendant to refrain from selling any more of the boxed lunches, because my son was allergic to peanuts. She told me she couldn’t do that. I explained that I had called to request a no-peanuts service and was assured that there would be no nuts served on the plane. She told me that I had received the wrong information—implying by her tone that it was somehow my fault for obtaining it—and said that the only reliable source of information for what would be served on a plane was the flight crew, “And I’m telling you, now, that we ALWAYS have nuts on the flight to Dallas.” And then she declined to infringe upon the rights of other passengers by withholding the lunch boxes from them, saying it was too late anyway, because people in the front of the plane were already opening the packages.

I told her that she was well within her rights to refuse my request, and that I was certain her superiors and the other passengers would appreciate her slavish devotion to company regulations when the plane was diverted to Indiana for my son’s medical emergency.

She thought about it for a minute and, in an unprecedented flash of good sense, acceded to my request.

She was far from gracious about it, though. She berated me throughout the flight, saying that no one could guarantee me a peanut-free environment, that the flight to Dallas ALWAYS had nuts on it, and that the rules forbade the flight attendants from making reasonable accommodations.

Later, when I walked my younger son to the front of the plane to give him some exercise, she was sitting in the jump seat eating a peanut butter sandwich. I politely asked her to wash her hands after eating so she wouldn’t touch something that my son would later touch, and she shot back that she always washes her hands BEFORE she eats. I don’t think she’s really clear on the food allergy concept. Do you?

Now, I understand that American Airlines cannot make an absolute guarantee of a peanut-free environment. Not even my son’s school, which bans peanuts, can be certain that another child won’t bring in a snack made with peanut oil. I do, however, expect that American will not go out of its way to kill my son with peanut dust in an enclosed environment. I think you should stop serving peanuts on all your flights; if you are that closely bound with the peanut-industrial complex, then at the very least I would expect you to honor a request to forbear the peanut service GRACIOUSLY and PROMPTLY (i.e., before the flight takes off, not midway through). Even if you cannot see the business value in this middle course, then I would, at least, expect the flight attendant to refrain from hectoring me for my inconvenient decision to travel with my peanut-allergic son.

I just don’t get it. It’s not a matter of civil rights; I don’t have the RIGHT to ask you to change your practices. But from your standpoint, it’s purely a business issue. Close to 1% of American children are thought to be allergic to peanuts. Allergic reactions cause approximately 100 deaths and 15,000 emergency room visits a year. Thanksgiving is a time when many families travel with their children. Do you really want one of those allergic reactions to occur in one of your tin cans in the sky, 30,000 vertical feet from the ER? In the current business climate, would a preventable holiday death on an airplane be good for business? I didn’t go to B-school, but I think even I can figure that one out, unlike your hapless flight attendant.

There were at least five infants under the age of one on that plane. Most parents of infants have no idea whether their child is allergic to peanuts, because we’re cautioned not to expose the child until as late as possible. Thus, there are parents out there with peanut-allergic children who are not prepared with a phalanx of Epipens, as we are. Their children could die in the air tomorrow if no one else on the plane has an Epipen to share. (And, frankly, I would be terrified to give up my child’s Epipen when the air was thick with peanut dust, which is why I carry extra; can you imagine being put in that position?)

I call upon you to stop serving peanuts on your planes immediately; train your flight attendants on the seriousness of food allergies; and begin making reasonable accommodations to food-allergic passengers who request them. After all, in twenty-five to thirty years, that 1% of American children will be 1% of your business and first-class passengers.

It’s that time of year when friends and acquaintances, making desultory small talk, ask, “Where are you spending the holidays?” The reaction I’m consistently getting to my answer, “Oklahoma,” seems a bit . . . outsized. Invariably the other person’s eyes bug out and he exclaims, “Oklahoma?!” as if the cognitive dissonance is too much to bear. Why would someone who is from Pennsylvania/Florida/Illinois/Massachusetts go over-the-river-and-through-the-woods to non-adjacent Oklahoma? Then I have to explain my very tenuous and recent connection to Oklahoma; my brother was just transferred there for work, and as his wife is far along in her pregnancy we thought it would be nice to visit them. So, there are no real Oklahoma roots in my family. Until my brother moved there, I’ll venture that no one in my extended family ever gave Oklahoma a second thought.

But I’ve been to Oklahoma. A few years ago I was visiting just north of Dallas and drove into the city to meet an old friend. I drove north instead of south and soon was seeing signs for the Oklahoma border. I may or may not actually have passed over the state line. I really don’t remember.

It will be interesting to see a part of the country I don’t normally get to visit, but let’s face it–we’re taking the kids with us, so one destination is the same as the next when you’re dragging two ankle-biters onto your connecting flight. Oklahoma, Arizona, what does it matter?

So Husband starting updating his blog after many months’ neglect, and he wrote something that really lit up his corner of the geekosphere, a corner that is more concerned with SOAP and REST than IVF and IUI. Our blog stats are intertwined, and our combined hit rate jumped fourteen-fold the day after his post. Husband has been tracing the various links to his post proudly.

“All those hits, and you only got 32 comments!” I said.

“Yeah, but look how many people linked to me.”

“You know, when Julia wrote about how often she and her husband had sex, she got something like 200 comments.”

Husband thought about this. “200, eh?”

Geekosphere, fasten your seatbelts.

It’s been a warm fall here in Port City, and consequently I’ve been out and about as much as I can, taking the kids and Dog for jaunts on the beach and around town. In the past few days, I’ve engaged in casual conversations with perhaps 50 people, and at least 15 of them have been aurally identifiable as natives of the British Isles.

I find this percentage astounding. What accounts for this British Invasion? Are the denizens of Olde England attracted to New England by the sudden drop in housing prices? Or are they just especially comfortable vacationing at the beach in November, when the gray days remind them of home?

And if I am forced to go around meeting British people, can at least one of them be Colin Firth?

The renovations on our third floor are finally complete. I won’t say it’s exactly as I envisioned it, because I really wasn’t able to envision anything during the design phase, a state of affairs that caused me no little anxiety. But I am very pleased with the way it turned out. I now have a comfortable, open work area with a space large enough for a big desk and–best of all–a bathroom with a shower large enough to turn around in. Husband has his recliner work space, and the kids have a small playroom for which I am unable to find reasonably-priced furnishings. The other mothers in my playgroup have daycare-quality play areas, but my kids have a few toys sitting on the floor of an empty room.

The new space is tucked just under the roofline, or rooflines to be more precise. The ceiling/walls zoom around at all kinds of crazy angles, which is one reason I had such a hard time envisioning the finished space. It’s like the home office for the House of Seven Gables. The walls are always rising up to meet you unexpectedly. You rise from plugging something into an outlet–BAM! You climb out of the shower–BOP! You turn from opening a window–POW!

We are not the first inhabitants of this space. The previous owners had slapped up some drywall, installed a toilet, and put in a single radiator to accommodate one of their sons who wished, like Greg Brady, to retreat to the attic. I don’t know if it was their biological son or their son adopted from Korea who lived up here, but for their sake I hope it was the former, because I can imagine the gossip if it were the adopted kid. Whichever one it was, he must have had warm blood, because there was no insulation in the attic until this renovation.

The previous owners had this place for 25 years. Before that, it was a nursing home, run by a family who lived on the property. A year ago, the now-grown-up daughters from that family stopped by the house and asked to see it. (One of them was in the process of adopting from China. Port City is lousy with infertiles, isn’t it? It must be something in the water.) They told us that both sets of grandparents lived with them, one in the basement, and the other in the attic. (They didn’t live on the main floors so they could save the space for the nursing home clients.) That absolutely boggles the mind. I’ve seen Anne Frank’s hiding space in Amsterdam, and that place was a palace compared to what our attic must have been before the previous owner put up that drywall.

Those poor grandparents. They were probably the only senior citizens in history to be envious of their peers who were lucky enough to be admitted into the nursing home.

I wanted to write something interesting about my experience at the polls, but it was rather drama-free. I was prepared for long lines, angry mobs, and a phalanx of lawyers challenging my suffrage, but the biggest violation of my civil rights I experienced was an election worker politely asking me to leave Dog outside.

I suppose one could have anticipated that the Republican machine was not going to waste its political breath on the godless people of Massachusetts.  You’ve heard of “latte liberals”?  We’re worse–we’re the zinfandel infidels!–and our re-election of Senator Kennedy was thus pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Confession: I had no idea Kennedy was even up for re-election until I saw the ballot.  That’s how much of a sure thing it was—any little bit of advertising he did escaped me.

Here’s hoping (but not necessarily expecting) the Democrats do something intelligent with their newfound power.

Anyone mining search engine data over the past few weeks might have noticed a sudden uptick in searches conducted between the hours of 3 and 5 a.m. Eastern time. Some sample search strings:

baby awake for several hours every night

how to get baby back to sleep

frequent night waking

cheap amphetamines no prescription required

Minor’s latest sleep problem was waking up multiple times each night (n), but only allowing himself to be put back to sleep n - 1 times. Usually it was 4:00 a.m. when he dug in his little fat heels, but sometime he would change it up and refuse to go back to sleep at 11:00, or 2:00, or 5:00. Whatever the magic number was, if we did anything other than put him in the car and drive to Dunkin’ Donuts to await opening time, he would fuss, cry, and scream. For two hours. “Anything” includes rocking, bottles with formula, bottles with water, pacifier, music, leaving him alone in the crib, and …. oh, yeah…co-sleeping. Just in case you were going to suggest it.

Google did. My searches returned an awful lot of attachment parenting advice and more than a few admonishments to “pick up the baby–you can’t spoil a baby by holding him!” which never fails to enrage me. Do you think I’m not picking him up at night because I’m AFRAID OF SPOILING HIM?! Picking up a baby is not spoiling him; however, driving him to Dunkin’ Donuts at 4:00 a.m. is.

Getting no relief from the internets, I canvassed a few bricks-and-mortar people for their experiences. Most of them advocated the cry-it-out method. Since we already were sort of letting him cry it out, with regular check-ups, I was looking for something new. Then one of my colleagues with a daughter the same age as Minor said, “We have a rule when our daughter wakes up not to go in for fifteen minutes. Usually she puts herself back to sleep before then.”

That made me think. Fifteen minutes? Husband and I weren’t the kind of tyros who rushed in whenever the kid whimpered, but once he got up to a full head of scream, we always went in immediately, on the theory that he couldn’t go from 60 to 0 without intervention. But like George Costanza, I was ready to do the opposite of everything I had ever done.

So we instituted the fifteen-minute rule, and for a blessed week it worked. At the first 11:00 wake-up, Minor started screaming at minute 2 and lost interest completely by minute 7. At the 4:00 a.m. call, same thing. It looks like all our efforts to console him were just intefering with his ability to fall asleep on his own.

For a week, it was pure bliss. Then Minor started waking up with a full diaper in the middle of the night. This week’s searches:

how frequently should babies poop

normal infant bowel movement

who poops in the middle of the night for f*** sake

deodorizing trash bags

The Bush administration has passed a new law denying infants born under emergency Medicaid coverage automatic continuing care under Medicaid. Instead, their parents must apply to the program for them separately before any medical services will be covered.

This policy, of course, is aimed at illegal immigrants whose children are born in the US and are therefore US citizens. I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t also apply to other poor children born under emergency Medicaid. The article claims that one-third of the 4 million births in the US each year are paid for by Medicaid. It’s not clear to me whether those 1.3 million children are all covered by emergency Medicaid, or only a portion of them, but even if it’s only a small number, it’s still a vicious law.

Why should we care?

There’s the humanitarian argument, that it’s just cruel to throw obstacles in the paths of impoverished parents trying to treat their sick newborns. Illegal immigrants are likely to be too intimidated to attempt the application process for fear of deportation. Even if our lawmakers have little sympathy for their plight, they are still responsible for safeguarding the health and well-being of the US citizens who are born to them.

There’s the public health argument. Those sick newborns are going to be clogging emergency rooms for routine care and for preventable illnesses. As they get older, they’re going to be contracting diseases that should have been forestalled by vaccines.

There’s the adoptive parent angle, as well. The article states:

Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., was a principal architect of the new law. “Charlie’s intent was that every person receiving Medicaid needs to provide documentation,” said John Stone, a spokesman for Norwood, who is a dentist and has been active on health care issues. “With newborns, there should be no problem. All you have to do is provide a birth certificate or hospital records verifying birth.”

Anyone who has adopted from Korea knows that all government departments do not necessarily recognize the laws that govern citizenship. For example, there is a law that states that adoptive children are automatically granted citizenship. Therefore, the certificate of adoption should equal verification of citizenship, correct? Not at all. You have to use the certificate of adoption to get a new birth certificate, a rather confusing document that makes no mention of the child’s adoption and seems to indicate that the child was born to you, but abroad. The passport agency requires the birth certificate in addition to the adoption papers as proof of citizenship. And the Social Security administration requires the birth certificate, the adoption papers, AND the passport as proof.

Nonetheless, adoptive parents are urged to complete another application process to obtain something called a Certificate of Citizenship as proof of citizenship, because it “never expires.” The adoption paperwork, birth certificate, and Social Security card don’t expire either, but the government still warns you that your child is not entirely safe in this country until you can get the COC.

The application is 8 pages long and costs $215 to file. It requires submission of the adoption paperwork, birth certificate, marriage certificate, records such as a mortgage proving US residence, and social security number–all to prove something which is, by law, self-evident.

If they make it that difficult for us, how hard is it going to be for these parents?