Heat & Sausages Don't Mix

Last week, beginning with last Sunday July 23, made for a long week. I kept telling myself that I would update this blog with an individual entry for each event, but as the week wore on, I found myself just keeping my head above water, with no time at all to update this bloc.

So now, here it is Monday, and the long week is over. Rather than try to make an individual entry for each event (which would kill me at this point), here is the CliffsNotes version of:

"The Long, Hot Week"
(or, "The Week in Which it was Really Hot, and Daddy Learned that Babies Shouldn't Eat Sausage")

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Sunday, July 23 - HOT, HOT, and more HOT.

Sunday dawned bright and hot. The heat wave California had been facing reached its high point. Terri, the lucky woman that she is, headed off to work at the hospital, leaving Daddy and the kids in a house that was 85 degrees at 9:30 a.m. Are you kidding me?!?

If I had been a man with no kids, I would have been off to the beach on a day like today. However, with two kids, my immediate concern was for their well-being. Eighty-five degrees at 9:30 a.m. did not bode well, especially for two infants who can not yet verbalize when they are experiencing early symptoms of heat stroke.

I racked my brain furiously trying to think of a baby-friendly locale with air conditioning

My work office? Nope - they turn off their A/C on weekends.

The movie theatre? Not nearly baby friendly enough.

The beach? Not when the girls will just sit there and try to eat sand.

Finally, I found myself on pricline.com, looking for hotel rooms in the area. I ended up paying $50 for a four-star hotel. $50 to get out of the heat? DEAL!

I packed up the girls, brought along some bed sheets and blankets to spread out on the hotel floor, and by 11:30 a.m. the girls were playing with their toys in their makeshift play room on the third floor of the Hyatt Regency in a cool 72 degrees.

Outside and at our house, it got up past 100 degrees. Inside our house would have been an oven, so my $50 was well spent.

The heat did not ease up that night, so Terri came over after work, and we had a fun night on "vacation" in our hotel room!

I forgot to take the camera to the hotel, but here are the girls playing in the dining room.
(click on photo for larger view)

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Monday, July 24 - Easy on the sausage!

Monday it was back to work. The girls were in daycare that day, so they got a break from the heat at the air-conditioned daycare.

At 11:30 a.m., I got a call from daycare. Caroline had thrown up her breakfast and lunch. No fever, but she was fussy, and not holding down any solid food.

I left work and headed off to daycare (My work is much closer than Terri's work to the daycare), while Terri got a hold of our doctor. Our first suspicion was that the vomiting was due to the extreme heat we were still experiencing.

Once at the daycare, Caroline was fussy --crying and inconsolable. I held her, but she didn't want to be held. But as soon as I put her down, she'd cry to be picked up.

The day before, at the hotel, I had introduced the girls to a new food -- these chicken/apple sausages from Costco. 100% chicken with apple in them, they are low-fat, low sodium, and pre-cooked. Perfect, I thought, for the girls.

And at the hotel, the girls loved them. Caroline especially. She shoved down 12 bite size pieces in under five minutes, and really seemed to enjoy the taste.

However, at 12:30 p.m. the following day at daycare, I learned that the sausages don't love Caroline as much as she loves them.

At 12:30 p.m., after much fussing and crying, Caroline had a HUGE bowel movement. I mean, this poop would have made a male construction worker proud!

And embedding the poop? All 12 pieces of sausage Caroline had eaten exactly as she had swallowed them. Caroline was obviously unable to digest the sausage casings (Katherine's stomach does not seem to have this problem, as her sausage pieces digested nicely).

Within five minutes of her bowel movement, Caroline was like a new baby. She was crawling, laughing, and most importantly: Eating.

Crisis averted, I headed back to work.

Caroline: "I'll pass on the sausage, thanks."
(click on photo for larger view)

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I end this blog with a gratuitous photo of two out of the three best ladies in the world:

Mommy & Katherine: 11 months.
(click on photo for larger view)