The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Part II: The Evil Within

We own a copy of the children's classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, in which the caterpillar eats his way through all sorts of food items, including swiss cheese, cherry pie, and a pickle. He ends up with a tummyache, eats a big green leaf, and feels much better.

In real life, I have only ever seen caterpillars eat leaves. Until last night.

I was outside with Natalie, picking up the yard after our family squirt gun fight earlier in the afternoon. I heard a frantic wing-flapping in the grass, and saw a dragonfly struggling. As I parted the grass to see what he was caught on, I saw that a caterpillar had wrapped itself around the dragonfly's body and was attempting to eat the dragonfly. As I came to realize what horror was going on in front of my eyes, the dragonfly stopped struggling. I think I will be scarred for life over witnessing that scene. I know, circle of life and all that, but I prefer not to witness a predator killing his prey.

But, seriously. Caterpillars eat dragonflies? What the...? I've always thought of caterpillars as benign creatures, not dragonfly killers.

Tiramisu

Looking for a fabulous dessert recipe? Go ahead, click that link. I'll wait.

OK, now I'm going to warn you. DO NOT make that recipe, unless you will have a houseful of people over to help you eat it. That tiramisu is single-handedly destroying my efforts at dieting. Also? YUM.

We went to the county fair last night, and on the way home, Sammy kept saying his tummy hurt. "I really sick," he said. "I need some medicine." I assured him that his tummy just wanted some healthy food, and he'd feel better after we ate supper.

We got home, and he went up the stairs. On the top landing, he threw up. It took everything I had in me to not do the same. There is nothing worse than the smell of vomit. This morning, he seemed fine, though, so it was hopefully just a case of too much fair food. He only ate two mini-donuts and drank some root beer float, though. That doesn't seem like much to me.

Enough talk about sicknesses for this week. Here is an excerpt from a recent performance by the 2-year-old:

(I never before realized that Are You Sleeping and Where Is Thumbkin share the same tune)
Are you sleeping
Are you sleeping
Brother John
Brother John
How are you at daycare?
How are you at daycare?
Run and hide
Run and hide

Fever

Natalie's fever, which was more of an aside on yesterday's post, got worse as the day went on. By noon, I thought she may have actually become grafted to me, what with the resistance that I got when I tried to put her down.

Sammy was a sweetheart. When he came home from daycare, he was very concerned about her and wanted to do what he could to help. I gave him a cold, wet washcloth and he dabbed her head very gently. He brought her a binky, a blanket, and a bottle. He suggested I take her to the doctor. When I explained she'd already been to the doctor, he told me to bring her again.

I carried her around in a Moby wrap all day. When she fell asleep and I took off the wrap so I could lie down in the recliner with her, Sammy asked Ron to help him put the wrap on. Then he came over and wanted me to put Natalie in the wrap. He finally settled for a stuffed gorilla instead.

At 5:00, Natalie's fever was 103 and she was becoming inconsolable. I thought a lukewarm bath might help cool her down, and soothe her. I took off her clothes and, as I was running the water, she peed all over my leg. And the bathroom rug. And the towel. At least I had proof that she was getting enough fluids, and wasn't dehydrated. When I tried to put her in the bathtub, she clung to me like a baby monkey, and howled like one, too. So much for the bath.

She slept on my shoulder most of the evening, and at 10:00, when I was ready to go to bed, I brought her with me. The first hour passed peacefully. Shortly after 11:00, I woke up to blood-curdling screaming. I picked her up and she continued to scream bloody murder. She would calm down a little bit, then shudder and scream some more. Ron and I seriously considered calling an ambulance, or waking Sammy up so we could go to the ER, because I have never heard her cry like that before. It took about 15 minutes before she calmed down, and then the rest of the night passed without any more crises.

By this morning, her fever had broken but she was stuck to me like Velcro. It took an hour for me to leave the house, because she would get so upset every time I'd leave her sight. It was much worse than the separation anxiety-type-crying which is so typical these days. I did finally leave, and so I'm back at work today, while Natalie is home spending some quality time with Daddy.

I still don't know what the incident overnight was about. Fever-related seizure? Disorientation due to the fever? I learned something this morning from the nurses I work with. The way to tell if a baby is having a seizure is to hold one of their extremities. If the "convulsion" stops, it's not a seizure. I hope I never again have the opportunity to use that test.

On another note: Do you think Sammy might be getting a little big for his bed? Maybe it's time to upgrade.

Not the Best Idea I've Ever Had

This weekend, we took the kids camping for the first time. We went to a state park in the southwestern part of the state, about a two-hour drive.

In the days leading up to our trip, I suggested making reservations half a dozen times. With an $8.50 non-refundable registration fee, Ron balked at the thought. "We don't need reservations," Ron said. "I'm sure the campsite won't be full," he said.

We pull in at 5:30 p.m., to find that there are only two campsites available, both in the "rustic" campground. This means no running water and no flush toilets. That wouldn't have mattered much to me before having kids, but I wasn't looking forward to the thought of changing diapers without being able to wash up afterwards, or having to drag a kid with me into the filthy outhouse. But we didn't have much choice, so we took one of the sites and pulled in to our spot--which was right on the corner of a triangle of roads, and very cozily next to another campsite. Meaning, no privacy at all, and constant worries about the kids going onto one of the roads.

Ron and Sammy got back into the van and went back to see if we could still get the other spot, which was more secluded. We were lucky enough to be able to switch campsites, so we got set up in our new home.

The ground was very muddy in the patches where the grass had worn away. The kids were both covered in mud from head to toe before we'd even been there for 15 minutes. And with no running water, clean-up wasn't too easy. We went through a lot of baby wipes, in an attempt to keep the dirt under control. And both kids had poopy diapers within fifteen minutes of being at the campsite. Thank goodness I remembered to bring some antibacterial hand gel, since there was NO RUNNING WATER.

Around 8:00, we started to get the kids ready for bed. Natalie went to sleep pretty easily, but it was after 10:00 when Sammy finally settled down and went to sleep. Then, for the next hour, I got to listen to a kid in a nearby campsite wail and scream. I get enough of that at home, thank-you-very-much. I didn't need to drive two hours to hear someone else's kid throw a tantrum for an hour because he was over-tired and needed to get to bed. So much for the park's "quiet time", which was supposed to start at 10:00 p.m.

But the next morning, we were on the other end of it. Every other time I've been camping, it's been in much more secluded areas than this particular campsite, so I hadn't worried about our kids' early wake-up time disturbing anybody else. As usual, the kids woke up around 5:30 and for the next hour, I did my best to keep them quiet, but I'm sure we still managed to wake up half the campground. As soon as it was obvious that other people were starting to get up and move around, we packed up our tent and left. We were all too tired and cranky to do any of the fun things we had planned on, like swimming in the sandy-bottomed swimming pool in the park, or the nearby caves which we had thought about touring.

On another note, I'm home today with Natalie, who woke up with a 101+ degree fever this morning. She's had some other symptoms for the past week, which I'd attributed to teething, but when she developed the fever, I thought I'd better have her checked out. The doctor thought the fever was just some random virus, and she agreed that the rest of it is probably teething. Poor Natalie is cutting six teeth, all at once, and it's been rough on her. Not to mention the rest of us.

Adventures in Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping with the kids last weekend, we turned a corner to find a group of three very large, very loud women talking and laughing with each other.

As we passed them, Sammy said loudly, "They really bigger, Mommy!" Luckily for me, the women were talking too loudly to hear, so I didn't have to turn beet red and fumble for an apology.

And so it begins. Now I need to figure out how to explain, at a 2 1/2-year-old level, how words can hurt.

Fingerpaints, part 2

Because I don't always read the comments on other peoples' blogs, I wanted to mention a question that came up in my comments section about the fingerpaint project.

How long is the paint good for? That's a good question, since this is the first time I have attempted this. I can tell you that the paint does develop a skin when it sits out, and the longer it sits, the thicker the skin gets. If it's a thin skin on top, you can just stir it back into the paint. If it's a thicker skin, scrape it off first, and stir up what paint remains.

I am storing my paint in the refrigerator, in baby food jars. I am going to experiment with freezing some, too, to see how it thaws out. I'll let you know the results of my experiment!

I also have a few different recipes for fingerpaints, and I'm going to try a couple of others, as well. The "pudding skin" is a bit of an issue with this recipe, when it's not all used at once.

Edited to add: The paint stayed good in the refrigerator for about a week, before it started getting moldy. I froze some in a small container, and it thawed out to the consistency of pudding skin. Totally unusable. Make only as much as you can use within a few days!