Sick boy....

Last Monday we had a 12:46 a.m. wake-up call.

I assure you, we didn't set the alarm clock for this time. It was Lachlan who got us up. We awoke to the sound of.......what can best be described as a seal barking because someone is stepping on its tail or something. A really, grumpy seal.

I've never heard anything quite like it. Heather rushed into the boys' room and picked him up. Earlier that evening he had been showing signs of some kind of sickness, but we took his temperature and figured we'd just ride out the night and see what happens in the morning.

Wrong. The spectre of infant malady had other ideas.

Heather handed Lachlan to me. I held him up and remember pale moonlight flooding the room. I looked into his face. He was honking like a goose and the worst part was that it seemed he couldn't catch his breath or get any air inside his lungs. Like he was choking or something.

It's at these moments that all of the day-to-day pressures and the general "this parenting stuff is hard" tiredness simply disappears. Suddenly, it was GAME ON. I recall a surge of energy washed over me, and feeling somewhat objective and detached as well. I wasn't panicking, only determined. Like some kind of suburban superhero ready to face the foe of whatever had grabbed onto my son. The battleground was inside our 3 bed/2 bath corner lot house, and damned if I wasn't going to win.

"Let's take him to the emergency room", I said. That was it. I threw on some clothes (the weird part was I remember thinking about what shirt I should wear, I really do suck sometimes), put him in the car, and off we went to the hospital. Just my son and I. On a very early Monday morning we drove together. I listened for his breathing the entire way there.

Emergency rooms are bright. Bright areas of the reality that sometimes the human body fails us, or we fail it. Dates and time do not live in emergency rooms. ERs exist on their own terms independant of the outside world, and although they're kind of scary, you also feel like you are in the right place. Things get fixed here. I needed to fix my son.

I went to sign in. The nurse asked me questions. I declared "My 4 month old is having difficulty breathing". That seemed enough to move us straight in. However, there wasn't anyone really in the ER anyway. Take your punk rock potshots at living in the suburbs, but when it comes to medical care and treating little babies in the middle of the night, I'd rather be where I'm at now versus back in San Francisco or London. A late night visit to an emergency room in a big city? No thanks, I'll pass.

The doctor came to see us. He looked at Lachlan for a few moments. Listened to his weird-ass barking, and promptly declared it was Croup. Croup. Even the word makes me kind of sick. It's a sickly word. Apparently it's not unusual in infants and easily treated. The quick diagnosis was a relief. You want the medical community to be able to efficiently point to what is wrong and say "that is it, we will fix it now".

And they did. They gave him various medicines. They did what they needed to do via shots and stethoscopes. He lay on a giant bed as nurses passed their busy hands over his body. They cooed over him. Said he was beautiful. I agreed in a "gee thanks" kind of way, but inside I confirmed that they were completely correct. He is beautiful. There was something about looking down at my boy as he lay there sick and slightly whimpering that charged my heart. It overfilled with how much I love this little character that I've only known for a few months.

We were discharged a few hours later and at 4 a.m. as we drove home I felt.....I don't know.......at peace I guess. It was an emotional experience, but we got through it. I realized that these times are what parenting is all about. Forget all of the surface trappings, it's simply about taking care of your children.

At 4:15 a.m. we were home. I walked inside and put him in his mother's arms. She gently sighed to him and put him back into his crib to sleep.

Marquis De Sade now designs baby stuff

So these Baby Bjorn sling baby carrier things are all the rage now. You can't flip through a magazine without seeing some star couple sporting one with their baby ensconced in it. They look happy, the baby looks happy.

That's probably because they have tons of cash to pay for the chiropractor bills, which will certainly come later.

For us flunkies who fall prey to such trends (such as myself) I am taking this space to warn you not to buy these back wrenching baby toters. My wife and I spent a lot of time hiking and camping before the boys were born. Now that they're getting a bit bigger we are starting to do day hikes again. It's nice. You know, doing this kind of stuff as a family makes parenting seem pretty cool. We walk along these trails in gorgeous northern California countryside. We have our boys with us. Our dog runs up ahead. For those moments, all seems well with the universe.

Until the frickin' muscle spasms kick in from the unholy Baby Bjorn.

I mean, I should have been dubious about the design from the beginning. All of the baby's weight is carried on the front supported by these two flimsy straps in the back??? Holy cow, some Swedish designer is cackling all the way to the bank to deposit the far too many Euros (Is Sweden using the Euro yet? I can't remember) he made from us trendy suckers. I'm going out and getting one of those baby backpack things ASAP. I will then burn the Baby Bjorn in a ritual ceremony of "Reclamation Of Common Sense".

You see that look on my face in the photo? That's not a smile, it's a grimace.