The life and times of Oscar Marcos Perez-Cytron. Born Thanksgiving Day 11/22/01.   Archives << current   If you want to add something to Oscar's baby-blog, send an email to megan@alpha60.com and we can set it up so you can post...

oscar's life   Tuesday, June 24, 2003 7:24 PM posted by Anonymous   What happened? I just wrote a long message and I couldn't post it. Here's a retry. Oscar and I are feeling better today. We both had fevers yesterday mine was around 101-102, his was around 100. Today we're still a little cranky and I think we boh have sore throats. Megan took Oscar to the doc yesterday and said his was all blistery. Megan has been taking good care of us while we have been sick. Last night she made a caldo gallego, which unfortunately I couldn't really enjoy because of my throat. Also she made some yummy fruit smoothies that were very soothing. Today Megan is going to the dentist for a cavity. I know she's not feeling that great either. I hope that I can get well soon so that I can take care of her when this evil bug gets around to her. On a positive note, we received our camera (that we had left in Gville) so we might have some more pics to post sometime soon. Sunday, June 22, 2003 6:20 AM posted by Oscar   We had a terrible scare with Oscar last night. Yesterday he started running a fever and this morning he woke up at 6:00am having a seizure. Even though I had read all of the chapters on fevers in our baby books and knew that this sort of thing could happen, it was completely terrifying. The seizure lasted what seemed like an eternity (Christian said it was more like 5-10 minutes). When it finally stopped, Oscar was completely out of it and catatonic. We took him to the emergency room and about an hour after we got there his fever broke and he started to come out of it. He looked around the room and said "ducky" and "fishy" and we knew that he was going to be okay. The doctors said they couldn't find anything serious and reassured us that it was a "normal febrile seizure," that happens to 1 in 25 kids at some point during the first few years. They let him go home and he was pretty much back to normal by the afternoon, albeit a little cranky. I wish were so resilient--I still feel pretty shell-shocked by the whole episode. It really hit a nerve, given that we lost Soozie to seizure/brain problems. Christian was a model of calmness, though--very reassuring given that he is usually the one prone to overprotectiveness with Oscar. This afternoon he talked to both of his parents and found out that the same thing happened to him when he was right around Oscar's age. From here on out, we have to be much more vigilant about not letting Oscar's fevers get so high. Right now we're waking him up every three hours to pump him full of ibuprofen and tylenol. Tuesday, June 17, 2003 4:09 AM posted by Oscar   REVISIONIST POST (1-19-2004): Okay, it looks like I never got a chance to write about the St. George trip (see following posts for the reason). Which is too bad, because it was a really lovely trip. We drove down, which was really crazy, but kind of fun. On the way out of town, I impulsively asked Christian to stop by Best Buy to buy a DVD player, if we could find one for under $200. We did and it was the best money we've ever spent. A total parental cop-out, but still the best purchase ever. I promise to resist this urge when Oscar gets to be of Game Boy age. I also realized almost immediately after we crossed the 14th Street Bridge that I can no longer see and really need glasses. It seems that I've been living in an insanely close-range, urban myopic world. When you are on the interstate the world suddenly explodes and everything is 100 times further away. I couldn't see a thing and I couldn't drive at all. So on the second day, we had to stop at Lenscrafters--deep in the heart of suburban Savannah. I had called ahead from South Carolina and made an appointment so that I could get the glasses (in "about an hour") and then get out with a minimum of time lost. Unfortunately, they dialated my eyes and the world was like a crazy kaleidescope for about eight hours, so not much driving relief for Christian that day. On the way down we stopped at Sweatmans BBQ in South Carolina. An important star in the porcine BBQ constellation. The sauce was mustard based, the pigs were "whole hog," the tea was sweet, and the oaks were live. Oscar is standing in front of the smokehouse. We rented a place a block from the beach and went swimming every day. It was so peaceful and unspoiled. One day Oscar just fell asleep on Lala's lap listening to the waves. We ate fish that the menfolk, womenfolk and boy- and girlfolk caught. Jonathan and Heidi came over for a few days from New Orleans (no photos for some reason). They brought some Mardi Gras beads, which provided hours of entertainment. We watched birds and sunsets and lots of trash TV (as you can see in the background in many photos). Just what you would hope for a vacation. Oscar loved playing with his tios. He climbed into their inflatable raft and stayed there for quite some time laughing and playing. He didn't want to take naps or miss anything and you can see the results above. At this stage, he was running around so much that I think it was hard for Lolo and Lala to get him to slow down much for lap sitting and snuggles. But often he is paying more attention than you think--once we got home, he could pick out Lolo and Lala from a photograph before anyone else. He loved playing dopi-dopi-dopi and he loves looking at the pictures now that he's older--giving Lolo and Lala a "besito" and "abrazo" every time he passes their photo on the stairs. Looking back many, many months later, I can now see that this, along with the trip to North Carolina later in the summer, was an important part of the Perez Family Gator Indoctrination Program. They get them while they are really young, wear Gator paraphenalia, say "go gators" at random, quiet moments, give cute snuggly gator toys to babies--and behold, my special little guy is gleefully yelling "Go Gators" with them--even though he has no idea whatsoever what it means. It's interesting (and mildly disturbing) to watch! And, last, but not least, we did a very quick run to Gainesville to go to Harry Monkhurst's wedding reception. Here's Oscar hanging out with Marty, Sharon, and Ken. I wish we could have stayed longer, but by that time, we had pretty much worn Oscar down to a nub. He was so tired and stressed and he just wanted to go home, which we managed to do after two more full days of driving! Monday, June 16, 2003 4:39 AM posted by Oscar   We had a really nice Father's day today. Uncle Bill was in town to help Mary Kate move (just a few blocks away), it was great seeing Oscar play with him. He's starting to give kisses/besos and last night he gave one to everyone (Mary Kate and Bill and Patrick were over). Ever since our trip to St. George's Island (I'm going to write about this in a separate post), Oscar has been talking about "fishies." Shea gave him a book about fish that he loves and he has finally become interested in the "aquarium" that was suppose to captivate him when he was three months old. Also, our neighbors put a fish pond in their front yard. After Oscar's nap we went to see Finding Nemo (the Pixar movie). It was almost two hours long and he loved the entire thing, especially the parts above the water involving birds ("duckies"). It was really well done, not at all a vapid kid's movie like "The Piglet Movie" and it had a nice plot and father/son theme. After the movie we walked home from Georgetown and stopped to look at the pigeons and fountain in Dupont Circle. Best of all, after dinner, Oscar came up to me and said "poopoo" then went to the door and gesticulated that he would like to go "the potty." He sat on the potty, we read about fish and looked at the aquarium. We compared and contrasted The Piglet Movie and Finding Nemo (we don't have too much to go on in terms of film criticism yet) and he emerged triumphant, having made caca in his potty. It's the first time he has done so entirely intentionally. A major leap forward in terms of socialization. We're so proud!