Jen's Blog

hand-foot-and-mouth, revisited

Now I've got the stupid virus. Grrr! Luckily it only appears to be in my throat, although I've felt really lousy for the past 2 days. Meanwhile Elliot is back to his usual, bouncy self. And the heat wave went away, finally!

hand-foot-and-mouth disease

The fun never stops here at the Snethen-Griffin household! Elliot has been diagnosed with hand-foot-and-mouth disease. He's had a bad diaper rash for the past 3 days (which I thought was heat related), and he came down with a fever this afternoon. The pediatrician took one look in his mouth and knew what it was. He's got bumps in his mouth, bumps on his bottom, and a few on his hands. None on his feet, but they may come a little later, if at all. Meanwhile, Elliot has been sleeping nearly all afternoon (but when he's not sleeping his pointing).

pointing

Elliot has begun pointing. At everything. All the time. He started last week, and now it seems near constant. He will point at something, and make a little "uh?" noise (it's very cute). Much of the time he says "buh," which is his word for both ball and thing. At least we think that's what he means. We tell him what the object in question is (if we can figure it out), and he often tries to repeat us. Gary noticed last night that he will often try to figure out if two similar objects are the same. For instance, he has lots of animals in his room (stuffed ones and pictures). He pointed to a stuffed giraffe first, and after Gary told him what it was, he immediately pointed to a picture of a turtle (both are brown and spotted).

The biggest problem I'm having with this new behavior is that I don't always know what he's pointing at. Is it the window, or the tree outside the window? Is it the picture on the wall, the wall itself, or maybe the ceiling (his hand isn't always very steady!) I figure with enough repetition he will figure out the difference between the fridge and the cabinets, but I can see where he might be confused for awhile.

accident update

Well, there is no update really. Gary will be going to the doctor later this week, on the advice of just about everyone we know. He would have gone anyway, even if no one had said he should. He's wearing a neck brace and wrist brace during the day, which at least give him the appearance of being injured. And I believe they make him feel better, too.

car accident

Gary and his friend John were in a car accident last night, on their way back from the airport. They are both ok, although shaken and pretty banged up. They had just gotten back from a week in Ireland on a business trip (which was otherwise uneventful). John was driving his (relatively) new Prius. A couple of blocks from the parking garage they slowed down for a red light. The guy in the van behind them didn't, and rear-ended them. The Prius in turn hit the vehicle in front.

Gary called me minutes after the accident, so I woke Elliot up, got a bag ready, and drove up to Oakland. The Prius was totalled; the other two vehicles were banged up, too, but the Prius got it from both ends. Gary and John were sitting on the curb, in a daze. There were people milling about all over the place, and lots of police and firetrucks. I didn't see any ambulances, but apparently the guy who caused the accident was taken away on a stretcher earlier; we don't know what happened to him.

I took a few pictures with the camera on my phone. Here's one of John's Prius:

The car, although totalled, handled the impact really well. It crumpled where it was supposed to, but the front seats looked ok. The airbags had gone off during the second (front) impact, but both Gary and John said that they never hit them, as they were held back with their seatbelts. The back seats also fared well, although I wouldn't have wanted to be back there without a seatbelt. The front seats were leaned all the way back, and no one could push them upright again. John and Gary were quite anxious to get their stuff out of John's car, since the police were going to tow it away. This proved somewhat problematic, since the door to the trunk was completely smashed and inoperable. One of the police officers managed to extract everything through the back seat. Although there was glass all over the bags, they were in surprisingly good shape, too.

Funny moment after the accident: the Prius' windshield wipers (both front and back) stayed on during the entire time we were there.

Eventually the police had finished collecting all their information, and said John and Gary could leave. I drove them back to our place, and John's wife, Eva, came to pick him up. On their way home, they were almost in another accident (the car behind them was rear-ended, but luckily Eva swerved and avoided being hit).

Gary is feeling better this morning than he did last night, although he is definitely still hurting. Both he and John elected not to go to the emergency room last night, and Gary is just planning on going to the doctor tomorrow, instead of going to Urgent Care.

La Cucaracha

Our local ice cream vendor plays ""La Cucaracha" as he drives around the neighborhood. I do not know how long he will stay in business.

visit from Mom

My mom, that is. She got here last week and just left this morning. Gary left for Ireland on Monday (for a business trip! Really!) so it was just the 3 of us for most of the visit. We got to see my sister Alana several times, too, which was a treat. Elliot just loves her earrings! We went up to Napa for a quick overnight visit, did some shopping, and had a lot of fun playing with Elliot.

I have been bad and not uploaded any photos to our webpage recently. I will do it soon. I promise! Here are a couple from this week.