The Easter Bunny brought a basketful of Tylenol and Motrin for little E. She started with a high fever early Saturday morning. We went to the doctor on Saturday in an attempt to preempt a doctor’s visit on Easter Sunday. Unfortunately it didn’t work. E got a rash on her face and we wanted to make sure she was OK. Looking up infant illnesses is very similar to looking up adult illnesses in the book ‘Where There Is No Doctor’. Fever and diarrhea symptoms correspond to all sorts of terrible infectious diseases. I understand that it was most likely just a viral infection, but I’m not going to play probability games. There may be only a 1 in 10,000 chance that it was something more serious, but we only have 1 E. Her fever has gone, she’s sleeping well and she is drinking lots of formula again. We’ll be much smarter the next time she has a high fever.
On a lighter note, Matt sent me a very funny story about his dog Indy. I guess Becky and K had finished coloring Easter eggs and left them on the table while they went out. Becky questioned the wisdom of leaving the eggs out, but Matt thought they’d be OK. While they were gone, Indy hid two colored eggs around the house. He also ate one whole as payment for his Easter Bunny services. I always thought that Indy was a cool dog, but he just keeps getting better with age. 
We all spent some time at Duke Friday morning. E participated in a research study. She was helping the scientists studying the cognitive development of the concepts greater than and less than. Basically, it seems like they were interested in whether E would be more interested when there were more dots on the screen, versus when there were fewer. It was pretty quick. E sat with Liz and a PostDoc in a small curtained area. You can see in the picture above that E was in a high chair facing a television screen. I was behind a curtain with a grad student and an undergrad. They had little game controllers and watched E on a monitor. They would measure when E looked at the screen. E was in a good mood. She cooperated, but spent a sizable amount of the test looking for the PostDoc and at her mom. (She also gave her tray a little taste ) How did she do? We really couldn’t get that out of the researchers. We’ll have to wait for the paper. I think they were very happy that she was a valid data point. When talking with the undergrad afterwards, he said that they sometimes have to test a lot of babies to get a valid set because some babies get fussy and they are disqualified. E got an “I’m an Infant Scientist” t-shirt that she will wear proudly.
Here is E posing with Pooh for her wall photo after the test. She is a great baby.
I took a little video of E on the monitor while I was sequestered. I wanted to spice it up a bit with editing. I may have gone too far. It’s a little artsy. Check it out here.
From there we went on to Costco and BJ’s to compare prices and selection. We are switching from Sam’s. I understand that Costco and BJ’s probably have similar business practices, but Sam’s is such a juggernaut. Wal-Mart/ Sam’s is like the monopolies of the early twentieth century. We think we’re going with BJs– decent selection and closer to our house. A bit more expensive than Costco, though.
Later in the day, we went for a walk with Anne, Jed and O on the Tobacco Trail and then out to dinner. They are moving next week– we will really miss them.
It was pretty nice day off of work.
Happy Easter to Everyone! Today is probably the start of the long weekend for everyone. After a lot of rain, it’s pretty sunny here in NC. Here’s a little daycare art. While it should be obvious that E had a great deal of help with her bunny, she did put a lot of work into the ears.
The Amsterdam posts have been up for a while. We have moved on since our trip. Last weekend we had fun spending Saturday with Anne, Jed and O at the Asheboro Zoo. I have some nice pictures and short videos. The baby lions that Mom, Dad and Den saw last fall are not so small anymore. I need a little more time to put them together though. I’ll post them this weekend. For now, here are a couple animals we saw.
We went to visit Mer on Sunday. She has bought and moved into her new house. As you can see from the photo, it’s a beautiful house. It’s also in a great neighborhood. I think Cole is pretty happy with this ‘country’ life. He’s got so much more room. Small apartments in Chicago are now just a claustrophobic memory. Mer lets him run in the parks nearby and he’s able to really open up. Mer said that he gets into a zone (probably thinking back to his days as ‘The Undertaker’).
If anyone has suggestions of how Mer can landscape that hill in the front, I’ll pass them on. She’s searching for a good looking, low maintenance solution.