As I rode the elevator up after a long day’s work, I thought about my perfect plan: I would kiss Emily goodnight at her normal 9pm bedtime, Jan and I would have a relaxing dinner together, pack for the next day’s trip to America, and we’d all get a very good night’s sleep in preparation for the long flight ahead. As I turned the key to open the front door, my phone rang. “Are you almost home?” said a frantic voice on the other end. I opened the door and found Jan standing on the other side of the threshold with Emily in one hand and her phone in the other. We both hung up and Jan proceeded to explain how Emily hadn’t been feeling very well. And then Emily vomited. Everywhere.

Jan explained that this was the third time that Emily had vomited in the past 10 minutes. And I’m not talking about your normal, run-of-the-mill, everyday baby spit up. No, this was vomit: substantial and projectile. Apparently, Jan and Emily had spent the previous day with a couple of friends who had just recently recovered from a nasty bout of gastroenteritis and, though they were feeling better, were still contagious. Emily punctuated Jan’s story by throwing up again. After throwing up eight times over the course of an hour and a half, I packed our little girl up and rushed her off to the emergency room. It was approaching midnight.

The stress of the situation had made my back seize up even worse than it already was but leaning on Emily’s pushchair helped me survive the dozen blocks between our house and the hospital. It was either escort Emily to the hospital or stay at home and pack for our trip: a job at which I would be utterly useless. So I volunteered for ER duty while Jan stayed at home to pack our bags.

I arrived at the hospital and was immediately directed to the pediatric ward (yes, free 24 hour emergency child care) where a doctor was with us in only five minutes. A half hour of uncomfortable observation was ended with another upchuck. Emily was a little shaken at first but the crew of friendly nurses quickly settled her nerves – until they started jabbing her with all sorts of medieval torture devices. They wanted to perform a blood test and hook our little girl up to an IV drip to avoid dangerous levels of dehydration. It took three nurses plus myself to restrain a writhing and surprisingly strong Emily while they tried to stick her with really long scary-looking needles. One nurse explained to me that Emily has very thin veins, thus the repeated jabbing attempts in both wrists, forearms, and ankles.

Blood was finally extracted, solution was finally inserted, and our hero was free to “relax” while the tests were run. My little pin cushion sobbed herself to sleep and I stood watch for the next three hours. Why would a hospital vending machine contain nothing healthier than Twix bars, chocolate cookies, and Coca Cola? So much for dinner.

With nothing to do but wait for a few hours, my adrenaline-powered autopilot slowly turned off and the reality of the situation started to hit me. I had no doubt that Emily would be OK, but seeing one’s tear-soaked 11 month old daughter asleep on her stomach under a white hospital blanket with an intravenous drip attached to her bandaged left ankle is a sobering sight.

At 4am, the doctor told me that the blood tests had all come back negative, removed the IV from Emily’s foot, prescribed a gentle regimen of slowly administered clear liquids, and declared it all a simple case of the “48 hour stomach flu”. The nurses lovingly waved goodbye as Emily and I headed home with just enough time to pack my bags before the cab came to bring us to the airport at 7am.

The flight went as well as could be expected – if by “well” you mean that Emily only vomited once and generously passed her gastro on to Jan who spent most of the flight either on the plane’s toilet or in her seat completely drained of all life and color. I luckily escaped contamination… until a couple of days later. By the time Jan and Emily were feeling better and joyously bouncing about in the swimming pool at my cousin Cookie’s house in Chappaqua, I was praying to the porcelain god with a fever so high that I was actually hallucinating. I vaguely remember something about having to “click” into position by rolling over in bed every half hour to maintain some sort of laser alignment that would aid in my sweaty recovery. But my 48 hours were soon over, as well, and we were all finally able to start our three week holiday, albeit fours days late.

Happy eleven month birthday, Emily.

I can’t decide if out little girl is more Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or The Werewolf. You see, while the sun is up, Emily is the most amazingly bright-eyed, well-natured, easy-going, fun-loving creature you can imagine. But when it’s time for bed, I swear she grows fangs. Seriously, she went for my jugular last night! Separation anxiety has set in and our once vehemently independent little girl is now convinced that she needs mommy (and her milk) to get back to sleep. There’s nothing I can do. We’re trying not to give in to her demands and allow her to become dependent on the night feeds, but the desperate pleading, night sweats, and hour-long blood-curdling screams may get the better of us.

But let’s not dwell on the bad news when there are so many positive things from this past month to gush over:

• The developmental flood gates were opened one night when Emily decided to start walking, climbing down from the couch, and playing pop-up peek-a-boo all in less time than it takes me to make a really good tuna salad sandwich.
• Though she started walking a couple of weeks ago, she has progressed amazingly over that short period of time. She has gone from “one step, fall, two steps, fall” to walking down the entire length of the hall, turning the corner, opening a door, bending down to pick up a toy, and carrying on, all while doing her best impression of a drunk Frankenstein’s monster urgently looking for the bathroom. She can actually attain a running pace for a couple of steps if she spots a soft landing pad – like an unsuspecting parent – to hurl herself onto.
• Emily loves to dance. Not only does she giddily fling her head back and forth when a rockin’ song comes on, but she has also accomplished this disco feat in the free-standing position. Sitting or standing, dancing currently exists only from the neck up.
• Seven teeth!
• Even before she was walking, Emily was climbing stairs. One and two stairs have been in her repertoire for months now, but she started the serious stuff at her grandparents’ house in England about three weeks ago where she successfully ascended a carpeted flight of 10 daunting stairs and continued to practice all week long. She must have been gearing up for her return home because, a few days after we came home to Barcelona, Emily escaped the apartment (for the first time) and shot directly for the stairs in the hallway. She proceeded to fly up the 15 marble stairs between the fifth and sixth floor and was making a B-line for the roof when I finally caught up with her.
• Emily had quite the breakthrough dietary day last week when she attended Charlie’s fourth birthday party and ate everything in sight. A definite high point (depending on your point of view) was when she slammed her hand into the birthday cake and quickly shoved a fistful of icing into her mouth.
• At the same birthday party, Emily discovered a newfound love of the beach. Digging in the sand with her new bucket and spade was nice, but it wasn’t nearly as exciting as flirting with the sea. She squealed with delight every time a wave would roll in and touch her feet. She quixotically tried to chase the wave out to sea but mommy was there in Baywatch capacity to make sure that lesson is saved for another day.
• One of the loveliest developments this month has been watching Emily interact with other children. Just today she was hanging out with her good buddy Luca; watching them “speak” to each other, walk together, and give encouraging pats on the back (and face) to each other is absolutely heart-warming. Plus watching her steal toys away from other little kids never fails to bring a tear to my eye.

Let’s see those seven pearly whites.

There she goes, down the couch again.

The newest family photo.

Emily loves to help with the laundry. As soon as the clothing comes out of the washer and into the basket, she is there to industriously push the basket down the hall.

While the clothes are being gingerly hung up by someone who is tall enough to reach the clothesline, Emily is helpfully riffling through the damp pile, pulling out one article at a time, and tossing it across the room. We like to think that she is handing us clothes to hang up.

We aren’t able to hang up the clothing at the same blinding pace that Emily can “hand them to us” so we inevitably end up with a bathroom full of freshly washed clothes lining the floor. But this is where Emily’s Virgo nature comes out, for once the last article of clothing is thrown, she starts to fling them back into the basket again. Uninterrupted, she can repeat this process ad infinitum. We have observed her perform this same procedure with her toys in her toy box and, just today, two ice cream sticks in a shoe box – she must have thrown them in and out of the box about 12 times.

Regular readers may remember that I hurt my back about a month ago playing volleyball. Since this was the fourth time that this had happened in as many years, instead of just sitting around for a month and waiting it out, I wanted to finally do something about it. Maybe even find out why my lower back seizes up about once a year and see if I could prevent it from happening again in the future.

First, I decided to get a massage. The soothing hands of a specialist would surely loosen up whatever was ailing me and I would soon be on the road to recovery. But since nobody in Spain works during the hot summer months, I had a hard time finding a good masseuse (I think you’re supposed to call them “massage therapists” now). I tried my best to reach around and massage myself but I don’t think my arms are long enough. I got to thinking that it wasn’t the muscles that were bothering me. But what was it? The bones? A pinched nerve? Degenerative disc disease?

Plan B was to go to a chiropractor. The strong cracking hands of a specialist would surely align my spine and make me feel like a million bucks. I asked my friends if they knew of any good specialists in Barcelona. AmJan gave me the number of her chiropractor but after four days of calling all I got was the answering machine – Spanish summer strikes again! I got to thinking that, if something is really wrong with my back, maybe I shouldn’t have someone cracking it. Probably a little too aggressive for such a delicate part of the body.

Plan C was to go to an osteopath. The healing hands of a specialist would surely guide my back into shape and teach it to stay that way. I didn’t even get to call an osteopath before my very wise friend, Too Tall Dutch Ed, suggested that I just go to the doctor’s office and get an x-ray before anyone starts manipulating my vertebrae. So off I went.

Plan D: I made an appointment, saw the doctor, got prescribed some anti-inflammatories (which I never took), scheduled an x-ray, had it done, and went back to the doctor to get the results. The whole process took two weeks and was absolutely free. Have you seen Sicko yet?

So, what was the diagnosis? Well, the doctor sticks the x-ray on a light box, looks at it for about 10 seconds, turns to me and says, “I don’t need to say anything do I?”. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary at first, mainly because I had assumed the image on the left was a profile shot and the curvature looked pretty much normal. Then I saw my hips and said, “Wait a minute… that’s from the front! Oh my god, my spine looks like that?”.

click to enlarge the freakish deformation

The doctor explained that my twisted spine was probably to blame for my lower back problems and gave me a referral for a physical therapist who will teach me special exercises to keep my back strong and not put any unnecessary strain on my frail vertebrae. I asked him if he thought visiting a chiropractor or an osteopath would do any good and he said that, though they may provide temporary relief, I’m at an age where, like an old twisted tree, I simply am what I am and probably won’t be able to change. I have a chiropractor appointment next week.