Dump Your Tide Pods
Today I am salty. This mood/disposition is not how I typically am, despite the air I may put on for daily interactions, in social situations, or during any wildly ill-conceived ice breaker. I like to tell people I operate between a 4 and a 7. I, of course, have my flights of fancy wherein I brush near the apex of a ten-point emotional scale:
Wedding day.
Picking up Eliot from daycare.
Convincing Roman one of my impersonations is worthy of a smile.
Similarly, I can ride the rails of mired depression with the best of them as needed.
And today, after a week that felt like a month, following another week that felt like a year, is one of those days. I will spare you the minute details of the things that have me down but will instead hit you with a 10,000-foot view of the cloud that, as they say, is raining on my parade.
Dr. Eliot was a happy boy the Friday before Halloween
Let's start way back on the Friday before Halloween. As many parents and families were busily practicing for costumes and door-knocking, Eliot was projectile vomiting. Four times after daycare and before bed. I was upstairs with Roman the first time it happened, and Leen texted me to say Eliot hurled.
A few weeks prior, my dad was here, and he gave Eliot a sprinkled cake donut. Eliot poked around at it for a while, not sure what to do with this frosting-covered edible orb. Finally, he ate the whole thing, and then, shortly afterward, he threw up. It was closer to spit up than full-on vomit, but since he's not an infant, it's definitely throw up and not spit-up.
So this is what I assumed she meant when she told me he threw up.
No. Nope. No way. That's not what we were talking about. This was Eliot's first entrance on the "wow super aggressive throw up" scale. A grand debut. And then he made it three more times. No one really came to the dumps to read about Eliot hurling, so if you've made it this far, thank you.
Now let's talk about what came next.
So much poop.
To be fair, there was a day between the vomit and the poop, and that day was glorious. But then the poops came. And they just kept pooping. Okay, so we rocked with the poop for half a week, which meant lots of days at home because daycare, as cool as they are with taking copious sums of money from us every week, is not cool with a kid who might take a loose BM a few times a day (they actually have a "one diarrhea per day" rule, a new COVID19 protocol). And then, as the weekend approached, he seemed to be over it.
This is what SOS Sam looked like
There was a day in there where I had to text Leen an SOS from the bathroom floor as I lay wondering if I was going to poop or hurl again, first. That day was rough. But after 12 hours of mere survival, I decided to try my hand at eating one of Eliot's yogurt pouches. Then, wow, did I throw up super hard but experienced what they used to call a real "boot and rally" situation.
Anyway, the weekend arrived. We decided that for our Saturday activity to take Eliot to the toddler equivalent of Lollapalooza. There's a park not too far from our house that is so far superior to all other parks; you wonder how the other parks don't develop a complex or band together and break this park's metaphorical legs. Pee on its slides. Throw garbage on the merry-go-round.
Now, I'll forgive you if you've not been to a park lately. But I've got a bone to pick with slide architects. We've clearly reached the point in the culture when people who grew up playing Rollercoaster Tycoon have made it to the stage in their careers that they get to design slides. All the "fun" slides are nearly impossible for two-year-olds to access. We're talking climbing walls, boulders the size of small cars, 45 degree inclines, or sheer ladders 7 feet high with poles spaced uncomfortably far apart. This means I spend a lot of time at parks helping Eliot get to the top of good slides, which means I cannot, without a lot of stress, be at the bottom of slides to catch him when he comes down. Because he wears Crocs, if he forgets to keep his feet lifted a bit, he tends to catch on the way down — he is wearing large erasers over his toes after all — and occasionally goes tumbling head over heels. So I sort of need to be in both places, at once. Anyway! We had a great time at the park, even if he was mad that other kids wanted to hang out in the tunnel with him.
And then we put him down for a nap Sunday, and he woke up three hours later with a fever and weird green gunk coming out of his eyes.
I have this idea for a parenting book that is loosely titled "What Doesn't Kill You." The plan was to find parents who have dealt with some sort of chili ailment, illness, or injury and interview them about their experience. Then I'd partner with a pediatrician who would give the medical explanation of what the parents saw, thought, and experienced. When I conceived it, I figured: I'll have to find lots of parents to get a bunch of different things that caused them stress. Now though… I think we may just hit all the big ones ourselves.
Fever + gunk is reason to be cautious, though not necessarily terribly concerned. "It'll work itself out," we reckoned. In recent weeks, because appointments with our pediatrician are hard to come by, we've taken to scheduling a visit a week out and canceling it the day of if neither of the boys needs it. Luckily, Tuesday after Big-Park Saturday, we had just such an appointment on the books. But, unfortunately, despite it being scheduled, we didn't make it.
Instead, Eliot spent the night in typical rough toddler shape. Coughs, whines, whimpers, and complaining that his knee hurt. He'd recently taken to learning Head Shoulders Knees and Toes at daycare, and so we overlooked this odd pain at 3 am and told him to go back to bed. It wasn't until the AM diaper change that we noticed something strange:
The mark, larger than his palm but smaller than mine, sat on his upper inner thigh. He was bothered by it but not particularly pained. It didn't seem to be itching though it was secreting some liquid. An Aunt once told me that I needed to have a list of things that warrant a "drop everything and get him seen" visit to urgent care. That list, depending on many things — age, typical health, mood, etc. — probably, for us, includes "mystery wounds that look like anything from spider bites to swollen glands."
With an Urgent Care facility nearby, we approached right as the doors opened for business. Minneapolis is still in a state of caution, and many health facilities are practicing extreme caution — one visitor per patient. Eliot and I went in and visited with Dr. Kathy. Promptly, she identified his eyes as bacterial pink eye and an ear infection. For those keeping score at home, he's had three ear infections since August. It's been rough. After Kathy's nurse took the COVID swab, Eliot's third, I explained that the leg + the goop+ the fever had us concerned enough to seek out urgent care as opposed to seeing his physician a few hours later as scheduled.
This is when Kathy looked at me, looked at the leg, and said: Oh, it's probably nothing. Maybe an irritation. "We may never know what it is." Leen, by this time, had snuck past the registrar and found us in clinic room 2. She asked Kathy to reiterate. "So what's the thing on the leg? Is it related?" "Oh gosh, I don't think. I think we are looking at two totally separate things. Ear infections don't typically manifest in large leg rashes. I think this will calm down with some Benadryl and time."
I've seen enough episodes of House to question that, but I trusted Kathy, and to some extent, she was right, but also, like… well, you'll see.
My timeline gets a little foggy here because life has been, how do they say, 'stressful.' I think we focused on attacking the ear infection mainly for the next few hours. This may have been the day he didn't nap well. Who's to say. At some point after the trip to urgent care Tuesday but before Thursday, we did a post-mortem on our lives to figure out what the fuck could have caused a non-ear-infection rash on the thigh. We definitely rubbed Benadryl on it (which he hated with intense crying and screaming) and treated it like a spider bite for a bit.
Tide Pods do what to your skin?
Then Leen had an a-ha moment: Tide pods. She'd recently made the switch to the pods. First-time user. She remembered finding the casing in the load of laundry we were folding the night before. "Huh, look at this, it didn't dissolve fully," she'd remarked. She then went to his pajamas from the evening in question, when all night he complained "knee hurt" and found, much to her dismay, that the inner right thing was stiff, where something had dried.
It turns out, folks, and this is my suggestion to everyone when you do laundry with tide pods, you must put the pod in first, then the laundry. You see, when you put the laundry then the pod, it may get stuck in the clothes and not dissolve fully and then, BURN THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR SKIN. Now, you as an adult will likely notice "something is amiss in my briefs" or "something feels wrong about my t-shirt," but for my tiny two-year-old toddler: "knee hurt" was the only way to explain that something was rotten in Denmark.
Actually, as the dump title suggests, my honest suggestion is to dump your tide pods. I nearly guarantee that you've never read the label on your laundry detergent. Don't fuck with a product that can mess you up this bad. Or if you're really committed, DUMP your tide pods in the machine first.
Okay, once we'd identified the cause, it was easier to cut out the Benadryl and allergy or bite-related treatments.
I spoke with a nurses-help-line nurse on the phone while I stood in Walgreens, and she told me the things I needed to buy to treat a burn wound at home. We dressed it and hoped for the best.
The next day, it looked worse.
We went to see a pediatrician two days after the initial sighting. That pediatrician asked, "Is this part of a diaper rash." I get that our doctors are stressed and seeing lots of patients for any number of ailments, but when my wife (again, one visitor per patient) explains that "this wound is from an undissolved Tide pod." Your first question back is: are you sure it's not a diaper rash? I just really wonder: what are we doing here?
I've gone on rants about socialized medicine before, so this won't be that space. Sometimes doctors just aren't equipped to handle things that aren't their specialty. That pediatrician had a nurse help Leen dress the wound so that it was at least covered and not rubbing on his clothes, but it still looked terrible, and we weren't feeling great.
Photo of Roman to get you through this story.
Later that night, my friend, one of the original Dumpsters, former roommate, bocce champion, #girldad, Fire5auce himself, told me I needed to see a burn specialist. He recommended a trip to the ER that night, but Eliot was already sleeping, and I promised to go if he woke in oodles of pain. Fire5auce and his wife, Ms. 5auce, are medical professionals and parents of three. They answer lots of our questions about random health things, and we love them for it. The phone call put things in perspective for me.
We made it through the night when Sauce called again the following day: I talked to the people at a burn clinic nearby. They have openings today; if you can make a call, you can get an appointment.
On Friday morning, four days after the initial "oh maybe it's a spider bite," we went to the burn clinic. I wish the burn clinic were a place where everyone was just making lots of jokes, and then someone was going, "oh burn!" but here's how stressed I was at that point: this line about jokes didn't come to me until like two days later. "What a funny name for a place. The burn clinic. Sounds like the name of a stand-up comedy room."
We met a doctor called Emily at the burn clinic, and yep, she confirmed that we were dealing with a second-degree chemical burn. For your reference, one of the ways they classify burns is to measure them against the palm of the person burned. Eliot's burn was "bigger than his palm, but smaller than mine." That's a cusp burn. Since there was no blistering (blistering is bad, especially within the first eight hours), they assured us that despite things continuing to look worse, that's actually how burns heal. Growing new skin is TOUGH and bloody, apparently.
They stuck a huge sponge on it and said the dressing would last until Wednesday.
It lasted like six hours. That said, the peace of mind that we received simply from seeing a specialist and that specialist telling us the following is hard to quantify:
they weren't going to amputate,
he's probably not in that much pain anymore
it likely won't scar
Since then, I've been doing my best to advocate that everyone says "fuck you, Tide," and canceling social plans. I have a friend who had invited us to their house weeks ago for an afternoon hang session. And at the time, I told her: While planning is undoubtedly lovely, planning ahead when it involves children is a bit of a laughable task.
Greta: sorry that we didn't make it. I hope the event was an absolute banger.
So how is Eliot? He's finally at the point where the dressing doesn't really bother him, and he isn't waking every 90 minutes to whimper, whine or say, "knee huwt." Instead, he's back to dancing aggressively when he hears Wheels on the Bus and demands I build him tunnels, towers, or ramps to drive his trucks and cars over. He's on the mend.
We haven't looked at the wound lately because of the large dressing they put on at the clinic. We're hoping for some light pink discoloration when we finally look again, and then we start with lotioning the shit out of it to help it heal.
What's Roman been up to in all of this? Not sleeping really well. Personally, I think he's miffed that A mis-administered laundry detergent so totally destroyed Eliot's leg. Still, it really could be any number of things. He still has enormous eyes that stare directly into the camera, almost asking, "what exactly do you want from me?" to which I certainly do not have the answer. He has thankfully neither been sick nor really in poor spirits in a while. And when he doesn't sleep in the crib, it typically means I get to hang out with him in a rocking chair. I've come to enjoy these moments. I take an airplane neck pillow, a blanket and use Roman as a hot water bottle and just sort of sink into a zen-like state for as long as it takes. It could be worse.
He’s on the mend. Pictured, before wounds and ear at toddler-palooza park
If you've read this far, then I'll clue you in on a secret; I wrote all that ^ copy late last week. Since jotting it all down, the weekend has passed, Eliot's leg is totally on the mend, and he's in mostly better condition. He still says "Eliot ti-uwd," which we think means he's tired. It was emotionally draining for us and perhaps physically draining for him. But people keep telling me that this too shall pass (and touch wood: it has).
For those thinking: You should sue! We contacted Tide last week. They offered us 15% off our next Tide purchase and then lightly chastised us for using the product incorrectly. And that, again, is why you should dump your tide pods in favor of something else.
And now the Dumps!
Arab Thanksgiving: I want to take a moment and say that I am excited about the arrival of a few friends from abroad next week for Thanksgiving. One Dutch and the other a Brit; they don't have a big "let's celebrate Thanksgiving" vibe, so they're mostly just flying in to see the boys and kickback. As we were planning a menu, I saw this story in the New York Times about an Arabic dish called hashweh. When I showed it to Leen, she said: I make that all the time. Apparently, this dish, unlike "stuffing," is not confined just to holidays. Anyway, maybe you are looking to spice up your stuffing offerings at whichever Thanksgiving event you attend. Perhaps this is the answer to a question you didn't even know someone was asking. Either way, I can confirm that it's delicious. Sahtien! (That's like bon appetit, but in Arabic!)
Let's talk about Seth Cohen for a minute. I was at the doctor recently and heard someone called Sanford get in for his visit before me. I thought: wow, what a great name. Anyway, for those in the not-know, Seth was the fictional son of fictional uber-dad Sanford Cohen in Fox's bildungsroman The OC. Seth was my puberty sherpa for all intents and purposes between the years 2003-2006. I owned at least two original penguin brand polos and wore my fair share of pastel sweater vests over t-shirts because I saw Seth do it. I never got into comics or longboarding. I am like 85% positive he had a Dune poster on his wall, which I never saw/read until Chalamet and Zendaya made it cool again. Here, someone about my age reminisces on Seth's fashion icon status and why he was so inspirational to so many despite being such a nerd.
In July of 2020, I joined a book club. There are around a half dozen members, and we typically get together every three months to talk about books. So far, we've read some popular literary fiction, an alternate history, a classic, and two sci-fi works. I just selected and finished Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union. If anyone else has read it and wants to offer me some of their takes, I'll be sure to bring them up when we meet sometime in December (or January). Until then, what else are you reading? I've taken to audiobooks because of the time spent in a chair with Roman. It's sometimes easier to listen to a book and hold a baby than to read a book and hold a baby. As we approach the end of the year, I expect to start seeing a lot of book lists and reviews. Here's the first one I thought was worth sharing with you. Tell me what you liked, hated, and still plan to devour from the list.
I’ll leave you with this. One of the things I’ve always tried to do is bring flowers into the home to spruce up the space. I understand that buying plants is probably better for a number of reasons, but I like knowing that the flowers are going to die, no matter what I do. Plants, Leen and I have found, die, regardless of what we do too, but that seems to be more a reflection on us than on the plant. We got a plant as a gift recently and we debate the best place for it to “thrive” pretty frequently. That’s how I ended up watching this video. Hope it helps you find your ideal spot the way that it helped me.
