Ironing out the wrinkles

It is no secret that the economy has hit everyone hard in certain ways… Almost every family I know has cut back in one way or another.

We have done our share to save, for example, my wife fights her way through couponmom.com and the Sunday paper, on the weekends, to locate the different brands we buy. Luckily for us, this is the last month, for a while we will need to purchase any formula! I find it so impressive when we go to the grocery store and after all is said and done we have saved close to if not more than $50 off what our regular bill would have been.
Pinchin’ our pennies led us to forgo the fun movie channels on our Dish Network Satellite. We have since enrolled in Netflix and in doing so saved us about $60 per month.

We have resorted to ironing our dress clothes for work. I have numerous meetings I have to go to each week and so I need to have pressed and starched dress shirts readily available. We really like the cleaners we use. I drive up and they know me by name without even saying a word.
They are an asian couple, as most dry cleaners are and the wife has to be the nicest lady I’ve ever known.

“Oh hello, E-dic, how’s de baby?”

But, I certainly don’t get that type of reception when I drive up and the husband is there. I show up and he immediately goes to the cash register and heads back to get my clothes. He heads out, opens my car door (this is a drive-thru cleaners, by the way) puts the clothes in the back seat and hands me a receipt and tells me the amount I owe all without any type of salutation or greeting. I hand him my credit card, sign and am on my way. I can give “credit” he is pretty efficient without the banter of talking to customers. Maybe that’s just how his egg rolls!

Okay, I cannot take recognition doing our ironing, I have probably pressed three shirts in the two years my wife and I have been married, but I guess to her it is something she wants to do for her man. I wouldn’t want her out mowing the lawn. Don’t get me wrong, we are in no way making each other do certain duties, but this is how our marriage works!

I sit here typing this blog as my wife, so lovingly, sways back and forth in her long, gray pajama pants and blue school polo, hair twisted up in a sexy mess with her white pearl earrings still in her ears that she obviously has forgotten to take out from the work day. She painstakingly slides back and forth with her silver Shark iron in her right hand and a can of Niagara starch in her left. It seems just like yesterday that we received our iron as a gift from our wedding registry, we had no idea how much use it would of gotten.

“I like this shirt honey,” said my wife while holding a blue and white checked J.Crew shirt. “You should wear it more, it looks great on you!”

“Thanks babe,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe how old it is..”

“Well, I like it.” She replied turning and rubbin' her pregnant belly. “The bigger I get the more you should watch for this to end up on my side… Oh – Shhhed$#@!!!”

I turn and see the ironing board rocking back and forth in a swaying motion that of course set our very state-of-the-art iron Shark diving to the floor in a downward dive. Please understand we have hardwood in our bedroom and the end result to something like an iron falling on it cannot be a good one.

“Oh, are you okay?” I say while I look at Laura.

“Yes.” She replied, her face now a bit pink from the panic moment that just occurred.

I know I was hoping she was okay, but a large part of me was worried about our floor. Don’t get me wrong, I was so glad to know my wife hadn’t burnt herself, but I was almost equally curious if she had burnt the floor. The floor in our dining room has already been ruined from our dogs taking the opportunity to skip the outside pee route.

“How is it?” I carefully asked.

Laura is already sensitive from being pregnant, so I wanted to tread lightly and not make her feel any worse than she already felt. Besides, she was ironing MY shirts…

“It just left a little mark,” she said while bending down to feel the mark the Shark had gashed in our hardwood.

“Wait, what is that?” I asked.

“What?” she replied, “Oh…”

She bend down again, but this time her head went under the ironing board itself with the iron resting gingerly waiting to make another nose dive into our floor, but this time it would of gone right on Laura’s neck.

"It's just a white piece of.."

“Laura.” I said quietly and softly with my eye on hers.

“Yes?” she said while standing up and missing the board by the width of an American Express card.

“All I need for you to do is bump that, burn yourself, and we are off to the ER!”

She looked at me smiling that smile she usually gives me when she knows she has done something to irritate me.

We are certainly trying to save money, but my wife better be more careful or she may end up seriously injured from “The Shark!”

Have you ever been to the ER with a child?

Have you ever been to an Emergency Room with a child?

Now you may be wondering "why were you in the ER?" Well, we went on Sunday afternoon to pick out pumpkins, have a fun day with family and enjoy a nice, crispy fall day. On the way home our little man was uncharacteristically pissy. He basically whined and cried almost the entire way home. We chalked it up to he was not happy to be in his car seat for the hour 1/2 ride home.

We come home and Mauldin seems to be really hot and on this 60 degree day there is no real reason for him to be hot to the touch. My brilliant and intuitive wife insists we take his temperature.

102 degree temp. I look at her and say,

"don't freak out!" knowing good and well she was well into the freakage zone.

"This isn't a teething temperature," said Laura.

"Lets give him some Tylenol and put him in a cool bath, that might help!"

So, I proceed to do this as we know this is what any doctor may first suggest, not to mention any parent we contact as well. After his splish splashy bath time I take him out and we take his temperature again, knowing that the Tylenol should of kicked in a little.

103.3. I look at Laura's face, and she is on the verge of tears.

"I'm gonna call the doctor on call and see what they say to do," insisted Laura.

Mind you, our soon-to-be three year old niece, Annagrace, has been sick since Saturday, however, Mauldin has had no contact with her. We know that Annagrace was on her way to "Children's" a local Pediatrics doctor office in Atlanta and the wait to get in to see a doctor is 3 hours!

While Laura is calling the doctor on-call - I proceed to call "Children's" to see about making an appointment.

I hear Laura downstairs, "Thank you. Yes, 103.3. 03/21/2009. Oh, okay. Thank you."

I hang up the phone with the very unhelpful nurse at Children's who was in mid- I'm sorry because they had no more spots. The best thing she could say was to walk in and wait the 3 hours.

"What did they say?" I say to Laura as I am 1/2 down the stairs.

I see Laura packing Mauldin's diaper bag and proceeds to strip off his onesie.

"The nurse on the phone said we need to take him to the ER," said Laura. "With a temp that high they want us to have him seen ASAP."

"Okay." I reply.

As I drive us to the ER my stomach is in knots and I am reminded of the stress level that I have before I speak in public or before my first date with Laura. My head was pounding, my hands were sweating as I gripped the steering wheel and the soothing sounds of Jordin Sparks and her "Battlefield" were not all that soothing or comforting so I proceeded to turn off the radio completely.

We finally arrive at the hospital, after what seemed like a million years in the car, and park in the parking garage across the street... apparently we aren't the only one's with an emergency this evening.



Dude, it's so ghetto... okay now I may get some flack for saying this, but in the case of the one we went to on Sunday night... I feel I am pretty accurate in my description.

As we are walking through the parking lot I look over at Laura as she has Mauldin curled up in her embrace. Mauldin's tiny arms and legs are bare to the elements and I start to wonder how is this going to make him better?

"I feel like such trash!" I say to Laura.

"What? Why?" Laura replies with a bit of laughter.

"Here we are walking into the ER with our child in a freaking diaper! How trashy are we? I mean who does that???"

As I say these words I look over to my right and there stands a tall, black man; with his girlfriend. The man is wearing a long trench coat reminiscent of something Morpheus from the Matrix would fashion. One can only imagine why he was there...

I look at Laura... "Okay, I don't feel so bad anymore... I may blog about this!"

After entering the pediatrics ward of the ER Laura goes on to sit with Mauldin as I fill out all the necessary paperwork. I felt so odd doing this because in filling out this paper work I am admitting my child is sick, so sick that we had no alternative choice but to bring him to the ER, the ER where people come when they chop off their limbs or break their arm while playing flag football. We are here in the ER exposing our defenseless and helpless 6-month old son to who knows what... Right then and there I felt like a terrible, terrible parent.

Our little guy was/is such a trooper, he is usually bouncin' around like Tigger, but this particular day he was more like a gloomy Eeyore.

His stuffy, "oh so stuffy," nose is just red and raw. He hates it when you try to wipe it.

Well, after finally meeting with the doctor, one urine sample, complete with catheter and x-rays they determined he was infected with the "flu." We were given a Rx for Theraflu, I believe, I think that is what it is called... and I won't get into the nightmare it was to obtain this medication. Have to make it... comon', seriously?

To top it off, my beautiful and selfless wife, Laura, has caught it as well... So, get well soon baby! I'm sorry you were the one to catch it.

I love you both.