Mission accomplish

Before I get started, I just want to give a big gold star to the front line workers at Ottawa Public Health's H1N1 flu shot clinics. From what I witnessed today, staff were all professional, calm and empathic while working in an environment of organized chaos. And what I say organized chaos, I don't mean it as a criticism. Having hundreds, if not thousands of people, line up for limited spots, many of whom could be a panicky and cranky, doesn't exactly lend itself to calm working conditions.

As I blogged yesterday, dear husband tried to get a wrist band for darling daughter. Unfortunately, he wasn't successful. He was about 100 people short of getting one. So early this morning we enacted Plan B. Plan B consisted of dear husband getting up at 3 a.m. and arriving at the flu clinic at 3:30 a.m. Mind you, wrist bands were being handed out at 7:30 a.m., with the clinic opening at 9 a.m. Arriving at 3:30 a.m. seemed a little extreme. However, I'd like to point out that dear husband wasn't the first to arrive. One person arrived at 2 a.m. to stake out a spot. Several people who had arrived in the early morning hours had been turned away at previous clinics in the week.

When we went over Plan B late last night, I thought we were a bit crazy. But according to dear husband, the line really started to grow around 4:30 a.m. So maybe weren't crazy after all.

I had my doubts about lining up and waiting for hours for a vaccination. But as the week has worn on, the line ups seem to be getting worse, not better. And while family physicians have been invited to apply for vaccine, it remains to be seen when that vaccine will be delivered and when those flu clinics will open. It could be days or it could be weeks. Who knows? And there are no guarantees the primary health clinic I'm a patient of will have a clinic. So we decided to bite the bullet and have dear husband get up early and line up.

Shortly after 7:30 a.m., dear husband called, saying was on his way to pick us up as we had to be at the clinic at 8 a.m. When we arrived, we were welcomed by a huge line up that snaked from outside and around the perimeter of the lobby. We waited for a good hour before our number was called and get darling daughter vaccinated. Once we were upstairs, it was smooth sailing. We handed in our papers and were led to a nurse who administrated the vaccination. Darling daughter didn't even cry. After waiting 15 minutes as recommended by public health officials, we were done.

Three weeks from now, we'll have to do it all over again as darling daughter only got half of her vaccination dose today. Hopefully the line ups will have died down a bit. If not, dear husband is willing to get up at 3 a.m. again.

H1N1 headache

Is this pandemic over yet? Because it is giving me a headache.

Sorry if I sound so trivial, but in my opinion fear is spreading faster than the flu. However, with that being said, dear husband and I decided to see if we could get one of those golden tickets (they are now handing out bracelets) being handed out at H1N1 clinics operated by Ottawa Public Health. One could argue that by lining up for the vaccine we are feeding into the fear. And they would have a point. But I'd like to get darling daughter get the vaccine sooner rather than later.

Dear husband went into work early in order to take the afternoon off in hopes of securing us a bracelet for darling daughter. He, and hundreds of others, lined up at a local arena. Unfortunately, he was about a 100 people away from getting a bracelet. Better luck next time.

So we are going to plan B it and do it all over again tomorrow. Now, I'm not hopeful that we will get a bracelet, but at this point all we can do is try.

I can't wait until the fear dies down a bit and health units are able to release some of the vaccines into the hands of family physicians. Because at this rate, it may take three or four months to deliver the vaccine to Ottawa residents who want it.

So we will see what transpires tomorrow.

Someone is going to have a tantrum and that someone is likely me

This one a day nap time thing is starting to become a pain in the you-know-what.

I thought I'd be smart today and delay nap time as long as I possibly could. But I think I shot myself in the foot.

At 12:45 p.m. darling daughter went down for her nap. At one, I watched the hot topics segment of The View and quickly ate a sandwich. Feeling tired myself, I thought I'd pay heed to the old saying of "sleep when the baby sleep" and take a nap. My eyes were closed for 15 minutes before I heard darling daughter whimper. At first I thought she'd go back to sleep. And for a couple of minutes I thought my assumption was proved correct because I didn't hear a peep coming from her room.

Then I heard quiet babbling. I can deal with quiet babbling. But then the babbling turned to cries and then I realized that nap time had come to a crashing halt.

And I didn't even get to have a nap myself.

So now darling daughter is wired. Or wound for sound, as my mother would call her condition. And I'm counting down to 5 p.m. Only two hours and five minutes to go. *Sigh* I had thought that once she transitioned to one nap a day she'd be taking long, leisurely afternoon naps. In my books, an hour nap doesn't qualify as long and leisurely.

I think she is overtired. In hindsight (oh, hindsight you are always 20/20) she should have gone down earlier for her nap. Unfortunately, new routines take some time to establish. *Sigh* But I still miss the morning nap.

Who do I petition to get the morning nap back?

It is official. Darling daughter has given up her morning nap.

God help us all.

I must say we had a good 14 1/2 month run. I've heard on the street that babies give up their naps around the time they approach their first birthday. I'm not too sure how true this is. There is also a nasty rumour floating around that toddlers eventually give up napping altogether. That gives me the shivers. Regardless, the situation I now face is darling daughter is not longer napping between the hours of 9 and 10 a.m.

While darling daughter may not miss her morning nap, I do. I miss it tremendously. I miss that hour to myself. That was the time I would typically take a shower and get ready for the day. Now I'm forced to take a quick shower and hope darling daughter doesn't get too bored playing in her crib and start flinging her toys onto the floor.

By lunchtime she is ready for a nap. Going for a nap time around lunch time has its pros and cons, the main con being she'll be back up and raring to go at 2 p.m. Her previous afternoon nap time was around 1:30 or 2 p.m. So while she was napping, I'd have some leisure time to myself. That three hour period between 2 and 5 p.m. is long. Too long. Way too long. Today I found myself counting down to 5 p.m. Darling daughter wasn't helping matters by flinging her toys over one of the baby gates and into the stairwell below. I even found one of the Trofast bins at the bottom the stairs.

I knew this day was coming, but I was in denial. I'm still in denial. I'm still hoping she'll reconsider and go back to the morning nap. If not, I guess I'll have to adjust to the new reality. So farewell morning nap. You'll be missed.

Dear Ottawa Citizen

Dear Ottawa Citizen,

Today I noticed copies of your Monday and Tuesday editions in my mailbox. I know that you are hoping by providing me -- a former Citizen subscriber -- with free copies of your paper for the next week or so will make me reconsider my position and sign up for a subscription.

However, you are doing the exact opposite. In the last week or so, I have been inundated with articles and broadcasts related to H1N1 in order to make a decision in terms of getting the Swine Flu vaccination for myself and my daughter. I have made a decision. We will be getting vaccinated. However, it remains to be seen when we will get our inoculations as the line ups at the vaccination clinics operated by Ottawa Public Health have been swamped by clients. I am now faced with the situation: do we wait in line for hours in the cold and risk darling daughter contracting illness or do we sit at home, unvaccinated. We in Ottawa can take some small comfort that we aren't alone as it is a similar story across the country. (Check out this article).

When I turn on the television, H1N1 leads the national and local newscasts. When I turn on the radio, H1N1 is what people want to talk about. At least I can turn off the channel or frequency when I've heard enough. Now, to my surprise, I'm getting H1N1 news delivered to my doorstep. Your papers were promptly filed away in the recycling bin. I tried calling your reader sale and service department today, but it was closed. I will call first thing in the morning to get your company to cease delivery of your product to my doorstep.

As a former journalist, you would think I'd be reading your paper with rapt attention, trying to education myself on the current situation. But I'm not. I am a mother to a young toddler who just can't take any more bad news. I do not want to mitigate the deaths of anyone who loses their life to H1N1. Their deaths are a tragedy and my heart goes out to their families. However, I can't feed into the fear. Like the virus itself, I'm eliminating my exposure to news related to H1N1. Depending on the wait times at local clinics, I will get vaccinated. But in the meantime, I've got to vaccinate myself against the news, even if that means temporarily putting my head into the sand.

Sincerely,

Valerie McLaughlin

Waddling into toddlerhood

In recent weeks and even days, I'm more aware that darling daughter is no longer a baby any more.

She seems bigger. She babbles constantly. She is saying a few words clearly, including her all-time favourite: daddy. She has given up her morning nap. She is becoming more independent. We attended a Halloween party on Saturday and she didn't want anything to do with me. She spent the entire party walking around, stealing toys from other kids and exploring the surroundings around her.

One of her favourite pastimes now is poking at her belly button. She discovered her belly button last week and since that time she has been poking at it constantly. She is absolutely fascinated by it. Sometimes she'll babble to it. In my books, that isn't baby behaviour. That is definitely toddler behaviour.

In recent days, we have been asking myself how did my baby get so big? Where did the time go? Those newborn baby days seem like they happened a lifetime ago. When I look through a Babies R Us flier now, I think she has outgrown most of the items advertised for sale. I'm not ready for darling daughter to become a toddler. But it is happening. This past summer, darling daughter and I would go on regular walks on nearby walking paths. During some of our walks, we'd encountered a 15 month old little boy. There was a striking difference developmentally between the little boy and darling daughter, who was about 12 months at the time. He just seem so much bigger, so mobile and so unbaby-like, compared to darling daughter. She is a couple of days shy of her 15 month birthday. Now she seems so much like that little boy -- bigger, mobile and unbaby-like. I can't ignore the reality anymore. We are waddling into toddlerhood kicking and screaming. And it isn't darling daughter who is doing the kicking and screaming. It is me.

I don't want to imagine what she'll be like in a month or six months from now. I'm trying to cherish every moment of her waning babyhood. It is hard, but exciting at the same time. But I'm not looking forward to the terrible twos.

H1N1 crunch time

Ottawa Public Health will be opening its H1N1 flu vaccination clinics on Monday. For the first seven to 14 days, Ottawa residents who meet certain criteria -- young children, pregnant women and health care workers -- will be able to receive the flu shot.

For the most part, I've been able to tune out most of the media reports in regards to H1N1. Sometimes ignorance can be bliss. But it hasn't been easy as the swine flu leads most newscasts. If Max Keeping and Carol Ann Meehan aren't talking about it at 6 p.m., then you can usually hear about it from Peter Mansbridge at 10 p.m. And if you want a double dose of H1N1 news, you can always tune in for Lloyd Robertson's newcast at 11 p.m.

Yeah, I think we are all H1N1-out.

Even though I have been able to tune most of the news out, there is no tuning out the fact that the flu season has arrived. For the last two years I haven't giving the flu much thought. For the most part I do get the seasonal flu vaccine, but I haven't received a flu shot in the last two years. And like most Canadians, I'm a little leery of rolling up my sleeve and getting a shot of vaccine that I feel hasn't been adequately tested enough. But at the same time, I don't want to fall ill from H1N1. It is a classic catch-22.

While I've got some time to give the subject some thought before deciding if I should roll up my sleeve, dear husband and I are still on the fence about darling daughter get the H1N1 vaccination. It is such a tough call. Right at this moment, I'm not too sure what I'm going to do. I guess all I can do is do some research and come up with a decision that I can live with.