The kind of excitement I'd rather avoid.

Yesterday was full of excitement. The kind of excitement I don't really appreciate.

I hadn't planned on this kind of excitement, nor do I have any photos to remember it by. I wouldn't want them.

My little boy is usually not very clingy. That is to say, he'd rather be off playing without me than be in my arms. He'd rather be exploring the other people in the room, trying to climb into their laps, than be hanging on my leg. He'd much prefer handling and mouthing everything in his environment to spending time in the sling with mom. Not yesterday. And actually, now that I think about it, not the day prior either.

Yesterday I began to notice that he was clamoring for my attention. This, from the child who is content to play alone for quite a bit of time (relative to his age, of course). I was puzzled, but not worried. Until...

Until I went to change his dirty pants. There it was - screaming from the soiled nappy. A bit of - eek - blood. Now I was worried. Now I started to put the pieces together. Bloody urine. Dog gone it, something was definitely up, and this warrented an immediate trip to the pediatrician.

Forget my plans to go collect my sister-in-laws stuff from her dorm to store at our home over the summer, forget getting dinner prepared, forget visiting with our wonderful neighbors, forget nap time (half of it anyway). We were off to see the doc.

After giving him a quick exam (he wouldn't allow me to put him down) the doc said the rest of him looked none the worse for ware. No fever. But about the bloody urine - Do you know what the standard protocol is when docs hear about blood in a baby's urine? Any guesses? It's got to be the most unpleasant procedure carried out in a ped. office.

They cath them. That's right, they use a catheter to draw urine from the bladder.

Excuse me? you expect me to hold my baby down on this table - my 22lb 11 month old - while you wiggle that plastic tube up you-know-where? It took four (count them, FOUR) people to wrangle my screaming babe, but on the first try they extracted just enough urine to test for infection.

So, here I wait. They put him on antibiotics in the mean time (his first dose, ever) but the urinalysis takes 48 hours. They suspect a urinary tract infection, but it could also be a kidney, or bladder infection. Of course, on the less severe side he could have just nicked his foreskin causing it to bleed a little. That happens occasionally, and believe me, I'd much prefer that, to infection.

Whew. Long day. Husband home late. Dinner came straight from the freezer.
I'd prefer a mundane Wednesday please.