"The T", Stinky, and Me

Paxton's feeding went off around 7:30am. After Susanne had disconnected him, she was hoping to fall back asleep until around 9:00am when he was due for his next feeding. Paxton had other plans. He had managed to poop everywhere. Susanne changed him on the bed so she could air him out a little bit. Even though she thought she had him well covered, he managed to, once again, pull one over on her. He peed everywhere. It seemed inevitable that they would have to do laundry everyday.

Moppy and Susanne were glad that they had picked up a few items from CVS yesterday. It helped to have some food on hand to eat for breakfast without having to leave their room. They had so many other things that they needed to focus on...like cleaning up after the messy monster named Paxton.

While Susanne got ready for the day, Moppy played with Paxton. She worked on range of motion of all of his extremities. She focused on trying to get him to sit with minimal support to try to help strengthen his core. He tracked his toys from left to right and up and down. He even practiced grasping those same toys and holding on to them with all his might. Lastly, Moppy made sure to work on making him smile and laugh. She achieved both by pushing his tickle button. He fell for it everytime.

Susanne and Moppy felt bold today. They decided to get out of the house and explore a little bit of Boston. They had a few errands to run so they thought the best way to get it all done was to go to the closest mall. This way it would minimize them running around like crazy. They noticed that there was a stop to the local subway system close to where they were staying. They felt comfortable with this mode of transportation because of their vast experience with the D.C. Metro. It ended up taking much longer than they had anticipated. It wasn't as straight forward as they would have hoped. It also didn't make things any easier that they had a stroller to push around. Boston's subway system, "The T", was much smaller than the Metro. There wasn't nearly as much room on the actual individual cars as they were used to. The limited space, plus the fact that it was the weekend, complicated things.

They finally arrived at their final destination. They chose to eat first since they had skipped lunch. By the time they got to the closest restaurant, it was mid afternoon. Once they were settled in a booth, Susanne hooked Paxton up to his feeding. They enjoyed an elaborate meal while recovering from their recent adventure to get there. Paxton had time to recover too and took a short nap. It was nice to have some time to relax and not feel cooped up.

After they were done dining, they walked around the mall. They accomplished everything on their list. Paxton decided to spruce things up a bit when they were in the last store. He had a "SBD", silent but deadly, diaper. He usually had no shame in his game and announced his dirty diapers by introducing them with lots of sound. This one was different. This one was silent and unexpected. The smell that came from Paxton was shocking. It almost didn't seem possible that it had come from something so cute and tiny. Susanne and Moppy knew that if they were having difficulty being around Paxton, then everyone else must be struggling even more. Susanne actually dry heaved once early on until her nose became slightly desensitized to the putrid odor. They couldn't wait to get out of there. One so they could get some fresher air and two so other shoppers would quit looking at them funny as if they were the cause of the smell. This was the closest that Paxton had ever come to clearing out a room.

On their way home, they thought they had "The T" figured out. The trip back to the house should have been very straightforward. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that there were multiple lines that had stops all along the road they needed to get to. They got off at the wrong stop. They were much farther away from the house than they had planned. They had to walk multiple more blocks to get back. The positive side to this was that now they would pass the CVS so Susanne stopped for a sweet treat. Also, the extra walking helped to burn off some of the calories they had ingested at dinner.

They got back to the room around 8:00pm. They were not thrilled that it had taken them so long to do what they had done. Instead of dwelling on it, they pushed forward. They had a lot to do. It was pretty much the usual, like doing laundry, making more formula, pumping, pulling up medications, preparing Paxton's feeding, giving medications, setting up his feeding, and so forth and so on. They did not get done until around 10:30pm. Right as Susanne sat down, Paxton's enteral pump beeped. His feeding was completed. All she could do was laugh because this was a typical scenario she found herself in far too often.

She struggled to keep her eyes open after she actually got to sit down. It took all that she had in her to stay awake long enough to pump one more time before bed.