Nautical.

by Alexa on November 9, 2009

The renogram was a success. A few days before, I called the nuclear medicine department and found that my pediatrician had been mistaken: Simone would NOT need a catheter, just the IV. The woman I spoke to would be the one performing the test, and she was so lovely and so obviously experienced with toddlers (it is a Children’s Hospital, after all) that I was much less anxious about the lack of sedation.

We had a difficult beginning. Simone screamed when she was strapped into a sort of padded bassinet, and screamed while the IV was started, and screamed and sobbed hysterically when she realized she couldn’t get out. She wasn’t in pain, she just didn’t want to be restrained, but I won’t lie, it was hard to watch. I leaned over her, singing a little song and stroking her head. I may have mentioned her love affair with my hair—she grabbed it and yanked my head down towards hers to hold it close, and within a minute or two she was asleep. I spent the majority of the renogram standing, bent over at an awkward angle, my hair in her hands.

“You guys should get her a wig,” the tech said.

We have an appointment with nephrology later in the month, but her pediatrician assures us the news is excellent: Simone’s left kidney, the tiny damaged one, is contributing 15% of her kidney function. It is the little kidney that could! They got a blood pressure while she was asleep and it was normal, and her creatinine was perfect. Because of those three things, the left kidney gets a reprieve—it can stay in. Which is good, because the last time Simone had surgery her kidneys failed to clear her fluids afterwards and she almost died of respiratory failure, and that was before those kidneys were damaged. Of course she weighed less than two pounds then, but in my mind, surgery still equals trouble, irrational or not. To say that I am relieved would be a massive understatement.

During the procedure, we played Simone’s favorite video—Baby Signing Time, Volume One—on the provided DVD player. Have you seen it? A woman named Rachel Coleman sings and signs, as do a passel of adorable babies. I don’t know what it is, but Simone is obsessed. Obsessed. Other TV she can take or leave (with the horrifying exception of the Fresh Beat Band videos the nanny plays on her laptop), but Baby Signing Time she requests (with the sign for “signing,” water-wheeling her little arms around and saying “tah?” for “time”), and has even figured out how to turn on the TV and DVD player and switch the output all by herself. The DVD autostarts, but before we figured that out, Scott was convinced that Simone was a creepy genius baby and had managed to bend the disc menu to her tiny will without aid of a remote.

The first volume was the only one we had, and listening to it through the whole renogram was the last straw. The songs are so damn CATCHY, and they seem to play in my head on a continuous loop. It is hard to concentrate on one’s writing with a constant chorus of IT’S TIME TO EAT! EAT WHAT A TREAT! EAT! EAT! EAT! rampaging through one’s skull, unbidden. So this weekend we broke out Volume Two, which includes a song called “Here I Go,” with verses about being on a car, a plane…and a boat. Specifically, little children in the background sing “I’M ON A BOAT! I’M ON A BOAT!” And then the verse starts: “Here I go, I’M ON A BOAT! Look at me, I’M ON A BOAT!” etc.

Does that sound familiar?

Oh, how I laughed. I even mentioned my amusement on Twitter:

Apparently my mother had not seen the Saturday Night Live short in question, and so I received the following email:

TO: alexaflotsam@gmail.com
FROM: alexasmother@alexasmother.com
SUBJECT: what was that weird boat twitter about? are you ok?
I suppose you must be–we talked after that according to the time stamp. But it sounded quite strange and hostile…

Then I checked my Twitter replies and saw this:

Yes, THAT Rachel. I really, really hope she watches SNL.

Nautical.

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