Book Review - Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

So, there’s a very cool cat on the preschool circuit these days. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of him – Pete the Cat. You know from the way he casually uses his nickname that he’s already oozing awesomeness – no Peter, no Pedro, no surname, just Pete. Sort of like the Madonna of cats. Or maybe Madonna is too old of a reference now, I don’t know – I guess Pete is like the Pitbull of cats.

Anyway. Pete gets in all kinds of adventures. He goes to school, he likes buttons. All activities that are very relatable to preschoolers. The story that has received a premium of attention at our house, however, is Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes.

We picked this book up at Borders for about $12. With the book comes a free download of the song that is sung multiple times within the book. I highly suggest downloading the song before even endeavoring to sing the song to your preschooler, because they will immediately call you out if you sing it incorrectly. Here’s the link to the downloads: http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/feature/petethecat/

After we familiarized ourselves with the song, we jumped into reading the book. The story starts with our cat friend strutting down the street wearing some awesome white tennis shoes. I think you have to just suspend your disbelief that any cat on earth would allow hard-soled shoes on their feet, but I digress. Pete walks along in these shoes, just singing about how much he loves them, when he steps in a large pile of discarded fruit. I think it’s blueberries first. The book doesn’t really clarify if the fruit is rotting, or why it’s in a pile the size of a city dump on the sidewalk, but that’s not even the really weird part. Cats are sort of fastidious and quick on their feet – I have trouble believing that a cat would not see a pile of blueberries several times bigger than he is sitting in the middle of a sidewalk. Regardless, he steps directly into the middle of this pile.

Does this anger Pete, or disturb him in the slightest that his beloved white shoes are now the color of discarded blueberries? Goodness, no! Pete is so zen that he just changes his song, now singing about how much he loves his blue shoes. I sort of picture Pete as the Dalai Lama and Johnny Depp, all rolled into one package of laid-back black cat.

Now, after this first mishap, Pete continues on his way. One would figure he’d probably be more on the lookout for giant piles of fruit. You would be wrong, however. Pete comes across a mountainous pile of strawberries. I honestly have no clue how he could not have seen this, since he would have had to scale this pile, but yet he plows into it again, further ruining his shoes. Now they’re not blue, but red. Did Pete cry? Goodness, no! He still is just the epitome of calm and collected. Once more, he just casually adjusts his song, now indicating how much he adores his red shoes.

Luckily, Pete now seems to be on the lookout for berries and fruit. We do not see him step into anymore for the remainder of the book. However, he’s not aware enough to sidestep mud, which turns his shoes brown. (Again, it’s cool, now he loves those shoes.) Then, he steps in a giant bucket of water. This water washes away all of those fabulous colors Pete had grown to love, and now he’s back to his white shoes. Luckily, Pete still doesn’t care. The moral of the story is that you apparently shouldn’t care what you step in or what life throws at you, it’s all good.

From a metaphorical standpoint, I like this. Don’t sweat the small stuff, etc., etc. These are good life lessons. However, since I’m the one who buys my particular preschooler’s rather expensive shoes, I wish we could illustrate this with another lesson rather than that it’s okay to step in crap constantly. I can’t picture this being a popular lesson at her school, either – I wouldn’t really want a classroom of 3-year-olds with stanky, messy feet because they all decided to try and see if they could turn their shoes brown. Pete’s a cat, couldn’t he just not cry over spilt milk? I mean, I don’t want her dumping out jugs of milk or anything, either, so maybe that’s not a good lesson, either. I’ll probably circle back to this when I’ve had more time to consider it.

Anti-Nausea Cocktail

I again apologize for the lateness of my blogging.  Perhaps the subject will enlighten upon why it’s been a hard winter.  Also, if any of the terms for “vomit” make you uncomfortable or queasy, you should probably stop now.

So, we got pregnant.  Which is awesomely cool and all, except that my body hates being pregnant with a fiery vengeance.  Doesn’t like to get pregnant, doesn’t like to stay pregnant, DOES seem to like to get every symptom known to womankind for the past few thousand years of recorded history.  Awesome, right?

Around 5 weeks or so, I started barfing.  At first it was usual-morning-sickness-barfing, then it got a little worse.  And a little worse.  My IVF doctor put me on the 4 mg of Zofran, an anti-emetic.  They worked for a few weeks, and then I hit 8 weeks.  All hell broke loose.  I started puking every five minutes.  On 1/16, I started vomiting around 5:00 at night, and couldn’t hold down water all night long.  By morning on 1/17, I got Pickle ready for school and sent her and my husband on their way, knowing I wasn’t going to work that day (at the very least).  I just lied on the bathroom floor for a while, then called my mom… only to puke in her ear for about five minutes because another wave of nausea hit right as soon as she picked up the phone.  I was too weak to drive myself to the doctor, so she rushed right over and got me to the doctor.

The view of a woman with hyperemesis gravidarum for several months.

The doctor spent a few minutes examining me, and decided to send me to the hospital without even taking the time to test my blood, as it had been hours and hours since I had last peed or been able to hold anything down (dehydration was pretty obvious).  The OB unit was full, so they got me checked in on the Peds unit.  I was so dehydrated that they had trouble getting that first IV in, but there I stayed for the next six days with hyperemesis gravidarum.  They first got me rehydrated, then hung IV bags with multivitamins, then got me on a fluids + IV Dramamine mixture, also taking Reglan half an hour before every meal, 8 mg of Zofran twice a day, Prilosec, Benadryl, and a few other things.  Minus the IV form of the Dramamine (still taking it orally), that is the cocktail they still have me on to try and keep the puke level at least controlled (not gone, but controlled).  All of the meds are safe for pregnancy, which is a huge relief, and are able to get me through the day.  We were also doing the regular B6, B12, Seabands, ½ of a Unisom, etc., but those things aren’t doing anything to help, so they have been discontinued.

So, what’s the point of this review?  My review of anti-nausea meds is that they are a godsend if you really need them (so, sort of a public service announcement).  So many people will cast judgment on those who have uncontrolled vomiting as “just some morning sickness,” and will preach that meds shouldn’t be used at all in pregnancy.  And in ideal circumstances, obviously we would avoid medication – but there is a point at which the mother and the unborn baby are put at risk by severe dehydration, and the rest of the family also suffers.  At that point, all of the preaching about “just eat crackers” and “you’re overreacting” are harmful.  A woman with HG has already tried crackers and everything else natural under the sun, and is at a point of desperation.