From rash patrol to bargain patrol

Last week Clementine was sick, and it wasn't no fun for no one. She had a terrible fever and gave up on sleeping entirely, meaning Nate and I would cradle her hot little head in our hands all night long, looking for a position that would stop the shrieking (hers and ours) long enough to eke out a few hours of sleep each night. She presented no other symptoms, which had us guessing (along with Emily with an M) she had roseola, which is a couple days of fever followed by a rash. We had the fever. We got no rash. Or did we? Nate and I thought every little bump was a rash, and we haven't really figured out if the big rash of bumps she had for a few hours on Friday was the roseola or the result her asshole mom, who gave her a bite of ice cream before realizing there are peanuts in it. I thought we had left the neurotic new parent days behind us, but you have never seen anything quite so pathetic as the two of us bugging the hell out of our daughter by poking at every skin imperfection trying to figure out if it was "the sign" we were awaiting. She was happy unless we were prodding at her, but prod we did until she put her foot down and learned the new fun trick of throwing her body back out of our hands in the ultimate active passive resistance move ever. Yup, she's a funny little one.

Because of the threat of a looming illness, we did not travel to Chicago for my niece's baptism as planned. The idea of visiting a plague upon the houses of the windy-city children we would have met over the weekend was too much to bear. The way roseola is spread is though saliva and snot, and since Clementine's favorite activity is pulling pacifiers out of other kids' mouths, chomping on them a bit and then returning them to their owners, I decided we would most certainly spread the love if we attended. Instead, we stayed home and got into all sorts of trouble during one of the busiest weekend of the Detroit summer.

First there was Birmingham Day on the Town. Birmingham is a rich (and kind of snotty) northern suburb of Detroit, and it has some fine shopping I can't afford most of the year. On Saturday, however, the whole town went on sale, nowhere as much as the Purple Bear, a store with ridiculously expensive but mostly fabulous clothes for kids. They had boxes of $5 and $10 stuff, and I went a little crazy. Think Clementine was a fashionista before? Oh you just wait until you see her new gear. Thankfully Karen (no kids) was with me and Lisa (a daughter to whom Clementine is indebted for at least half her wardrobe), or else we would have put ourselves in bankruptcy for clothes for kids who would probably be just as happy in nothing. But oh are we so vain.

The Fourth Street Festival is this wild, arty block party in a hidden corner of Detroit. It has art and food and beer and cool stuff and four or five stages of awesome bands, and it is just generally one of my favorite festivals of the year. The neighborhood is a cool cooperative with some communal parks and green spaces, a huge chess board and an art car that has flames shooting out of its mouth. We usually spend the day there and skip out on the night stuff because by then we are either overserved or ready for the Concert of Colors (see below). This year, sigh, I didn't get down there at all. After my shopping shenanigans, I had to get darling C. her nap, and by the time she woke up it was 103 and sticky and I'm just so damn lazy. But Nate got a pass from the office, and he went down, dissed the Muldoon's, a band with two kid guitar player/singers and their drummer day, but loved some of the other stuff he saw. Here is the new face of parenting: when he got home, I cuddled up to the beer on his breath and made him describe everything he saw. I did not tell him about Clementine's diapers, pooping or breastfeeding--it would have shattered the illusion of coolness I was nurturing.

On Sunday, we hit the Royal Oak Garage Sale and got this fantastic early-70s chopper-style tricycle for Clementine. We saw a little girl riding it around, and when we went to check it out, Clementine leaped out of her stroller (duh! we unstrapped her first) and shook her head vigorously every time we tried to remove her from the trike. How could we not buy it? And how could we pass up the vintage kissing Dutch lawn ornaments by friend Laura found there for me? I can't wait to finish my backyard!

The rest of the day was errands and house stuff until we went down the Concert of Colors, a weekend extravaganza of free concerts. I was bummed this year that they moved it from Chene Park, which is on the water, to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra building, but that was before it was 100 degrees in the shade. I forget every year how much I like that festival--it brings out all the hippies and heads, all the cultural pockets of the city, all sorts of cool, interesting people, and they all mingle in the streets and in front of the stages. It's very family friendly, and I love the opportunity to relive my previous life as a Dead Head (oh, yes, those were ugly, unshaven times) and revel in gratitude for getting back to burgers and grooming. Don't get me wrong: I loved that time in my life (or shall I say I loved that life? I feel like I've had quite a few), and it always reminds me of Ithaca, New York, a town that mingles Ivy Leaguers with communes to interesting effect. We saw some great bands and some even better dancing, and with that the weekend was over. How do you return to work after all that fun.

Clementine is on the mend, I think, though she scared the hell out of us last night by taking a tumble from the bed. The dangers of cosleeping, I guess. I she was so restless that she rolled across the bed on off, reawakening the neurotic new parent feelings in me and Nate once again. We were just thinking of working on getting her in her crib, but I might have taken three giant steps backward last night when I got to comfort her after her fall. AND she slept all night. Almost.