posts tagged with 'illness'
developments
I don't want to speak too soon, it could be just because Dan's been home for a miraculous four-day stretch thanks to hurricane school cancellations, but it seems like our children are entering a new phase where they actually play together. Well. In the house.
Even with competing illnesses vying for space in my lymph system, even with an extra impulse to lie down whenever possible, I found myself thinking at various moments this week, "What am I supposed to be doing now?"
Did I already put in laundry?
Yes.
Did I already empty the dishwasher?
Yes.
Did I fill the dishwasher?
Yes.
Did I pick up toys?
Everything except what they're playing with.
What am I supposed to be doing now? They usually interrupt me every few minutes and I spend all day trying to finish the most basic of chores. Now I'm, um, sitting around wondering why no one is asking for a book. Wondering if I should go scrub something.
I thought this was the moment I'd been waiting for for the past 17 months... the moment I break out and pursue hobbies, or find something to do for money, or self-actualize some other way. Why am I not more excited? Maybe it's because I've spent the last 17 months telling myself, "I don't need anything else. I don't like hobbies, or working, or working out. I don't like anything but being with my kids."
But my kids were playing fine on their own today. Dan was reading a book. I stood in the living room and shouted, "Doesn't anybody NEED me?
A few minutes later Zion came over to ask for nursing. So there's that.
Of course my kids do still need me, specifically at night, at least every two hours. Maybe this can be my new scapegoat. If my mantra is no longer "I can't get a break during the day" maybe I can complain, "I never get to sleep at night and that's the reason I don't have energy to scrub the toilet."
There's an insanity in spending months and months dreaming of putting the baby down, and then when he gets up on his cute little legs I only scream, "come back! come back!" What I mean to say is, Dan has this wonderful ability of saying "This phase is nice," and then "This phase is nice," and he's really happy with whatever way things are, while I only find things to lament and fear. Maybe this is an illness thing, a bad attitude caused by constant nagging discomfort. But more likely it's an illness of character, like I never learned to be happy on my own and now I'm taking it out on my family.
I no more know how to fix a character illness than I know how to fix my ear infections. Constant berating myself does not seem to be helping, event though I suddenly have more time for it.
Oh, and since we're talking about developmental milestones, I should mention that Zion has started to smile on command. Here he is posing in a hayride he made in our our red wagon. The hay was purchased for the chickens and the garden but in an effort to recreate the haunted hayride a lot of it ended up in the street.
cheeeeeese
an update on my health and a charming word from Harvey the prophet
I first got sick in January of this year, ten months ago now. I felt rundown and my face always hurt. After several inconclusive doctors appointments ("You're a mother, you're probably just tired. I took a class in medical school called Women are Whiners.") I developed lumps on the top of my mouth. Of course, I thought I was dying from mouth cancer. The doctor didn't send me to an oncologist, however, but figured the lumps meant I was not fibbing, I probably had a sinus infection. After antibiotics it was like the skies parted and I was a different, lighter, happy person.
That lasted about a month.
Then I got a string of sore throats. I got antibiotics for Strep but it didn't take the problem all the way away. I would feel okay for three days and then have a low-level fever and sore throat for a week. This lasted all spring and into the beginning of the summer. Then I had about a month and a half of lovely summertime when I thought I was cured.
Then the ear infections started.
Lately I have felt a bit desperate. I have started eating two cloves of raw garlic a day. Last night I tried putting garlic in my ears. Normally my husband says he likes the smell of garlic, but on the way to church yesterday he opened the windows and said, "Um, can you turn your face that way? away from me?"
As unhelpful as it is to be sick, the worst thing is my attitude about being sick. The running tally of my sins includes:
Blaming a fever for impatience with my children.
Blaming a fever for untidiness in my house.
Blaming my family, friends, and amorphous set of responsibilities for making me sick.
Using my sickness to act like a big whiney Jewish martyr.
etcetera etcetera.
Last night at church I prayed that God would make me better. That he would make me better physically or that he would make me a better person to deal with being sick. Because, really, either one would work right now. I want to be healthy but more than that I want to be a human.
I had this vision while I was praying of a giant God holding me on a giant fork. Like Jack and the Beanstalk kind of scale. Fee Fi Fo Fum.
And the idea I had was that God is going to somehow EAT this crappy body of mine. And that that would be a good thing.
And then I thought, WTF? That's not even just gross it's A-BIBLICAL! That's pagan kind of shit. God doesn't eat people; he says in psalms that he doesn't need to eat at all. That's devil-worship madness sneaking into my consciousness. Devil, stop speaking to me in Jesus name.
Then today at the lunch table, I hear Harvey making up a song:
"He ate the sickness
and He ate the deadness
that's cuz God is a rescuer.
I WANT MORE KETCHUP!"
(The Ketchup part is per Harvey, not God, by the way. Harvey likes a massive amount of ketchup for his grilled cheese.)
I would like to see this as a different spin on Isaiah's prophesy: "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows." (Isaiah 53:4) Surely He ate the sickness. Surely He ate the deadness. Because God is a rescuer.
I want more ketchup.
puppy dog eyes and puppy love
It was kind of a slow day for us here today. Harvey is sick with a fever, so he spent the day lying on the couch with me sitting next to him stroking his head. Zion ran around the house in circles and sometimes threw books at me. Of course we read a lot of books. We also played blocks and trains but more subdued than usual. The house was eerily quiet for the three of us being in it together. At times Harvey just looked up at me with his big droopy fevered eyes and groaned: "I love you Mama."
I usually try not to let my emotions get the better of me (anger excluded) so the tenderness of Harvey's sentiments caught me off guard. It's not to say I don't believe he loves me, of course that's why he pulls all the whiney baby crap that makes me so angry. It's just that mostly I hear "I love you" from Harvey as a response of courtesy or to get something that costs money. I felt like today was the first time I heard in his voice: I appreciate your presence. I actually like it when you're near me. I want to be with you. You know, "I love you."
Which is not to say I like my child pathetically ill, but it was a nice sentiment to isolate from our normal more boisterous lives.
I don't know what was in the air today. When I picked Zion up from his nap I smelled his hair and he smelled like a new puppy. All of a sudden I got that feeling I get around puppies, like, I am so lucky to share this moment with this amazing crazy little creature. A puppy is a fleeting concept; puppies exist for just mere weeks before they shed their youthful frivolity and morph into dogs. Dogs are fantastic, don't get me wrong, but the way a puppy will stomp his two paws in front of you when he wants to play, it's like this heroin shot of joy, it's almost too much because it hurts to know it'll soon be gone. Babies take soooo much longer to turn into dogs. They're helpless and needy and rewardingly adorable for many more months than puppies. But as I picked up Zion and smelled his puppy-smelling head, I had this baby Rascal feeling: I am holding an amazing, fleeting, ball of joy, and the love is almost too much to bear.
The smell on his head was pine shavings, by the way, which is used for litter at many kennels. We also use it in our chicken coop, where the boys were helping me out yesterday.
spreading new bedding in the chicken run
They are already helping with chores - they won't stay babies forever. When they're loud and pushy it's easy to wonder: how soon will they grow up? When will they stop needing me to fill their juice cups? But today when they need me more than juice cups, when they need me to be their Mama, I want to say: I like it when you're near me. I want to be with you. I love you guys.
dreadlock update - 2-and-a-half months
I feel like I should do an update on my hair, though the writing feels rather slow going since I'm too lazy to do much of anything these days.
chillin island style
My 2+ month throat infection seems to be nearing its end, though I haven't yet regained the desire to do anything besides mind children. The other day a friend asked me to weave a bike basket for her and my answer was, "Ugh. Don't they sell those online?"
In all of this, though, working on dreadlocks is something I can do. Because working on dreadlocks requires no work at all! Just let time go by, survive one day at a time, and the hair will keep dreading. More or less.
When my mother used to tell me my hair looked like a birds nest, she shouldn't have given me any ideas.
It's fun to twist the dreads in my hand and think, "It's working! they're really becoming something!" Then I look in the mirror and say, "Good Lord, that looks like a mess." Fortunately though, since I don't need to style my hair much, I don't really look in the mirror. Once a week I wash my hair with dreadlock shampoo (baking soda and vinegar would work equally well but my mom bought me dread shampoo for my birthday) then I roll the dreads while they're wet and again with wax after they're dry. It's about 40 minutes of maintenance work a week, but I usually split it over two days because like I said I'm pretty lazy and (perhaps related to the tiredness) it's hard to get twenty minutes to myself.
I did, however, try to look somewhat presentable for a wedding I officiated last weekend. I rolled on the wax the morning of the wedding and did a half-up thing crowned with a scarf that I thought might look priestly. Here's the result. (I'm dancing with a sleeping baby on my front, in case anyone has a hard time figuring out the photo.)
footloose if not shoulder loose
You can see the bottoms of the dreads are still quite curly. I look forward to long tubular dreads a year or so from now but in the meantime I'm diggin the in-between.
I thought I was being rather formal for the wedding... I had a whole vest thing I wore over my dress for the ceremony, I tied up my hair and even used a scarf. Then I got to the bride's house and everyone was putting on makeup and I was like, "Oh right. Makeup. Should I, like, do that or whatever?"
It's only been two years since I gave up makeup, and yet it feels like a different lifetime ago. Then again, it's only been two months since I stopped fixing my hair every day and I've taken to it quite naturally.
brides that invite children to their weddings are rewarded with child-like hearts. Also, I can go to those weddings.
There. Does that feel like a hair update? I hate that everything comes with a "I've been sick" preamble, but that's pretty much where I'm at right now. If I was praying for someone at church and they said, "I've had a lingering infection for two-and-a-half months" I would say "Did something happen in your life right before the infection started?" And if someone asked me that question I'd say, "Well, I got my hair dreaded, and then right after that I got sick."
Now, dreading my hair was nothing if not a good decision. It's much easier to manage given the demands of the children. It's much easier for my sensory integration issues, since I don't get the feeling my hair is pulling at my scalp. I don't feel all "hippier than thou" in fact mostly I'm not conscious of my hairstyle. I prayed about it in advance and felt convinced that God said, "Leah, I could not possibly care LESS about your hair." So it's not sin that's making me sick (not that that's how it works anyway, but that's the subject for someone else's book.)
Maybe I feared people would think I was lazy if I got dreads so I immediately got sick so I'd have to be lazy? To live down to expectations? It doesn't make logical sense but it sounds a lot like me.
Anyway, I like the hair but not the lingering illness, so I pray the Lord will redeem it somehow.
First steps!
Zion took some steps today! 2 and even 3 in a row! I think that counts as a milestone. Good job little big boy.
In other first steps, I started a round of antibiotics for a strep infection. The doctor also suggested I may have mono, which was like a lightbulb going off in my head. Oh, that would explain why I've been fantasizing about lying down almost every moment for the past two months. Of course, there's nothing to do for mono, the treatment is bed-rest (ha ha) and wait it out whether it takes six weeks or six months. Still, I feel like I'd appreciate a diagnosis to justify what I've been going through. It's not that two kids are too much for me; I've been legitimately sick you guys.
Dan will post pictures of the party soon. He's been parenting like a champ in my illness absence. That guy deserves a congressional medal of dada.
sick again?
We had a lovely 1 week respite from illness during which time I made grand sweeping plans for eating healthier and taking time for myself and all sort of non-baby-holding things. Then last night Zion got sick again and now I can only think of surviving another day filled with snot and screaming. On the good news front, Zion took his first crawls forward today. What a proud mama I was, clapping and shouting! Now he can move forward! I feel like I missed all this with Harvey... I remember him pulling up and cruising around and then taking his first steps, but I never remember him crawling. But then, when Harvey was this age I was changing jobs and commuting two hours a day and probably if he started crawling nobody told me.
There. See how I take a perfectly lovely subject and get all complainy up on its ass? It's the reason I'm not blogging much lately. Let's regroup in the spring.
I feel the need to add something positive, so here's what Harvey said yesterday when he was playing with the outdoor grill:
"Do you want some bugs and cheese and moose and hats?"
the winter of our discontent
We tend to be sicker in the winter, I find, and despite the lack of actual wintery weather the trend is holding true this year, with a vengeance. Today it was a stomach bug for all the humans but Zion, and he threw up too anyways because, you know, he's a baby and all. I suppose he didn't want to be left out. Leah always feels like the world is ending when either she or the kids are sick (me being out of commission is I think only a minor inconvenience) and this time I think I might agree with her. Good heavens. Nevertheless, Harvey and I managed this afternoon to maintain good spirits despite bouts of vomiting, and if he makes it through the night without getting sick again I may regain my will to live.
sick transit
Last month our friend Katie wrote a very brief blog post that nevertheless speaks volumes about parenthood. Leah was a little more verbose on the same subject, but the sentiment is similar. Parenting means coming in contact with vomit, more vomit than you have ever had to deal with at any other stage of your life (including college, you young people, no matter how much you and your friends drank).
The worst part of it is—worst for everyone involved—even big almost-pre-schoolers like Harvey don't really know what's going on with the acute stomach pains followed by coughing followed by you-know-what. There's no desperate dash to the bathroom, nor even any awareness that such a thing might be advisable; on the contrary, Harvey associates any gestures designed to mitigate the mess of being sick—sitting up, a towel held in front of him, and so on—with the terror of vomiting itself, so he resists them with all his meager, sickness-addled strength. Or sometimes he's just asleep and gets sick all over the himself and the pillow like earlier this evening. At least he's so wiped out that, as soon as he's cleaned up, he's desperate to get back to sleep.
He's only thrown up twice this evening but he's definitely down for the count—at least now he's sleeping rather than lying crying on the floor, which is how Leah tells me he spent nearly all of the day today. Zion is also sleeping through his own sickness, if by sleeping you mean occupying the bed and crying out in pathetic discomfort every fifteen minutes or so. Leah has been keeping him company since about 6:30 this evening. If she gets any rest in between wakeups it'll be a grand help to her long-enduring cold.
Hopefully a good night's sleep will see us all restored, otherwise heaven knows what'll happen tomorrow!
the return of the blueberries
So the downside to our most recent bountiful harvest was that when all three of our dependents were throwing up between yesterday afternoon and this morning the blueberries were heavily involved in two out of the three cases. While blueberries are apparently safe for dogs (I never would have thought otherwise until I learned recently that raisins can be bad) Rascal's vomit fairly prominently featured two blueberries. And with Harvey there wasn't any question about what he had been eating; that's going to leave a stain! Don't our children chew?! At least Zion's vomit was as milky as usual.
Everyone seems to be fine now, thank goodness. Rascal's was an isolated incident; Harvey was deathly ill for ten hours (2:30am to 12:30pm) but recovered and was so ravenous as to actually eat the crusts of his toast while waiting for a second piece; and Zion just throws up when he gets excited. Or maybe it's bored. Who knows?! In any case, Leah did a little bit of laundry today.
mama's bonus birthday present sunhats
Saturday evening our friend Becca came over with a birthday present for me, in a gesture that was beyond touching. We don't usually exchange birthday gifts with bible study friends, since our bible study is kind of big and that would mean like everybody buying gifts like every weekend, which is sort of insane for young poor people, even if we are Christians. So I was really moved to find a gift for me on the table on Sunday morning, Yes, er, I was asleep when Becca and crew came over, it being after 8pm. Anyway, I could tell right away that the present was going to be something awesome because it was WRAPPED IN FABRIC!
a little hand is very eager to open any present
Harvey was excited too to help me open it. He's really into opening presents, as well as blowing out candles. Today in fact I caught him trying to blow out a pawn from a chess set. If that doesn't just warm the cockles of your heart then I don't know what will. Anyway, inside the fabric were some new onesies for baby #2 (yeah! not everything will be hand-me-down), some boxes of yummy tea, and a nice gift certificate to Joanne fabrics, which is like giving someone a gift certificate to Mexico, everything is so cheap. Exciting exciting!
The best part instant-gratification wise was of course the fabric. Even though I promised Dan that I would clean up my sewing stuff from the floor of his office before embarking on any more projects, I jumped right into cutting some pieces out of the new fabric for sun hats - matching ones for Harvey and baby. Hey, since I didn't have to sort through my stash to find fabric I figured this was a give away. Also, I couldn't help it; I was dying to try a pattern from the new book Dan bought me, and fabric suddenly appeared at my door. How could I resist? There was no floorspace left in the office so I sat out in the hallway.
This sunhat is the result:
summer style
And a smaller one for baby, lined with yellow so we can tell the difference from the other side of the room.
and one for baby
This is the pattern that everyone seems to be jumping on first when they get the Oliver + S book, although I don't know what they're talking about when they say it comes together relatively quickly. These two hats took me 5 hours of dedicated sewing time, which is a crapload of alone time for me, time I only got this weekend by virtue of illness (I felt too sick to go to church on Sunday so Dan and Harvey went without me) plus two Harvey naps. A whole morning alone plus two naps is a long ass time for two sun hats if you ask me. There seem to be so many ways of making a reversible hat by sewing the whole outside to the whole inside and leaving a small hole for turning, it seems overkill to include a step of blind stitching the inside before edge-stitching on the machine. Still, it did turn out a very tidy little hat, so if you're the type of person to look up close then probably the extra care is worth it.
There's still enough fabric left over to sew a baby dress, and as soon as I make good on my promise to clean up my sewing space I'm gonna throw together a little outfit using the matching ribbon as straps.
This gift and project came as a nice relief after the week I had last week, with Harvey groaning all day and throwing up at every meal... I was starting to feel like I didn't exist apart from song singer/back rubber/puke catcher. Even though we made it through a fancy meal for my birthday, I spent the entire time worrying that Harvey was going to projectile vomit all over the table or his fancily dressed grandparents, which is not the state of vigilance ideal for consuming a huge amount of rich food (witness the illness on Saturday night and Sunday morning). We skipped my birthday expedition on Saturday because Harvey wasn't feeling well, no one wanted to make or eat birthday pie, and I had a mental breakdown from not getting a break all week and then finding out our fence can't go in the ground until the end of May at the earliest because the corner of our property lies 50 feet from a wetland and we need to go in front of a public hearing not to mention pay 50 bucks to the friggin local paper to publish a legal notice, and that's just for a 3 foot fence, we haven't even started the process on Chickens because the stack of paperwork for the stupid fence is so confusing it makes me want to cry and that's not even involving the health department. So the fabric and accompanying present was a real real nice break. A reminder that I'm a person too, with value and interests beyond reproduction. If only just slightly beyond.
it's snowing outside and Harvey has a flu: April in New England
So I was kneeling on the ground scrubbing toddler vomit from the carpet this evening, and all of a sudden I thought, "Remember when we used to watch that show Heroes? How on earth did we ever pull that off??? That show was an hour long!!! And... bad! And we watched it every week for a year! WTF???"
Harvey caught some sort of 24-hour bug - this one actually true to it's title because he was vomiting pretty much straight for 24 hours. Well, that's not totally true - he started off yesterday puking every ten minutes, then by the evening it was every half hour, and then it settled off at about 3 in the morning and I thought we were home free but then breakfast this morning didn't stay down and then more vomiting ensued and when it was all said and done Harvey had managed to soil 10 receiving blankets, 5 spit rags, 2 towels, 1 set of sheets, a car seat, a couch slip cover, and the aforementioned carpet.
And since he couldn't be left alone amidst all the vomiting, all the laundry just sort of piled up on the floor next to his sick bed, and I started to wonder if Dan would come home from work and find us barricaded in the bedroom like some crazy hoarders, and then he'd need to call the fire department to come get us out, and then we'd REALLY never get our chicken permit.
The things I worry about these days. I try to think of a set of circumstances under which a human being could find an hour every week to watch Heroes and it's like trying to picture an alien from another planet.
under the weather
a good day for ducks
We've all spent the last couple days of the vacation kind of under the weather here in the squibix family household. Harvey especially; he's on his first-ever course of antibiotics for an incipient ear infection. Besides that he's also very snotty. Leah and I have vague flu-like symptoms, which if nothing else have been sapping our energy a bit. Luckily it was raining today, so we had all the excuses in the world to sit in bed and watch tv.
Despite all that we had to make one small outing so that Harvey could get the opportunity to use an umbrella. He's a big fan, apparently. Leah ordered him one off the internet but it hasn't come yet; this temporary replacement model harmonizes very well with his outfit, though!
in blue on a gray day
Rascal didn't join us; he frankly thought we were crazy to be out in the weather. He didn't bother with the tv either, but was content to spend the rainy day the way dogs have done for centuries—but with the addition of a comfy couch, of course.
knows what to do when it rains
I had to drag him out on his afternoon walk, but once he was in the woods and already wet he consented to enjoy himself a little. All in all, we both enjoyed and suffered from the enforced relaxation of illness and wet. I'm not ready for vacation to be over.
Shaun Das Schaf
I try to pack a lot into Harvey's nap time. Reading, blogging, eating my lunch, making him lunch, changing the laundry cycles and folding diapers if I can get to it. He only naps for 45 minutes, so all the tasks I want to complete can sometimes seem a tall order. And sometimes, on days like today when I'm sick, I just want to nap with him.
Being a stay-at-home mom is the best job in the world, I always thought. You have so much time to play and create and you'll never stress over all the little household chores because they'll just get done over the course of your day.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
I don't know if it's the pregnancy or my current sore throat or the fact that Harvey has difficulty playing unsupervised or maybe I just suck at this stay at home thing. But I would really like to take a day off. Not an hour off that involves another hour of driving back and forth to Grandma's. A day off, where it's quiet and no one bothers you and someone else is keeping the house from being destroyed by Tasmanian devils and your son is doing something wholesome and magical that doesn't involve seventeen straight episodes of Shaun the Sheep.
Speaking of Shaun the Sheep, Dan and I watching this video last night about how they do the stop motion animation for that show, and the whole creative process is enough to make you feel woefully inadequate about the entirety of your life's work, especially if your life's work is mostly laundry and mac and cheese and reading picture books about dogs. The show is in German but that doesn't manage to hold back the awesomeness.
I just downloaded a zillion movies of Harvey off my camera, so something cute and productive should be coming shortly. Or as Harvey says, "guming?"
sicky sick
The nice thing about the stomach flu is that it ends quickly. Must be evolution. Otherwise you would certainly kill yourself.
I've had a rough day.
Thank God for Dan who took care of Harvey and Rascal all day. Now he only has 2 sick days left for the birth of our next child. La la la... not thinking about that now. Survive through this first and then we'll think about surviving June.
streak broken
Alas, I this week had to abandon my unannounced ambition of riding my bike to work every day this year: no alternate transportation, and no sick days (except I did give myself an out for the few days surrounding the birth of the new baby). Perhaps more hopeful than realistic, as was proved this week when I was brought low with a sore throat and fever. Stayed home Wednesday, and was gratefully chauffeured by Leah and Harvey Thursday (they were going that way anyway). Despite some lingering malaise, however, I was back on the bike this morning. The new streak stands at one day.
staying home update
I have been thoroughly enjoying my "extended vacation" at home with Dan and Harvey, marred only by my body's recent inability to process food. First I got waylaid by some sort of stomach illness which kept me on toast from Thursday night through Monday, then this evening I developed some sort of lymph infection or toothache that makes it hurt when I open my jaw. Look, I know I'm lazy about losing weight, but I already dropped 3 pounds this week. I'm back down to my pre-pregnancy, pre-cubicle weight. Can't we call it a day already, body?
The other theory is that I'm rapid cycling through all the illnesses I was supposed to have over the past year but put off because I was too stressed. Since Dan's still home for another week before school starts, it's like my immune system wants to squeeze in every possible minute of lying on the couch moaning while someone else watches the baby.
The baby, actually, is no longer a baby but a toddler who has suddenly developed the ability to be annoying on purpose. Today he asked for OJ and then spilled it all over the floor. Then he threw a tantrum for a milkshake only to spill that all over the floor. "No" I said. "NO!" Harvey screamed. "Bad boy." I said. "Da Bo!" He screamed in delight.
For the rest of the day he screamed periodically - high pitched at the top of his lungs whenever he felt like it - just to hear the sound of his own voice. In retrospect, maybe that's why my jaw hurts. I've done a lot of clenching it lately.
Still. It beats scrubbing spreadsheets in a cubicle.
In Harvey's defense, he's still dealing with the tail-end of the stomach thing, and the tail end looks like green snotty poop. Also he's adjusting to so much upheaval in the child-care situation. Because I left him so much over the past 6 months he developed the dramatic habit of shrieking in pain every time I leave the room. I don't think he's quite convinced yet that I'm not going to leave again for 9 hours at a time. Still, when you go in and out of the room several times for laundry and things, it gets annoying.
Which is okay after all. It's okay and fair to get annoyed with your family. That just means you're hanging out with them enough.
oops.
So I just want to say it totally is not my fault, but both Leah and Harvey were a little under the weather today. Especially Leah. I don't know if she came in contact with any flies, specifically, but I hope and trust that she will be recovered tomorrow, as we plan to tour the historic sights of Lexington and Concord and enjoy a picnic lunch. Which we will wash our hands before eating.
bugs and germs
At this point in the summer we find ourselves sharing our home with a variety of insects. There are fruit flies in the compost pail (and colonizing any other ripe fruit or vegetable we happen to leave on the counter), and the occasional swarm of ants that makes its way under the door when Rascal is less than scrupulous at cleaning up around Harvey's highchair. There are also flies, lately: we have some holes in our screen doors nor are we always good about keeping them closed. None of these crawlie beasties disturbs our equanimity much though, now that the drought has done away with all the mosquitoes. We're happy to live and let live, and never mind a few flies on the dinner leftovers.
I understand that we're not the only ones to be so easy-going, though. Yesterday at the library I was flipping though a book that purports to provide instruction on how to stay healthy and avoid germs, and I'm sure the author would be utterly appalled at the the thought of insects indoors, much less touching food. Like, ew! When you're dealing with someone who advises you to not to squeeze your produce at the supermarket because who knows who else has been touching it and the bacteria and all, you know that actual bugs have definitely got to be on the no-no list. But really, how many bacterias can really fit on those teeny little fly feet?!
In all seriousness, it's not only laziness or slovenliness that leads us to keep our house open to the world outside; rather, we have a philosophical belief that it isn't actually healthy to block all the windows and only breathe air that has been purified to remove 99% percent of airborne particles. You're going to have to go outside, you're going to be exposed to viruses and bacteria and bugs and who knows what, and you know, that's ok. Maybe you'll even get sick once and a while. But if people with sealed homes and air filtration systems are avoiding sickness entirely, I haven't heard anything about it. I doubt they are, because then who would be buying all that Emergen-C?!
In the end I think it's kind of like sacrificing virgins to the volcano. Most of the time we throw someone in there the volcano doesn't erupt! Are you saying we should risk not sacrificing?! I'll tell you a secret: I eat food that fell on the ground, I pet dogs and don't wash my hands, and I have bugs in my house. And I really don't get sick all that often. Really!
un-American football
World Cup action started today, and to my delight I find it's all being streamed very nicely on ESPN3, whatever that is. The World Cup is always exciting, and having it be in Africa for the first time makes it even more fun. So far at least the stream is better quality than we saw for the recent Winter Olympics, and there aren't any registration hoops to jump through which makes me very happy indeed. The only problem with the setup compared to watching on the tv is not having tivo; well, that and not being able to sit on the couch. But this office chair is awful comfy—perfect for me and Harvey—and the South African time zones are well suited to live viewing.
Well suited when I don't have to be at work, that is; today I managed to catch France-Uraguay (2:30 start) because both Leah and Harvey are feeling a little under the weather and called me home early to take care of them. My presence was clearly welcome, since within an hour or so of getting home I had them both tucked up in bed getting some wonderful restorative sleep and leaving me free to watch some world-class football. Harvey woke up in time to catch the last half hour, but Leah preferred to stay asleep.
I'm not yet sure who I'll be supporting as the tournament progresses; unfortunately a bunch of my favorites are bunched together in Group E, where they will eliminate each other and play games where I won't know who to root for! I'll be similarly conflicted for England-USA tomorrow: sure, patriotic fervor and all that, but England are so cute the way they always feel like this year they really have a chance. In the end, I think I'll probably end up behind whichever African team advances the farthest. It's only too bad that Senegal didn't make the tournament.
Action resumes tomorrow at 7:00am with South Korea-Greece, sure to be a thriller for the ages, so I'd better get myself to bed before it gets any later!
this is why I'm constantly looking down my shirt and wincing
Harvey has some sharp teeth these days. In the past two weeks he's delivered some mighty bites to the nips that feed him. He's mostly over his biting-for-fun phase that I complained about a few months ago, but now the problem isn't the pain of the bite but the lasting damage it inflicts. It's a whole new animal when there are top and bottom teeth that come together in staple-remover fashion.
Now when he bites me, which I'll admit isn't often, there appears a neat puncture wound in my nipple; a tiny crater for a tiny little space man. On any other part of my body this wouldn't be a big deal. On your arm a pin-sized prick will go away after a few days, and you won't notice it. But on a nipple that's consistently submerged in baby saliva, the wound lingers. It pusses and scabs, only to have the scab ripped off three hours later. Then it pusses again.
Festering is a word that comes to mind.
I've had some challenges with breast feeding over the past nine months, what with persistent clogs and two bouts of mastitis. But these tiny festering pin-prick sized craters, these are the worst. It's absolutely amazing how much they hurt. Constantly. Sitting here typing I'm aware of the pain neurons firing. And you can't even imagine how it feels to nurse him. I draw in my breath. I grit my teeth. I clench and unclench my fists. Sometimes I pray and curse alternatively. "Oh-God-Oh-God-Oh-God, STOP making this hurt so GODDAMN FUCKING MUCH!"
I share these unsavory images not to gross you out (although, mission accomplished!) but rather to get encouragement around my unshakable conviction to nurse Harvey until he's 12 months old. There's the pain. There's the pain-in-the-ass of pumping. But on the other side there's the anxiety-industrial-complex, pushing all sorts of normal foods farther and farther out of the reach of my 9-month old. Hold off on cows milk, and cheese, and eggs, and peanut butter. If I stop milking then what will he eat? The boy can't live on rice-cakes alone!
No matter how much he loves them...
making the breast of it
If you've been following me on twitter or facebook this weekend, you already know it's been defective day for me and my global endowments.
Despite being on antibiotics for a mastitis infection I got LAST WEEK, I spent the day shivering and moaning over a new milk clog that developed last night IN THE SAME DAMN PLACE AS THE FIRST INFECTION.
And if that weren't enough to make me whine away a Saturday, the antibiotics are giving me terrible heartburn.
Not like, "Oh gee, digestive backsplash is slightly uncomfortable" heartburn, but more like "Holy fuck, my esophagus us ON FIRE!!!"heartburn. All of a sudden I totally get why there are ten billion prescription medications for this thing.
Needless to say, this is all very frustrating. I already have a finicky child; I don't need my boobs acting like uppity toddlers. For crying out loud, they already get enough of my attention. Pump pump pump. Nurse nurse nurse. My investment in non-underwire-bras and nursing pads and equipment could power some sort of perverse old-age-home version of a vegas-style burlesque show.
You hear that tits? Stop stealing my Saturdays.
me too
Perhaps inevitably, I got the sickness for myself today. I made it in to work this morning—it was a beautiful ride—but started feeling sickish within a half-hour of arriving. I tried to tough it out, but when I began having trouble standing upright I figured it might be time to see the nurse. Needless to say, my coworkers agreed. Lying on the vinyl bed down there and getting my temperature taken brought back the memories, I can tell you... as did getting picked up by my mom! No temperature as it happened, but it's just as well that I went home, because there was some vomiting done; always much nicer in your own bathroom, I think.
I'm feeling somewhat better now, but only as long as I don't try and lift my head off the pillow. So no work tomorrow either, and they weren't surprised when I called in to make that official. But Wednesday I'll be as good as new again.
walloped
Plans were interrupted today. It was snow and sickness that did it simultaneously: not too too much snow, but very much too much sickness, and all of it in Leah. She'll tell you about that.
The sickness affected me because I was up all night taking care of her and the baby, as needed. Also we were going to spend the morning with Tom and Nelly, who are heading home tomorrow, but that was obviously out of the question with Leah unable to even raise her head off the pillow before noon. Just as well, though, because it would have been tough driving getting down to Cambridge for 9:30 church. That's when the snow was falling hardest, and it didn't really let up until noon either. About a foot in total, which isn't much considering it was coming down pretty much consistently starting the evening of the first. Rascal enjoys it.
Grandma took Harvey for several hours in the afternoon so I could nap, but I didn't. I did take Rascal for another walk, and I did go biking—had to see what the conditions were like for tomorrow! I discover that I can not easily—I mean, at all—get through snow deeper than about three inches with the wheels and muscles that I have. Happily Lexington is already plowed out, and my bike is inside cleaned and oiled, so transportation-wise I'm ready to go back to work tomorrow. Mentally? Not so much. Maybe some sleep will fix that.
Update
It's been a very long week for us here. Harvey's cold got a little scary, escalating into medical devises and chest x-rays and the kind of amphetamines that a high school kid would LOVE to get his hands on. There were a couple of days there where I didn't sleep for longer than a half hour at a stretch, and my brain turned all survival mode and my eyes had a glint of a wild animal. But it seems like we've turned the corner now (or the overly-interventionist pediatricians have gone into a waning moon, one or the other) and Harvey's getting back to his normal self again. He's still all snot and phlegm of course, but at least he can breath confidently now and he's regaining that sunny disposition we expect from him.
In the midst of the stress and sickness of the past seven days I managed to lose another four pounds. That brings the grand total to 47 pounds lost, three pounds away form my pre-pregnancy weight. I can't say the same for my pre-pregnancy shape however, that may be lost forever. I now understand why mom jeans are so high. And why Eddie Bauer sells puffy vests so successfully. And why one-piece bathing suits exist.
On the plus side, I don't same to have the same, um, concern for my physical appearance as I did before motherhood. I just want my kid to be healthy, even if that means skipping spin class for a week to stay home in sweat pants covered in vomit. They're so roomy that you don't feel the wet touch your skin. My top coult use some added protection, though. Maybe a puffy vest...
making up for lost tv time
Since Harvey was getting over his sickness today (knock on wood) we hung around home all day. We even skipped church! As scandalous as that sounds, it was probably necessary, considering how destroyed we were after a very tough night. Especially Leah, who did most of the night work.
So what to do all day? Happily, the baby was better enough that he could get outside a little bit, to take a walk with me and Rascal and then help me and Leah with some leaf raking. But that was only a couple hours; the rest of the time he and I were in front of the tv watching the football. Which takes alot of time, it turns out. Combine the two games I already watched today with the fragments of college games I took in yesterday, and I've probably watched more tv this weekend than I did over the last two or three months. And that's not all! The Patriots play the Colts this evening (starting in mere moments, in fact!) and despite my tiredness I'm going to try and take in at least some of it.
Then we can cancel the tv service.
like riding a bike
I was sick Friday, and didn't go to work. Saturday, still pretty woozy—not up to biking certainly. Sunday I was pretty much better but we went into the city to visit a great-grandmother after church, so that took all my energy for the day. Yesterday I took the car to work because I had to pick up Harvey on my way home. So today was the first biking day in a while, and I wondered how I'd manage it: would I forget how it's done?!
No, it turns out it's the kind of thing you lose; is there a saying to that effect?
excuses
I tend to be a pretty health person; last year, for example, I didn't miss a single day of work due to illness. Yesterday I perhaps found out the reason why.
I hadn't been feeling well all week, thanks to the big events last weekend preventing any rest Saturday or Sunday. By Thursday afternoon, I was just all the way worn out, so when on Friday morning I woke up still feeling poorly I went so far as to contemplate calling in sick.
Which of course filled me with guilt as soon as I had the though: after all, I'm up and walking around, and don't feel that bad, right? Also, I can't—ever—seem to get my temperature up to 98°, so there's no chance of the thermometer telling me I have to stay home on account of fever. But Leah told me it wouldn't be the end of the world, and the folks at work are (especially this year) encouraging us to err on the side of caution, health-wise. So I called in, and went back to bed.
And as soon as I did, I really felt sick. It turns out I can do a pretty good job convincing the body that we need to keep going—a relic from my days outrunning lions on the plains, I guess. Watch out when I tell myself that there's time for a rest, though! In bed most of yesterday, and still not allowed out to walk the babies this morning. So that's where I was yesterday.
Smelling of puke and dried milk
Not a fantastic morning in the squibix household today. I either got some sort of stomach bug or got poisoned by my portion of apple cake last night. Either way, I had a rough morning digestion-wise, and I'm all "Hold the baby while I go throw up," and then I come limping out of the bathroom to find the baby throwing up all over Dan. This is kind of amusing in an over-the-top sitcom sort of way, like: Look at this! Everyone's vomiting! Look how our troubles have intensified with children!
Thankfully we're out of the Exorcist stage of this illness now, so we'll all be okay after significant napping.
this stressful Eastertide
We are done with Lent and on to Easter, having said the first Alleluias of the new season at the Easter Vigil this evening. Oh, isn't Episcopalianism fun! We will not feel like we've arrived, however, until we get to brunch tomorrow, which has less to do with the ancient rhythms of the traditional church and more with our state of desperate busyness and sickness. Leah is sicker than I am, laid up with a cough and some sprained rib muscles that give her intense pains every time she coughs, but I'm busier this weekend, with a working Easter of two services of trumpet-playing tomorrow. We didn't even manage to decorate eggs this year! Not even after I bought the special selected-for-light-color dozen at the egg farm and blew out all the eggs we ate or cooked with over the last couple days (not counting the ones that smashed in my hands).
I did find time, at least, to make hot cross buns today. They were rather more successful than the last time I tried them, and they were just the thing when we got home from the multi-hour Vigil service. I was observing Passover the last couple days (yes, with delicious sandwiches) but Easter takes precedence! Maybe we'll get the eggs sometime next week... or this summer, after the baby's born.
Anyways, Happy Easter everyone!
not what the doctor ordered
I came home from work yesterday feeling very poorly: a full week of teaching and getting coughed on tired me out, I suppose, and left me with a fevery headachey icky flu. Luckily Leah was there to take care of me, which she did wonderfully, so today I felt healthy enough to go exploring with the puppy in search of some good pictures of water. Not much luck in that regard, but it was still a joy to be out in the sun; at least, that is, until I mistook my footing and plunged well-past ankle-deep in icy water. The hiking boots did noble duty in keeping the entirety of the lake from soaking into my sock, but I still thought it would be the better part of valor to head home quick after that.
I also got myself pretty much soaking wet doing the dishes this evening, but that isn't quite as interesting.
sick with anticipation
I hadn't missed a day of school this year before today, and I still haven't, but I have missed a couple hours. I revealed that I was feeling poorly and was immediately kicked out of the classroom and then the building, despite my protestations that why don't I just see how I am in half an hour, after lunch maybe, I'll just stick around to take the kids to library... no. Out I went. Which was probably for the best: I went home and lay in bed for a couple hours, which is just what I needed. No being sick on Christmas Eve allowed! Christmas, sure, no problem, but Christmas Eve I need to work!
a boring update
Both Leah and I have been sickish for what seems like weeks now, with a little fever and a little cold and mostly just a general run-down feeling and lack of energy. I blame the damp cold and gray skies; what we need right now is a little psychological spring, a few days of warm temps and nice bright sunshine. I promise that just an hour of sitting outside in the sun will cure me right up!
In the interim, though, I was really properly sick on Wednesday, and barely managed to get out of bed all day. Which I didn't mind much, of course, except for how completely boring it was. Most of the time I wasn't too pained to read, though, and happily I had just been to the library so I was well-stocked with diversionary material. The enforced inactivity let me move that much closer to my goal of reading 10 books in March; 10 books in a month doesn't sound like a lot when I think about it like that, but in practice I don't think I've managed that many since my idle university days. And now I'll do it again, with only minimal idleness. Yay for avoiding the tv!