Bumps and Barf

How come you all didn't warn me about that ghastly stomach bug that rips through families and turns them upside down and makes the walls spin and leaves an otherwise capable set of parents completely debilitated and calling for reinforcements? Ooosh! The last 48 hours have been an adventure in acquainting myself with ye olde John Donne-ism that No Man is an Island. Indeed, I may have been marooned on the island of the pukeys in which I could NOT keep a drop of fluid down for more than 3 hours this weekend, but I was not alone. Lovey Loverpants was there on the Island of Puke, just trying to keep upright long enough to shovel the snow in order to make way for the Green Bus to make important trips to CVS for Pedialyte runs and to go to work. Baby Girl was there, too, and just clearly not herself. Didn't want to eat, didn't even smile before trying to dive off the bed where we change her diaper. Before Loverpants left for work yesterday, I did call some local friends like they were on my Samaritan hotline asking if they could spare an hour to keep Baby Girl from sucking on batteries while I napped. But then, by the mercy of God, I started to feel a little bit better, and this morning I woke up feeling like I had been given a new body. During our stay on the Island of Puke, two things became abundantly clear:

1.) We are very, very blessed with a caring set of friends. And I need to pay this realization forward, for sure.

2.) If there is ever a Baby Loverpants #2, he/she will not be raised in a place where the Island of Puke cannot be attended by members of the extended family. I was so desperate to just call my mother yesterday and for her to come over and wash my dirty dishes and tell me to go back to bed, because she had it all under control. I shall not be taking family for granted ever, ever again.

***

Here on the Island of Puke, we took directives from Nana Red to make ghetto pops: Half portion of Pedialyte, half portion of Propel, a little drizzle of apple juice; pour into Dixie cup, pop spoon in, freeze, give to teething sickly child.

Baby Girl thinks Ghetto Pops are suspect.

I don't blame her. ***

Oh! Also!! Baby Girl got her first battle wound! I saw it all go down and was paralyzed to stop it. A little girl at Itsy Bitsy Yoga who is otherwise sweet-mannered and maybe even a little passive saw Baby Girl gamely standing up and decided to pull her arm so she could go walk with her. I see the little girl taking Baby Girl by the hand, and suddenly I am thinking, Naw, she knows Baby Girl can't wa----OH shoot. Baby Girl clunks her head on the corner of a wall and breaks into the squishy mushroom face cry.

See the crease on her forehead?

Poor little bunny.

Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow...'cause Yesterday's Gone, Yeah Yesterday's Gone....

I am already a fan of 2009. The openness to this adjustment is rather surprising to me since 2008 was such a groundbreaking year of figuring out exactly how many rounds of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" it takes to get a toothing infant back to sleep AND WE MADE IT. I've been so focused on documenting each milestone (five and half months, slept through night; eight months, waved; nine months, pulled to standing) that the passage of one calendar into the next seems kind of negligible, irrelevant. I think this change in the way I perceive the passage of time makes me a little bit of a loser, but also little less daunted by the moments that keep on slipping away, like water in my sand ditch at the beach. But our calendar from Small Liberal Arts College on a Hill tells me it is indeed 2009 year of our Lord and so far I've been having a ball. Lovey Loverpants has had ample time off of work to chill and demo for Baby Girl the myriad batteries not included toys that now populate our WHAT WAS THAT I JUST PASTED TO THE FLOOR living room. Also, we've been wildly social. I mean playdate in the morning, a dinner at a restaurant with a waitstaff in the evening. Followed the next day by Itsy Bitsy yoga in the a.m. followed by a raucous toddler birthday (the second in a week!). Yoko Loco! We're pushing through a veritable hangover from the fun alone. In the meantime, I've been staying up to finish some final projects for class. I don't know how it all got done, but the files are uploaded and I feel happy for what I've learned, but even happier about what's to come, regardless of whose calendar we're consulting.

above: Baby Girl and I in front of the Talking Tree, Tower City, Cleveland

Trading Up

Aside from our friendliness and mass consumption of tater-tots, Lovey Loverpants and I like to think we mask our Mid-Western roots pretty well here in sophisticated New England. We root for the right sports teams. We patronize the right chains. We know where to pahk the cah, and that attempting to do such in Hahvid Yahd is just plain lunacy. But we are dead-ringer Mid-Westerners when it comes to being casual. We are such casual slacks. Our furniture is mostly IKEA. We visit the dry cleaner an average of twice a year. And on that note, we would prefer to spend the majority of our time wearing pajama pants.

I think in this respect that we let the fact that we are college sweethearts go way too far. Because Loverpants is a few months away from 30 and yet loves them flannelpants like a college student late for class. His frisbee friends know him as the crazy Asian dude that wears those snow dog PJ pants to tournaments. He wears them grocery shopping and never takes a plane ride in anything but the PJs. Oh how we love our jammy jams.

Which is why I'm so sad about retiring my snowmen pajama pants. I've worn them for some great dinner parties at our place. When my water broke last January, I went to the hospital wearing my frosty fleecewear, knowing that I'd be coming home with a new little snowbaby for the cuddling. I'm very sentimental about these boys.

But they were starting to get a bit mangy, so I logged on to Old Navy which now carries Small Petite -- the perfect fit! The new pants don't seem nearly as high quality as the old pair, but they will have to hold up at least for the next couple of years of hosting dinner parties, and dare I say the next time my water breaks (which you can be bet will not happen for a very, very long time).