girlfiend

I have mastitis again. AGAIN. I had it once on my right breast when Miss N was just a few days old. After a two week run of antibiotics I got it again, on the left side. Now, while I’m still taking the antibiotics from the second round I have it again on the right. WTF?

My OB, who I’m losing patience with, made me come in so she could feel my breasts and tell me yes, I have mastitis again and give me the same freaking antibiotic. I have to get a breast ultrasound to make sure there’s not an abscess at a different testing center in the hospital. She could have just given me the prescription for the ultrasound and not made me scramble to find last minute babysitting to come in so she could confirm that I have mastitis again. I told her I didn’t want to come in because I am now an expert at self diagnosing mastitis, but she made me come in anyway so I had to kill my morning waiting in her office with a baby who would have preferred to be sleeping at home.

And now I have to go back to the hospital Friday for the ultrasound and divide my children among two babysitters because I don’t want to have to leave anyone with all three. Such a pain in the ass. And I’m pretty sure that I don’t have an abscess, I just have bad luck right now and maybe if she’d switch the antibiotics it would stop, because, really, if the first four weeks of antibiotics didn’t work why am I on the same one for another two weeks? But I am not the medical professional. I am just the one with the sore boobs.

Other than that, I am fine. A little over a week before B is done school for the summer and I can get a break. And I bought $40 soap. It better be worth every penny.

I’m sure that Iris didn’t mean to completely offend me when she referred, in a comment, to the physical and emotional abuse I suffer at the hands of my three year old, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the comment and feel like I should explain.

I am (was, anyway) a teacher. I worked in some of the most poverty stricken neighborhoods in Philadelphia. I taught children who had seen people killed in front of them. I taught children who came to school reeking of pot and alcohol because their homes reeked of pot and alcohol. I had parent teacher conferences with parents who were visibly intoxicated. My first year of teaching, at 21 years old, I had kindergarten students who had been left back with parents that were younger than I was. In other words, I am no stranger to fucked up kids.

My kid is not fucked up. Yes, he is overly emotional right now, partly because of his age and partly because I am pregnant again. He was a wreck after T was born and even though he probably doesn’t remember it, he understands on some level that his little world is about to be completely disrupted again. On top of that he wants to do things that he is not allowed to do. He does not like limits and boundaries, but he has them, and it makes him angry.

If it were up to him he’d watch a combination of Caillou, Barney, and Teletubbies all day long while playing games on PBS Kids. He’d eat nothing but potato chips and sandwich creme cookies washed down with apple juice and lemonade. I’d read him the same two stories 7000 times in a row while ignoring his brother. He would stand naked in front of the television, peeing wherever he wanted. I would clean up the mess. On occasion he would emerge from his television/video game haze to play at the playground. I would push him in the stroller so he wouldn’t get too tired walking. On the way there we’d stop at Dunkin Donuts and Bohema, the local hippie store he loves to browse in. On the way home we’d stop at the bakery for cookies, the first pizza place for chicken fingers and french fries and the second pizza place for pizza. He would mostly likely eat none of the foods he asked me to purchase, because he actually prefers not to eat because he is too busy. We would also go to the zoo and the children’s museum and the playhouse and every other playground he’s ever seen before returning to his den of irritating children’s programming. And I’d buy him Thomas trains. All of them. Battery powered, wooden, Take-along, the whole line and all of the accessories.

His three year old fantasy is not too far off from his three year old reality. He gets to do all of the things he wants in moderation. He doesn’t watch TV or play video games all day, but he gets to play while his brother naps. He doesn’t get to play at the playground for seven hours straight, but on most days, even when I’m freezing my ass off he gets to play for a little while. I let him eat junk food sometimes after he’s eaten a decent lunch and he gets to drink watered down juice on occasion. We go to the places he likes to visit on a pretty regular basis considering how fucking tired I am all of the time. Sometimes I even buy him donuts or cookies on the way home.

He’s got it pretty good, but he’s not spoiled. He loses toys, television and computer privileges when he doesn’t listen. There are still trains in the basement from the last time he hit his brother with a toy. He knows that screaming gets him nothing and that he has to speak nicely if he wants me to do things for him. But knowing that there are consequences doesn’t ensure good behavior. He is three, almost four and he can’t control himself. He’s overtired and hungry many days because he refuses to go to sleep at a regular hour and doesn’t want to eat. The combination of tired and hungry is more than he can take. He just can’t control his behavior sometimes.

Like last night. Yesterday was a pretty good day. We went to story hour at the library then picked out books and movies and played on the library computers. He ate lunch and drank lemonade, watched Barney while I put his brother down for a nap. Then we read the 7 stories we picked out, some of them twice, and built a giant train set on the floor. He got to watch Dinosaur Train while I cleaned up and prepped some things for dinner, then we played with trains together until his brother woke up. He played some games on PBS Kids then had a snack. He said he wasn’t hungry for dinner yet, even though it was ready for him and went to swim lessons at 6. He got home in a good mood. Then he refused to eat his dinner. I made him eat half. He asked for a bagel and refused to eat it once it was ready. That’s where it all went downhill. For the next two hours everything was a battle. Everything. B took over so I could get T to sleep, but T couldn’t sleep through the screams. F refused to pee and refused to eat and only wanted to wear wet pajamas to bed because he doesn’t like dry pajamas any more. 2 bedtime stories wasn’t good enough he needed 3. Then he wanted the bagel he didn’t like because he was hungry and I just wanted him to shut the fuck up so his brother could sleep. By the time he did quieted down so T could sleep and fell asleep himself I was exhausted. Then he had nightmares all night long, whimpering about pajamas and shouting for us to go away and leave him alone. At one point he had his hands on Boyfiend’s face and was shouting at him to stop touching him. B tried to explain that F was touching him, not the other way around, but how do you argue with a kid in the middle of a nightmare? B went upstairs to sleep. And of course F was overtired this morning from screaming and staying up too late and nightmares, and I am overtired from the screaming and being kicked awake all night. And the cycle continues.

He did not want to go to school today. Well, any day really- he just wants to stay home with me and watch Caillou. Today I asked his teacher, Miss P, how he was doing. I told her about his behavior at home and explained that he doesn’t want to go to school any more. She seemed completely surprised. She told me that he always plays nicely, alone, one-on-one, or in groups. She said he never raises his voice and never misbehaves. She said he’s got a sweet personality and gets along with everyone. The assistant teacher said she’s never had to correct him. Ever. He’s just a sweet kid. Miss P told me that her daughter is having the same problems with her three year old. He’s terrible with her, nasty, but at school or with Miss P he’s helpful. He, like F, has taken to throwing fits, refusing to eat, refusing to sleep and running away.

It was a relief to hear my kid is not the only one who acts that way. I mean, I know my kid is not the only one who acts that way. There is an entire book, Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy, that explains the behavior and says that the parent is their child’s worthiest adversary. They recommend getting a good babysitter. But still, I don’t really see F’s friends act that way, and the kids at his preschool all seem to be able to leave the playground afterwards without throwing shit fits, so it was really good to hear from his teacher, a woman who has been teaching 3 and 4 year olds for 15 years that F is not the only one, and that he’s a great kid at school.

I feel like I’m just babbling. My point is that my kid doesn’t need a referral. He’s a sweetheart (when he’s not acting like an asshole) and this is just a stage. He will grow out of it. At some point the good days will begin to outnumber the bad days again and chances are that I will then be venting about T or the new baby. The Fiendling is a great kid. I just don’t get to see much of the good stuff these days. He reserves it for everyone else because he knows I will still love him even when he acts out.

F refused to go trick or treating and was disappointed that he only had two Halloween parties. For some reason he was expecting five. Because of his refusal to trick or treat, I have no Halloween candy except for the two bags we did not hand out, and I’m torn between ripping them open and eating them myself and returning them. We bought our candy at 4.30 on Halloween and the selection was limited. I have Twix and Fifth Avenue left. If it was Take 5 or a variety bag there would be no decision to make.  (Candy has since been returned)

For breakfast F is eating Cheerios with no milk and carrot sticks. He’s really into carrot sticks. I appreciate that he’s into carrot sticks, but the problem, and yes, there is always a problem, is that our carrots came from our garden so they are dirty and misshapen. In order to provide him with carrot sticks I must wash off the dirt, peel the knobby, stubby things, and cut them into “sticks.” It is a hassle.

Everyone in my family- F first, followed by B then T had a quick, freak illness. Perhaps it wasn’t so quick. It started with days of mild intestinal discomfort (the two boys for more than a week- a trip to the pediatrician provided no answers) and ended with a random burst of vomiting. Two or three times in a one or two hour period, then done. F’s vomiting started at dinnertime. He was fine by morning. B’s started in the middle of the night two nights later. T’s the next morning. So far I have no symptoms. But I’m waiting. Anxiously. I’m sure to be next.  If I avoid this I’m sure to get something far worse.

My mother was here for B and T’s illness. B was sick in the night and kept me up a bit so when I heard my mother up with F in the morning I decided to ignore the sounds of the baby and let her take care of it. At the time I didn’t realize he was sick too. I slept in for another half hour or so, though it was hardly sleeping since I heard every word, every piece of conversation between my mother and the boys. I came down to see what, if anything, my mother was feeding the children and I saw the baby, with a nasty clump of something in his hair eating goldfish. Not the healthiest breakfast, but it could have been worse. I got myself something to eat, released the baby from his high chair and he promptly vomited all over my feet. He didn’t seem too distressed by it, so I grabbed a towel to cover the mess and he vomited again. Two more towels and I got him upstairs and in the bath where he splashed happily.
I went into his room to get him some clean clothes and found that he’d vomited sometime in the night or morning, probably the morning. There was vomit all over his crib. Everywhere. Both sides. How my mother managed to miss it, or the smell, I don’t know. The nasty clump in his hair was, of course, dried vomit. Awesome. I took a look in the laundry and yes, his pajamas were covered in vomit too. My mother changed him without noticing.

Clean and dry the baby drank some water and took a bite of B’s bagel. And vomited all over the floor again. I changed him, put him down for a nap and went downstairs to properly clean the kitchen. My mother came down and told me I need to start taking better care of the dining room furniture. I used to keep it covered, why don’t I cover it anymore?

This is furniture that was my grandmothers. A year or two ago my mom decided that the salt air at the shore was no good for the furniture so she should trade furniture with me. Mine was more casual anyway, which was better for the shore. So we traded, and I immediately covered the table and buffet with tablecloths so the furniture wouldn’t get destroyed by children or cats. My mother complained bitterly about the cloths. She could not understand why I needed to cover such beautiful furniture. She’d had it for 30 years and it was still in great shape. My grandmother had had it for 20 and it was still beautiful. Why did I insist upon covering it. So I uncover it and voila, now she’s fucking complaining that I don’t get better care of it.

I told her that if she didn’t want me to have it we should trade back. I was perfectly happy with the other dining room set and I’d be happy to return the nicer one. I then told her that perhaps she could pick a better time to bitch to me about how I don’t care of things. My husband and child are both sick and I”M CLEANING UP VOMIT from the kitchen floor. I explained that I probably wouldn’t be quite so enraged about her poor timing if she hadn’t insisted I uncover the goddamn furniture in the first place. She didn’t say another word. Not even a word of apology. For once I didn’t say another word either.

And that was that. The boys are fine, B is fine, I am fine. I am waiting to see if I don’t get something far worse. I’m bound to get something far worse since I’m the only one who made it through that minor illness unscathed.

My mother has a zebra skin rug. Not a zebra pattern, but an actual zebra skin. It is creepy and weird and bristly. I think the eye holes are the worst part.

Stand up and look at your walls. If you have to look up to see the art it is hanging too high. Art should be hung eye level. There are exceptions- above a headboard or a fireplace mantle,for example- but generally speaking you shouldn’t get a crick in your neck looking at the pictures on your wall.

After six weeks of vomiting every time I had a small amount of alcohol I think I have recovered. I had a few ounces of beer yesterday and about 3/4 oz of vodka the day before with no ill effect. I am thrilled. If you have to take flagyl (metronidazole) take the no alcohol warning seriously. When I first ignored the alcohol warning I was still taking the drug and I puked for hours and had the spins for even longer. A week after I’d finished the drugs the effects were the same. Weeks after that, I still couldn’t drink. I don’t know why the effects of the drug lasted as long as they did. The internet, two pharmacists, a physician’s assistant, and a doctor friend had no answers for me. I am a medical mystery.

My small intestine was infected. I don’t know how it got infected, or why my symptoms did not include the diarrhea that would lead one to believe that one’s intestine could be infected, but infected it was. And after two weeks of mild indigestion, random vomiting, and sporadic excruciating pain, I went to the ER. I was doubled over in pain for hours before I got there and hours until they got me back to the room. Of course by the time I was back in a room the pain had subsided and I was convinced that it was nothing. My white blood cell count was way high so they did a CT scan and my small intestine was enlarged and there was fluid around my stomach. It was not just my fibromyalgia acting up, as B joked.

Because an infected small intestine wasn’t bad enough, the two antibiotics they gave me made me feel even worse. I was on clear liquids and bland foods for days and I had no energy and could barely push the stroller to the playground, let alone play with my kids once I was there. One of the antibiotics made me more susceptible to sunburn. The other had an alcohol warning which I ignored. Who knew that this was the one antibiotic you really can’t drink on? About an hour after a very weak drink I started spinning. Then I started puking. It was alcohol poisoning without the binge drinking. I avoided food and drink for another few days until the course of antibiotics was over.

Two days after I finished the antibiotics we took an overnight trip to the Strasburg Railroad. We stayed at a hotel with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools. The plan was to enjoy a glass of wine in the courtyard after the kids were asleep. At dinner I had about half of a Margarita. Within half an hour I was spinning. 20 minutes after that I was puking. The antibiotic was out of my system, but the alcohol-processing enzyme that the antibiotic destroyed had not yet been replenished. Will it ever be replenished? I am scared of a glass of wine.

Back at home the next night I heard a crash from upstairs, the expected tears, and the unexpected, “Oh shit, oh my god.” B yelled for me to come upstairs and he and F were both covered in F’s blood. I grabbed a washcloth to blot F’s forehead and see how bad it was and my god, it was bad. I packed a bag, pulled the car out of the driveway, and grabbed a popsicle for the ride. We dropped the baby off at my sister-in-law’s and drove to CHOP. This was our first CHOP experience- we’ve see CHOP doctors at satellite offices- and while I certainly don’t wish to return their ER, we are very lucky to live so close to such an amazing place. The doctors, nurses, residents, and front desk staff were all fantastic. F was calm and easy going throughout the entire experience- even while they stitched up his forehead.

F also managed to pee in the potty two times while we were there. Unfuckingbelievable. He’d been peeing in a Flyers cup for the past week, still refusing to use the potty, but with no Flyers cup available he chose to use the toilet, not soak his underwear.

To recap, I was sick for two weeks before I went to the ER and now, two weeks later I’m still feeling like crap, only less crappy than I felt a week ago. F is using the potty, only it’s not a potty it’s a Flyers cup, and he’s got three stitches in his forehead and can’t get wet. I have accomplished nothing on my to-do list and the summer is flying. I miss drinking.

I finally finished knitting a massive project. I laid it out to see how much blocking was required and my mother said, “What happened there? Did you drop a stitch?”

Thanks.

Mother’s Day wasn’t bad. The Fiendling spent Friday and Saturday night with my in-laws so we could get ready for the party on Sunday. The baby woke me up at 6.30. At 9 I woke B with coffee in bed. I was only slightly bitter.

The baby’s first birthday party was big and fun and the house is mostly cleaned up. We have more leftover cookies than we know what to do with.

His actual birthday isn’t until Wednesday. I’m not crying about it yet, but all of the newborns I see are brutal reminders that my baby won’t be a baby for much longer. I anticipate tears on his birthday proper.

I did something to my big toe. I’m not entirely sure what I did to it since it’s not bruised or swollen, but I’ve spent the last two days hobbling around. It is incredibly painful to walk without shoes. I must have pulled something. The few steps from bedroom to bathroom in the middle of the night are excruciating.

Speaking of the middle of the night, I just learned from B that I somehow managed to get him to take care of two middle of the night wakeups. Both F and T woke up and I have no memory of either. He says the Fiendling was at my side of the bed imploring me to get up and get him his water from upstairs and I made him go instead. He claims that he also rocked the baby back to sleep after I woke him up and told him to. I find this most difficult to believe. I posited that perhaps he dreamed it, but F remembers that he wanted me, not B to get his water and was sad that I did not. I must have been exhausted.

I went back to the pulmonologist this morning for my three-month check up. She wanted to put me on a lower dose of my asthma medicine but didn’t because I’ve been hanging on to a cough since we all got sick a few weeks back. (Shit, it was a month ago. ) She gave me a prescription for the lower dose and told me to cut back my current dose to once a day instead of twice over the next six weeks and see how I do. She asked if the summer would be a tough time to do it because of the heat and it sucks because I just don’t know. I started coughing the first summer after F was born and didn’t get an asthma diagnosis for a year after that. But it wasn’t until this fall that I was finally given an inhaler that actually controlled the asthma. After close to three years of non-stop coughing I don’t know what seasons are worse than others. Childbirth really did wreck my immune system.

Because I’d been coughing for over two years I tried to make an appointment with a pulmonologist. But the pulmonologist wasn’t seeing new patients until November so I started seeing an ENT. I’ve seen him several times now, and Boyfiend’s aunt works in the office so she and the other women who work there watch the kids during my appointments. When they  call to remind me that I have an appointment they ask if I’m bringing the kids for them to watch. The one time I didn’t they were disappointed.  They give the Fiendling candy to eat and crayons and stickers to play with. He has a blast and the baby is so good natured he’s thrilled to be with anyone as long as they keep him entertained. The ENT is a good guy and just about everyone in the family has seen one of the doctors in the practice for something.

The ENT gave me a few different nasal sprays which helped the coughing a bit, but eventually I saw the pulmologist who confirmed my asthma diagnosis and gave me a bettter inhaler. I’ve been cough-free since I started the new inhaler early in November. It’s awesome.

I am so happy not to be coughing. Aside from the fact that coughing sucks, I will now be overly honest and tell you that if you’ve had two babies the good old fashioned way your pelvic floor muscles don’t recover no many how many fucking kegels you do. When you are coughing uncontrollably you will pee.  Every time. Every night I would wake up coughing and every night I would pee in my pants. I always thought those enormous, boat sized pads were for the elderly, but really they’re just for women who have had babies and have bad coughs.

Anyway, I had an appointment with the ENT today just to check out my post-nasal drip. (I am so sexy.) The doctor asked if my face hurt  and I said yes, just the left side, without thinking anything of it. Turns out I have a sinus infection and didn’t even notice it. I was so ecstatic not to be coughing and so excited that I was no longer peeing all the time that I didn’t even tell an Ear Nose and Throat doctor that I’ve had green snot and painful sinuses for a week. Really, the snot and painful sinuses are just a non-issue compared to the cough, so it didn’t even occur to me that it was a problem. The doctor just shook his head and said, “If you were a man you would have been crying about the pain.”

We were at the shore for labor day weekend and one day over the weekend I missed a call from a friend. Boyfiend said that she was probably calling to invite us to a barbecue but when I listened to her message she was really just calling to warn me that her daughter, who the Fiendling played with at the playground earlier in the week, had contracted Coxsackie Virus, commonly known as Hand Foot and Mouth disease.I wasn’t sure of the symptoms so I called her back but didn’t get her, left a message and promptly forgot about it.

That night the Fiendling woke up crying and unusually upset. Eventually I got him back to sleep but it took a long time and he was really sad, not his usual angry, unreasonable self. In the morning it occurred to me that maybe he had gotten the virus but then I saw that his toe had become infected. The Fiendling has an unfortunate habit of biting his toenails. It’s disgusting and I’ve always considered the habit an infection waiting to happen. Well, we had to wait no longer, on Labor Day it was filled with pus and clearly causing him a lot of discomfort. It was most likely the cause of his wake up. I dismissed my concerns about Coxsackie and focused on the toe.

It looked like he had an ingrown toenail that had grown infected. I called our pediatrician and the message on her machine said that her office will not open until October. I had to call the pediatrician who took over her last practice, the guy I hate. The on call doctor returned my call and told me to promptly take him to the emergency room. It was an ingrown toenail, not a gunshot wound, so the idea of dropping $100 to sit in an emergency room for 5 hours so they could drain his toe did not appeal to me. But the longer I waited the more nervous I became. What if the infection spread to his brain? I started looking for urgent care clinics but it turns out the Philadelphia area really doesn’t have any. Some CVS pharmacies have clinics, but according to the website we would have missed the holiday hours.

I was near tears and starting to panic. I called another local pediatrician. The doctor called me back and asked who I was. I apologized and told him my kid wasn’t a patient but I needed to know what to do for an infected toenail. I was slightly hysterical and must have sounded like a lunatic. He told me to soak it in hot water three times a day for twenty minutes. I did. The infection was gone by the next morning.

The following night, infection gone, the Fiendling woke in the night again after a miserable bedtime. He’s taken to refusing to go to sleep, crying, screaming, yelling, hitting, and kicking to the point of insanity. He works himself into such a frenzy that bed time can take hours. He’s learned how to open the gate we use to keep him in his room which means he’ll come downstairs repeatedly, Our latest trick, one that I feel awful about, is to lock him in until he calms down. Once he stops his screaming we can read him a story and he’ll go to sleep. I feel like a monster locking him in, but it’s the only way to get him to stop a tantrum so he can get some sleep.

Anyway, starting around 1 am he was up for hours. He’d doze off, only to wake again and cry. He showed up in our bedroom twice. Wanting to get some sleep I just brought him into our bed hoping it would help. It didn’t. After tossing, turning and kicking for an hour he started whimpering and saying, “It hurts mommy, it hurts.” I asked him to tell me what hurt and he just kept repeating that it hurt. Eventually I got him to point to what hurt and he pointed to his diaper. I asked if he needed a new one, he said yes, and we went into the bathroom. I put the shower light on so it wouldn’t be so jarring, but even in the dim light I could see that he was bright red. I warned him to keep his eyes closed so I could turn on the big light and examined the rash more closely. It didn’t look like a regular diaper rash as it was only on his scrotum and penis. Freaked out, I slathered him with diaper cream upon his request and noticed two sores on his hands, one on each middle finger. He fell asleep on the changing table and I carried him back into my bed.

The sores on his hand reminded me of the Coxsackie virus. I couldn’t sleep. I got up (at this point it was 5 am) and started googling signs and symptoms. The internet told me to call the doctor immediately if I noticed sores or if he complained of pain in the testicles. Fuck. Then I started to worry that the baby would get the virus. The doctor’s office (I hated to call the douchebag pediatrician again, but what could I do) wasn’t scheduled to open until noon. I got back into bed and fell asleep. The baby was up and smiling around 7. The Fiendling slept until close to 9. When he got up I changed his diaper and the rash looked fine. Gone, actually. I asked him about the booboos on his hand. He corrected me and said, “No, on my fingers. I get them from the doorknob.” I asked him to explain. He said, “I try to get out. Dada lock the door. I get booboos from the doorknob.”

I was overcome with relief. My kid did not have a highly contagious (though not life threatening, it is contagious) virus that would keep us house bound; he simply had battle scars from being locked in his room and struggling to open it. The diaper rash was coincidental. You can go ahead and just give me my award for Mother of the Year right now.

My summer has been relaxing and drama-free thus far, leaving me with precious little to blog about other than the kids. But just like after the Fiendling was born, my immune system is revolting and I’m a bit of a wreck physically. I’ve had a rash that comes and goes for weeks now. It shows up on my arms or legs, itches like a motherfucker, then disappears only to show up someplace else. Yesterday I woke up with the rash on my outer arms. It migrated to my legs and left elbow by nighttime. The dermatologist says there’s nothing to do but treat the symptoms. Awesome.

Then I got this thing on my back. I assumed it was a zit or a bug bite. I’ve never had a zit on my back, but it was reddish and hurt. I asked Boyfiend for his expert opinion and he told me that it was a zit. The following day the zit was bigger, redder and owier. Boyfiend tried to pop it and came to the conclusion that it was not, in fact, a zit and I needed to see a doctor about it. Sweet. And sexy on the beach.

Speaking of sexy, I ended up buying two new pairs of Reef flip flops this year because I was so grossed out by the old ones. They were blue to begin with and three summers of wearing them 90% fo the time turned them dingy and brown.  I figured with two new pairs of flip flops I could alternate and they wouldn’t get so nasty. But then (since I’m neurotic) I went ahead and gave cleaning the old ones a shot. I went to work with Dawn and a toothbrush and the results were incredible.

I could have saved myself the money and cleaned them to begin with. Oh well. You can never have too many pairs of comfortable flip flops.

I have mastitis. On the holiday weekend. I caught it early and it’s not as bad as it could be but it still sucks that I feel tired and run down and sore. I was hoping for a margarita and all I got was a breast infection. Awesome.

The Fiendling (who has recently added grinding and clicking his teeth to his list of ways to show mom he’s unhappy about his baby brother) is also sick. He has a runny nose, a slight cough and had an unfortunate diaper incident that led to an immediate bath and load of laundry. This morning, after waking up once in the middle of the night, he woke up just before five and couldn’t go back to sleep despite my best efforts. I hope he’s feeling better tomorrow. Though I appreciate how cuddly he is when he’s sick (and his brother isn’t around), I don’t appreciate the excess bodily fluids and the night waking.

Tomorrow is my neighborhood’s sad little Memorial Day parade then we’re going to a barbecue at my in-laws’ house. Hopefully we’ll find time to put the flowers and herbs we bought on Mother’s Day in pots. My garden has been seriously neglected.

I am tired and the baby who is peacefully sleeping beside me smells like spit up and cord stump and desperately needs a bath. I don’t want to wake him, but it’s inevitable.