Somebody Call the Waah-mbulance

I stayed home today. I have a cold. It's not awful, not the swine flu or anything, just your Basic Annoying Head Cold, version 1.0. But it was bad enough that a) I wasn't feeling up to chasing children who might be able to defeat the Vaseline, and b) I didn't want to get anyone else sick. So I spent the day at home with the family. MOTH was kind enough to get Tankbaby out of the house a few times so that I could nap (Tank's mommy radar is extremely well-tuned, and our house is extremely tiny, so it doesn't usually work very well for me to just be in the other room if he's home. Also, I can't relax and sleep when I hear him fussing...stupid bonding). I'm feeling better now, but still head-cloggy and have that awful taste in my mouth that you get when you're all stuffed up. What is that phenomenon where you have a cold and your tastebuds are numb when it comes to food, but your own mouth tastes like what I imagine that Mucinex commercial character would taste like (and really, what is the deal with that? How much money did some ad exec make coming up with a talking wad of mucus? That's what you want the public to think of when they think of your product?)? Also, water tastes bad when you have a cold. But pound those fluids! Ick.

It is, as those of you with kids know, very different to be home sick by yourself versus home sick with a baby. When I have a cold, what I really want to do is get my cup of OJ, maybe some graham crackers, and a book and curl up under a blanket on the couch. I want to fall asleep as I'm reading, wake, pee, and go back to sleep. I want to have kleenex, phone, and computer within reach, thus to minimize any movement I may need to make. If the dog wants to come and curl up by my feet, so much the better. A little forlorn rain on the windowpanes? Perfect. I like to wallow, is what I'm saying.

With a baby, it's different (Ooh, lookit me with the cutting-edge realizations. This just in: Having kids changes things!). I'm lucky in that MOTH stays at home with the baby, so he was around and I was able to get a little rest today, but still. Baby's got needs and baby doesn't care if you're feeling like the underside of someone's shoe. So in between OJ and kleenex, there are still games of peek-a-boo, diapers to be changed, and dog hair to be pulled out of mouths.

I'm not complaining. Today was a picnic compared to the last time I was sick. When Tankbaby was about six weeks old, I developed mastitis. For the blessedly uninitiated, this is basically an infection in the breast. Symptoms include a fever, aches, chills, and lots of tenderness around the infected area. Treatment is hot compresses on the boob, massage, and as much nursing/pumping as possible, because you want to unclog the milk duct. If those don't work (and they didn't for me), then you get antibiotics. If that doesn't work (and they did for me), then you get to undergo (shudder) a lancing. That was threatened, but deemed unnecessary.

Oh, and I'm forgetting the most important part: rest. If you look up mastitis, you'll find over and over again that you're supposed to rest.

Now.

If you have a young, nursing baby (which is basically a given if you have mastitis), how in the blue fuck are you supposed to apply-heat-massage-pump-and-ABOVEALLFORTHELOVEOFGODREST?!? Oh, and don't forget nursing the baby as often as possible. But rest! I was miserable, not just because of the achy, flu-like part of things, but because I kept feeling like I was stupid, that there must be some way to do this, because my midwife and all the books kept giving me these simple instructions and I couldn't figure out how to do it. I could nurse the baby, but then I couldn't pump afterwards, because who could hold the baby? I could massage with one hand while holding the baby, but how could I apply the heating pad without it touching him? And exactly how was I supposed to rest with a baby who never slept, plus instructions to not let milk build up in the breast and to apply heat and pump in the middle of the night?! Sure, MOTH helped when he got home from work, but he also needed to eat, pee, feed me, the dog, and do any of the laundry/dishes/bills that I certainly wasn't getting to in the day.

What happened was a) this fed nicely into some PPD for me, and b) luckily, my dad was scheduled to come visit about that time, so he was able to help out a lot. Poor dad. Yes, he got to see his first grandchild, but he also saw a lot more of his daughter's ta-tas than he'd probably prepared for. But, bless his heart, he walked the floor with Tank while he screamed (Tank, not Dad, although I wouldn't have blamed him if he did), and I sat, pale and frumpy, and massaged and heated and followed instructions. Then, when the baby finally fell asleep, Dad would maintain whatever magical position or movement had led to this miracle, recognizing that to do something as simple as shift your weight could wreck it all. So he held still. He was the baby Beefeater. So I did nap, and I did heal. (Oh, and before I forget? The antibiotics you take for this condition? Require a very strict eating schedule, as you're not supposed to eat for an hour after you take the pill or for two hours before you take the pill, and you have to take them four times a day. Also, they cause diarrhea. So you've got regimented eating and spontaneous pooping. Not a great combination for someone solely responsible for the well-being of a tiny infant, is all I'm saying.)

Anyway, the point is that today wasn't so bad.

In other news, but related in that it's interesting to no one out side of our household, we have a tooth! Tankbaby's first tooth (at almost nine months old) is poking it's pointy little...um, head, or something up out of his little bald maw. While it's exciting in a milestone way, I confess to being a little sad. For some reason, I really like the gummy mouth. It's so pink and simple. Teeth seem weird in babies to me, as extraneous as a mustache. I know that I'll get used to it, but right now imagining him with teeth seems very strange and false and I think of Kermit the Frog in this old Sesame Street sketch.

And now I must shuffle off to bed, in hopes of defeating this dumb cold and enjoying tasting things again.