We went to Pennsylvania on Thursday for my real-life-best-friend Erin’s son’s first birthday party, which was lovely and very fun and such a special event to be included in. The boys got along well (or as well as a couple of one-year-olds can be expected to get along) and we got to check out the new (very old) house Erin and her husband Mitch just bought. We don’t get to see these friends nearly enough so a couple days visiting was awesome.

Unfortunately, about thirty seconds after we left to drive down there, Baby Evan’s nose started running like a faucet. He went from being miserable and snotty to happy and snotty and back several times an hour the whole trip, peaking with what may have been a fever late Thursday and sleeping 12 hours straight Friday night. But he’s 100% better today.

I’m really hoping it’s just teething. It probably is. Definitely. Maybe. But there’s also the teeniest tiniest chance it’s fifth disease. I know a friend whose kids had fifth last week so we MIGHT have been exposed, although I haven’t seen any of the kids in more than a month and the friend in at least a week. I’m not worried about Baby Evan – it’s not life threatening or even particularly unpleasant, but it can be very serious to the fetus if a pregnant woman catches it. It can cause anemia in the unborn baby, sometimes severe enough to cause death although the internet assures me that is very unlikely. Pretty unlikely. Probably. Maybe.

I really shouldn’t have Googled it.

So right now we’re just playing a waiting game to see if Baby Evan gets a rash some time in the next couple days. If he’s fine Monday and Tuesday I’ll breathe a big sigh of relief and forget all about it. If he has even the teeny tiniest of red spots, I’m calling my OB and asking for the blood test to see if I’m either already immune or already infected. Of course, every time I sniffle or get tired or think “ugh my head hurts” my brain goes OMG EMERGENCY!!!! and I consider calling the 24-hour on call line. Not that it would do any good – I really doubt routine blood work is something they would send me to the ER to do and there’s no way the office is open on a Sunday and probably closed Monday as well.

For now, I’m going to try to relax and enjoy the rest of our holiday and have fun going through the 300+ pictures from the party. Like this one:

For the record, that's Reid's brand new birthday toy my kid is using. Incorrectly.

Our house has been invaded by those horrible anthropomorphic snot creatures from the cold medicine commercial. Daddy, Mommy and Baby Snot Creature have all taken up residence in Daddy, Mommy and Baby Evan and are settling in for an extended stay. If only I could remember what the commercial was actually FOR I could go buy some of it and maybe we would feel better.

So far the cough is my only symptom but E claims he also has an overwhelming sense of ickiness and the baby is a little bit grumpy (although he’d feel a lot better if he would just let me WIPE HIS NOSE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD). Otherwise, no fevers, no pains, no need to see a pediatrician, no idea when it will go away. We’re trapped in a miserable purgatory of being too sick to go to group activities  where we could possible contaminate people but nowhere near sick enough to lie around sleeping all day. I’m making an effort to still make it to Stroller Strides as much as possible, just because it breaks up the monotony of 14 straight hours of snotty baby care, but today we were supposed to RUN and running is just not possible when you have to stop and cough up a lung every few feet.

I’m going to feel like an idiot when I realize in a month we aren’t sick, we just have allergies and this self imposed quarantine was pointless. But I would feel even worse if one of the littler babies ended up with RSV because I couldn’t handle playing with my kid at home for a few days. Which I will definitely do as soon as I can find him under all that snot.

On Friday I had my first experience with projectile vomit. Now I understand what the doctor meant when I kept bringing in my infant saying, “He’s throwing up! There’s something wrong!” and the pediatrician kept saying “No no no, that’s nothing. Trust me, you’ll know.” AND NOW I KNOW. Boy do I know. And since I would like to keep all my lovely readers, I won’t even tell you about the diapers. Let’s just say whatever bug is inside my poor little munchkin his body REALLY wants it out.

Since Baby Evan is still on uncertain terms with the sippy cup, I spent most of Saturday trying to force liquids down his throat.  He doesn’t like nursing when he’s sick (which I think is ridiculously ironic – isn’t the whole point of nursing that it’s supposed to be comforting?) so he’s not getting much of anything in his system. I’m terrified he’s going to get dehydrated and end up in the hospital where the doctors will all frown at me and say “What do you mean he doesn’t eat food? What do you mean he doesn’t take a bottle? You can’t possibly have nursed him every feeding for the last 10 months.” Because even I will admit that sounds a little crazy. True, but crazy. Plus I haven’t yet figured out how to get Pedialyte into my boobs so the best I can do for a vomiting baby is a little juice in a sippy of water and hope he accidentally swallows some of it while he chews on it. He’s still having wet diapers so I’m not panicked yet but if things don’t improve by tomorrow morning I’ll have to make an appointment.

In true motherhood fashion, just when the baby starts feeling better I get catch the same horrible germs. Again, I’ll do you a favor by skipping specifics but lets just say the symptoms might be even more unpleasant in a non-diaper wearing adult. I managed to wait until the babe was asleep before collapsing in a miserable, feverish heap Saturday night but just barely. My temperature fluctuated so much I felt like a Katy Perry song, first lying on the floor in my bra complaining I was burning up and then huddling under the blankets begging E to turn up the heat. I spent most of the night lying on the bathroom floor because the cold felt good on my face (uh, and also so I could throw up in a more appropriate place than the kitchen).  A whole Sunday of misery brings me to this morning, where I’m getting by on a diet of Mountain Dew and several gallons of water, trying to stay awake while I watch the baby torture pet the cat.  My parenting today is going to be more “keep the baby alive” and less “stimulate his mind and development”, but I’m ok with that. Even Super Moms need sick days.

Or “Things My Son Will Find Really Embarassing in 16 Years”

JEEZ MOM, I'm sick here! What's with the photos?

You know, I don't find this onesie ironic OR humorous.

Boy rubbing my snotty face on stuff sure makes me tired! Come here so I can rub it on your shoulder.

Are we done here? I need to go let the dog lick my face.

I guess visiting my parents really gave Baby Evan a sense of where he comes from, because he decided to take part in the long-standing Glidden family tradition of being TERRIBLY HORRIBLY ILL on Thanksgiving. Growing up, someone in our house (usually my sister) was ALWAYS sick on holidays. Thanksgiving? Pneumonia! Christmas? Flu! Easter? Strep throat! Arbor Day? The Plague! National Waffle Appreciation Day? Ebola!

On Wednesday when we got to Ohio we thought the baby was just fussy because of the long car trip. But by 2 am when he refused to be put down even for a second we decided it was more than just fussing. I thought it might be his two top teeth coming through, but when his fever kept getting higher and his wailing kept getting louder, we suspected he might really be sick. E went out on Thanksgiving (thanks People Who Work At The Grocery Store On Holidays!) and bought a thermometer and some infant Tylenol so we could do something – ANYTHING – to help poor Baby Evan feel better. It didn’t work. He spent all day on Thursday alternating between crying himself to exhaustion and passing out from exhaustion only to wake up crying. My entire extended in-law family thinks Baby Evan is a loud, angry, snot-producing machine and feels really really bad for me as the mother of such a difficult baby. For a while I tried to insist he normally wasn’t like this (Read my blog! He’s really good!) but after a while I was too tired to protest and by bedtime I had completely forgotten he had ever been a happy, easy-going child.

If we had been at home during Baby Evan’s First Illness (a milestone I will definitely NOT be putting in the baby book) we would have handled it. I would have been tired, the baby still would have been sick, and it wouldn’t have been over any faster, but it would have been SO. MUCH. EASIER. When you’re a houseguest in a very crowded house, taking care of a sick baby is misery. Thank God E was just as concerned about the baby as I was, because if he hadn’t done his share of nighttime rocking and changing and letting Baby Evan sleep on his chest I may have ended up stabbing a meat thermometer through my hand just for a couple of quiet hours in the hospital.

In the middles of Thursday night his temperature reached 104.5 and I spent two hours waiting for my pediatrician to call me back and insist I take my deathly ill baby to the ER. Instead, a very calm grandmother-type nurse told me a high temp was normal in an 8 month old, he was just fighting off a virus and “he must be your first”. I let her calm me down and her suggestions helped Baby Evan’s temp come down and by Friday morning he started to act more like his normal self.

Now we’re home and he’s so happy to be back in his own bed he may just sleep forever. Well, not FOREVER (And he’s definitely still breathing – I checked. About two dozen times.) but certainly long enough for me to catch up on some of my missing sleep and get started on the pre-holiday decorating clean-a-thon. I’m sure once he realizes there are ornaments to break, ribbon to eat and glitter to roll in he’ll be too excited to ever sleep again.