the bug's bug.

end of first trimester date on saturday was awesome. we went to the melting pot, strategically timed our day so that we would be perfectly starving upon arrival, and proceeded to chow down. and afterwards we swiftly made a vow to never do all 4 courses there again. just cheese and salad and maybe chocolate (or maybe cheese part 2 instead of chocolate); we are cutting out the meat entree. i love food as much, nay, more than the next girl, but it should NOT be a contest of wills between me and dessert to see who will give in first (i refuse to waste money). the end result is always me and jesse ending up in actual pain on the way home and saying "why? why did we pay money to feel like this?"

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we even anticipated the pain and asked our server to space out the courses really far. no dice. still pain. but we did enjoy the living crap out of each other's company and were completely at ease knowing judah was in the loving care of the dukes.

enough is enough, fatties, lay down the forks and back away slowly.

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on the way home linda called us to say that judah had thrown up. this was weird. judah has only ever thrown up once, and that was after his head injury to let us know he had a concussion. when we pulled up we found judah recovering while partaking in one of his favorite pastimes: riding on the tractor with grandaddy.

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yeah, i threw up, but look how happy i am.

we brought him inside and he then proceeded to throw up all over himself again. oh dear. that is just not a sight that two people who have just severely overeaten need to be seeing. at this point he was still getting rid of his bottle and dinner so it was projectile and painless to the little guy. he did whine a little bit right after but recovered quickly. we popped him back in the tub and rinsed him off, a pile of towels beginning to accumulate on the dukes' bathroom floor. we were hoping it was just something he ate and now that ALL the food was gone he would feel better.

over the next 3 hours the poor little bug showed us how misguided this hope was. sitting there watching my pitiful little baby wake up from sleeping on jesse to cough and then start violently retching was akin to being tortured. he had nothing left in his stomach so he would just sit there and heave and heave and turn so red and sweaty and lose his breath. we soaked about 4 towels with just his stomach juices (sorry). after a barfing spell he would so sweetly and pathetically give a little cry/wail and then fall back asleep.

the dukes convinced us (well, me really) to let linda give him an enema. they all swear by it. apparently the thinking is that it rehydrates him at an access point of his digestive tract that he can't throw up as well as forcing a total system flush, hopefully getting rid of the viral culprit sooner than if we didn't. even though he was clearly hurting and miserable, he was such a champ and always had a smile ready for us.

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i tried to take a picture of him being all pale and blah and as soon as he saw the camera he smiled. oh i adore him

apparently enemas were something forced upon the dukes kids when they were sick and, understandably, they fought them like grim death. jesse told a story of not being allowed to go to a friend's house when he was young until he had one and he ended up choosing not to go over getting the hydro-love. i figured judah wouldn't remember this anyway and was ready to try anything to speed up his recovery. every time he would start retching again i would be on the verge of tears just having to watch him wracked by such violent pukey spasms in his little body. i cannot even imagine what it must be like to have a child go through chemo or any other trial that would require them feeling like this long term.

the apothecary readying the supplies

of course we were worried that he would be tortured by the whole process. it was 10 pm and he was so exhausted in and out of sleep and he was sicker than he ever had been, so being brought to full awake status like this was sure to confuse and anger him. once again, the little man floored us. he just laid on jesse's lap and didn't make a peep the entire time. it was so sweet and so sad.

tiniest of creatures braced for intrusion

he must have been dehydrated because the entire solution stayed in (minus a few undigested raisins...when did he even eat raisins last???) until much later that night. we headed home with a spare towel just in case and braced for a trying evening. jesse set up shop in the guest bedroom with him and tons of towels. we didn't want to leave him alone in his crib in case he choked or something. the last time he threw up was around 12 or 1am and then he passed out and we all went to bed, with me in our room since i would having morning duty. he woke up at 4 am really mad because the enema had fully evacuated. we (jesse) changed his diaper and tried to settle him back down. not happening. he was irate. finally we gave in and decided to let him have some water and crackers. he chugged an entire sippy cup of water in about 10 minutes (he NEVER drinks that much even over a whole day) so he must have been super dehydrated and ate a few crackers. that seemed to be what the issue was. he settled back down on jesse's chest and just as i was saying, "wow he drank that reeeeeally fast, do you think that's okay?" he fire-hosed jesse's world with most of the water. it was hilariously awful . jesse was wearing a white undershirt so it was like the most twisted wet t-shirt contest ever.

heading out FINALLY with yet another new towel to try to protect him and us.

he was great the rest of the night until it was time for jesse to go to church. so i was slated to take care of him while jesse was gone. from the moment i had him passed off to me, you would have never known anything was wrong with him. he was really tired and took an early morning nap with me, but other than that he played and laughed and walked around and was his 100% normal self. so i started thinking that he hadn't actually barfed since about midnight the night before (the 4 am hosing i was attributing to drinking the water to fast and not actual sickness...rationalization) so it had been almost 12 hours. oh i am so freaking selfish and worthless.

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in my defense, it was my first ever mothers' day and i wasn't really anticipating getting 5 hours of interrupted sleep (plus p.s. i am still pregnant!). i was SUPPOSED to get breakfast in bed and then jesse taking judah to church early so i could sleep in. oh well. so i think i was already feeling a little gypped, plus i am going to claim that my judgement was impaired by lack of sleep. then i made the decision that has made me the enemy of everyone who had ever worked in childcare. i decided to take him to church for the second service to stay in the nursery so i could go home and sleep. oh i hate myself even typing that. i swear, i thought it was like a 12 hour bug and he was totally over it. if he had acted funny at ALL that morning i would never have done it. i promise. MERCY!!!

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i got back home and went to bed. at about 11:45 i checked my phone which had been on silent and saw i had a missed call. from the church. i about hurled right there. sure enough, it was the nursery, judah had barfed and jesse was leading worship on stage and they needed me to come back and get him. oh wait, they left that message 30 minutes ago. by this point it was too late to go get him (jesse would be done by the time i got there) and they had been stuck with a sick baby the whole time while shitty mom had snuck away to sleep and not even gone to church. oh WHAT is wrong with me?

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the rest of the day was spent wallowing in paralyzing guilt and perfectly clear hindsight. would the other kids get sick now? would i ever be allowed to use the nursery again? was i allowed to go to church or believe in jesus still or would that be revoked too? it was one of those things that seemed seriously fine on the front end and then looking back just made me go, "how could you have EVER thought that was a good idea!?!?!?!" i did write and apologize to my former friend the nursery coordinator, but i still don't think i will be showing my face in church for a few weeks. oh the shame.
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judah was great all the rest of the day and active and happy and once again we would have never known that anything weird had happened in nursery at all if, you know, it hadn't. when let him have a bottle instead of just pedialyte and crackers that evening and as we were getting him in the tub and as we approached another 12 hour vomit-free span, he let the whole thing rip again. projectile out of the nose and mouth. so sad. we popped him in the tub, then gave him some more pedialyte and put him to bed. we cranked up the monitor and lined his crib with towels, fully expecting a few spells. well, he was perfect all night, only waking up for a few sips of hydration. jesse is staying home with him today and he has been perfectly fine the whole time.

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i can say that i have definitely learned my lesson(s):

1. no using the nursery unless at least one guardian is ALWAYS available to extract him in an emergency.

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2. no putting him in anyone else's unsuspecting care if he has been sick with in TWENTY FOUR hours (not a sketchy, rationalized twelve hours, stupid keight)

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3. the days when judah is annoying or stressing me out but he is healthy, i should NEVER take for granted.

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4. being a mom means you don't really get a mothers' day when your baby needs you. deal with it, your baby never signed a holidays contract.

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5. being a mom is totally and completely worth it even in times like these and i love the little guy even more now that i have been baptized in his vomit.

home a phobic

since jesse got to miss out on the fiasco of the first home showing, i was halfway hoping he would at some point get to experience the madness that went into it. well, i got my wish and it SUCKED.

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yesterday for the first time ever jesse left his phone at work. we rely almost exclusively on jesse for communication with the outside world since my phone will often lay untouched for days at a time. last night it sat in my purse in the kitchen and that's where it slept.

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the house is a wreck. i got so frustrated that the people who loved the house after the first showing always said they were coming back to see it again with their parents but never would. for about a week, we wouldn't leave the house unless it was pristine just in case that was the day they decided to come. then the home buyer credit deadline came and went so we figured it was all over. well, this week i got lena to call those people's realtor and pretend to be me and find out wtf was going on with them since i hate the phone and don't like talking to grownups. well before she ever called fake keight back, our own realtor told us she had heard that that couple was in fact still interested and wanted to come back "sometime." still not enough to get us to clean up. the downward spiral of cleanliness continued. then judah got sick 2 days ago and when there's a sick baby, the wheels really come off at our house. i will tell you that right now there is a rectal thermometer on the end table in the living room with the vaseline still on it (please don't faint mom or lori).

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so i am halfway to work this morning and i decide to look down at my phone to see if anyone called (highly unlikely). oh look, there's a text from our realtor. naturally i am not worried since she's probably just writing to tell us that the original couple is dead or somtehing plus, most showings are in the afternoon and we'd have time to go home and clean if it was someone new. oh wait, they want to come between 10-12 TODAY. as in, in 2 hours (why aren't these people at WORK!?!?). so i call jesse who is still at home to tell him that he will get to live my hell except instead of lena to help, he gets judah, and then i remember he has no phone. AHHHHHHHHHHHH.

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aside: the reason we didn't just say no to the showing today is because we are only leaving the house on the market until june so we want to give it every possible chance to sell by then. since it will take the builder 5 months max to build our new house and i am due to deliver on 11/13 (and judah was a week early) i refuse to be caught homeless when this baby hits. it is going to be hard enough living outside of our own place with just one toddler running around. living with people can be very challenging and while we appreciate beyond words the dukes' letting us live with them while the new house is being built, and i know we will all survive it admirably; if i had to do it with judah and a newborn and postpartum me, everyone would end up in mental hospital and jail.

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the first month or so of having a new baby mostly consists of me crying and running around the house with no bra on so that the boobs will be 100% accessible to the newborn. can you imagine me in this state at my in-laws' house, confined to just a room or two with my father in law on the premises as well? and that's not even mentioning the times when judah will be home with me too. oh my gosh i am sweating right now just thinking about that. but it won't happen because if it's not sold by june, we are taking our house off the market until after the baby is born and things settle down. our current house is by no means unlivable with two kids. also we very much want to preserve the dukes' mental image of me as "non-lunatic" and living with me postpartum would swiftly and violently disabuse them of this notion. no thanks.

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back to this morning after i get the text. i swing the car around (p.s. our whole town smells like honeysuckles right now, it's amazing) and head home. jesse says, "what did you forget?" and i say, "i forgot the worst and best news ever." so we decide i'll take judah to school in 30 minutes and jesse will clean the house and mow the lawn (NOT the newspapers). we fly into mary poppins mode.

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during our cleaning one of the cats comes in for the first time in about a week since we have exiled them outdoors until the house sells and promptly barfs all over the kitchen floor. thanks, buddy! i scream bloody murder for jesse who cleans it up while dry heaving to high heaven. i tackle the dishes in the sink and, oops, it looks like the pot that melted the bleu cheese and cream cheese for the buffalo dip last sunday hasn't been touched since then and has created stinky ass cheese fumes (total draw for home buyers right there). i start retching uncontrollably.

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by the time i got judah out the door for school the house was looking pretty good. no rotten cheese or cat vomit...hmmm, but hopefully jesse spotted the rectal therm. jesse just had to sweep and mop and vacuum and then mow the lawn. and he had over an hour to do this. so help me, if these people don't show up, i am taking the feline-vom and the cheese and the rectal particles in a ziploc bag over to their current living quarters and leaving them under their pillows.

friends in online places

so far, i can honestly say that blogging has been a 100% positive experience for me. sure i get stressed sometimes when lena sends me an email that says "weak post" or i feel like i am slacking or letting people down. i have met a surprisingly lot of new friends, reconnected with old and random ones and been able to come out from my own shadows of people i stalked to actually interact with them. in addition, blogging has played a huge part in my decision to learn to sew, to cook more and better, save money, live (even more) transparently, and of course the best thing it has done is to make our family mission statement "more than surviving" (though the magic has been shelved the past few weeks in favor of my survival. i have also been really lucky to never have to moderate (aka reject) a mean or hateful comment from an internet "troll," although i know that won't last forever and when it happens i will probably cry.

it sounds so cheesy to call this internet nonsense that we do "a community." but last friday it straight up was one for us. so you remember how me and jesse were in a huge fight that had me considering sleeping at work (i mean at night, not just during my normal work naptime)? WELL, i decided we really needed a date night at the last minute and posted an appeal on facebook to anyone who lives near us and might be willing to keep judah for a few hours. we won't even mention the fact that the bug is a huge crowd pleaser and got tons of responses. what i will mention is that within 4 minutes of posting that, i had a reply from newfriend lori b. offering to take him to her son's t-ball game and to dinner with her family so that jesse and i didn't start divorce proceedings.

this is cool. so we have hung out with lori and her husbo, evan, a few times in real life. once at a marriage retreat in 2006 and then again just recently at a mutual friend's house to watch the acc championship football game. they are another GT couple who also were really involved at CCF and we have tons of mutual friends (so in case they kidnapped judah, i'd at least know where to find them to visit him occasionally). but i am pretty sure she wouldn't have offered (or maybe i wouldn't have accepted so readily) if it hadn't been through our blogs and the interactions we have recently had through them.

good to her word, lori grabbed judah and partied with him for about 4 hours on friday. he came home in perfect condition, had a blast with their fam and the t-ball team and apparently ate and charmed everything in sight.

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looking fat and happy with one of lori's adorable kids and her babe of a husband (just saying!) who is kicking thyroid cancer's ass as we speak

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jesse and i used this blessedly unexpected free time to reach a wonderful cease-fire. it wasn't one of our kick ass die-to-myself for the sake of jesus reconciliations, but it was a good solid meeting of minds where we agreed that we were both totally spent (from illness, pregnancy, work, parenting, etc.) and that we had nothing to give which was why we had slipped into enemy mode and away from teammates (that mindset is SOOOOOOO freaking important in our marriage). it was fun. i sat on the same side of the booth as him, which we normally make fun of schmoopy couple who do this, but it was so that we had to be touching during the conversation, which makes it way harder to be cold and shut down toward someone while your legs are rub-a-dubbing.

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it was so cool that someone who isn't necessarily in one of our physical communities (yet!) reached out and positively impacted our marriage because of a connection made through blogs. that's cool, right?

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in another fun turn of events, i used a recipe from lori's blog to positively impact my weight gain and mood on sunday night. she made this suh-LAM-in dip that time we hung out with them last fall and so when i found her blog i begged her to post the recipe. she did oh so kindly HERE. for several weeks i was too feeble to even contemplate boiling chicken, but as my first comeback act of this pregnancy, we cooked her buffalo dip! my thoughts on it:

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it's outrageously good; think a chicken wing dipped in just the right amount of sauce and dressing and then all blended up with none of the work of having to gnaw around the bones. dear gosh. it does require something of a penance in the digestive department, but it is totally worth it. jesse and i have been eating it every day since sunday (maybe it would be better to take it to a party rather than stuffing our own faces with it). one thing i would change is to just heat the cream cheese separately from the dressing since the kind of dressing we got started separating out from its own oil content and just looked kind of weird. maybe it was the brand i got. next time i will heat the cream cheese until it's smooth and then stir in the dressing off the heat. i took in some leftovers to work and the people here flipped their snot over it. my boss actually closed his eyes and bowed his head.

ok, so maybe it looks like rabbit entrails...but remember anything with that shade of orange grease=heaven!

thank you so much lori for everything from your blogging honesty to your childcare and diarrhea-inducing deliciousness! everyone, go out and make a bloggy buddy today! (see? i got rainbows)