Kindergerms.

Our family finally received our fair share of what my friend M calls "Kindergerms." Seems a nasty case of the stomach flu has been floating around, and while it's not affecting the kids so much, it's hitting the parents hard. Luckily for me, it was only a 24 hour thing, although I still feel super tired and out of it.

The gory details:

One never wants to start one's stomach flu while at work, especially when the only way home is public transportation, which takes about 45 minutes to get one home. Sadly, this was the case for me. I was feeling really weird beginning about 10am Monday morning, and I kept saying how I felt bad and I didn't feel right, etc. etc.. My husband and I walked to get sandwiches, and while we were walking, I declared again that I didn't feel right. I was hungry, I just wasn't feeling normal at all. We ate our sandwiches, I went back to my desk, pumped some milk, and then started really feeling badly. My co-worker came along, I told her again I didn't feel good, so she went and bought me a Sprite to drink. I drank that, but I still couldn't shake off the bad feelings. She and my husband both told me to go home, but I jokingly said I would when I threw up.

About 2ish I decided I should head on home. So as I was packing up, my stomach did a few flip flops and off I ran to the bathroom. The two people in the bathroom left right before the chunks flew, so I got to throw up in peace. I cleaned up, got my stuff, told my husband I was leaving and that I just threw up, and headed on to BART. I was hoping beyond hope that I would just pass out on BART and not have to throw up.

Of course, because I was in desperate need to get home, the BART train started experiencing delays. By the time we were almost at Fruitvale, I knew I was going to throw up again. I asked the lady next to me to move, and she jokingly said something about how many bags I was carrying. I grunted at her and headed to the doors. I stood there, breathing in deeply, hoping the train would hurry up into the station when it slowed down and stopped. This was exactly when I had the urge to throw up, so I started gagging, but managed to keep it down. As soon as the doors opened at the station, I ran out, saw that the garbage cans had funky lids on them that couldn't be taken off, so I sat down on a bench, dropped all my bags, and was trying to get a plastic bag out so I could throw up in it instead of on the platform. No such luck.

After throwing up twice, I called my mom, asked her to pick of Mr. Mateo from daycare and bring him to our condo because I was afraid I'd get everyone sick or throw up on everyone. (Thanks, Mom!!!!!!) I got on the next Fremont train, managed to sit in a seat near the door where I didn't have to ask anyone to get out of my way, and made it the rest of the way to Fremont without incident.

When I got to Fremont, I carefully walked to our car, which was parked 100 miles away (okay, it wasn't, but it seemed like it), and tried my hardest to not throw up again. I drove myself home, and as soon as I started walking towards our condo building, I knew I was going to toss my cookies again. I walked by two ladies talking to each other. I had planned ahead this time and was holding the plastic bag I was supposed to throw up in at the BART station but didn't, so I was hoping I would get far enough away from the ladies before I had to throw up in the plastic bag. Or, better yet, just get in the darn condo and throw up in my own bathroom and stop throwing up in public places. No such luck.

I made it pretty close to the door to get into our building when I had to throw up again. So I did. And again. And again. When I was finished, I let myself into the building, then into our condo, moaned and groaned enough to freak out my cats and cleaned myself up again. I sat on the couch, waiting for my mom to show up with Mr. Mateo. When they came, and then my mom left, I got myself settled until my husband came home.

And, as with most things, my husband ended up getting it at about 2am, so I was in charge of Mr. Mateo for most of the day. I was feeling much better by morning time, just really tired and had a headache, so it was okay. Mr. Mateo was a super good boy all day and took two good naps with me.

So now I really have no shame. Throwing up at the BART station pretty much tops everything at this point. Stupid Kindergerms!

I guess that's what I get.

Last night Mateo slept from about 8:30 on without waking once. I'm still on Mateo schedule, so I woke up at 4am wondering what he was doing and if he was okay. So I went into his room and looked at him, and he was sleeping on his belly but having a stuffy nose hard time of breathing. I thought I should just leave him alone and so I went back to bed.

I heard him through the monitor, rustling around and sniffling, so I went back in to check on him. He was still passed out on his belly and still stuffed up.

So me being the new mom that I am, I decided to wake him up and start suctioning the snot out of his nose. He's now learned what the bulb means as well as the bottle of Little Noses (saline spray) -- I'm going to stick something up his nose and make him really mad. As soon as he saw the bulb, he started crying and moving his head around. I proceeded to play the catch Mateo's nostrils game, suctioned out some of the snot in one nostril while he was crying and squealing, until I got what I could out of his nose. I decided to forgo the Little Noses because it was way too early to begin torturing him. Instead, I thought it would be a good idea to feed him since he hadn't eaten since 7:30-8pm the night before.

Mateo ate like he was starving, and when he was finished, I put him over my shoulder to burp him. He burped. Then a rumbly noise started in his belly, he burped again, and all the milk he just took down came right back up. I had visions of The Exorcist and pea soup, wondering when his demon was going to start talking to me. "You, you stupid new mom who wakes up her sleeping child to suction snot out of his nose -- this is what you get!!!"

I put him down on my lap to clean off his face and then put him on the changing pad to take off his PJs, which were soaked. I felt a wetness on my butt, so I looked down, and it looked like I had just peed my pants. My shorts were soaked and my t-shirt had milk all over it on the front. I quickly went over to the chair and realized the chair was also soaked where my wet butt would have been and on the arm of the chair.

I went back over to Mateo to clean him off and stuck him in the crib so I could go and fetch my glasses so I could see what I was doing. My husband was awake because of all the yowling from the nose suctioning, and I told him what happened, so he came in to help me clean up.

When we went back into his room, Mateo gave us one of his big, toothless, cheesy smiles, indicating that everything was a-okay on his part, but that this meant he now was going to weasel his way into bed with us since he and I were wide awake and would need a half an hour or more to find our way back to slumber land.

So. New mom lesson learned #1004: When your baby is sleeping, even if he's got a stuffy nose, leave him alone. He'll wake up on his own, either because he's done sleeping or because he's hungry. And if his nose is really a problem, he'll let you know that too. Babies are funny that way.

So sad for me.

How come when you survive your first week after having your baby, you can't wait for your baby to fall asleep on his/her own, without crying, without having to be rocked or held, without much fuss what's so ever, and then when it finally happens, you're completely saddened by the fact that your baby doesn't need all of the above anymore?

The story of my life.

I might not do much, but boy I am tired.

So yesterday I think all the getting up during the night, getting up super early each day, going to work in SF, taking care of Mateo, myself and husband (oh yeah, and them pesky cats) finally caught up with me. I was extremely tired the whole day, and no matter how much coffee I pumped into my body, I couldn't shake off the tiredness.

When my husband got home, I kept saying how tired I was, that I was super tired, why am I so tired??? After we all ate, I took Mateo into his room to read to him and then put him to sleep. An hour later, my husband came into the room to find me and Mateo passed out in the glider.

My husband told me to put him down and to take my shower. I put Mateo down in the crib, went into our room, saw it was almost 8:45 and promptly put myself to bed -- still clothed, with make-up on and contacts in and teeth sill waiting to be brushed. My husband came in and looked at me and I guess decided it was better to leave me alone than to try to get me up.

At 9:30ish I woke up again and decided I had to at least take out my contacts, wash my face and brush my teeth before really retiring for the night. Usually eating dinner gets left in the wind when I have crazy nights, but last night, I decided I didn't need a shower. It not like I did much to make myself dirty. And since I was working at home the next day, well, I just didn't really care.

So in my super tired zombie state, I got up and took care of the important things and then put myself to bed again. During the time I entered Mateo's room until the time I last put myself to sleep, I kept thinking I didn't get my dessert and how sad that was. No Skinny Cow for me last night. Dessert is mighty important, don't you know?

And what was the first thing my husband asked me this morning when he came back from the gym? "Did you take your shower?" Get off of it! I'm stinky and I don't care!

Replacing the old with the new.

Bare with me. I'm tired of reading code in order to add new page elements, so I switched to the new blogger platform where you can easily add page elements. I've lost some of my fun stuff and links, but they will be back. Oh yes, they will be back.

Woooweee!

Another benefit of breastfeeding: Being excused from jury duty for one full year!

Vagisil

Tonight when we were watching TV, a commercial came on that I tuned into while I was looking stuff up on my computer. It said something about women not feeling like themselves, so I turned and looked at the TV and a dead lobster was being shown. I turned and looked at my husband and stared at him like, "What the hey?" and he just started laughing his head off. This commercial was for Vagisil itch cream. Basically it was saying that women's nether regions smell like dead lobsters.

Um. Okay. Makes me wonder who's running the company. Either a female with a really wicked and twisted sense of humor who thinks it's perfectly fine to compare a women's nether regions to crustaceans or a man. I'm thinking man.

What happened to the tuna?

Tomorrow is our anniversary.

My wedding anniversary is tomorrow. We'll be married 8 years. We'll have been together for 13 years going on 14 (I think -- after a point, you really do stop counting, I guess).

This is the first year our wedding anniversary means nothing more than an addition to how many years we've been married. Not that it's not special, but for me, Father's Day is more fun this year than our anniversary.

Okay, warning -- here comes the sappy part: The best anniversary gift ever is Mateo. Just last year, almost a year ago to be exact, I found out I was pregnant with Mateo. Talk about changing our lives forever.

Happy Anniversary my goofy and wonderful husband. I think we've done a good job so far, let's hope we keep it up!

Number 1 question I'm starting to hate (and the close second).

1. Does he sleep all night?

and

2. I bet you miss him, huh?