Why Moms can't get sick.

First reason, and the most obvious: The world....seems....to....just...fall....apart.

Poof! All common sense is gone cause mom's got a massive headache, sore throat and is completely disengaged from her body, mind and reality.

Second reason: The momless child simply won't eat. Why? Because mom usually takes care of this and so if she's off being sick, then momless child only gets slices of cheese for lunch.

Okay. I could go on and on, but why don't I just tell my little tale of me getting sick on Friday and how this drastically screwed up our weekend.

For some reason, me telling my husband that I had a sore throat, killer headache and swollen, painful lymph nodes wasn't enough of an indication that I was sick. He did tell me Friday morning he thought it was from the smokey atmosphere outside and that I wasn't really sick. I said I don't think my nodes would be hurting this much if it was just the air outside.

It wasn't until Saturday morning, when I finally dragged my sick and tired butt out of bed at 7:30ish (answering the screams and wails of my poor momless child), that my husband finally "got" that I was sick. And why? Because I sad I had a cold.

"You didn't say that yesterday!" he said to me.

I looked at him.

"What did I say yesterday?" I asked.

"You said you weren't feeling well."

"And what is the difference???" I asked.

Our poor momless child was acting like a complete wild fussy boy because my husband was trying to get him to take a nap. Seems Mateo woke up before 4am and my husband couldn't get him back to sleep. It was obvious Mateo was tired. But it was also obvious that something else was wrong.

"What has he eaten?" I asked.

"Eaten? Well....he's a had a lot of milk," he told me. He said this like it was something Mateo did on his own. Like it was his choice to drink a lot of milk.

He continued, "And a cereal bar."

Let's see. A lot of milk and one cereal bar. He's been up since before 4am, and it's now 7:30am. By now, if I had been up with him, he would of had a cereal bar, a banana and some yogurt. Not all at once, but definitely all three within three hours.

"He's acting this way because he's tired and hungry," I said. "There is no way he'll go down unless he's got a full belly."

"But he's tired," my husband told me.

"I know, but he won't settle down until his belly is full." I got up and went into the kitchen to get him some yogurt. I fed him the yogurt, and then we went into the living room to eat the banana. My husband was back in bed due to the lack of sleep. And yes, I know how it is because I do this same get up really early every Saturday and Sunday routine with Mateo, and I too am very tired after just a few hours of being up. So that's why, even though I was dead tired and sick and just wanted to go back to bed myself, I told my husband to go sleep and get some rest.

Mateo took a nice two hour nap after he ate all his breakfast.

Later my husband decided to take Mateo to the Mall and to return some things at Target. I had just woken up from a nap, so I didn't know what was going on during my sleep. Since the breakfast incident worried me, the first thing I wanted to know was if Mateo had lunch.

"Did he eat lunch yet?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah. He had two slices of cheese and a banana."

Okay. Two slices of cheese and a banana. While that might sound like a lot, that's definitely not enough food nor the right kind of food a growing toddler needs. Mateo was acting very similar to the way he was in the morning: feet stomping, body throwing, wails and cries.

"You might want to bring some snacks with you," I said. On second thought, I realized I couldn't send Mateo out into the world the way he was acting. I wanted to teach my husband a lessen that kids actually do need to sit down and eat, otherwise they act like complete brats, but I love my baby too much to let him out while hungry. "Actually, I think he's hungry and needs to eat."

My husband huffed, began washing the tray to his high chair, and I started heating up some food for Mateo. Mateo gladly sat down to his meal, ate and then declared himself finished by tossing food on the floor.

Today went much better even though I didn't do my normal things I do, like getting up with Mateo (while I did try, I was told to go back to bed), and feeding him, and playing with him, and doing the normal morning routine things until my husband was back from the gym. I think my husband finally got that Mateo needs to eat more than one item per mealtime with plenty of snacks in between.

I still don't get how the whole world seemed to fall apart because I wasn't up and doing my normal weekend stuff. I still don't get why I wasn't believed when I said I was sick. And I still don't get why when my husband is sick, he can lay around, watching TV or sleeping, but when I get sick, I'm a bother because I can't think straight and just need to rest.

With that all said, it's another good reason why we didn't go to Monterey this weekend. Sickness, fires and being stressed out are all fine reasons to stay home.

Now I realize why having another baby now would not be a good idea.

Besides the fact that we simply can't afford one.

Mateo got sick yesterday. We weren't sure how bad it was, if it was a real cold or if it was from teething (which I'm no longer convinced is happening), and how his night was going to go. We had plans to go out to dinner, so we cancelled those, and brought the dinner to us via take-out, which is the only way to go for us these days. Despite his huffy puffy belly breathing, we got him to sleep okay. But then, an hour later, he woke up all upset. Got him back to sleep again.

This is when I should have just went to bed myself.

He woke up at 10ish, and it took forever to get him back to sleep. I took on mommy duty of taking care of her huffy puffy coughy whining little boy. He and I got little sleep last night.

Some of last night's highlights include: him almost puking on my head (I was on the floor, next to his crib, so I could monitor him - good job I did), realizing he had already puked in another spot in his crib, having to clean up said puke and child (I did crib, dad did child, I almost tossed my cookies a bazillion times -- why does throw up have to smell soooo bad???), moving into the living room, sleeping on his play mat, ripping a hole in my PJ bottoms somehow - I remembering hearing it, but not how it happened (husband informs me this morning, when he came into the room to ask me to watch Mateo, that I need to throw my PJ bottoms away - apparently my big rip offended him so), moving Mateo back into his crib and me just...giving....up and heading back to my bed.

My husband took on morning duty so I could sleep more since I think I got about 2 hours of very interrupted sleep before going back to bed.

Now Mateo's in his crib, taking the first of many naps today, all the while coughing (and hopefully not throwing up).

And here I sit, imagining if I did have a baby or had a wee one in the oven and how last night would have gone, especially if I had to nurse my imaginary baby. Yeah....no thanks.

Gifts are nice.

My husband gave me the gift of sleep today.

Mateo was sick Monday and Tuesday, and because of that, I didn't get any sleep. I was up at 2am Monday morning and then 1am on Tuesday morning. I didn't follow my rule of "sleep when the baby sleeps," during the days I was home with him, mostly because I got hooked on some interesting mom blogs (Playgroups are no place for children, 5 Minutes for Mom, some various others), and since I get up between 4am and 4:30am all other days (except for the weekends, and that's usually 5am - 6am), I was pretty darn tuckered out and running on 'E' yesterday. I also caught a bit of Mateo's bug, and it's mostly affecting my head by making it feel like a giant cotton ball and making me feel rather lethargic in general.

Mateo decided he wanted to get up at 4:30am this morning, and since I didn't wake up during the night when Mateo woke up crying and my husband got up and took care of him, I thought I should at least be nice and get up to take care of Mateo in the wee hours of the morning. I got probably a half hour snooze with him before my husband got up and told me to go sleep. I told him to go to the gym and I would sleep when he came home, so off he went like the good little "I love to exercise" husband that he is.

Then I took NyQuil.

And then I slowly removed myself from the living room and went to bed. This was at 12:30pm. The next time I made an appearance was at 6pm.

While I needed the sleep, I don't really feel any better. And since my husband spent his whole day with Mateo and he doesn't really know how to spend a day with Mateo while living a normal life (the "I have a VIP visitor and must attend to his needs every second of the day" syndrome), he now needs a day for himself and I shall be attending to Mr. Mateo all day Sunday. Fair is fair.

Surprise gifts are nice. Especially when I don't end up feeling guilty for taking them willingly.

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!