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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Pass the Sudafed, please.

Illness has swept through the house, yet again. We used to have a pretty good track record when it came to illnesses. Husband rarely ever got sick, and when I did, it was usually once or twice in the winter. Nothing major. Now, however, we’re sick at least twice a month. We’re sick so much, it’s boring. We’re sick so much, our colds get colds. Around here, a phone call with your concerned relative might go something like this:

“Hi, honey. You sound sick. Do you still have that cold?”

“Oh, I was better for two days. This is a new one.”

Now, whenever a week of solid wellness goes by, I begin to look at my watch and wait for it, the Inevitable Cold, and I start appreciating the little things, like breathing out of both nostrils at the same time. I know that, before long, I will yet again become a blubbering fountain of snot and the baby will become a fussing, napless maniac. Collin always seems to come down with his colds overnight. He will be a little clingy and sleepy one day, and then at night I will notice, with each increasing night wakening, that his poor little nose is stuffier and stuffier. He starts coughing and sputtering, tossing and turning. Then, morning will come, and he will sit straight up in bed and look at me with this glazed, disoriented look in his eyes, panting to catch his breath from the boogers that have clogged his nose. He always looks so confused, as if he wants to say, “Why do I feel so lousy?“  And somehow he always looks sadly disheveled, with his hair sticking out in every direction and his nose swollen, runny, and pink. My poor boy.

I’m thinking about ordering a custom “Quarantined”  sign to hang on our door. So what do I do during all this sick time?  I make gallons of chicken soup. Yep, you heard me right. Gallons. There is a whole chicken simmering in two gallons of water in my stock pot right now. On top of that, there is a whole bag of soup from the last round of colds hanging out in the freezer (which wrapped itself around the iron rack shelf and froze like that, so now I have to take the whole shelf out to de-thaw the soup. Lesson learned) along with blocks and blocks of broth that I froze in little square baby food trays. Being sick so much has given me the great opportunity to practice my Jewish mother chicken soup-making skills. I’m not sure why I go so overboard with the soup, other than “overboard” seems to be my style. I will say that nothing makes a sick body feel comforted like a hot bowl of chicken soup. Let’s just hope your stomach isn’t feeling sick, though, because the process of making broth makes the whole house stink to high heaven.
 Come to think of it, it’s possible Collin has a tummy ache, because he has been farting in a way that would make his farty parents proud lately. He is a true member of the family now. Of course, his little baby farts are adorable and smell like cotton candy.

Maybe that last part was a bit of an exaggeration.

Anyway, moving on, when we got back from our visit to Southern California, there was a video baby monitor waiting for us. Huzzah! A video baby monitor! I derive great pleasure from watching Collin sleep, as if I don’t get to do that often enough by co-sleeping with him. Sometimes he will wake up and crawl around in bed, as if looking for me. The down side, though, is that at night the monitor uses night vision, which makes it look as if my baby has a starring role in Paranormal Activity. Sometimes, I watch it a little anxiously, as if something seriously freaky were about to happen. Somehow, I wouldn’t be surprised, as this house is over 100 years old. Don’t make me get all Ghost Busters on your asses, house spirits.

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