Week #4, Day 2

Three weeks postpartum and I catch a cold.  Nine months and not a single bug or asthma attack and now I get sick.  I suppose it was only fair since I was sick as hell with pregnancy related issues - a virus on top of that would have been the straw that broke the camel's back.  I took some Tylenol last night to fight off the sore throat and Googled "maternal illness and newborns".  I'm not supposed to touch John's hands or kiss him.  Yeah, right.  At least I breastfeed, so he's still getting all those good antibodies and, fingers crossed, he won't get much more than the snotty nose he's already appeared to develop.  He's very co-operative with letting me shoot saline up his nose and then come at him with the nasal aspirator.  I keep telling him Mommy knows best and he seems to be buying it.  Now if he'd just listen to me when I tell him that burping would help his tummy, we'd be all set.

He officially got kicked out of our room on Saturday night.  Of course, this was the day after the leg extensions for the co-sleeper arrived (to the tune of $9 shipping).  He lasted about as long as Henry did.  Dave and I couldn't deal with the grunting and groaning or the middle of the night or the over-tired snapping at each other any longer.  He'd nurse, we'd swaddle him up, put him down and then listen to him make noise for a hour before he'd fall into a quite sleep.  I can't sleep if my boys make any noises.  Thunder storms, yes, but I wake up at the slightest cough from Henry behind two oak bedroom doors.  I guess it's one of those mother things.  We're all much happier this way.  Mom and Dad are sleeping longer and Johnny the Noisy Sleeper isn't getting poked with a Nuk or picked up in an effort to quiet him down.  We can hear him if he cries but not when he grunts.  Again - sleep like a baby?  Really?  Puh-leeze!

After complaining about why schools squelch diversity rather than celebrate it, we find out just yesterday that Henry has a sort of holiday program at school today.  Technically, it's an "all-school sing-a-long" and parents are invited.  Dave is on his way home so we can all go.  During the month of December, we saw via the weekly kindergarten schedule that he has been learning about winter holidays.  Henry points out candles in windows and announces that they must be celebrating Kwanzaa.  We also learned that Baby Cheese-us was born in a stable.  Of course, the heathens that Dave and I are, we are now referring to Cheddar Cheese-us, Swiss Cheese-us and Monetary Jack Cheese-us.

I'm having mixed emotions about where Facebook has taken me.  I've found a few old friends from high school but I've also found myself hooked up with the folks that are organizing the 20 year reunion.  I bitched about not being invited to the 10 year reunion even though there was no way in hell I would have gone.  I wasn't married yet, lived in the same metro area many of us wound up in and my parents lived in the same house they did when I graduated.  To be honest, I figured the cliques had kept the party to themselves - that's just the way my high school was.  Now I'm on the radar and I'm not sure what to think of it.  I might consider it now if only because I'm more of what would be considered successful.  Happily married with children and a job that would make many of them do a double-take rather than a full-time stoner who was angry at the world (I'm only part-time now and, even though I'm still full of angst, it's more productive at this point).  That and the fact that, after looking at pictures of my fellow grads, I look way younger and far cuter than most of them (especially now that I've lost a ton of weight).  Seriously, people - big bangs were so 1989.  Put the ultra-hold away!!!

I had a conference call regarding my end of year bonus yesterday and I'm a pretty happy camper.  After telling me I really turned things around the second half of the year, they gave me more than I got last December.  I bit my tongue after that comment and said thank you.  I got screwed on my mid-year bonus because of my hyperemesis with Johnny.  The fact that I was at home, hooked up to IV's with daily nurse visits was considered poor job performance.  The world of stock markets is still a stupid fucking boys club.  Johnny was the first baby born to a female employee in over 10 years at my firm and they are pretty insensitive to complications.  At least they gave him a gift - a Vermont Teddy Bear with his name and birthday on the bib.  Part of me wishes they would have just given him a $70 gift card to Target with which we could have bought diapers.  It is really cute, though.  I'm sure Waylon the Cat will enjoy making love to it.