Three Years

Today's post was supposed to be about this past year -- the challenges, the privileges, the tiny details that I struggle to remember as I watch my baby turn more and more into a big boy, a child, a little person. Assembling a year's worth of video clips yesterday put that sharply into focus, as oh, he's so big and long and lean now, so different than last year, when I also lamented the loss of my baby and oh, how big and long and lean he was.

But then this morning his school called. He's not feeling very well, and he wants nothing in the world right now except to lie in bed with me, while I hold him and rub his back and head and sing the same songs I've been singing for the past three years.

Today, he is still my baby. And he will be tomorrow and the day after that, and for the rest of his life, and what a wonderful challenge and privilege that is.

Happy birthday, buddy. We'll get you feeling better in no time, I promise.

Noah's third birthday from amalah on Vimeo.

A Placeholder, Which Last Year Would Have Been Monkey Themed & Professionally Iced

It suddenly appears that tomorrow is my firstborn son's third birthday. I have no idea how this happened, or why I could not give less of a shit about it.

Possibly because he has been VERY EXTREMELY MUCH THREE YEARS OLD for the past three months. Possibly because I finally see the benefit of having a child who doesn't yet understand birthdays or expect parties and gifts and I realize this may possibly be the last year I can get away with kind of ignoring the whole thing, other than: Here. Some relatives sent you toys. Have a cupcake.

Possibly because I am finally starting to get a grip on the fact that children get older no matter what you do, or maybe it's because I've got a smaller, better-smelling trade-in model coming in a couple weeks so fine! Grow up! Get all big and old, with your ACTUAL KNUCKLES ALL OF A SUDDEN INSTEAD OF FINGER DIMPLES OR WHATEVER! See if I care! I'm having a baby and THAT baby won't ever be three years old and in preschool and big boy pants and he'll never let his hair turn darker and not as curly so...here. Play with the giant awesome fire engine your uncle sent you. Mama has to go cry for awhile. And she's taking the rest of the cupcakes with her.

Online, of course, I must document this momentous and wondrous milestone like I have done every year -- with a scrapbook-worthy entry of hot bubbling sap and a little video montage thing. Those are the rules. I cannot argue with the rules. Especially the rules that I have arbitrarily set for myself. I can only gaze at a pile of unlabeled video tapes, 17 different memory cards from at least four different cameras, two laptop computers and then confront the fact that I was really lazy this year and uploaded pretty much every photograph I've taken into the Downloads folder and never organized anything by date or subject and oh my God, this could take awhile.

In other words, this is not really a real entry today, because I have to go wrastle with iMovie and USB cables in the grand name of tradition.

We're also going to need some cupcakes.

37 Weeks & the Mythic Pelvis

So I had an OB appointment this week. On Wednesday, actually. Those of you on Twitter might have seen one or two or three or seven hundred GAR ANGRY POKING! PHONE! KEYBOARD! REALLY! HARD! messages about it, and yet only now, two days later, do I feel calm enough to talk about.

Not because of any news I received at the visit -- as expected, all that false labor did absolutely nothing and my cervix is settled in for a nice long snug winter -- but because the office was running over TWO HOURS behind schedule. Two hours! And of course, they were not calling patients to let them know about the delay, but instead chose to let our bodies pile up in the waiting room.

Naturally, my appointment time was already much later in the morning than usual, so I was already cutting it close with the preschool pick-up time. I'd arranged for Noah to eat lunch at school -- buying myself an extra half hour or so -- but eventually the receptionist just told me to go ahead and pick him up at school. And then come back. You know, to WAIT SOME MORE.

This meant my first official late-stage prenatal visit -- the kind where you no longer wear pants -- involved trying to wrangle a cranky almost-three-year-old (without a diaper bag, without juice or snacks or toys and also AT NAPTIME) while holding a paper drape around my ass, begging him to please sit on that chair and not touch that super-expensive ultrasound machine, yes yes, I SEE THE BUTTONS. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE BUTTONS.

My 11:20 appointment was finally over sometime after 1:30, and I screamed the words to "Row Row Your Boat" at the top of my lungs the entire way home because as God is my witness, you will NOT nap until we are home and your ass is in bed; Mama has big plans to spend the rest of the day staring blankly at the ceiling.

In actual baby news, he's very high up. Still. Despite a noticeable downward slope to my belly, once again my bear trap of a pelvis is keeping my uterus from actually dropping like it's supposed to. After rooting around up in *there* for awhile, my doctor nodded and informed me that surprise, I appear to still own the exact same narrow pelvis as last time. (I really did mean to get around to a trade-in, but I was waiting for a more fuel-efficient hybrid model to come on the market.)

It was around this point in my last pregnancy that my doctor first mentioned that he saw a c-section as a definite possibility for me. Unless my pelvis did some amazing parting-of-the-Red-Sea action during labor, he was concerned that I was simply not built for a vaginal birth. I, of course, proceeded to pitch a total hissy fit about it, and then pitched ANOTHER hissy fit when a small minority of people told me that a narrow pelvis was a MYTH and a LIE and that women's bodies never grow babies too big for them to deliver (FACT!) and that any doctor who suggests a c-section before you've gone into labor is a lying liar who should be disbarred or whatever they do to doctors who shouldn't be allowed to practice medicine anymore. Taken out back and shot, maybe.

(Not that Stupid & Annoying is confined to the Internet, or anything, as I once had someone ask me about Noah's birth, and after I provided the cursory details -- 10 pound baby, narrow pelvis, the laws of physics and basic geometry, emergency c-section -- they suspiciously looked me up and down and said that was interesting, since I certainly didn't look all that small or narrow, stopping just short of accusing my doctor of childbirth-related vanity sizing.)

Anyway, not like it's a big surprise or anything, but the recommendation of a c-section still stands, and stands very strongly. Even if I were to go into labor tomorrow, it's unlikely I'd be able to deliver this baby without risking injury and complications for both of us. My doctor will support any decision I make, will not pressure me one way or another, but hi! I think I'd like to assume most of the risk in this birth scenario and get my little one out with minimal danger and damage to his presumably lovely little shoulders.

19 more days to go. I keep reminding myself that 19 days really isn't very long at all, and that every day he stays put is still wholly for the best right now, and that his birth will likely usher in a bona fide shitstorm of clusterfuckery and bleeding nipples and the urge to send Noah off to boarding preschool, and that I should enjoy and savor these final days of rolly roundness and fetal elbow pokes and yet OH MY GOD GET OOOOOUUUUUUUTTTTTTTT.

(For further evidence of the weird way my body carries its young, one can look right at those there jeans, which are regular old non-maternity pre-pregnancy jeans. Meanwhile, it takes the combined layering force of one extra-large mens' wifebeater and one large stretched-to-the-max maternity sweater to SORT OF cover the belly.)

(Don't forget the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see this jelly and cop a feel IN PERSON at the Sleep is for the Weak signing thingie tomorrow night.)

Homeward Bound in Sixty Seconds

This morning, my dog -- the dog I frequently threaten to give away and/or skin into a mitten, the dog who sees an open baby gate as a chance to poop in the basement, YAY BASEMENT POOPING IS THE FUNNEST POOPING OF ALL POOPING, who has apparently also been occasionally peeing on our dining room rug, and we didn't even realize that until we each grabbed a corner of it this weekend to move it to the other side of the room, OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL, the dog who eats the cat's food and steals waffles right off my child's plate, the dog who barks herself senseless every damn day when the mail comes and thinks all our guests are made out of ham, the dog who is the biggest eight-pound pain in the ass on the planet -- escaped out of our backyard.

We'd been calling for her inside the house -- I'd let her out in a half-asleep stupor and couldn't really remember letting her out. Did I let her out? There's waffles on the table and she's not frantically head-butting the back door to get at the waffles, so I must not have let her out. We muttered curse words about the baby gate and the basement but she wasn't there. We prodded her bed with our feet and poked lumps under our covers and kept listening for the sound of her collar. Noah happily mimicked our confused calls from the breakfast table. I opened the door to scan the backyard for what felt like the 10th time and finally noticed that the gate was open, just a little bit.

I screamed that the gate was open. Jason asked me what did I mean the gate was open. I screamed again that THE. GATE. WAS. OPEN.

I ran outside our house in a pair of nursing pajamas and Jason's Crocs, shouting her name, staring at the empty street and sidewalks and vast dog-less expanses of other people's yards, baffled that she wasn't patiently waiting by our front door like she has every time we've accidentally locked her outside when she slipped by our feet while we brought in groceries.

I ran this way and that, my voice echoing a little, blood pounding in my ears. My voice sounded weird and panicked as I called and called for her. Ceiba. Ceiba. Ceiba. Baby girl. Little dog. Please please please.

I rounded our fence corner and suddenly, there she was. Running towards me. She stopped a few feet away, probably trying to size up the heapload of trouble she was in, but it only made me start to cry and flash to every nightmare I've ever had about trying to catch a runaway pet. You see them, they stop, you're so close and then they bolt away again, and that's usually right when you discover that your shoes are made of cement.

She stopped for only a few seconds though, before closing the distance between us and letting me scoop her up. She smelled wet. Her paws were muddy and left footprints all over my giant belly. I took her back inside, where Jason was still struggling to put on pants and I realized that the whole terrible search ordeal had probably only lasted a minute or two.

She heard my voice, she came running. Like a good, good dog.

Totally scored herself a post-traumatic stress waffle afterward.

False Start

So...around 8:30 last night I had a contraction. I was standing on our bed, describing this great new color scheme and fancy painting technique I'm imagining for the bedroom, when I involuntarily yelped and clutched my ballooning belly. Jason raised his eyebrow and I clapped my hands together and sarcastically exclaimed, "Honey, it's time!" like pregnant women do in the movies.

Then I rolled my eyes and got back to the serious business of spending nonexistent money on hypothetical furniture.

Then five minutes later, I had another contraction.

And then another.

And this went on for awhile. Every five minutes. I drank some water. I sat down and put my feet up. I paced up and down the hallway.

After about an hour, they were still coming every five minutes or so, but didn't seem to be getting any worse. I decided to pack up my hospital bag anyway, panicking because I hadn't washed the baby's coming-home outfit yet. And the cameras weren't charged, and neither was my phone, and holy shit, MY TOENAILS.

I'd just put the finishing coat on my nails when the contractions stopped. Jason (who had been chugging caffeine and eating a variety of high-protein snacks downstairs while I occasionally reported on the state of my clenching uterus) looked pretty disappointed at the news.

And then everything started up again 20 minutes later.

By this point I was 99% sure we were dealing with false labor -- even though the contractions were coming at fairly regular intervals, they weren't consistent in intensity and weren't getting any worse, even though they'd been happening for hours. I kept trying to remember exactly how I felt in the hours before I knew I was "officially" in labor with Noah and was drawing a blank. Which is probably why I say stupid shit to pregnant women now about how "great" my labor was and how "empowering" it felt and whatever, it barely hurt at all! Menstrual cramps are worse! 'Tis a flesh wound!

In short, I was driving myself crazy, which is how I found myself on a dusty, never-used elliptical machine in our basement at 11:45 pm, hoping that if this was indeed IT and TIME, the exercise would get things progressing in a convincing manner.

Aaaaaaaand guess what! I'm still so totally fucking pregnant.

My bag is packed, at least. And I have every intention of finally starting to THINK about washing some baby clothes today. And oh, thank heavens, my toenails are painted. I mean, whew. Dodged quite a bullet there, Amy. How did you even sleep at night before?

AND NOW, A HOUSEKEEPING INTERLUDE...

The book signing thing! Is this Saturday. And unfortunately, there was some kind of snafu with the location and it's been moved from Vinoteca to the more child-friendly Caribou Coffee at 1400 14th St. NW. Time is the same, 5 - 7 pm. I know, I KNOW. I can't even drink and yet I am mourning the loss of the wine bar. FOR YOU. Sympathy alcohol pangs. But! It should still be pretty fun and casual and not scary and now Noah will be free to run around and charm you with his dimples and pirate talk. Or maybe he'll be a cranky standoffish jerk. You just never know how these popular blog offspring are gonna be. God, they think they're so awesome or whatever.

(Please come! Oh God.)

Also, I try not to barrage y'all with constant links to my paid ventures and all, but there's a giveaway on Mamapop right now for an entire year's supply of free Dove Beauty Products. Which I am like, really mad that I'm not allowed to enter, being that it's like, my job to pick a winner and all sorts of crap about "cheating" and "fairness." And all you have to do is leave a comment! That's it! (We get no money from the Dove people for this, by the way, it's just a really cool prize and if anyone deserves a year's supply of deodorant, it's YOU.)

Famous Last Words

FRIDAY:

"I don't think I've got the nesting thing as bad this time, you know?"

"Oh yeah, you're much calmer. You haven't even said a single word about replacing the kitchen cabinets."

SATURDAY:

I made us drive two states and like, four counties south to look at houses, because I thought we could cut our mortgage in half and get a single family home with a garage and a whirlpool tub in the master bath and you know what we could do with all that extra money every month? We could replace the kitchen cabinets! I am brilliant! This is a brilliant plan! I've got a stack of realtor.com printouts and a good feeling about this one zip code, which is ridiculously extra cheap and I'm guessing it's just because other people have never HEARD of this zip code and not for like, a real valid reason like you need to keep a cattle prod handy to keep your neighbor's herd out of your tomato garden.

SUNDAY:

Okay, so that didn't go super well. I'm not ready to give up. I have a NEW stack of realtor.com printouts and a few different neighborhoods triangulated on the GPS. We won't drive QUITE so far out this time, and I have a really good feeling about THIS zip code, which is also strangely cheap even though it's really close to an area we totally can't afford, and again I'm just going to assume that this neighborhood simply hasn't crossed anyone else's mind as an option and not because of like, rapes and shootings and gangs and drive-bys. Or tractor-bys. Look at this little yellow house! It's precious! It's adorable! I know there aren't any photos of the inside and we've heard crazy stories about people pooping in the appliances and pouring cement down the pipes when the bank repossesses their house but NO ONE would do something like that to such a precious little house like this one, right?

SUNDAY NIGHT, AFTER WE GOT HOME AND INSTALLED A NEW LIGHT FIXTURE IN THE DINING ROOM WHICH MEANT WE HAD TO REARRANGE THE DINING ROOM FURNITURE AND HANG NEW PICTURE FRAMES, AND NOW WE NEED TO CALL AN ELECTRICIAN BECAUSE I WANT THE LIGHT FIXTURE CENTERED OVER THE DINING ROOM TABLE'S NEW POSITION AND OH MY GOD WE ARE SOOOO REPLACING THAT UGLY RUG AND AFTER WE RELOCATED THE LIQUOR CABINET AND REARRANGED THE LIVING ROOM FURNITURE TO ACCOMMODATE OUR NEW COFFEE TABLE THAT WE GOT AT THE POTTERY BARN OUTLET AND PULLED EVERYTHING OFF THE BOOKSHELVES TO MAKE THE ROOM SEEM LESS CLUTTERED AND I MADE JASON ORGANIZE OUR DVD COLLECTION WHILE I IRONED THE DRAPES:

"So what if we just REFACE the kitchen cabinets?"

36 Weeks, Oh My God

(There was no sign of any fingerpainted masterpiece in Noah's cubby today -- only some crayoned and googly-eyed-pasted projects from last week. I assume this means Noah's fingerpainting has been deemed Bulletin Board Worthy. Or else it got thrown out, which...um. No, I'm sure it's probably the bulletin board thing.)

(STRANGLED GURGLING OF BRAINS SEEPING OUT EARS)

Anyway! Holy crap on construction paper, I'm 36 weeks pregnant.

I know I usually crop my head out of these, but I feel like you kind of need it now for scaling purposes. Belly: officially bigger than my skull. Noted!

It's pretty much bigger than everything now, and firmly in charge.

Here's what I looked like last time. The only difference being that I used to have about 15 extra pounds of ass, thanks to the six or so glorious months of daily puking this time. The next person who inquires about my weight gain and then tells me I'm "lucky" to have only gained 16 pounds so far is going to get kicked in whatever body part is convenient to be kicked because OH YEAH, I hit the motherfucking jackpot this pregnancy. Why, it was like a built-in case of bulimia, and I didn't even have to mess up my manicure.

(Oh, man. Food. The ability to just sit down and eat some food, any goddamn food at all! Without gagging at the mention of fish or ravenously reading a menu only to lose my appetite completely after seeing that the roast chicken is served with rapini -- oh, God, not RAPINI! I am ready for those days again. Also: chocolate. I really hate chocolate right now, and that hurts my heart, because that just ain't right.)

I've been having a lot of contractions -- sometimes even managing to string a few together in a semi-regular pattern, but I had them all through my final month last time too. So...that probably means absolutely nothing, and I shouldn't have even brought it up. Except that they hurt, and...and...I'm a big lame whiner.

Okay, bitching and sarcasm aside...we're ready. We're excited. We watch him move and wiggle under my skin, already laughing at what a feisty, active little guy he is. And already so different from his big brother, without even being born yet. Jason still calls him "the baby;" I bite my tongue to keep from saying his name aloud since I technically promised to wait until he's here to decide for sure, but...well. Between you and me and a few thousand other people, I'm doing a lousy job of keeping that promise.

Three and a half weeks. Alternatively thrilling and terrifying. And heartburny.

He Still Has Green Paint All Over His Hands & I Couldn't Be Happier About It

I sometimes struggle over what constitutes an entry here...what's an important enough development to put into words and demand your eyeballs and indulgence, or what I should just post on Twitter, or maybe email to friends, or just file away in my own memory.

So this one is just for all of Noah's virtual aunts and uncles and cheerleaders, those of you who never. ever. fail to leave wonderful comments about him and your own children and family members, full of ideas and suggestions (to Liz, who suggested supplying Noah with word choices to encourage him to talk about past events [i.e. did you eat pizza or hamburger buns for lunch? did you go on the slide or hang out with those no-good ruffian beatniks at recess?]: THANK YOU. I gave myself the world's biggest forehead slap for not ever once thinking of trying that, and surprise! It works! Most of the time. I don't THINK his teacher's name is Ms. Pinky Dinky, but maybe I'm wrong).

I picked Noah up from school today -- his first Thursday class ever, and was greeted by his teacher, who was ECSTATIC. He'd had a great day -- his BEST day, thanks to a few new classmates who are a tad less "exuberant" (as she put it) than some of the Monday/Wednesday/Friday kids. Noah seemed less overwhelmed and was happy to play quietly with them throughout the day, following his calm little friends to circle time and snack time. He stayed focused and didn't wander away from the group constantly like he always does. I guess the hyper-verbal and in-your-face kids would bother him and trigger one of his little sensory-overload fits where he needs to step away and flit around the room while reciting scenes from The Incredibles and just...you know, generally be weird for awhile.

People, he FINGERPAINTED today.

His teacher smiled when she told me, and nodded extra-knowingly at my shocked, slack-jawed reaction, because...FINGERPAINTS?

It turns out that in addition to having one boy with PDD-NOS, his teacher ALSO has a son with SID. Mild, like Noah's, but enough. Enough to raise red flags and eyebrows and make you feel like you're constantly strapped on a roller coaster while blindfolded -- are we headed into an upside-down loop-dee-loop or just one of those times where you get turned a little sideways and whipped around the track for a bit?

"I've been through it," she said, "I get it."

Anyway. I'm really happy that Noah will be there five days a week now, and that it was even an option for us -- there were three full-time spots left and a set of twins snagged two of them just hours before I decided to sign Noah up. The money is...well, it is more money and it is more money than I'm probably going to find in our couch cushions...but it's just something we'll make work because we need to make it work.

This blog is going on five years old now, and while I couldn't even count the number of dumb entries I've started and deleted and even published and deleted while trying to figure out what was vaguely post-worthy, I don't think I ever imagined that one day I would sit down to tell the Internet that MY SON FINGERPAINTED, in all caps, like I expected the ceiling to open up and dump balloons and confetti on us.

But here we are. It might not seem like much, just another mother blogging all her insignificant little dreamy dreams and the sort of thing that makes people yell that NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR KID, GAWD, but I know a lot of you DO care, and that means so much to me, so fuck everything and bust out your party hats because Noah had a kickass day at preschool and even if tomorrow sucks and I call for that private evaluation next week and end up crying about it and he never touches the fingerpaints again, today was a good, good day.

Still Talking About Not Talking

What was I saying about those boys of mine and their little pussy head colds? AW, POOR BABIES. EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT. YOU'VE BEEN TRUMPED.

Well. Uh. You know what else trumps your pussy head cold? EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT WITH A HEAD COLD. Oh, God. The agony. The pressure. The postnasal drip.

(Or...am I NINE months pregnant now? I am IN my ninth month, but have COMPLETED eight months? Are you only considered nine months pregnant right at your due date or do you get to whine dramatically about being NINE MONTHS PREGNANT WITH A HEAD COLD or NINE MONTHS PREGNANT AT THE GROCERY STORE or NINE MONTHS PREGNANT AND STILL EXPECTED TO TIE MY OWN SHOES for a couple weeks before that? I can never really follow the pregnancy math, but I would like it to work out to my optimal whining advantage.)

Last night we attended our very first Back To School Parents' Night Thing at Noah's preschool. I was a little bummed, frankly -- I thought there would be punch. Maybe cookies. Instead we got handouts and sat around perched on teensy little chairs and discussed our Educational Goals, Wishes and Dreams for our not-quite-three-year-olds. And the policies on birthday cupcakes. I learned a few things:

1) On the very first day of school, Noah was the first and only child to spontaneously request to go potty, and he started a small wave of peer-pressure-induced lining-up to go potty, including his non-potty-trained peers. I think this means we Win, and that I should get a Dora sticker.

2) The new obsession with pirates and talking like a pirate? No, he didn't get that from school, and as such, it remains a total mystery. Arrrr.

3) Other kids talk about Noah to their parents, but Noah simply refers to everybody and everything that he encounters at school as..."school." His teacher is School, his classmates are School, the paints are School. The playground, of course, is FUCKING AWESOME.

4) His social language continues to be a problem, as he doesn't really understand how to ask or answer questions or talk about anything that isn't going on right in front of him, in the present tense. Ask him about what happened earlier in the day and you'll get nothing beyond confused silence, since...no...he's NOT painting right now, why are you talking about painting? There are no paints. You're boring me, and I am going to wander away now. He rarely attempts to converse with other kids, except to mimic their speech or roar at them like a dinosaur. Or a pirate.   

5) His teacher has a son in elementary school with a PDD-NOS diagnosis. She became a preschool teacher while advocating for him during his early childhood education, since she found she needed to literally be with him in his classrooms in order to make sure his needs were being met and understood.

After Jason and I left and went off to search elsewhere for some damn punch and cookies, we realized we'd both come to the same conclusion, and after picking Noah up from school today and I went and upped his enrollment to five days a week.

The other kids in his class are...wow...way beyond Noah in terms of their verbal abilities. I know I'm not supposed to compare him to other kids; I know he moves at his own pace; I know he's special and gifted in his own quirky little way, but...wow. I'm not neurotic (much), but I'm also not fucking deaf.

It pricks at my heart to see him wandering on the outskirts of the group, reciting entire books and and vaguely comprehensible stretches of movie dialogue to himself, and I get a little angry at myself for being so easily comforted by some damn standardized test scores that allowed the county to hand Noah his "graduation" papers and leave us standing here scratching our heads because...well...SURE he did great on a standardized test. They sat him down with one other adult and showed him pictures of dogs and balls and toothbrushes and asked him to say dog and ball and toothbrush. They told me his articulation at the single-word level meant it was okay that he's impossible to understand when he strings several words together. They told me it was okay that he couldn't ever accurately tell me what he had for lunch earlier or what his dog's name is if his dog is not right in front of him. They told me it was okay that he just roared at other children and couldn't possibly tell me about his friend Chase or Michael or Eva because...Jesus, I don't even know WHY he can't tell me. 

Early Intervention's official report states that Noah's delays and developmental difficulties would "not impede or interfere with his ability to learn in a mainstream classroom." So. We're counting on that part being correct. Five days a week with the kids who can talk and the teacher who thankfully, blessedly, seems to understand our little question mark of a boy.

Last Hurrah

Oh, right. We went away for a few days right there.

It was great. Until everybody got sick. Noah threw up purple Tylenol on Jason's aunt and uncle's guest bed, and then on his uncle.

(For any rookie parent who might see "Children's Tylenol Meltaways" on the shelf at CVS and think, "Oh! I bet those are easier than the liquids," let me just tell you that "MELTAWAY" does not necessarily mean the same thing to Tylenol as it does to you and me. For example, that it melts. Away. In a reasonable amount of time before your child can work himself up into a royal state over OMG THERE IS SOMETHING PURPLE IN MY MOUTH THAT TASTES LIKE SUGAR BUT I AM SICK AND PISSED OFF AND I SPIT OUT YOUR PURPLE SUGAR TABLET REPEATEDLY UNTIL THERE IS PURPLE SUGAR SLIME EVERYWHERE AND THEN I SHALL VOMIT ON PURPOSE JUST IN CASE I MANAGED TO ABSORB A SINGLE ATOM OF MEDICINE.)

(Oh, and then you'll look at the bottle and realize that the dosage is TWO TABLETS, and even if you wise up enough to mash and/or dissolve the second tablet in a sippy cup, your child is SO ON TO YOU NOW, so...have some paper towels nearby, is all I'm saying.)

He's fine now, more or less. He woke up the next morning fever-free and clamoring for da beach! da BEACH! GO TO DA BEACH RIGHT NOW! But still, our last vacation as a family of three was a little less than the magical special time we'd planned for.

At least I didn't go into labor, other than the six or seven body-shatteringly painful contractions I had late on Saturday night while Jason slept obliviously nearby, dead to the world from Theraflu. I think my uterus was tired of being overshadowed by other people's head colds and got a little uppity about it.   

HOWEVER, I did learn that I do still, in fact, have it going ON, as I got catcalled at from some drunkish dude who said, and I quote, "HEY BABY, I KNOW LAMAZE" as I waddled by.

I opted to ignore him with grace and dignity and extra chins.