Rites of Passage

After almost ten years as a mother I once again feel thoroughly initiated.

This weekend I suffered through a severe bout of mastitis -- fever up to 105 degrees, uncontrollable shaking, headache, body aches, chills. Oh, and my right breast had a lump the size of a ping-pong ball and was hot, red, angry, swollen and painful.

You know the last time I had mastitis? Either it wasn't very severe or it wasn't mastitis because it most certainly wasn't this.

So, last night I went to the doctor to get antibiotics. I would have gone on Saturday in hopes of getting relief sooner, but I was too sick to go to the doctor! If it hadn't been the weekend I probably would have just called my midwives office to have them phone in a prescription. Saturday was one of those days that I wished doctors still did house calls.

So, a visit to the Instacare at 8pm Sunday was my best solution at the moment. It was rather an amusing visit. The doctor who happened to treat me seemed very embarrassed. He took my word for it and trusted from my description of the symptoms that it was, indeed, mastitis. He had a very difficult time saying the word "breast". I had a very difficult time not laughing at him. Though I did have a good laugh on the way home.

I now have a prescription ready to go, but I'm not sure if I will fill it. This morning I feel much better and after hot compresses with mullein, garlic, peppermint and goldenseal the pain in my breast has subsided almost completely. The lump is now much, much smaller. The redness is going away. So, I think I'll watch and wait for a few more hours and fill the prescription if I don't see continued improvement.

These rites of passage are an interesting thing. And I find that I learn as much or more from the difficult ones as I do from the more positive ones. If nothing else, I am always so grateful for compassion I learn for others when I go through my own sets of difficulties, no matter how small they are.

I am sensing that there is another rite of passage coming quickly for Coco and I -- weaning. Now, to the staff at the instacare last night who looked at me cock-eyed when I told them I was still nursing my 14 month old, this may not seem like anything unusual. But to me, who believes that it is perfectly normal, even desirable, to breastfeed for the first two years it feels like premature weaning. I recognize that mine is the unconventional view -- that most mothers have weaned long before now without a backward glance -- but I've always allowed my children to self-wean and I think it has turned out nicely for us.

Still I am sensing it is time for us. For many reasons breastfeeding is no longer a mutually pleasant and positive thing. I'm feeling my way through this, but think it may be time to make the break. We shall see how it goes.

Sicko

You'll have to forgive my truncated and postdated Soap Opera Sunday post. I have a sick little baby.

He has herpangina and is very uncomfortable. He has wanted to be held and nursed almost constantly since Saturday.

I took him to the doctor on Saturday to see what was going on. He'd been fevered and irritable since Friday morning and I thought he might have an ear infection.

Nope. The doctor took one look in his mouth and said, "Ah, he definitely has herpangina."

I called JDub on the way home to tell him the news.

"I took him to the doctor and she says that he has herpangina," I told him.

"He has her WHAT?!?" Jeffrey responded. "Don't you think he ought to give it back?"

That's my JDub. Always the comedian.

Less Than Two Days

My sister is getting married in less than two days! Friday morning! I'm so giddy for her.

I've been working all day on a slideshow for her reception. I'm excited about it.

Now, if I can just get my family over the stomach bug we all seem to have contracted. By Friday. That would be niiiiiice.

Bring Out the Raincoats and Let the Bleach Flow Like Water

Ahhhhhhh.....

It has been a long week. I woke up Tuesday and had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't Thursday. It's been long.

On Monday we went to Hannah Paige's Memorial Service. It was a beautiful service. Her parents are very loved. Kaitybean and I had the honor of singing along with another sister-in-law. Then, we had a luncheon.

Oh, but let me back up.

Before this, the night before actually, Mashuga started in with vomiting and diarrhea. We were up most of the night with him. Then, when we woke up he acted like he felt just fine. So, we got everyone dressed and went to the service. My Mom and I in one car with the kids, JDub in another car so he could go to work afterward. We live about five minutes at most from the cemetary. The service was about to start and JDub wasn't there. So I called and found out that he was on his way to the cemetary in the community north of us, whic is about 30 minutes away from our house. Oh boy.

The rest of that day was lovely, with a luncheon afterward. Then, my sister, her fiance and my mom came to my house to visit and play with us. My mom re-taught me how to play rummy and we played a few rounds.

Then, the next day came. I woke up to the sound of Scud heaving into the toilet. Yuck. Sure enough, he'd caught the stomach bug that Mashuga had. Well, we've had swimming lessons at 10:30 every morning for the last two weeks. They'd already missed a lesson when we went to Hannah's service. So, I thought I'd better take at least Kaitybean and Mashuga to their lessons. I talked to Scud about it and he agreed that he'd be able to come and sit in the balcony during their lessons. No sooner than we'd gotten situated in the balcony than he began throwing up. Oh, dear. I'll spare you all the details, but I did manage to get him to the car and get the other kids from lessons and go home.

Well, that was small potatoes. Yesterday Coco started throwing up. I tell you, there's not much worse than a vomiting baby. He was so miserable and has continued to be. I thought he was all done throwing up. He started at 8am yesterday and continued pretty steadily until 4:30am this morning. Then, he woke up at 7am, ate A LOT and slept for a few hours. He's been good. Then, about 30 minutes ago he threw up all over me again. He and I have showered a lot in the last couple of days.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you. Scud tripped and fell right on his nose. I think it may be broken. We're waiting for the swelling to go down so that we can see if it's really broken and what they can do for it.

So, I'm about to call the doctor to see what I can do for Coco and whether or not I need to bring him in. I'm worried about him getting dehydrated and vomiting for over 24 hours seems a bit dangerous in a 5 month old. Maybe it'll be a good time to take Scud in and we can just do a two-fer.

Through all this, I'm just laughing inside. Laughing and laughing. What else can you do? I just keep pausing and thinking how humorous it is that THIS is my life.

Oh, and I'm trying to ignore the flat of strawberries on my counter that are growing into little gray fuzzballs. I bought them on Saturday with the intent to make jam. I thought that the only things I'd have to do this week were Hannah's service and then swimming lessons.

Someone has a sense of humor and I'm just doing my best to try to get the joke.

I can't wait for all of this to slow down so that I can douse my entire home in bleach.

There's a reason my home looks like a warzone right now.

A hostile enemy has been ravaging our household since Thursday. It goes by the name of Influenza A. You know, I always poo poo the necessity of getting flu shots each year. Then, every time we get the flu, I'm suddenly a believer. So, next autumn will someone please hit me over the head with a brick if you don't see my whole family standing in line at the nearest arm-sticking establishment waiting for our flu shots? I tell you, this stuff is rotten.

Kaitybean started with it first on Thursday. She got into the car after school looking like she'd just been hit by a train. Byt the morning she was miserable -- fever, headache, chills, body aches, cough -- the whole works. The rest of us quickly followed suit and our home was awash with groans and cries. There were pillows and blankets and used tissues everywhere. The kids downed two bottles of children's ibuprofen. I went through about half a bottle of the adult variety by myself over the weekend. Even Jack Jack got into the act, spiking a fever of 100.7 and narrowly avoiding a trip to the emergency room.

You know what makes this story even more fun? Our friend Influenza came through our door just days after his friend Streptococcal Pharyngitis decided to leave.

Blech!!!!!!

So to say my house is a mess would be putting it mildly. I feel this desperate need to wash all of the sheets and scrub the house from floor to ceiling with bleach. Oh yeah, and I'm going to buy us all new toothbrushes tonight. NO MORE OF THIS!

On a somewhat more upbeat note, Mashuga and Kaitybean have also made our house rather warlike. They are like fire and water lately -- two earth-shaping elemental forces that simply cannot coexist. And I'm about ready to tear them both from limb to limb. Really, they can't seem to be within 20 feet of each other without arguing about something. One of their recent arguments:

Mashuga: We're all playing the puppy game. I'm scamp puppy. And Mommy is "mommy dog" and Scud is "brother dog" and you're "sister puppy" and...

Kaitybean: I am not sister puppy!

Mashuga: Yes you are. We're all playing the puppy game.

Kaitybean: No I'm not! I'm not playing the puppy game! I'm not sister puppy! You're so dumb.

But here's the best argument they've EVER had. It started one day when they were arguing in the car on the way to school. (This is after the hour and a half they'd spent bickering since they woke up that morning.) I asked begged, threatened and demanded that one of them PLEASE be the peacemaker and stop responding to the other. They were silent for a moment, then this ensued:

Mashuga: Kaitybean, I'm being a peacemaker.

Kaitybean: No you're not, I'm the peacemaker.

Mashuga: Nuh-uh! I'm the peacemaker.

Kaitybean: NO, I'm the peacemaker.

Mashuga: I'm a better peacemaker than you!!!!

Kaitybean: You ARE NOT. I am the one being a peacemaker here! You don't even know what it means to be a peacemaker!

Mashuga: Yes, I do!

Kaitybean: Do not.

Mashuga: UH-HUH!!!! Mom, tell Kaitybean that I know how to be a peacemaker!

I'm sure you can imagine the convulsions of laughter I was experiencing during this interchange. It made it awfully hard to drive. For a very short while I didn't even mind that they were fighting.