Deck the halls with dirty laundry, fa la la la lurgh lrrgggghhh

"Mommy, I got boogers in my nose." That's what I woke up to at 6:26am on Christmas Eve. Ian had sat up in the sidecar crib next to me and looked at me with melancholy. I looked over and saw that Rich was gone. The first thought I had was "oh, good grief, Ian had sprawled so much in the bed last night we literally pushed Rich onto the floor. His love of co-sleeping is growing thin, I'm sure."

Then I realized he had left for his hockey pickup at 5:45 that morning. The alarm was set for 6:30 so Ian and I just turned it off and rallied for the day. We picked out some warm pants and a cute t-shirt and his special hockey sweatshirt (with a bear and a PUCK! and SKATES! and a HOCKEY STICK! and a HELMET!). Things were looking good for us to get to the rink just in time to catch the second half of ice time.

But as Ian sat on the dog bed in the living room and I was getting my bag packed, he coughed so hard that he threw up all over his warm pants. Thankfully the sweatshirt was saved, but we had to do a quick wardrobe change before we could get going. Undeterred, we headed to the rink to watch Daddy play hockey.

Rich had said several times that it would mean a lot to him if Ian and I came out to watch him play goal. When he turned around and saw us on the other side of the boards, the look on his face was priceless. He actually said I could wrap that up and make that one of his Christmas presents.

Hockey went well, Hardee's went well, last minute groceries and Food Lion went well and even an emergency trip to Super Cuts to de-mullet our son's hair went well. It wasn't until we had left all that and Ian was working on his "good haircut lollipop" that he started coughing again and proceeded to vomit all over himself and his car seat (the hockey sweatshirt was definitely not savable this time). Rich was literally two cars behind us and I was frantically trying to turn into the gas station and flag him down at the same time. I waved in a panic to him but he just cheerfully waved back and kept on driving.

So I texted hurriedly "vomit everywhere". I had considered using Siri to send something but worried it would get garbled into "comet underwear" and Rich would just think "Me-ow! I'll be shooting stars come nap time if she's already sending me naughty text messages!" as he motored home.

Ian and I pulled into the parking lot and I pulled out the emergency bag I had packed after vomit #1 that contained a complete change of clothes (including socks). Mom of the year! After mopping up part of the mess, I checked my phone and saw Rich's reply. "Oh no. Need help?"

Need help? What part of "vomit everywhere" sounds like "you just go on ahead home, honey. I know you're smelly from your 90 minutes of hockey pickup and could use a shower. I'll stay here in the Wawa parking lot and scoop up regurgitated seaweed salad out of the car seat." But instead I just texted back, "Yes."

Rich eventually met us there and could transfer the filth to the dumpster while I changed Ian's clothes. We were on our way home with plans for nap time. Ian had a yogurt and we eventually headed upstairs for some Mama milk to prep for a nap. Rich and his dad had gone to the local sub shop to pick up lunch for us all and his mom was downstairs. After a few minutes of Mama milk, Ian started coughing again and making the "thrup" sound. I had just patted myself on the back for catching his vomit in his blanket versus our bed sheets when he tried to roll away from the gross blankie and thew up again while on his back. Dear God, it was awful. He got snotty vomit up his nose and in his eyes! I grabbed him and sprinted to the bathroom as I just kept saying over and over "oh, Buddy, I'm so sorry. Hang in there, I'm so sorry."

And I texted "vomit again" to Rich. This time he came rushing upstairs as soon as he was home and helped the poor little guy get to sleep while I stripped the bed and cleaned the bathroom. A collective sigh of relief rang out around the house as Ian went down for a nap and we started some laundry.

But just over an hour later, Ian started coughing again and as we came up to check on him I could hear Rich say, "oh, Buddy, I'm so sorry." Yeah, I know what that means. Time to strip the comforter off the bed and try again.

As the laundry line continued, Ian was in fine spirits. I think it was just the snot triggering a gag reflex when he coughed too much. He probably didn't need yogurt since it coats your throat, but it was the only thing he was interested in eating. I insisted that both Ian and I have a bath before bed because despite rinsing off before I was convinced I smelled faint hints of vomit and wanted to eliminate the possibility it was one of us. We managed to get him settled for bed around 9pm and just kept the baby monitor close by to listen for tell-tale signs.

Around 11pm I heard him fuss and cough a little. When I went up to check on him he was having a hard time breathing, so I propped him up on my stomach as a pillow. He snuggled down and seemed to be able to sleep. I took a picture and sent it to Rich downstairs. I was worried he would start coughing more so I wanted to keep an eye on him a bit. As I said as much to Rich via text, Ian started coughing very hard. I sat up and held him in my arms, blanket at the ready and his head on my chest, hoping that sitting up would help. After a particularly hard cough, Ian threw up his entire dinner right down my nursing tank shirt. And that's when I texted "vomit 911" to Rich.

But the first thing I thought was "his clothes are clean, the blanket is clean, and thank everything the comforter is clean! It's a Christmas miracle!" So Rich sprinted upstairs and got Ian back to sleep propped up on a pillow while I headed once more into the shower after shaking my shirt out into the toilet. As I later told my parents, I was working on every puke-related parenting merit badge all in one day.

I'm pleased to report that this fifth and final vomit was all we had to deal with and he did much better on Christmas day. But Rich and I have also learned the subtle nuances of texting when puke is involved. I hate how the iPhone has a text "shortcut" that converts "omw" into "On my way!" but I may have found a new use for the shortcut feature.

I'm going to change it so that whenever I type vomit, it converts it to OMG VOMIT! YES I NEED HELP!!!

P.S. Rich got my "vomit again" text while he was almost back to the house from the sub shop with his dad. He asked his dad if he should type back "need help" and his father wisely said, "if you do, just drop me off and don't even bother coming home cause you won't be welcome there for a while."

Thanksgiving as a diabetic: a medical math problem

I was so proud of myself for eating a reasonable meal at my in-laws on Thanksgiving. I had one plate of food and some trifle dessert. Someone mentioned how I shouldn't really have the dessert because it was so full of sugar, but I ignored that. If I take the insulin for it, it's no different than if I had a working pancreas to take the insulin for it. As we headed home from Richmond my blood sugar was 159 mg/dL and I patted myself on the back for a holiday meal well done. I took one unit of insulin in anticipation of that trifle still having an effect and we continued our trek home for Thanksgiving dinner number two. Everything was going as planned with dinner #1 at 3pm (blood sugar was a perfect 79, estimated 84g of carbs, took 7 units) and dinner #2 at 7pm. But dinner #2 got complicated. We all got ready to sit down right at 7 but Ian didn't want to sit at the table. After a bit of prodding I figured out that he wanted to have Mama Milk first in the chair before eating, so while everyone else pulled up a chair for dinner, Ian and I headed to the recliner for an appetizer of milk. I got a late start to dinner because of that but assumed I would eat my same typical plate of starches and a small dessert. But I had a small child in my lap (he wanted to eat dinner but he wanted to eat dinner WITH MOMMY) and was distracted so I didn't actually check my blood first.

I assumed things were still on track so I estimated I would eat the same as dinner #1. Since I had 84g last time and still gave myself an extra unit, I estimated 96g this time and gave myself 8 units total. This was around 8pm.

And then Ian proceeded to eat half of my Thanksgiving dinner off my plate. I poured myself a cup of cider which has a ton of sugar in it, but never actually drank it since I think I messed it up with too much citrus and it tasted off. I did manage to eat a small piece of pumpkin pie and I felt full so I assumed all was well.

About the time everyone left to go home, though, I started feeling a little off. At 11:15pm I checked my blood and it was 56 (whoops). So I grabbed a Coke from the fridge and assumed the 38g of sugar in that would set me back on course. At 12:30 I was back up to 89 and feeling proud to have fixed that bad math from before.

But once Rich had put Ian to bed, I started feeling worse. I have this stupid head cold but my stomach was getting queasy too. I decided to just go to bed. Rich came up with me to make sure I was settled and I decided to check my blood one more time just for good measure. Crap, it was only 12:45 but I was down to 76. That explained the nausea coming on ... I was going low and fast.

Rich brought me juice and I struggled to drink it (chugging juice when you feel like puking is not fun). By 1am I was still dropping to 62. More juice. More deep breaths to not puke up said juice. By 1:15, I was up to 73.

And I was wiped out. I wasn't sure if I would really be better at that point but couldn't bear another drop of juice. I turned my pump off for an hour and rolled over to moan quietly to myself waiting for sleep to take over. Rich stayed on high alert for another hour or so and rested in the guest room to give me and the boy some space. The last thing we needed was the boy waking up and demanding anything.

So then at 7 this morning, I got up to pee and felt that fuzzy feeling of being high (it's a difficult thing to describe so fuzzy will have to do). I cringed as I checked my blood and it returned 384. Sigh. Time to take an assload of insulin (that's a medical term), chug some water and wait a few hours to feel normal again. By the time we got to brunch, I was grateful to be under 200.

As I was lying in bed, stuffed up with a cold and trying not to puke, I had about 30 seconds of self-pity. I started to get all teary-eyed over how frustrating it was to have to eat or drink something I had zero interest in because it was acting as medicine. I was irritated with myself for over-estimating my appetite. They say your eyes can be bigger than your stomach, but mine were apparently bigger than my pancreas. I was jealous of people whose dinner plans don't involve so much math.

But it was fleeting. Rich rubbed my head and I realized that tuning up to cry was only going to make me feel worse. So I counted myself thankful for a helpful husband, the wonders of apple juice, health insurance if I needed it and the confidence that at least I knew why I felt crappy, even if it would take a while to fix it.

Sometimes just knowing what you're up against is the best you can hope for.

Ounce by ounce

It took me 30 minutes to pump two ounces of milk, milk that I will be pouring down the sink in my hotel room. And even though I have the pump, I end up having to hand express which involves hand-cramping squeezing and hoping I don't just spray milk all over myself and the hotel bed.

I'm pumping less. It used to be when I left Ian for a trip, I had to pump for all the times he normally nursed, which is at least three times a day (morning, after work, bedtime). But this trip and last week, I've only been pumping once a day and it's been tough to get much out.

So we are slowly weaning, if weaning means Ian choosing to nurse every so slightly less each week. I'm fine with that. Ian will be 25 months tomorrow and our nursing relationship has been the best I could have hoped for. I feel lucky, really, that we've had such an easy time of it. I just wish I could share that luck with other mothers and babies.