So two Fridays ago - Owen and I went back to Gymboree. (Well now about six since I apparently forgot to publish this post but that's probably unimportant. When I did stand-up comedy I told jokes about my brother 'having a baby the other week' until that baby was about eight so. . .
So, for any of you who read my first Gymboree post you may question why I even went back to Gymboree but hey, I'm a person who is willing to give someone a second chance, especially if the second chance is free and involves some of my good friends on an otherwise boring Friday afternoon.
The class was actually better than the first. There was still a Ms. _______ with the omnipresent creepy clown mascot but it was less like Tammy Faye Baker running a Kindergarten class and more like a gym class programmed for babies with ADD. I was still not sold on attending but Owen really loved the space, crawling through fabric tunnels, "climbing" up cushioned inclines, etc. But not quite. . .
Then Sunday night, after our first night out with a babysitter, Owen spiked a fever. Well, we did not go out with the babysitter, she stayed with Owen and we went out with some friends. We were home by nine, nothing crazy but Owen woke up around midnight burning up and inconsolable. I brought him into bed to nurse him and console him but he was. . oh yeah inconsolable. We took his temperature in the morning and it was close to 103 degrees so I called the Dr. as soon as they opened. I gave him some Tylenol although i briefly considered waiting because I did not want to mask his symptoms and also think that the purpose of a fever is to burn off sicknesses so if we stop the fever we stop that process but he was so miserable I could not make him wait. We made an appointment for 10:15 and got there ten minutes early. They were running thirty minutes late. I walked Owen around the block a few times as he slumped in the Ergo whimpering softly. His eyes were glassy, and he kept looking up at me as if I had betrayed him, or was just failing to fix what was wrong. I guess he should have been used to that by now but he seems to awaken each day with renewed faith in me. I went to the grocery store to buy a banana because it can never hurt to have a banana in your bag and went back to the doctor's office. Sadly they were still not ready for us.
When we finally went in Owen was crying like a baby and languishing against my chest. After a brief examination the doctor said it looked like he had Coxsackie. Well, I'm going to be honest, what I heard was cocksucky but after I googled it upon returning home, turns out I was off in name, if not accurate description. It is also the name of a town in New York where they first isolated the virus in human feces in 1948. I am slightly amazed that in the last sixty-odd years they have avoided successful resolutions to change their name. You think somewhere along the way someone might have said, "Hey we have the same name as a virus that is spread by infected feces that results in skin blistering and throat ulcers and a high fever, what do you say, we switch it around?"
So we went home, cursing Gymboree, and there we stayed for days. Owen stopped eating at some point, I assume when the blisters erupted in his throat. Luckily he still nursed so I didn't worry about him. And that was pretty much the only thing that gave him comfort. So we sat on the couch, lay on the bed, lay on the floor, and he nursed and nursed and nursed. The only bright side was that I figured all of this extra nursing would burn some calories to make up for the fact that I was about as sedentary as a contestant on the Biggest :Loser before their trip to the ranch. And as his skin blistered more and more, I tried not to cry because he looked so awful. The doctor had said the rash would not bother him, aside from the ulcers in his throat, but it definitely bothered me, and either was he was miserable.
After three days he started to feel better and was back to eating some fruit purees. And then, the night before my birthday I had gone out with some friends for a pedicure and about half-way through I started to feel exhausted. This alone is not that unusual since I have felt exhausted for approximately the last nine months but suddenly all I wanted was to be home in bed. We finished up, we went home and within ten minutes, I knew I was the lastest victim to be claimed by the cocksucky. Within thirty minutes my temperature was over 103 and I was down for the count. Luckily my husband took charge of Owen all night and I slept and slept (well aside from a brief tortured pumping session.) The next morning I crawled out of bed, threw a blanket and pillow on the floor and sobbed with happiness that Owen was not walking yet. My husband looked at me with both worry and doubt as he walked out the door. The doubt was probably that either of us would be alive when he returned home. "I guess we should cancel the babysitter for tonight," he said. Considering the fact that I could neither sit-up or swallow, I thought that was a logical action.
So for my birthday dinner, I choked down a cup of soup and a piece of bread and crawled back into bed as my husband took over with Owen again. I guess if I was a better person I would say that throughout it all I just kept thinking that it was still an amazing birthday because it was the first I spent with my son but really I kept thinking, "Damn, I wish I could swallow my birthday cake."
So, I'm sorry Gymboree, I blame you for this.
