Ep 29: What goes around, comes around

Monday, April 29

On Saturday morning at 4 a.m.,I woke to the sound of Milo crying. I dragged myself into the nursery, fully expecting to cuddle and carry him around for a few minutes and then put him back down to sleep, shortly thereafter.

However, when I pressed him against my chest, he was soaking wet and there was a funny smell, not readily identified as poop.

Being that I had thought this would be a routine soothing, I had left my eyeglasses on my dresser, and blindly made my way to the baby in the dark.

After placing Milo on the changing table and inspecting his diaper, which actually seemed fairly dry, I realized that something was truly amiss.

With one hand on the baby, I leaned toward the crib and made a manual inspection - his sheets were all wet and squinting I could see something dark and chunky in the middle. Finally, I realized I had no choice but to turn on the light.

There was vomit everywhere, on the sheets, on his PJs, in his hair.

Milo, as usual, was handling all the trauma quite well. I picked him up and took him to take a shower.

While we were cleaning up, Chelsea came to inspect what was going on. After we dried off the baby and dressed him again, we put him in bed with us.

Of course, he threw up again. Ugh.

My immediate thoughts were that we had overfed him.

Earlier that evening we had chosen to eat out instead of at home, because our dining room was filled with furniture from the adjoining living room and parlor, while the recently refinished floors dried.

I had also been eager to try some of the local restaurants in Peekskill and our neighboring townships too .

Using Yelp, we chose to try Taormina, a shabby chic nouveau Italian joint, that at first, and second, glance, looked like the kind of place where the working class go to have a nice dinner.

I was immediately impressed by their martini - dry, with just a hint of vermouth; filled to the rim. And most importantly, the food was good too - butternut ravioli , chicken martini and chicken napolitano.

Despite the discovery of a piece of plastic in Chelsea's dish, I would give this place high ratings.

If anything the only low marks for the evening were against me and my lack if restraint. I vividly recall the frenzy I was feeling that led me to over indulge when dessert was served:

"Adela do you mind if I try some of your lava cake ?"

"Um, baby are you done with your carrot cake?" [That would go well with the vanilla ice cream...Hmmm, should I finish my cannoli...?]

All the while, I was so entranced that I was compelled to share tiny bits and pieces with Milo, even though he had eaten plenty already.

Ironically, I had filed a story at work earlier that afternoon about the obesity epidemic occurring across this country. Three fourths, 3 out of 4, of all adults are overweight - half of those are considered obese. The stats are sadly similar for children. As a result, children born today are very likely to live shorter lives than both their parents and grandparents.

Ugh, hence my eventual guilt over this mess.

Nonetheless, I'm not too worried because we are blessed to have Adela cook for us - she prepares fairly healthy meals in small portions.

Well, that was Friday.

As per the awful smell of his diaper my wife, Dr. Chelsea, suspected it was actually a virus with some fancy name that she liked repeating all weekend long.

Alas, the virus did not like her and poor Chelsea - : ( - had to contend with it last night while working overnight at the hospital.

She called me this morning from the ER, where they were giving her fluids via IV. She said the room where she tried to sleep in last night looks like a war zone. As awful as I feel for my 5 month pregnant wife, I'm sure glad I don't have to clean up that mess...

Since Milo woke up at three and would not go back to sleep until I put him in bed with me half an hour later, assuredly none of us would have slept if Chelsea was home.

Nonetheless and allthemore, my baby mama says she's feeling better now.

Unfortunately, as Adela said this morning with a slight chuckle of fear and resignation, "I guess we're next..."

Ugh.