A Day With Daddy

Guess what?

I got Oliver to sleep in his crib last night. Some odd pairing of darkening the room a bit more, singing more lullabies in the rocker, and placing my hands on his head and tummy while I sang to him over his crib did the trick. Which is great, but why did Oliver have to choose this particular night to need a bottle every 3 hours again? And necessitate a re-plugging of the nuk every time his mouth fell open in a deep dreaming sleep?

You see, normally, I would have a titch more patience with this. But today, I am the one who needs to be babied. I'm sick as an H1N1 dog. Well, I'm pretty sure it's H1N1; the clinic won't test me because they're telling everyone to stay home with any flu symptoms. I guess the CDC is just assuming that everyone everywhere will get H1N1 at some point and they're not concerned anymore about documenting the prevalence. Oh, and it's prevalent right here. My skin hurts. My muscles ache. My head is stuffed with cotton which makes it feel like I've been slugged in both cheekbones. It also makes me fail to think clearly (though I hear motherhood in general can cause this, too). My sneezes could blow out the windows. I've gone through boxes of kleenex. I have chills at night, and sweat during the day. My athsma is ramped up so that I sound like a worn-out engine trying to turn over when I cough.

Okay, I'm done complaining for now. Needing to entirely care for another human being's basic needs of a dry butt and constantly-empty stomach makes the need for caring for myself even more prominent. Why can't Oliver change his own diaper, just this once? Doesn't he know by now that the ratio of powder to water is 1 to 2? He's seen me make enough bottles, he should know. And while he's at it, would it be too much to ask for him to hand me the Kleenex box?

But it is too much to ask. So Michael took the day off to take care of Oliver, and I'm babying myself. At least until bedtime comes around, and then once again it's me versus the crib.