Days of Silence

Q: Can you guess what happens when you have a ton of one on one time with an 8 month old who has double pink eye and bronchitis?

A: You get it too!

I some how, by the grace of God, did not get pink eye. However, I did catch the worst cold I have ever had in my life. Honestly, I have not been this sick in about 5 years. I will also say this is the first year I ever got a flu shot, related? Maybe.

This is also the first time I have had a baby, so maybe that is where the blame should be directed. Either way, I'm not digging it.


On Thursday nights I teach class until 10p.m. I'm not such a stickler for keeping my students that late, but they typically stay that late. What can I say, they apparently love me and have nothing better to do on a Thrusday night. This past Thursday I was feeling a sore throat coming on, but really did not think much about it. Friday morning I have a 9a.m. class on a campus about 40 minutes from my house. When I leave in the morning, no one is awake. I'm telling you all this because when I got to class Friday morning and attempted to welcome my students and start class- nothing. No sound. My mouth was moving, but there was some sort of squeaky, non-Nikki noise coming out.

I could tell this was puzzling my students because they were actually looking at each other as if to say, "Is she joking?!"

I was not joking. I had lost my voice and was beginning to feel worse by the minute.

My students were actually leaning forward in an effort to hear what I was saying...actually come to think of it, I do not think I have ever had a more attentive class. Interesting.


That night, Josh finally came home from a work trip in New Jersey. Oh yes, did I mention he was out of town virtually the entire time P-rock (that's for you Gavin!) was sick? No, well he was.

Upon hearing my voice, and calling it a voice is a bit of a stretch, he first told me I sounded like a bag of cats- all scratchy like. Then he told me I was a dead ringer for Marge Simpson. Nice. Although very accurate.
The rest of the night I channelled my inner Nell and communicated with Josh and the monkey through a series of clicks and whistles.


Poor P-rock could not figure out what was going on.

On Saturday, I woke up and felt terrible. However, we had dinner plans with some friends we had not seen in a bit. They have a son Parker's age and understand that going out to eat with a baby can bring many surprises (read: challenges). I have found that dining out with our little diner will going swimmingly as long as I have plenty of snacks on hand. I used to think toys were the key, but have figured out that is not the case. If I give Parker the crust, I mean hard crust, of a bagget, he is pleased as pudding. And quiet to boot!
Anyway, I did not want to cancel these plans, so I faked it during the day and we went to dinner. I say I faked it, but Josh said the nap I took in the middle of the day gave me away, along with all the sniffing and sneezing, oh yeah and the complete lack of a voice.
We get to the place and as soon as I pulled P-rock out of his car seat, I could smell the funk. Despite my stuffy nose, I could smell the funk, so you KNOW it was bad.

I will spare you most of the dirty diaper details, but I will say these two things:
1. I pity the person who had to clean out the too small trash can in the handicapped stall that night. I promise the diaper was too...um full...to try to carry it across the bathroom area and dispose of it in the larger trash can.
2. When we finally emerged from the bathroom, Josh asked if everything was ok. I replied, "Well, Parker has on a different shirt and is no longer wearing socks."

Sunday was the worst of it. Again, I had to cancel a play date with a friend and her son who I have not seen in a while. Actually Josh had to cancel it because I could not speak. Then he totally took over the juggling act that is taking care of Abby and Parker. I spent about 80% of the day in bed- sick and voiceless. At one point I asked Josh to run to the store to get me some chicken noodle soup. Like a dutiful caring husband he took P-rock and headed off to the store. What seemed like moments later he was coming up to our room with a warm bowl of soup and crackers. So sweet.

Later that evening when I dragged myself downstairs to heat up another bowl of soup, I was informed that Josh only purchased one can. The can I had for lunch. He bought one can of soup.

Seriously.

I love him, but who buys a sick person 1 can of soup?

I have received a few requests for a tooth update, so here goes:
Josh now has a "temporary" retainer that has a fake tooth attached, making it nearly unkick-outable. Josh has developed two habits regarding this retainer. The first is to take it out when he gets home, leaving him with a hole where a tooth should be.

That does not work for me.

His other habit is to flip the retainer in his mouth. Meaning it looks like his tooth is able to bounce around in his mouth.

That does not work for me either.

The permintent solution is to get an (expensive) bridge put it. This will happen eventually, but until then Josh has been Polygripping the retainer in to his mouth everyday.

You will note that I said Polygrip and not superglue. I now have several tubes of Polygrip strewn about my house and the tube of superglue mentioned in a previous post that was purchased to hold the single fake tooth in place, now sits in my car-frozen- rendering it unless altogether.

Who won, indeed?