aiming for wellness

Oh là là, this time it was over a month. Hello, friends. I’ve been more or less buried in working mom-ville. But tonight as I finished up baking some baby biscuits, it dawned on me–why am I not blogging while pumping?

So, here I am blogging while pumping. It’s been kind of an epic last couple of weeks. I flew with baby E to Chicago almost 2 weeks ago. I had some allergies happening due to the blooming and blossoming of California, despite a historic drought. This may have morphed into a bit of a cold and E got a runny nose as well. Within two days, E had croup again–the night before the event for which I traveled to Chicago… So, I missed it. My awesome colleagues filled in, and I spent 5 hours driving around Chicago to get him to urgent care and then a particularly slow Walgreens to get his dose of steroids.

We had a pretty mellow weekend–at that point, I think our colds plateaued. But we were also going in and out of cold weather and heat and only sometimes remembering to fill the humidifier, and I was feeling my skin go dry as well as the inside of my nose. On Tuesday, I got up at 5:30am to drive to a school in Michigan 3+ hours away for around 5 hours of meetings–then 3+ hours back. I was starting to really be sick at that point. The next day, E and I flew back to California, both of us with noses dripping like faucets. We sat next to THE nicest-ever lady who is a mom and loved E to pieces, even letting him put his snotty hands all over her iPad. Thank goodness Mimi and Chacha picked us up at the airport and helped us unpack and repack for Sonoma, where I had the next in back-to-back work events. We took E to the pediatrician on Thurs, and she said that we likely got the 2-3 week virus that’s going around. Sigh. We were only one week in. Plus, we both had pink eye.

We drove the short distance to Sonoma later that day and by evening I was a mess–sore throat, stuffy head, cough, red crusty eyes. I was afraid of scaring the participants. After a night of limited sleep, E did OK and I powered through the work day. It went very well. No one noticed my notice actually running as I gave a presentation. (Except my colleague who snuck over with a Kleenex.) I made it to 4pm and we drove home and I went to bed and slept much of the weekend.

But by Monday, I wasn’t better. I’ve just completed two work from home days that were actually quite productive but a visit of my own to the doctor resulted in a diagnosis of a bacterial infection. And maybe an infected lymph node as it’s like a lemon in the side of my neck (but let’s hope not). I considered for two seconds not taking antibiotics (I hate taking them) but the doc said I’d likely be sick for 3 more weeks. My parents left last night (sob) and I need to be able to take care of this handful of a guy! On my way from Walgreens to pick up E today, the nanny texted that he’d taken a turn for the worse. (She actually said, “Evan está más enfermo.” Our communication in Spanish does not allow for a lot of nuance. I started to try to clarify but realized it was probably futile and just quickened my pace. When I got there, he was indeed cranky, lethargic, and drippy-nosed. On the walk home, he actually put his head down on my chest while riding in the Ergo, which he would never do outside of nap time. Poor guy.

All of this to say–I’m getting a real dose of not only motherhood but working motherhood and working single motherhood. And, more specifically, caring for a sick baby while sick. A colleague emailed me today, “Get used to it–you’ll be sick for the next two years.” Thanks, colleague!

This is all par for the course. Thankfully, it’s nothing serious so far and the pink eye is gone and maybe a smidge of my antibiotics will get through my breastmilk to actually help baby E rather than simply to kill all his good bacteria. I should take a probiotic and eat sauerkraut and drink kombucha for good measure. Work is accommodating and I will likely just take a full-on sick day and keep E here with me tomorrow. Getting well has never been so critically important.

Meanwhile, E is almost 10 months old, sampling new foods with his pinkie in the air, conversing constantly with what could almost sound like words (but not really), and starting to move from one piece of furniture to the next. He now wears shoes (although I forgot to send him with shoes today). His curls are getting big and luscious. He still does dancey-dancey especially for my mom. He really tries to be a trooper when he’s not feeling well and even laid still with his eye open so I could get the drops in. These things will make your heart explode.

It’s so nice to be back in our space. I wish I could say that traveling made me feel empowered to travel but not with this result of sickness. I want to stay close to home and all our stuff and our routine and our nanny and beautiful, colorful, stupidly-expensive San Francisco.

Thank you for sending us vibes of good health and please also send strength to my friend who is going through IVF injections right now and needs a boost. I got out a 15-min video that I made of my nightly injections and was reminded of all I went through to get here. It ends up feeling beside the point but the journey is a beautiful thing, and every one of them is like your own snowflake: totally unique.

May you be healthy!