Sick

We are all sick here at Casa Hylan-Cho. Austen has been sick almost continuously since he caught the cold I had at Christmas, and I have been sick off and on with various chest and sinus afflictions since before that. At the moment, Al's the sickest of us all; he's been home from work for a couple days now. I've been washing my hands like a maniac, but as I've said to Al, that doesn't help so much when your infant son is sticking his boogers up your nose—booger-to-booger contact being the #1 method of disease transmission. I'm hoping that since we all seem to have the same thing now that we'll all get better at the same time, and that we'll stop giving this virus a chance to mutate and attack again.

Meanwhile, we're going through Kleenex (both the Lotion and Anti-Viral varieties) at an alarming rate, especially since Austen finds great joy in pulling as many of them out of the box as he can at one sitting. The other night I found him in the linen closet, attempting to pry great wads of tissue from under the plastic wrapping that covered one of the stand-up boxes. This morning he seemed to get the hang of the whole Kleenex Conservation thing, though: He pulled one out of the box, held it up to his face, made a noise that sounded like "ahroooooo", and then held the tissue to my face and gestured as if to say, "now you!" I guess it's better than having the boogers shoved directly up my nose.

As much icky goo as is coming out of Austen's nose, I think more of it's going down his throat and into his stomach. Yesterday morning, after waking up at the completely normal time of 6:10am, he rather abnormally screamed for 20 minutes and then conked out again on his sheepskin rug in the basement 'til 9:30. Al watched him sleep for two hours, but I only lasted 30 minutes before I had to get things done up in the kitchen. When I finally heard him stir, I called, "good morning, sleepyhead!" and headed down to get him. As I reached the gate at the bottom of the basement stairs, he said, "Uh oh! Uh oh!" and then horked all over the sheepskin rug. I quickly climbed over the gate, at which point he started to say "uh oh!" again but was interrupted by a heave. It was so cute how he was obviously fighting the urge to vomit (and he was largely successful—although he heaved a bit more, only a little dribble came out). Luckily, he held his breakfast of milk and Bear Naked Triple Berry Oatmeal down just fine.

Tomorrow we are all driving down to Wheaton, MD so Austen and I can get our hair cut by my favorite stylist, Toni at HUGO Salon. We're both looking rather shaggy these days; Austen hasn't had a proper haircut since I cut off his Gollum strands back when he was seven months old (which I guess means he's never had a proper haircut), and I haven't had one since my hair was purple back in May. I have some nostalgia for both that cut and the purple color, but I'm reluctant to dye it when we're about to take a vacation that will involve lots of swimming and sweating, and I'm not sure Toni will feel as inspired by my plain white hair as she was by the purple. I guess we'll see... I'll hopefully have some before and after photos of us to post tomorrow night.

Posted by Lori in me, me, me and parenthood at 5:42 PM on January 20, 2006

Comments (3)

cyn:

awww. i hate cold/flu season. we are onto our 6th cold i think. i just spotted a runny nose today. =/ the gollum strands made me laugh. haha! i am so far trimming both bubs bangs by myself. eek!

Ooh, haircuts! I am desperate for one, and Alexander is veering dangerously close to mullet territory. Gonna have to trim the back. I was hoping Lionel would take him along when he went to the barber, but he squeezed in a mid-week visit the other day. So now I think I'll do it myself. Not sure why the prospect bothers me - I trim his nails, which is much more challenging.

Was the sheepskin rug salvageable?

Thank goodness we've been mostly healthy around here since the great cold relay of October 05.

Lori [TypeKey Profile Page]:

Ack, hope the cold disappears quickly, Cyn!

The sheepskin could probably use a bit more shampooing (the fibers are a little stiff), but since the stuff he horked up was clear, we have no stains or chunks to contend with. Seems completely salvageable to me.

Comments

awww. i hate cold/flu season. we are onto our 6th cold i think. i just spotted a runny nose today. =/ the gollum strands made me laugh. haha! i am so far trimming both bubs bangs by myself. eek!

Posted by: cyn at January 20, 2006 11:06 PM

Ooh, haircuts! I am desperate for one, and Alexander is veering dangerously close to mullet territory. Gonna have to trim the back. I was hoping Lionel would take him along when he went to the barber, but he squeezed in a mid-week visit the other day. So now I think I'll do it myself. Not sure why the prospect bothers me - I trim his nails, which is much more challenging.

Was the sheepskin rug salvageable?

Thank goodness we've been mostly healthy around here since the great cold relay of October 05.

Posted by: ratphooey [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 21, 2006 11:24 AM

Ack, hope the cold disappears quickly, Cyn!

The sheepskin could probably use a bit more shampooing (the fibers are a little stiff), but since the stuff he horked up was clear, we have no stains or chunks to contend with. Seems completely salvageable to me.

Posted by: Lori [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 23, 2006 10:38 AM

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