photo credit: Molly Wizenberg, Orangette

My baby’s been sick. It’s a terrible thing, a sick baby. He tries to be his fat, bald, jolly, regular good-natured smiley self. But most of the time, he can only summon the occasional smile. Thankfully he’s still go the fat and bald part covered. I miss my happy little guy, and I’m worried. Worried, and tired. Tired, mentally and physically. That’s what happens when your baby is sick for going on 8 days.

At least he doesn’t have whooping cough. That’s a relief, since on Thursday when I took him in to the pediatrician, I was pretty worried that he might have it. We found that out the swab was negative today, when I made my first-ever after-hours call to the pediatrician. You can seem like a real cool customer, the mom who never panics at 11 p.m. on a Friday night, when your dad is a pediatrician. Of course I do get worried; I just call my dad. I’m very spoiled.

Anyway, today, 4 p.m. on a beautiful sunny Saturday, I broke my record and called our local pediatrician. Emry had been on-and-off screaming for hours, totally unable to settle or sleep for more than 25 minutes at a time, and screaming instead of nursing (this always undoes me). I had his 3rd dose of prophylactic antibiotic (for whooping cough) in my hand, and I’m glad I called because she checked her email and the lab had sent her the results of his swab, so I didn’t have to give him the antibiotics. Which is maybe causing this new round of upset. Or maybe not.

Do you see how coherent having a sick baby makes me?

The spaceyness I’m feeling today makes me realize how lucky I am that my baby’s been sleeping well up till now, and how different I’d be feeling in general if I had a colicky baby.

Tired, body and soul.

So tomorrow morning, we’re having some extended family over for a little family time… and waffles. Mikhail’s family has a waffle tradition similar to their pancake tradition but tomorrow morning we’re going to mix it up and have these raised waffles that I made one time before and were pretty deliciously different. Okay, Mikhail actually made them, but I found the recipe and suggested it. They’re a bit on the savory side, very different from the normal family waffles, which are delicious too but I don’t have enough yogurt in the house to make them and I’m not in the mood to go to the store. Anyway, these are delicious with maple syrup. And fried eggs, and bacon, and some good winter citrus, and strong coffee. Yum.

I mixed up the batter tonight, so there’s very little to do in the morning, not that Mikhail wouldn’t have time given that Elan loves his 5:30 wake-ups on a weekend morning. My lucky husband. (I’ll be up with the baby multiple times in the night I’m sure, so it’s even in the end. Kinda.)

Wish us luck on the sleeping front and on the sick baby front.