Every Little Wonder

Hello? Is anyone still reading this? Between living with my parents, working from home, and chasing the baby everywhere, blogging seems to have taken a backseat. The internet in general, really. I’m weeks behind in google reader. I have no idea what’s going on with anything out side of this house anymore. What little computer time I do get is split between building a model of our new home in The Sims (yes, I’m a nerd, thank you) and obsessively pouring over my new favorite thing, Pinterest.

And what’s really making everything worse is this insane, nasty cold that the baby caught, passed on to me, and now passed on to my whole family. We’re all pretty pathetic. Nothing seems to slow Ezra down of course, but I can barely manage to peel myself off the couch. Cris took the day off to take care of the baby and let me get some much needed rest. So I’m here, writing this, instead of napping. Because I’m smart like that.

My big plans for this site keep getting pushed backed because of various things beyond my control, but I’m just gonna roll with it until 1) I stop coughing up a lung every time I dare to move, 2) we sign closing papers on this house so I stop stressing over it, and 3) Cris has a job HERE finally because I miss him and living apart is so stupid.

Until then, you’ll have to make do with pictures of my cute kid.

Uh, whenever I work up the energy to download and post them.

Sorry…

Whenever one of us is sick, it’s time for The Soup. This is the only kind of soup we ever make in this home because Cris hates all other soups. This soup is amazing. The delicious, spicy broth is perfect for sore throats and stuffy noses, and the watercress is full of all sorts of magical, healthy goodness. And, bonus! The soup is easy enough to make even when you’re feeling like crap and hopped up on cough meds and trying to take care of a baby who’s become obsessed with the cat food dish.

The recipe was originally based on this Asian Chicken and Chili Soup from the delightfully cute (and tiny!) Everyday Food magazine, but it’s evolved over the years into its own beast.

Ingredients:

• 12-16 oz of chicken, poached and shredded
• 1 bunch of watercress with the thick stems chopped off
• 1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
• 1 roughly diced onion
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into 2” strips
• the juice from 2 limes
• 2-3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Asian chili garlic sauce (sweet chili sauce can be used if you don’t like the spicy)
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 1 packed of udon noodles

Directions:

1. Bring the broth, soy sauce, chili sauce, lime juice to boil. Add onions and bell peppers and simmer for a few minutes.
2. Add noodles and chicken, and simmer for a couple more minutes.
3. Add in the watercress and the cilantro, and then simmer for yet a couple more minutes.
4. Serve. Enjoy. Feel better.

That’s it. Sometimes we throw in some garlic and sometimes we leave out the noodles. Sometimes we add jalapenos or habeneros (because I’m not happy until it’s so spicy that I’m crying while eating it). But if you leave out the cilantro because you’re one of those weird creatures who quote-unquote “doesn’t like” cilantro? We can’t be friends anymore. I’m sorry.

Ezra and I are sick: :(

We both came down with ugly cough/cold/virus things last Tuesday and we’ve spent most of the time since then on the bed in our jammies, eating lots of soup (me) and drinking lots of milk (baby), watching hours of Teen Mom (me) and Yo Gabba Gabba (baby) online, and being really cute (baby) and really whiny and complainy and annoying (me).

I am such a total big fat whiny cranky baby when I’m sick. I need constant time and attention and care. Like, a fully dedicated staff that runs around at all hours making sure I’m comfy and that I haven’t missed a dose of medicine and that the TV is at the correct viewing angle and that I’m not too hot and I’m not too cold and that there’s an endless supply of warm honey tea and trashy gossip mags and jello and homemade soup. That’s all I ask for. That and a bottle of NyQuil D.

But with a real (and way less whiny and cranky) baby who’s sick too, I’ve been forced to put on my big girl panties and take care of both of us. Without the NyQuil. Saying it’s been a little challenging for me would be an understatement, I think. And just seeing his poor little body wracked by another coughing fit breaks my heart a little bit. He’s a total trooper though. In between the coughing and the snot attacks, he’s been laughing and playing and clapping and dancing and being the cutest thing ever. He’s way more mature than his mom, for sure.

We’re on the mend. I think. I hope. We better be. Because this week? Oh, goodness. This is the birthday week. The Birthday Week. Because Ezra? He’s almost a year old.

… okay, I’ve got to go lay down again now.

Despite the sleep exhaustion all around, we’ve had a pretty easy 11 months here. One bout of pukiness and Ezra’s dedication to finding new ways to scratch himself no matter how often I trim his nails—that’s about all I’ve had to really worry about so far when it comes to my preshus widdle baby.

Okay, there may have been that time where I closed my eyes for a second and he decided to leap off of the bed head first.

And there may have been that time where I noticed mysterious purple dots all over his face and became convinced he was DYING. RIGHT NOW. OMG. CALL 911!!! (thanks, Dr. Google!) before my mom shoved me to the side and wiped the blueberry splatters from lunch off his face. While maybe rolling her eyes at me a little. But hey, I’m not the one who didn’t clean him up after feeding him neon-colored food!

But otherwise? It’s been pretty smooth sailing.

So when I put Ezra in his high chair on Saturday morning and walked into the kitchen to get his food, I was totally unprepared for the huge crash I heard behind me. For all the unthinkable thoughts that rushed through my mind in that split second of terrifying silence as I rushed back into the room. And then the crying. Oh, the crying!

Ezra had kicked off of the dining table and thrown himself backwards, into the shelf behind him and the floor beneath.

He screamed and screamed and screamed while I tried cradling him close and calming him down. And after 5 or ten minutes, I finally found one of binkies and tried giving it to him. He took it and immediately started to fall asleep.

And that’s when I really started to worry. Because this baby? He never immediately falls asleep. So I took the binky away and tried to call the on-call nurse with a sad, hurt, crying baby right next to my ear.

I was really, really expecting them to say “Oh, he’s fine! Relax! Don’t worry about it.” But after putting me on hold to talk to the ER doctor, she said I should bring him in.

To the emergency room.

You know. The room for emergencies. Like the one going on right now. With my baby.

You know. The bright, shining, happy little center of my world.

OMG.

I called Cris at work and five minutes later he was home, all worried and teary-eyed (manly tears!) and we rushed the still-crying baby to the emergency room.

And then we waited for a hour. Of course. Is there anything in the world worse than an emergency room on a Saturday morning? If there is, I don’t want to know about it.

The doctor decided to keep him there for a few hours of observational instead of doing an MRI. Which is cool, ‘cause I really don’t want my baby to die of cancer, but man, those few hours sucked. Hard. There is nothing about a hospital bed and a plain, gross room that makes an upset, hurt, starving, sleepy 11-month-old feel better in any way.

At one point, a nurse came in take us the basement for his x-ray, despite my insistence that he wasn’t supposed to have an xray. We sat in that waiting room for 30 minutes before she realized she was mistaken and sent us back.

And then shortly after, another nurse came in to prep him for his MRI. And then I had to get all NO HE IS NOT HAVING AN MRI GO TALK TO THE DOCTOR FIRST NOW PLEASE.

So eventually the doctor came back, said Ezra seemed fine, and then told us to leave before they tried to get us to have any other unnecessary procedures.

Kaiser Oakland? You suck.

But my baby’s head is still fully functional, so I’m counting this weekend as a Win anyway.

Good job, awesome little toothy daredevil guy!

Ezra pooped.

The squirty kind.

The kind the oozed right out of his diaper and all over his pants.

Right as I was carrying him to the car to drive home yesterday evening.

Right into my hands.

And on my shirt.

Yeah. Not the best drive home, I’ve ever had.

And when Cris suddenly shouted for me in a panic as he was putting Ezra to sleep last night? Yeah. It was because the baby had projectile vomited all over everyone and everything.

We’ve made it eleven months without out any of these, uh, eruptions, so I guess that’s not too bad, but: OMG EW.

Ezra didn’t seem to mind too much himself. We ended up bringing him back to bed with us and he spent the next 90 minutes giggling and laughing and sitting up and doing everything but going back to sleep.

I was so tired this morning that synapses in my brain were firing off in random directions and I ended up applying my deodorant directly to the top of my head.

The white streaks in my hair add dignity, right?