As Ian and I pulled up to my parents, my dad (AKA Pop according to Ian) was heading over to the neighbor’s house to “help with some leaves.” Ian kept asking as we went inside, “where Pop go?” and when I told him he was outside helping with leaves he got down from the kitchen table where my mom (Mamaw) and I were sitting, grabbed his coat and headed for the front door saying, “I wanna see leaves.” Um, ok.

So I carried him two houses down to Paul’s house and not seeing any leaves in the front yard, moseyed into the backyard. There I found Paul and my dad and Paul’s daughter raking a bunch of leaves out of my father’s truck into a pile. It looked like they were almost done so I thought we might make it back inside where it’s warm. Then Daddy said, “oh I brought that chain for you.” Apparently they were going to pull over a tree in Paul’s front yard too. And apparently Ian needed to witness that.

So Daddy and Paul wrapped this huge tractor chain around the tree and Daddy used his pickup to pull the tree over. Now we should be able to go in where it’s warm! Ah, but then the discussion went to how the tree was going to get out of the giant hole it was in. Daddy was trying to explain that the direction the chain was wrapped mattered because they were trying to roll it out of the hole. It took about three different tries of pulling the tree in various directions, but eventually Daddy pulled this big tree up out of the hole and onto the lawn. As soon as it stopped moving, Ian yelled out, “Pop did it! Pop did it!!”

Paul said, “I don’t know how you got so lucky to get that tree out, George.” and I told him, “it’s not luck; it’s experience.”

Then the tree was blocking the sidewalk, so Daddy had to go get his chainsaw to cut it up. Ian of course had to stick around for that too. It wasn’t until the tree was all cut up and they were just stacking wood that he relented that he was cold and wanted to go inside and see Mamaw.

After another 30 minutes we were finally ready to go to Trader Joe’s. Daddy sheepishly asked how long we would be gone because he might want to go to (“I don’t know what else I’d do while you’re gone so I might as well come along.”). So we all piled in the car on a field trip. I was not so sure about my father going to Trader Joe’s because things there are not cheap and my father won’t eat name brand Beanie Weanies because they’re too expensive but he managed to have a good time.

We roamed around the various aisles and Daddy was wooed by the free samples of coffee and entrees. I discovered my father had never heard of yogurt covered raisins because he pointed to them and said, “wow they will combine anything!” I then had to put a container of them in the cart because one of Ian’s favorite foods is yogurt covered raisins and we had gone there specifically for them. My two-year-old is more worldly than the 70-year-old in some ways. Daddy also had never seen a checkout display that showed the items as they were ringing up, so it’s probably good he went on this field trip just to get a little more experience.

Ian was getting punchy and super tired and the 1/2 mile between Trader Joe’s and Chick-fil-a was a screaming cry-fest. Only waffle fries could placate him. My father said, “you never did anything like this when you were his age” but a little later in the car he added, “then again we never really went anywhere with you kids when you were little.” I reminded him that most kids are good but only do annoying things when they’re in bad situations and out of reserves. They’re over-tired, over-stimulated and over-extended, just like Ian was tonight. Thank God for waffle fries.

Mom says she wants to go back to Trader Joe’s with me again and leave Daddy at home so we have more time to browse and look for things to buy without him. But at least Daddy now understands that Trader Joe’s is a grocery store and not a military surplus store, like he did when he agreed to go on this field trip with us tonight.

For all his experience with tractor chains and tree stumps, Daddy still has things to learn and the two-year-old is helping teach him.

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

That’s what I woke up to at 6:26am on Christmas Eve. Ian had sat up in the sidecar crib next to me and looked at me with melancholy. I looked over and saw that Rich was gone. The first thought I had was “oh, good grief, Ian had sprawled so much in the bed last night we literally pushed Rich onto the floor. His love of co-sleeping is growing thin, I’m sure.”

Then I realized he had left for his hockey pickup at 5:45 that morning. The alarm was set for 6:30 so Ian and I just turned it off and rallied for the day. We picked out some warm pants and a cute t-shirt and his special hockey sweatshirt (with a bear and a PUCK! and SKATES! and a HOCKEY STICK! and a HELMET!). Things were looking good for us to get to the rink just in time to catch the second half of ice time.

But as Ian sat on the dog bed in the living room and I was getting my bag packed, he coughed so hard that he threw up all over his warm pants. Thankfully the sweatshirt was saved, but we had to do a quick wardrobe change before we could get going. Undeterred, we headed to the rink to watch Daddy play hockey.

Rich had said several times that it would mean a lot to him if Ian and I came out to watch him play goal. When he turned around and saw us on the other side of the boards, the look on his face was priceless. He actually said I could wrap that up and make that one of his Christmas presents.

Hockey went well, Hardee’s went well, last minute groceries and Food Lion went well and even an emergency trip to Super Cuts to de-mullet our son’s hair went well. It wasn’t until we had left all that and Ian was working on his “good haircut lollipop” that he started coughing again and proceeded to vomit all over himself and his car seat (the hockey sweatshirt was definitely not savable this time). Rich was literally two cars behind us and I was frantically trying to turn into the gas station and flag him down at the same time. I waved in a panic to him but he just cheerfully waved back and kept on driving.

So I texted hurriedly “vomit everywhere”. I had considered using Siri to send something but worried it would get garbled into “comet underwear” and Rich would just think “Me-ow! I’ll be shooting stars come nap time if she’s already sending me naughty text messages!” as he motored home.

Ian and I pulled into the parking lot and I pulled out the emergency bag I had packed after vomit #1 that contained a complete change of clothes (including socks). Mom of the year! After mopping up part of the mess, I checked my phone and saw Rich’s reply. “Oh no. Need help?”

Need help? What part of “vomit everywhere” sounds like “you just go on ahead home, honey. I know you’re smelly from your 90 minutes of hockey pickup and could use a shower. I’ll stay here in the Wawa parking lot and scoop up regurgitated seaweed salad out of the car seat.” But instead I just texted back, “Yes.”

Rich eventually met us there and could transfer the filth to the dumpster while I changed Ian’s clothes. We were on our way home with plans for nap time. Ian had a yogurt and we eventually headed upstairs for some Mama milk to prep for a nap. Rich and his dad had gone to the local sub shop to pick up lunch for us all and his mom was downstairs. After a few minutes of Mama milk, Ian started coughing again and making the “thrup” sound. I had just patted myself on the back for catching his vomit in his blanket versus our bed sheets when he tried to roll away from the gross blankie and thew up again while on his back. Dear God, it was awful. He got snotty vomit up his nose and in his eyes! I grabbed him and sprinted to the bathroom as I just kept saying over and over “oh, Buddy, I’m so sorry. Hang in there, I’m so sorry.”

And I texted “vomit again” to Rich. This time he came rushing upstairs as soon as he was home and helped the poor little guy get to sleep while I stripped the bed and cleaned the bathroom. A collective sigh of relief rang out around the house as Ian went down for a nap and we started some laundry.

But just over an hour later, Ian started coughing again and as we came up to check on him I could hear Rich say, “oh, Buddy, I’m so sorry.” Yeah, I know what that means. Time to strip the comforter off the bed and try again.

As the laundry line continued, Ian was in fine spirits. I think it was just the snot triggering a gag reflex when he coughed too much. He probably didn’t need yogurt since it coats your throat, but it was the only thing he was interested in eating. I insisted that both Ian and I have a bath before bed because despite rinsing off before I was convinced I smelled faint hints of vomit and wanted to eliminate the possibility it was one of us. We managed to get him settled for bed around 9pm and just kept the baby monitor close by to listen for tell-tale signs.

Around 11pm I heard him fuss and cough a little. When I went up to check on him he was having a hard time breathing, so I propped him up on my stomach as a pillow. He snuggled down and seemed to be able to sleep. I took a picture and sent it to Rich downstairs. I was worried he would start coughing more so I wanted to keep an eye on him a bit. As I said as much to Rich via text, Ian started coughing very hard. I sat up and held him in my arms, blanket at the ready and his head on my chest, hoping that sitting up would help. After a particularly hard cough, Ian threw up his entire dinner right down my nursing tank shirt. And that’s when I texted “vomit 911″ to Rich.

But the first thing I thought was “his clothes are clean, the blanket is clean, and thank everything the comforter is clean! It’s a Christmas miracle!” So Rich sprinted upstairs and got Ian back to sleep propped up on a pillow while I headed once more into the shower after shaking my shirt out into the toilet. As I later told my parents, I was working on every puke-related parenting merit badge all in one day.

I’m pleased to report that this fifth and final vomit was all we had to deal with and he did much better on Christmas day. But Rich and I have also learned the subtle nuances of texting when puke is involved. I hate how the iPhone has a text “shortcut” that converts “omw” into “On my way!” but I may have found a new use for the shortcut feature.

I’m going to change it so that whenever I type vomit, it converts it to OMG VOMIT! YES I NEED HELP!!!

P.S. Rich got my “vomit again” text while he was almost back to the house from the sub shop with his dad. He asked his dad if he should type back “need help” and his father wisely said, “if you do, just drop me off and don’t even bother coming home cause you won’t be welcome there for a while.”

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

Everything was going as planned with dinner #1 at 3pm (blood sugar was a perfect 79, estimated 84g of carbs, took 7 units) and dinner #2 at 7pm. But dinner #2 got complicated. We all got ready to sit down right at 7 but Ian didn’t want to sit at the table. After a bit of prodding I figured out that he wanted to have Mama Milk first in the chair before eating, so while everyone else pulled up a chair for dinner, Ian and I headed to the recliner for an appetizer of milk. I got a late start to dinner because of that but assumed I would eat my same typical plate of starches and a small dessert. But I had a small child in my lap (he wanted to eat dinner but he wanted to eat dinner WITH MOMMY) and was distracted so I didn’t actually check my blood first.

I assumed things were still on track so I estimated I would eat the same as dinner #1. Since I had 84g last time and still gave myself an extra unit, I estimated 96g this time and gave myself 8 units total. This was around 8pm.

And then Ian proceeded to eat half of my Thanksgiving dinner off my plate. I poured myself a cup of cider which has a ton of sugar in it, but never actually drank it since I think I messed it up with too much citrus and it tasted off. I did manage to eat a small piece of pumpkin pie and I felt full so I assumed all was well.

About the time everyone left to go home, though, I started feeling a little off. At 11:15pm I checked my blood and it was 56 (whoops). So I grabbed a Coke from the fridge and assumed the 38g of sugar in that would set me back on course. At 12:30 I was back up to 89 and feeling proud to have fixed that bad math from before.

But once Rich had put Ian to bed, I started feeling worse. I have this stupid head cold but my stomach was getting queasy too. I decided to just go to bed. Rich came up with me to make sure I was settled and I decided to check my blood one more time just for good measure. Crap, it was only 12:45 but I was down to 76. That explained the nausea coming on … I was going low and fast.

Rich brought me juice and I struggled to drink it (chugging juice when you feel like puking is not fun). By 1am I was still dropping to 62. More juice. More deep breaths to not puke up said juice. By 1:15, I was up to 73.

And I was wiped out. I wasn’t sure if I would really be better at that point but couldn’t bear another drop of juice. I turned my pump off for an hour and rolled over to moan quietly to myself waiting for sleep to take over. Rich stayed on high alert for another hour or so and rested in the guest room to give me and the boy some space. The last thing we needed was the boy waking up and demanding anything.

So then at 7 this morning, I got up to pee and felt that fuzzy feeling of being high (it’s a difficult thing to describe so fuzzy will have to do). I cringed as I checked my blood and it returned 384. Sigh. Time to take an assload of insulin (that’s a medical term), chug some water and wait a few hours to feel normal again. By the time we got to brunch, I was grateful to be under 200.

As I was lying in bed, stuffed up with a cold and trying not to puke, I had about 30 seconds of self-pity. I started to get all teary-eyed over how frustrating it was to have to eat or drink something I had zero interest in because it was acting as medicine. I was irritated with myself for over-estimating my appetite. They say your eyes can be bigger than your stomach, but mine were apparently bigger than my pancreas. I was jealous of people whose dinner plans don’t involve so much math.

But it was fleeting. Rich rubbed my head and I realized that tuning up to cry was only going to make me feel worse. So I counted myself thankful for a helpful husband, the wonders of apple juice, health insurance if I needed it and the confidence that at least I knew why I felt crappy, even if it would take a while to fix it.

Sometimes just knowing what you’re up against is the best you can hope for.

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

It took me 30 minutes to pump two ounces of milk, milk that I will be pouring down the sink in my hotel room. And even though I have the pump, I end up having to hand express which involves hand-cramping squeezing and hoping I don’t just spray milk all over myself and the hotel bed.

I’m pumping less. It used to be when I left Ian for a trip, I had to pump for all the times he normally nursed, which is at least three times a day (morning, after work, bedtime). But this trip and last week, I’ve only been pumping once a day and it’s been tough to get much out.

So we are slowly weaning, if weaning means Ian choosing to nurse every so slightly less each week. I’m fine with that. Ian will be 25 months tomorrow and our nursing relationship has been the best I could have hoped for. I feel lucky, really, that we’ve had such an easy time of it. I just wish I could share that luck with other mothers and babies.

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

On the minus side, I got distracted and forgot to take my insulin with dinner. Then we drove home to meet my parents and give them dinner I’d cooked in the crock pot. Then I noticed it was gorgeous outside so we took the dogs for a long walk. And suddenly it was 8:30 and I remembered my dinner from 6pm. That would be why my blood sugar is 386. Sigh.

So while it was a good evening, I’m wiped out now all because of one stupid oversight. I’ve taken a gallon of insulin and am gonna have some water and go lie down. Here’s to a better morning and no low blood sugars tonight.

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

As I curled up under the blankets I thought, “as least if I feel this bad tomorrow I won’t have to pack Ian’s lunch. Rich can do that.”

Fast forward a few hours to Rich coming to bed saying he didn’t feel so hot. I was super asleep so I think my reaction was along the lines of “uh huh, yeahzzzzz”. But at 2:30am he reiterated that he was indeed about to die. We got up and got him into the shower, hoping the hot water would help. I asked him if he wanted a giant glass of water and he said, “yeah, that sounds good.”

Just then, Ian piped up from the bed, “I want water too!” Sigh. Yeah, I’ll get you water too. “I wanna come!” Fine, I’ll carry all 32.5 pounds of you downstairs to the kitchen at 3am for water. “I want juice.” Fine. “I want Lightning McQueen cup.” Fine.

By the time I carted all 32.5lb of him plus a giant glass of water plus a Lightning McQueen novelty cup of apple juice, I was definitely feeling weary. But we dug out the heating pad for Rich and he drank his water and Ian drank his juice and somehow we all managed to get back to sleep.

7am rolled around and Rich was certainly not going anywhere. So since I no longer felt at Death’s door but perhaps just in Death’s zip code, I dragged myself out of bed, packed Ian’s diapers since Rich was too sick, dressed our son, dressed myself and ignored the state of my hair in favor of a ponytail. And I packed Ian’s lunch afterall.

Since Rich still felt bad after our presentations this afternoon, he went home to sleep. So I picked up Ian after work and took him for dinner and out to play and then packed his lunch for tomorrow and set out his clothes for picture day and started his diapers in the wash (which won’t be ready for the dryer until 11:30 tonight by my estimate). Ian was “good as gold” (as my mother says) the whole time, so that was a relief, but it’s still tiring.

And there’s still work stuff I have to do. This. This is one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging lately.

I do feel bad for Rich because he is pretty sick and feels worse than I do. But there was a part of me that wanted to stomp my feet and say “No fair! I was sick first! Quit hogging all the sick!”

But I’ll just go start the diapers on their second cycle and tuck my husband in on the couch before I finally get a shower to improve the situation with my hair.

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

It may still kill us. Our son was woefully tired when we got home. By the time I pick him up at 5:30, nurse him in the van for 15 minutes, stop at the store and get home, it’s almost 6:30. Dinner was going to be tight, but we were having this damn chicken.

I wanted to grill it because that usually is faster than the oven. The last time I tried this, the chicken drippings blackened the skin, so I tried it again with a foil barrier. That worked reasonably well, but we were running out of daylight and toddler patience and time all around. I decided to finish cooking it in the Advantium. But even that was going to take too long. So I cut it up into sections and finished it that way. It was the most complicated, messy, unappetizing version of grilled chicken I could have created.

Add to that a fussy toddler and I was just done. I was never going to try to cook anything in our house again. My husband has many wonderful talents, but cooking is not one of them. I think he can cook three things, one of which is Steak-ums. So if I want food at home, I have to make it. But when am I going to make it if we don’t get home until after 6 and the toddler is running out of steam by 7:30? It’s a sprint to make food, which isn’t very fun.

Oh, and I had avocados that were going to go bad, so I had to make guacamole tonight whether I wanted to or not. And I had to find something to pack for Ian’s lunch tomorrow. So while I angrily chopped up avocados and mixed cilantro I ranted to Rich about how food just is not fun. It was not a pretty sight.

We had some quiet time in our respective corners, him banging on things in the garage and me banging dishes. After an hour or so things started looking up. I took the leftover chicken and dumped it in a pot to make soup. I packaged up the guacamole, which Ian will get some of tomorrow. And I took the sweet potatoes I’d baked during dinner and made gluten-free sweet potato biscuits.

And even though the chicken was a mess, I steamed asparagus with shaved Parmesan cheese and toasted pine nuts and that was delicious. I could have eaten just that.

So food can be fun sometimes. Maybe just not on weeknights.

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

I just remind myself to pick my battles. If he wants to wear a dirty Harvard t-shirt with horizontal striped pj bottoms and Batman crocs to the company dinner party, so be it. He’s happy and it’s not like he’s going to a job interview.

It’s all about keeping your expectations realistic.

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

There are dozens of ways to get to our house from Portsmouth, so at each intersection I ponder the relative benefits of each route. After deciding to go straight versus right at a light I saw the flashing lights warning of a coming train.

I started to curse myself until I realized it was just me and Ian and we had front row seats to a real live TRAIN! I turned off the radio and rolled down the windows, threw the van into park and we reveled in the choochoo. Suddenly an inconvenience was an opportunity.

I may have created a monster, though, because ever since then it’s been BYEBYECHOOCHOO non-stop.

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.

And this year, he gave me my Mother’s Day gift early so I can play with it Saturday.

I am now the proud owner of a Pool Blaster Speed Jet vacuum. And I can’t wait to have a spotless pool!

Thank you, Rich. I love it.

©2012 ... in a Bottle. All Rights Reserved.