Life - Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day started with canceling dinner because Junior hasn't been feeling well. We didn't want to burden our friends who would be babysitting him. He reaffirmed our decision by getting violently sick this morning but then seemed to recover nicely.

I've been sick too, for a few weeks, enough to use up virtually all the Dayquil, Nyquil, and over a bottle of new Robitussen type stuff. My back also went out, bad enough to warrant a very unusual doctor's visit a couple days ago, and that's consumed all the Advil in the house. My drive down to Bethel last week to do some race stuff was bad enough that I didn't think I could drive the car because I couldn't push the clutch pedal down.

And so I didn't drive again until today, when my back felt just a bit less pain than "white hot poker stabbed through my kidneys". In other words I can finally drive again. With me driving and Junior babbling and playing it seemed safe to take him to day care. He goes two half days a week and he really likes it so I dutifully trundled him down there.

Once back at home I started working on Bethel Spring Series stuff, ate a late lunch, chopped a huge block of ice off of a roof/gutter area (ice dam two years ago), and started to gather all the stuff Junior messed up in the morning. Then I got the emergency call at 4:30-ish to go pick up Junior. He'd gotten sick and so he needed to get picked up.

When I got there I learned he had projectile vomited on one of the staff, the "feeding" rocking chair, and a decent portion of the floor around the chair (4-5' radius, semi-circle pattern).

(This is the first time I've connected the term "projectile vomit" with what he's been doing semi-regularly for maybe the past couple weeks. It's usually once or twice in a day, then he's okay for a bit, then a day where he gets sick again.)

As soon as he spotted me he held his arms up to hold me, kicking his legs like he does when he's happy (he was in a high chair thing).

After we got home he had a bit to eat (technically he drank formula and some electrolyte stuff). He promptly projected that stuff too. Exhausted, muttering and fussing, he fell asleep. He woke up twice so far (with at least 2 false alarms), before 11 PM, fussing, muttering, but not really eating much (2 ounces between the two wake-ups instead of the 4-8 ounces he has each time he eats).

It seems "not so romantic" for Valentine's Day, especially for the Missus. No dinner out, no whispered sweet nothings, fussing because he's hungry or his stomach hurts or his throat hurts or he's hot or he's cold or he's exhausted.

After you get through with me then you have Junior doing all that too. Ba-dum-bump.

Seriously though it's not been really romantic in the "flowers and chocolate" sense.

Then I think of what's happened today, what we did, how we did it. Junior looks to us for comfort, literally reaching out when he's so upset he can't do anything else. He cries and looks at us and holds his arms out and leans towards us. Then he melds into you when you hold him, melts into your shoulder or chest or arms, curling up in his parental security blanket.

It's not just one of us either. The Missus tries to cover when I'm tired, and I try to cover when she's tired. She can tell when my back is bugging me and she steps in to give me help. She can see when I have things in hand so she'll step back and let me work things through. I try to help her when she's tired, when Junior's status seems to stagnate, but I let her do her thing when she's making progress with Junior.

We both have our parenting styles. They're not better or worse, just different. I learn a lot from her. She surprises me with things that Junior can do or can handle. We counter each other well, balancing a conservative approach with one that pushes a bit more.

We're working together as a team, like a well honed cycling team works together. We take our pulls and pull really, really hard. Then we accept shelter to recover without asking for anything more than just some shelter to catch our breath. We give space to each other to let each of us parent but offer a hand when it gets a bit difficult.

There's a lot of love here in this house.

Well a lot of love and a few germs flying about.

So Happy Valentine's Day to us. And to all of you.