Just when I thought I had seen it all, yesterday got even more interesting.  After braving a shower (and braving it is, because just imagine showering with hot water and then rubbing a nice, rough towel all over hands and feet covered in canker sores - yeah!), I noticed that the bathmat was soaked. Really soaked.  "How odd," I thought.  "I know I had the shower curtain closed."  Hmmm.

It really got interesting when I went downstairs and commented on this to my mother, who was staying with us until this morning, when the little angel went back to Oz and I returned to work.  My mother didn't think this was anything to worry about. I called my beloved and reported it to him; a plumber was already on the way because there was a bit of a drip in the shower anyway.  Yes, this is foreshadowing done badly.  My beloved also thought it was no biggie.

Five minutes later, I heard the disturbing sound of dripping in the kitchen.  I looked up, and there was a steady stream of water pouring down OUT OF THE LIGHT FIXTURE, WHICH WAS ON.  I shut off the lights and ran downstairs to try to figure out how to shut off the main water supply. My mother was quick like the wind with the wet-dry vac, obviously a veteran of leaks.  I was on the phone with my beloved, delicately screaming "Get home now! The sky is falling!" (I have always had a flair for the dramatic.)  Then I called the plumber, who talked me through turning off the water to my house. Apparently, the dipshits who owned the house before us thought it would be cute to paint the water shut-off green, which everyone knows is the color you are supposed to use for the gas shut-off.  Boy, was that confusing. The plumber kept saying, "Just shut off the one coming straight out of the wall." I kid you not, there are probably 32 pipes coming out of our basement wall - it's unfinished.  I was fairly sure I would blow up the house.  Finally, we got it shut off, my beloved arrived on the scene, the plumber arrived on the scene, and in short order, all was fixed.

Until the cat started throwing up all over everything. She threw up all over all the clean laundry. She threw up all over the rug.  She threw up so much that I called the vet, who of course said, "Bring her in." So when my beloved arrived home from work, we handed him the cat.  Apparently, they drew some bloodwork, charged us $158, gave her a Tagament to settle her stomach and sent her back home.  My mother passed out on the couch from exhaustion at 8 p.m.  I drank some wine.

Life can be tiring.

I have to say...doctors lie.  My pediatrician told me that these blisters don't hurt the baby, or maybe only the ones on her mouth would.  LIE! LIE!  LIE!  They hurt!  It feels kind of like having a canker sore on the OUTSIDE of your body.  Soooo sensitive.  Sooo easily inflamed by common household things like hot water, socks, rough towels.  Sooo hard to cover up protectively when you are out of Band-Aids.  And Tylenol is not the wonder drug for adults it seems to be for babies.

I know, my tale of woe is a little overdrawn. And it is. There are far worse things that could happen. I take comfort in knowing this will only last seven days max, and I am already on day three. Halfway home, or nearly. 

The bright side of the story is that my beloved mother has come down like a guardian angel to save me, taking care of the little angel so that I can work, helping to empty the dishwasher when the hot water bothers my hands and my beloved has disappeared to the office with his X-box (though I cut him slack, he's awesome with his mother-in-law in the house so long) and giving me hugs whenever I whine.  She did make me endure the Country Music Awards last night, though.  I was surprised - the last time she visited, she was into Beyonce. My mother has broad musical tastes. 

I noticed country singers sing about Jesus a lot.  Then, suddenly, there was a band called Big and Rich that had a MIDGET ON STAGE.  A MIDGET IN A BIG, ORANGE HAT.  He had two little canes, and he was head-banging to a country song. And there was a black cowboy in a Superman t-shirt. I was confused. I thought maybe I was stuck in the hazy mist of fever left over from the onset of hand, foot and mouth disease, shortly before the mouth part and after the hand and foot part.  But no, they were real.  The other country stars looked just as confused as I was. I can understand how, say, Dolly Parton and a midget might be in the same category, but the midget, the black cowboy in a Superman t-shirt and George Strait didn't really make much sense.  The only redeeming quality of the whole affair was about thirty seconds of Jimmy Buffett.

Speaking of Jimmy Buffett, there seemed to be a whole category of songs for which country stars had teamed up with the secular crowd. The civilians. Like Uncle Kracker.  What's up with that?  Is this like a funny new thing for country stars?  Slum a little with the mainstream folks before church?  I've never thought so much about country music as I did last night. Thanks, Ma.

Well, now you have it.  I've caught the little angel's hand, foot and mouth disease. Here are some quotes about how easy it is for an adult to catch:

• Can it affect adults?
  It rarely affects otherwise healthy adults, if at all. An adult can get the virus and feel ill, although he or she wouldn't get the rash.  (Source: BabyCentre, UK)

• Rarely, adults and older children may develop a mild form of the illness. The affected person is infectious until the spots fade. The incubation period is between 2 and 10 days. (This means it may take 2-10 days to develop symptoms after being in contact with an infected person.) (Another UK medical Web site - boy, does the UK suck...)

So anyway, I have been pondering whether or not I should go back to the office. I am working from home today, mostly because I am so freaked out by the whole affair I wasn't sure how to proceed. Finally, my friend K. called. K. is always v. honest, so I asked her if she thought it was totally icky and irresponsible to go back to work, despite the fact that the pediatrician thought it would be okay.  K. pointed out that she doesn't even like it when people with colds go to work. Okay, I have been at work with a cold for two weeks...perhaps I should quit with the sinning already, eh?

K. and my mother both recommended I milk it in the name of a germ-free workplace. And, I have to admit, I do feel rather smarmy at the thought of subjecting anyone to this. There might be people who are pregnant that I don't know about at work. What if a parent picked something up from me and carried it home to their kiddos?  I am pretty diligent about trying not to salivate on things, but one just never knows how persistent germs can be. So I think I will probably be working from home again tomorrow, just to be safe. Thank goodness for technology, wireless networking and cellular phones.  Thank goodness that I'm not a construction worker.  I have to admit, though, I kind of miss my office pals.  I never thought I would say I could be lonely for the office, but after almost a week away from it, I rather miss the hallway conversations and impromptu lunches.  There are definitely pros and cons to everything in life.

Well, after a rousing weekend of doing pretty much nothing but taking care of the hand- foot- and mouth-diseased little angel and diligently washing my hands, my baby is still spotted. She seems to be in great spirits, however, which is more than I can say for myself. I admit I was sad that I couldn't go visit my college roommates this weekend.  I'm also frustrated with having to balance everything at once. I'm a little tired and ready for a vacation, though vacations aren't quite the same now with a little one.  It's not all bad - don't get me wrong - but at the seven-month point, I am starting to wear a little thin on the edges.  This mama thing is a lot of work!

I got a call this weekend saying my interview to adjunct at a local four-year university has been cancelled. I also got two rejection letters in the mail for stories I'd finally gotten around to sending off.  Meanwhile my spotted baby is crying and thrashing about in the bouncy seat she is WAY too big for and has no business being in. She is there because I am attempting to get something done right now.  She is also there because she can't be anywhere else while she is spotted.

It is at times like these that I once again think fondly of being a stay-at-home mom.  It would be nice to be able to concentrate on just the baby or just working, but not both. Since I have the baby, there is no more "just working" mode.  I think perhaps it is the constant focus on a million things other than oneself that is the tiring part of being a parent. Of course, my beloved does not seem to experience this mental exhaustion. I do not know if this is due to his extreme Type B personality or his lack of mother anxiety or the fact that I have never seen him make a list when not preparing to go on vacation. 

Ah, I don't know.  Back and forth, back and forth.

The little angel developed spots last night at bathtime. It was after her first brush with prunes. I'm not sure if it's at all related to the prunes, though. The scary part is that it is spreading. It started out just on her diaper area, but this morning it has moved to her face, legs, and oddly, her right pinky finger. She also seems a little raspy. I am trying to fight back visions of her throat closing off in an allergic fit while I wait impatiently for it to be close enough to nine (when the pediatrician's office opens) to whisk her off to an overcrowded waiting room. To top it off, she woke up for about an hour in the middle of the night and I forced myself to the gym at five this morning when she woke up again, so I am operating on early motherhood sort of sleep.

I'm sure it's nothing. Even if it is an allergic reaction, it is not terribly severe and will most likely go away. There are lots of mommies out there with very sick children, and I am foolish to whine over a few weird bumps. Still, I have always been a very creative thinker, which can backfire Stephen King-style with unexplained illness. I MUST KNOW WHAT IT IS!

Okay, three more minutes have passed. My beloved thinks I am crazy, or at least that is his screen. I think deep down he is secretly worried, too, and pleased to have me act out his inner dialogue so conveniently. He did ask me to look at the rash this morning before he launched into "She's fine, she's fine." But he did ask. And he did look slightly concerned when he asked.

It's a man act.

I hope she's okay. DAMN PRUNES. Never again. Who likes prunes, anyway?

I can't believe he won. At least the country voted. I think more people probably voted in this election than ever before.

I wish I had something more positive to say, but I'm blown away that he won. I'll think on that and try to come up with something more uplifting tomorrow.

Ah, election day is here again. I liken the past four years to those of college - it seems like they just took longer. More happened. I got married. I bought a house. I had a baby. We had a recession. We got attacked. We went to war.

I questioned my career choices. I mulled four or five and am still working on two. I got a graduate degree. I was asked what I was going to "do" with it. I questioned the ROI of education. I questioned whether people who asked that question should be forced to work retail.

We questioned the U.N. We questioned our position as World Police. We questioned our dependency on foreign oil. We questioned the definition of patriotism.

My family grew. I started worrying about more people than just myself. I realized how helpless it can make me feel to realize I love someone so much I would never be the same if something happened to him or her. I identified with more people than I ever have before.

We went to war without many allies. We went to war with only our ex-mother country by our side. We didn't find what we thought we were fighting over. We questioned the value of information. We said we were fighting over information, but really we made decisions based solely on emotion.

I discovered the value of decisions based solely on emotion, but still hated the war.

The only thing I do understand about politics is what I understand about humanity. There is no good or evil in this world. There are only shades of gray. Where you stand on any one issue is based largely on your own experience or the experiences of those you love, and that's okay. It's amazing that we are able to play out our own lives on a national scale by voting, thrust our own opinions, for our votes are based on our opinions, which were shaped in turn by our life experiences, into the hands of a group of individuals and with that statement proclaim this, right now, is important to me.

I think our system has a lot of faults. I'll be really mad if whomever earns the popular vote loses the electoral college, regardless of the candidate. I'll admit I have my favorite, and he isn't from a place we like to call Texas. However, millions of Americans are out there today telling the world what we think about when, once every four years, we consider something larger than our daily lives. When we value our own opinions for a change.

Yesterday I felt sick. So, by the time I got to Oz, I was ready to collect my little angel and go home to try to enjoy the evening without coughing on her too much. When I got to Oz, one of the ladies had elbow-length plastic gloves on and was leaning over the little angel, who apparently had had a Big Blow-Out. She didn't seem to know what to do.

I motioned her out of the way and started to clean up the little angel, who was crying. Another woman swept in and popped a pacifier in her mouth. That would've been helpful, but IT WAS NOT HER PACIFIER.

I'll say that again: IT WAS NOT HER PACIFIER.

ICK!

That is like babies french kissing!

EW!

I HATE OZ. Just when I start to think I might be too hard on them when I say they have no heart, brain or courage and there's no place like home, they go and pull some stupid stunt like that. Of course, this made me irate, and I spent the first hour at home crying to my mother on the telephone. My mother thinks I need antidepressants. I think I need a new daycare provider.

This morning, the director came down and had another of her famous "little talks" with me. She said she had lectured all the people, blah, blah, blah, the same crap she says every time. I couldn't even look at her. I am so tired of having these conversations every few weeks. So I guess this morning I will call the three other places we are on waiting lists for and hope that the pleading desperation in my voice will help me inch her up the list.

I asked my father, who demanded my mother stay home to care for us when I was growing up, if he thought I was a bad mother for working. I certainly feel like that most of the time, but it is necessary for us right now. Any of you out there in TV Land tempted to tell me that it is completely possible to live on one income must live in small, cloistered rural towns like the one where I grew up. Or maybe you have independently wealthy spouses. Many times when I make this rant, I get sympathetic "why don't you just stay home" sorts of comments, and I have to say they sure don't make me feel any better. Some of us make more than our husbands do. What do you do about that? So much for women's liberation!
What do you do when the breadwinner decides to knock off for a few years?

My father said no, that the world has changed and he understands that. I cried after that conversation, too, partly from just feeling so gosh darn sick and sorry for myself since beloved is out of town, and partly because I think I have been so hard on myself for being a working mama because my own mother wasn't, nor were any of my friends' mothers. I suppose it's akin to the guilt I would feel if I got divorced, since my parents are still together. I think whether we want to admit it or not, many women feel some sort of pressure to be the same sort of mother their mothers were. My mother was great. I want to be great, too. I am working really hard on getting comfortable with the idea that I could be a great working mama. My daughter might actually be proud of my career someday. She might feel inspired. She might ask me for professional advice, something I've never really been able to do with my now-working mother, because she was never part of Corporate America.

After all of this emotional catharsis, I decided to give the little angel a bath. We both like that. She laughed and smiled at me and splashed. Then we played on the floor, and she pulled Sybil's hair. Then she rubbed her eyes and wanted to be held.

And like usual, that made everything all better.

But I still hate Oz.

I have a cold. Kind of a bad one. Or maybe it's allergies - I can't tell. Anyway, all I know is that I feel miserable. The little angel, thank goodness, does not have whatever it is I am suffering from, and neither does my beloved, who left town this morning on a three-day business trip. I am really hoping the little angel does not become a coughing, sniveling wreck in the next 24 hours. I know that I am.

I actually was so pathetic yesterday that I begged my beloved to take the little angel to Oz so that I would not infect her (can you believe I was begging for Oz???) and went back to bed until 1 p.m. After that, I was going to try to do something productive (being quite Type A), but I actually had to sit back down after I had that thought. I haven't felt like that in a long, long time.

Today I woke up feeling slightly better, or maybe it was just the adrenaline that comes from knowing there is no one else to take care of the baby for the next three days but me. I'm here at work, pretending to feel good while freebasing Halls. Wish me luck, and feel sorry for me. I want my own mama.