Hello, Pushkin

Except for peeing after you've really had to pee for a long time, feeling better after feeling sick is, quite possibly, the best feeling in the whole world.

I started feeling pukey on Sunday at our friend's birthday party, and was a full blown disaster by 8:00 that night. The worst moment was when I was throwing up in the bathroom while listening to Mae, hungry and crying in the nursery with her dad, and trying to shout, between wretches, "I'll be there in a minute." I just couldn't, couldn't look after her and that helpless feeling was almost worse than vomiting steak pie all night.

I'm so lucky that my husband was there to take over (everything but the breastfeeding, of course). He worked from home the next day and did most of the diaper changes and funny faces and general childcare stuff. I've said it before, but it deserves re-saying: Somebody needs to give single parents medals and free nannies. Being sick with an infant felt horrible, but being sick and alone with an infant must just be impossible. It must be the scariest, scariest thing.

But today is a much-much better day, although I'm still tired and not feeling fantabulous. (We ventured out to get wrapping paper from the dollar store down the street, and it very nearly killed me.) Mae has been taking good care of me, too. We had the biggest-ever snuggly sleep-in in the big bed this morning until 11:00. And she also went pretty easy on me the rest of the day, doing lots of quiet playing on her mat, happy gurgling and even some swinging in her swing-o-matic. That's where she is now, actually; going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And, amazing! Watching her rocking isn't even making me feel sick.

Mae has had a bad, bad tummy for about two weeks now. It's only now that it's getting better that I feel at all able to talk about it. The first real sign of trouble was a bit of blood in her diaper. It freaked me right out.

It freaked me out so much, actually, that it absolutely paralized me. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't do anything. I pretended to myself like maybe it was just food dye from her vitamin D drops, except I knew it wasn't.

I should explain that Mae has a family history of gastrointestinal illness, coming from my side. And I guess that's probably why I immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion. Clearly, she had advanced, accute ulcerative colitis that would require her to have horrible, painful surgery and need an ostomy for the rest of her life. I know it was awful and selfish, but I just couldn't bring myself to face the fear that something might be really wrong with my little girl.

But the third time it happened, I took a deep breath and my husband and I took her to the children's clinic. And, of course, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. The doctor said it could be a milk protein allergy, which would make sense since we'd just started giving her a little bit of milk-based formula at night.

So I've been avoiding dairy foods ever since and we've stopped giving her the formula, and it all seems better. "Phewf," is an understatement.

Our only problem now is that she's still hungry at night. Last night I nursed her for almost an hour, until there was nothing left, and she was still screaming for more. So we tried some soy formula, which she refused to eat.

I'll admit, I was a bit frustrated with her for being such a picky eater, but then I tried some myself. It was like drinking dissolved chalk or - at least - how I'd imagine drinking dissolved chalk would be. Kind of gritty (even though I shook it and shook it), and gag-inducingly bitter. Absolutely the grossest taste I've ever tasted in my life. Ever. And I've tasted some gross tastes (like the time I tried cat food when I was 7, just to see what it was like. Note: It's not very good).

So today Mae and I set out for the pharmacy and bought cans of every single soy-based formula we could find. This isn't saying much though, since I could only find three. Still, I labeled three seperate bottles and measured out three portions and we did a full-scale grade six science experiment with them complete with a hypothesis and beakers. Okay. Maybe not beakers but, still, it was very scientific. We both agreed that the clear winner was one called Isomil.

She finished off half a bottle of it and is taking a lovely, full-tummied nap as I write this. We are both feeling much better.

We had a huge day on Monday. I meant to write about it sooner but, I don't know, I guess I was just overcome by all the excitement.

First of all, Mae rolled over!! I put her on her tummy in the crib to play while I ran to pee, and she was mid-roll just as I got back. Of course, we had a huge celebration about it. And then I flipped her back on her tummy and she did it a second time, so we had to celebrate all over. All of that jubilation took a lot out of us, so by the time her dad got home, she was either too worn out to do it again, or else she'd just forgotten how. She hasn't done it since, either, but I can tell that she's working up to it.

And that wasn't the only important developmental milestone that day. She also learned how to torment the cat!! She has this toy that's a clear box with all these pully bits, and we hung it from her baby arch thing. She loves it. She grabs at it, and stares and stares and stares at it. And then, Monday morning, the light was coming in the window in such a way that it hit the clear box and made a reflection on the ceiling. So Mae was carefully tipping the box from side to side, and the cat was going nuts trying to catch the reflection and was meowing at the ceiling while jumping from the table top to the buffet and back again. Meanwhile, Mae was doing her high pitched happy-baby scream-thing. And I just sat, sipping my coffee, watching the pandamonium unfold.

All in all, a very thrilling day.