Week 5 Day 4: Uno, dos, sicko

Stacy's cold is easing up a bit, but Gavin's is just starting up. Poor little dude. Stacy called into work today since she and Gavin were up so much last night. She only took the morning off, though, so she was out of the house at noon. Needless to say Baby Time didn't happen, which was a bummer because I think it's good for us, plus I wanted to get the name and email/number of the mom I met there last week who has a daughter named Clementine who is the same age as Gavin. She lives nearby and also has an MFA - in non-fiction writing. Hopefully she'll be there next week.

It's also a bummer that I didn't take Gavin anywhere today because we finally got Gavin's new carseat installed. It's a Britax Marathon, which is supposed to be top of the line and all. And has a price tag to match. We found ours for almost $100 cheaper because ours is a big ass purple seat. We did a good amount of research re: our car seat purchase and one of the things that we liked about this is that customer reviews said it was easy to install. This was, to say the least, not our experience. It took several rounds of sitting outside in the freezing car to get the seat installed properly. Or at least what we hope is proper. Supposedly you can get your car seat installation checked by a professional, but we tried to do that with our infant car seat and found it was easier said than done. Stacy talked to someone at the Ferndale Police Department who said the guy who does it works midnight shifts now so Stacy would have to try to get ahold of him between midnight and 6 a.m. or some crazy shit. I think she left him a message at one point but he never called back. And we asked at Babies R Us if they did car seat checks and the clerks we talked to said they thought BBRU did something like that once but didn't know if they were ever doing it again. So, you know, helpful. And then Gavin grew out of that car seat and here we are. Dude's got the Big Purple Captain's Chair of Love and hasn't even been able to go cruising yet. I have no doubt it'll be a chick magnet.

While Stacy was here this morning I took advantage of her presence to vacuum. As I mentioned, Gavin cries when I vacuum when he's awake and vacuuming while he's asleep isn't going to work, either. If it wasn't so cold I'd just strap him into his new car seat and leave him in the car while I did it. I'm kidding. I would never do that. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall. Though that makes me think of this really horrifying Washington Post article I read last year about parents who leave their kids in the car. Like, they go to work and forget to drop their son or daughter off at day care and just leave them in the car. I know most people automatically think such parents must be monsters but the article did a really good job of humanizing these people. Everybody makes dumb mistakes. These people made deadly dumb mistakes. It's the kind of thing that torments parents: what if I ever did something to hurt or kill my child? I worry about this. I think all parents do. My best friend was just telling me today that her seven month old son has never had a cold or been sick or anything and that she wishes she could prevent him from ever getting sick. I have always worried about losing people I love or terrible things happening to them, but nothing compares to the kind of sickening fear and dread of picturing my son dead in his crib or drowned in the tub or, as I did one night, with his fingers chopped off. It's literally sickening. You think you've reached the limit of what you could live without and then you have a child. And then you realize how completely replaceable every person place or thing that came before him was.

Jesus. Why am I writing about this? Thankfully Gavin is seeping in his crib alive and well aside from his cold. I have the urge to go scoop him up and hold him to bask in his aliveness. But this would make him very cranky. And it would make Stacy cranky, too. And in the long run I, too, would be made cranky as I would have to soothe him back to sleep, probably multiple times. He's probably going to be up a lot tonight as it is. That's the way it was last time he as sick. Christmas. It's all Stacy's fault that he's sick and part of me is irritated by this, as if the woman who feeds him from her very breasts should have somehow managed not to swap germs with him. She works in an elementary school (teaching Spanish, hence the post title) which is basically a germ farm with crayons and worksheets. So it's really not a surprise and it isn't even her fault. But there's this instinct to keep Gavin safe and protected above all else, which can sometimes transform the co-parent into the enemy. The trick is knowing how to hold your friendly fire.