Week 13 Day 3: Horsey Bear

Having Marilyn here was a definite help today as I feel like trash garbage. Granted, I didn't just sleep all day or anything. Though I probably should have. It's just difficult to be away from Gavin for too long, even if by "away" I mean in my bedroom with the door shut. Also, I feel guilty not taking care of him. I don't want to seem like I'm taking advantage or feel useless.

But I did take a brief nap and I could hear Marilyn and Gavin in his room playing. She was singing to him and he was laughing. She is a terrible singer. But Gavin thinks she's great. And so in a way she is. She also did this thing where she put Gavin on her knees while she was sitting on the couch and bounced him a little while singing, "Ride a little horsey, ride to town, whoa! little horsey, don't fall down." On the "don't fall down" part she'd move her knees apart so Gavin would drop down a bit. He loved this very much. I had never heard this little rhyme before but she said it's something her parents did to her and something she did to Stacy and David. My mom always did this little rhyme in French, which I sadly cannot reproduce here because I have no idea how to spell most of it. But there was a line that, in English, means, "The cat ate the cream." Helpful, I know.

Even though Gavin is still a snot-faced bear and is coughing like a mini-TB patient, he's still a pretty happy guy who loves to laugh and is quick to smile. I really hate that he's sick. The poor dude. I keep wondering if we should take him to the doctor but Stacy and her mom both think that he probably has the same virus that Stacy had -- and that I now have -- and he should be better by tomorrow night or at least the morning after.

This morning Marilyn said that she could hardly sleep last night because Gavin was coughing so much. It got to the point where she was afraid he'd somehow choked to death and then thought to herself, "Oh well, there's nothing I can do now." But then she felt terribly guilty and she'd decided that if he was dead then she wouldn't tell us that she'd heard him choking and did nothing, but then she said she started to feel so guilty about it she decided that if he was dead and she had, in fact, listened to him choke and did nothing, she would kill herself because she wouldn't be able to live with the guilt. So, you know, awesome night for her. Great story for us. Needless to say, Gavin did not choke and die.

Stacy and I were supposed to go to Parent Club tonight. Since Marilyn is here she was going to be at home with Gavin so we could actually both go (taking Gavin is still not on the table since not only is Parent Club after his bed time, but now he's sick). Unfortunately, that didn't happen with me being sick and all. I don't think the other folks there would be at all happy to have me there breathing on their babies. So I suggested Stacy and her mom go out to dinner instead. No sense in everyone being cooped up because of me. Plus I thought it would be nice to have some alone time. Just me and my thoughts. Ha. What I actually did while they were out to eat was clean up the terrible flooding mess Stacy made trying to change the filter to our under-sink water filter. It's a long story. It involved a lot of towels. I also learned that you should never assume your wife knows where the water shut off valve is in your basement because otherwise you'll spend a lot more time than you need to being sprayed in the face with water whilst under your kitchen sink.

Gavin, amazingly, slept through all of this. Thank God.