No Good Very Bad Day

We had a great holiday weekend. Like, birthday party, going to a play, cheering daddy in his first race, barbecuing with friends, drive in the country great. We really did. I have pictures to prove it.

We played with friends...

We enjoyed the beautiful fall weather...

We drove through a spicy apple orchard with the windows down...

And paid an impromptu visit to the Great Pumpkin.

It was so wonderful; it was the kind of weekend that reminds you why you do the during-the-week stuff, to pay for tickets and presents and beer and celebratory banners and all those things. This weekend had, in the words of the old Mickey D's jingle, food, folks, and fun. It was the kind of weekend that restoreth the soul.

~

Then yesterday happened.

I woke up to a grey-faced J.D. standing over me. "I think I have food poisoning." And I was all YEAH NO SHIT. There was literally not one shred of color in his face. He betook himself to the couch. I folded laundry and cleaned up the stuff that had piled up during the weekend (one of the only downsides to having a lot of fun days all in a row) and dealt with a blowout diaper courtesy of Lulu Belle, champion pooper. Some of it had gotten on her white onesie, so I plopped it in the sink with a scoop of Oxyclean, turned the hot water on, and then the doorbell rang and I went and signed for the package and then Lu was crying and I had to pick her up...

...and then about 15 minutes later, I heard the cat meowing from the middle of a spreading puddle of water on the bathroom floor.

O HAI PILE OF CLEAN, JUST-FOLDED TOWELS. BACK TO THE LAUNDRY WITH YOU.

We have a beautiful sink in our bathroom that is shaped like a very shallow fluted bowl. When purchasing it, I thought about how clean and elegant and architectural it would look. I did not consider how, if (when) it ever overflowed, water would sloosh over the rim and behind the vanity.

Which meant disconnecting pipes

To move the vanity and mop up the water behind it

Since I didn't caulk the area behind the sink when J.D. and I laid our new bathroom floor, and was worried about water getting underneath the linoleum and bubbling up

Which apparently seems to have happened anyway.

I'd just put the towels BACK in the laundry when Lulu started howling with hunger. She was being kind of fussy and tetchy about breastfeeding, so I pumped enough for a bottle and then passed it over to J.D. He fed her for a while, her eyes closed, blessedly...

And then she started to shake. Her upper body, but mostly just her head. It bobbed back and forth in a weird way for about five or six or maybe even as long as seven seconds. J.D. threw the bottle aside and started tapping her face, and it seemed to take a long time for her to open her eyes, and for a moment I thought she wouldn't, but then she did. And J.D. and I looked at each other and he said, "Did she just have a SEIZURE?"

I had been grasping for, but not reaching that word, and as soon as he said it, I snapped into emergency mode, which does not involve calling 911 or assessing for damage, but ripping the baby out of his arms, going to huddle up in a corner of the couch, and covering both of our heads with an afghan. From under the afghan, I debated with J.D. whether we should drive to the emergency room or call an ambulance or do nothing.

We settled for the middle ground. We called the pediatrician. She wanted us to bring the baby in right away.

So J.D. took my precious child to the doctor's, and instead of working I curled into a fetal position on the couch and chewed my nails and then got up and rummaged around in my desk drawer in case there was a cigarette forgotten in there, which is another thing I always do in emergencies. I kept checking the time on the phone like why are they gone so long, what is happening? Why isn't my husband calling me? And then after a million years, J.D. came home with Lulu cooing in her carseat and he had stopped by the store, so obviously she wasn't dying or anything. But I was still all MAH BABY WHAT DID THE DOCTOR SAY? And J.D. was like, "Oh, you know, she said it happens."

Wait, what?

"She said their neurological systems are still developing and kind of glitchy and sometimes they just weird out for a second."

And...is it going to happen again?

"Maybe. But it's not a big deal. Hey, I got cookie dough at the store."

So. Babies can just have seizure-y type things for no reason at all? And that's normal? I really feel like this could have been covered in one of the FIVE HUNDRED baby books I read before Lulu was born. There were dozens of pages on what kind of crib mattress to pick, what kind of rattles are most entertaining for each developmental stage, but nothing about weird shaking episodes caused by neurological system glitches. Not ONE WORD.

It kind of seems like the thing you would want to mention.

And it really makes me wonder what other critically important and scary things I don't know about babies. What else did the books leave out? Does their skin turn different colors? Do they occasionally shoot laser beams from their fingertips?

Lulu finished her bottle from earlier and went happily to sleep but of course I was afraid to leave her in case the shaking thing happened again. By the time I realized it wouldn't, it was late. And so I ended up starting my workday at 11:46 PM. And of COURSE the cat had barfed on the floor of the office, in retaliation for me marooning him in the bathroom hours earlier.

So I went and ate some cookie dough. THE END.