Ill

I'm exhausted.

Three long days of relentless illness -- not mine, but first the baby's, then the big kid's, then my husband's. A stomach virus, a particularly nasty one. Lots of laundry, lots of scrubbing carpets, toilets, furniture. Hours of soothing those I love the most while they suffer and praying I'll stay well enough to care for them. Washing my hands so often and so hard they crack from the abuse.

Add to it all the baby's molars coming in and you have an idea of the lack of sleep I've faced.

And as I sit in the dark silence at nearly midnight trying and failing to unwind, I once again hear from upstairs the baby's insistent cries. Third time tonight.

I want to run.

For a moment, I freeze. I can see myself, keys in hand, running out the door. Down the creaky porch steps into the cool night air. I can breathe there. I can hear the sounds of the car -- my husband's fast one, not my practical one -- the decisive thud of the car door, the sound of the engine starting up as I turn the key, the crunch of gravel under the tires as I make my escape.

Where will I go? The destination doesn't matter. Somewhere with a hot shower to wash away the stink of illness. Really good room service. A comfortable bed. A maid. Somewhere where I will be taken care of, rather than the caretaker.

I'm jarred out of my reverie by the memory of Saint Peter. He ran. After all his big talk, all his promises, he ran from the Cross. And in this moment I want to follow him.

But unlike Peter, I have the rest of the story. And therefore, no excuses.

This nudge from the Holy Spirit is enough. One foot in front of the other, I walk to the kitchen, aware of my mission. I prepare the dose of baby ibuprofen. I pour some milk. I climb the stairs and beg for the grace to embrace my cross (for the third time tonight). And then I do -- all 25 pounds of him.

To my great relief, he takes the medicine willingly and nestles against me in the rocking chair as he drinks his milk. As I rock him back to sleep, I talk to God, asking forgiveness for my selfishness and healing for my family. I beg the Blessed Mother's intercession. And I lift my sweet baby into his crib so we can start the night again.

Arrr, Matey.

Hat tip: Mark Shea.

Yes, this.

Colleen beautifully sums up what I feel about the Sarah Palin choice.

My new favorite techie thing

Pandora Radio.

Create your own stations with whatever you like and listen to it streaming ... no downloads, no fees. I've got a station for Gregorian chant, one for classical, one for 80s, and the one I'm listening to now, which is trance/trip hop. Tomorrow I'll make something kid-friendly and listen with the boys.

I bought a $500 thermometer.

Actually, it was $509 after shipping. All I have to say is, this thing better work:



I've been eyeing the LadyComp for a while, because I fell out of charting when I was pregnant with my littlest guy and have yet to really get back into it, mostly because I don't have Ovusoft installed on my new laptop and don't feel like paying another $40 to get a new license (it's not the money, it's the principle of the thing). And even if I did pay the fee and reinstall the software, there remains the fact that I hate waking up at the crack of dawn to take my temperature, and then having to remember to enter the data in the computer sometime during the day. None of this is a hardship, but the truth of it is that I really can be that lazy, and this is one of those things I'm lazy about.

Since I'm terrible about recording things on paper and I don't even remember how to plot the coverline because the computer always did it for me before, I've been doing what I call "half-assed Creighton," just paying attention to my body and physical signs and avoiding relations when there's even the most remote chance of pregnancy. Obviously, there's a whole lotta abstaining going on at my house. (Obvious disclaimer: My husband I have discerned serious reasons to avoid pregnancy at this time. Your situation may differ, so please consult with your own spouse and spiritual director, if needed, before using LadyComp or any other form of NFP.)

We need a better solution than avoiding each other most of the month, and since a miraculous increase in my fortitude and diligence is a nice thought, but probably not likely (at least not quickly and without some effort on my part), my husband urged me to give the LadyComp a try. His reasoning is that A) I'm 27 and probably have decades of childbearing potential left and B) We are not in a position to accept the blessing of a new child every year or so for that span, so the average $50 a year the LadyComp averages out to over its estimated ten-year lifespan is totally worth not having to ever enter another number into a computer, write it on a piece of paper, plot another graph, or roll mucus between my fingers and figure out what kind it is.

Please understand, I don't mean to knock NFP. It has worked for us and we are thankful for it. But we are technological people who like technological solutions. And the easier a product makes my life, the better. So I sprung for the LadyComp. I sure hope it works as well as the reviews I've seen say it does. It's basically just a very precise thermometer, but it also contains and internal computer with a database of something like 7,000 womens' cycles, and it stores data on your own cycle as it goes, so it learns your body as time goes on and tailors its recommendations and calculations to your own cycle. And the makers claim it works well with people who get up at night or have irregular periods.

Anyway, we'll see how this goes. Here are some more pics of the LadyComp (it's a lot bigger than I expected!). I'll let y'all know how it works.

Shopping with Emeril

Of all the nights to have forgotten my phone, not to mention my digital camera ...

Monday night, I stopped at Whole Foods Market on my way home from running a few errands to grab something quick and healthy-ish for dinner. Our Whole Foods is fancier than most, party because it's new, partly because it's in a fairly posh part of town, and partly because it has to compete with nearby Wegmans, which in my neck of the woods is like a culinary Disneyland.

Anyway, I mention the fanciness factor because the store has five mini-restaurants in it that all serve beer and wine, plus there is a wine bar upstairs. So when I walked into the restaurant and heard some bombastic guy in the back of the store whooping it up, with a crowd egging him on, my first thought was, "Who is this drunk idiot in Whole Foods on a Monday night?" (So charitable of me, I know.)

So I headed back in that direction, not to see the drunk guy, but because whole organic chicken was $1.99 a pound and that's usually where they keep it, and at that price I wasn't leaving without some.

As I approached the refrigerated sale bin, this big blond guy rushes up to me and physically blocks my way like we're in a basketball game and he's my defender. Bewildered, I gave him an "are you kidding me" look and tried to get around him. It was then that I noticed that there was a huge crowd of people over by the fish, not a soul near the chicken, and a huge flank of television cameras pointed right at me. Oops. Minus one for lack of observation.

I asked what was going on, and the blond gentleman turned into a living, breathing promotional spot for Emeril Green, celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse's new show on Discovery's "Planet Green" channel. I turned around in disbelief and saw that, indeed, Emeril Lagasse was standing twenty feet away from me, cooking and hollering and carrying on.

It was very cool. But I didn't have my phone to call home, so I couldn't stay and watch, and I didn't have my camera, so I didn't get a photo. However, I did find this photo, which is a close approximation of what I witnessed:



Anyway, if you watch the show, you might see me -- I'll be the disheveled girl wearing a lavender tunic and khaki walking shorts, standing by the chicken with a very surprised look on my face.