Five, Six, Who's Counting?

I realized the other day that Limelet has been sick five times in the past six weeks.  Two of those illnesses were ear infections, which we (his parents) didn't get, but we got the other things.  And this pattern has been pretty stable since last September.  We were just discussing the other day how before one has kids, one hears parents say things like "once they're in school/day care, you'll be sick all the time, at least during the first year."  Which I guess we heard but--didn't really hear.  We really are sick all the flippin' time.  You know how great it feels to get over an illness when you've been struggling through each day tired and bleary, or coughing, or with diarrhea, or throwing up, or whatever?  

Well, I used to know that feeling of relief, too. But now, it's downright unusual to have a day (or even group of days--imagine!) in which we don't feel awful.  It certainly makes everyday life a lot harder.  We were so excited to have Limelet's teething finally end so I could start night weaning.  Which went well for about 5 days.  But this constant stream of illnesses just blows any kind of routine--day or night--completely out of the water.  It's more a matter of just surviving day to day.  Who feels well enough to cook something this weekend so we can eat it during the week?  How can we keep Limelet occupied and distracted from his symptoms without having to expend too much energy because we're too tired to play with him properly this evening?  This has led to way too many viewings of Arthur and Mary Poppins for my conscience.

Oh, and speaking of his teeth, we finally were able to get him to the dentist.  He got my oral bacteria instead of TheLimey's, it's pretty clear--he has seven (7!) cavities already and will have to get general anesthesia to get them taken care of.  Since TheLimey took him in, he only got a mild version of the erroneously informed anti-nursing lecture, but I'm sure if it had been me it would have been more accusatory.  Okay, I don't know that, but I'm betting on it. I'm going to take the path of avoidance as far as possible.

In other news, Limelet is really starting to engage in imaginative play.  He makes "food" out of Play-Doh and pretend to eat it (luckily is not much of a non-food eater so far), and reads books to his "action figure", Ducka Guy. He saw that Ducka Guy was standing in such a way that he appeared to be looking at a  book, and asked him "You want a book? A libwawy book? How 'bout dis one?"  And then read Scuffy the Tugboat to Ducka Guy by turning the pages and describing what was happening in the pictures.  It was unbearably cute.