I am on my 3rd week of being sick or under-the-weather with some thing... and this time, my little guy has something too. Week 1 was some weird eye infection, last week mastitis, this week a cold that I think Archer has too (as evidenced by the fact that he is *actually napping like a lot). Since I *never got sick when I was pregnant, it's starting to make a girl nervous about this whole H1N1 thing - is my immune system depressed? Am I not washing my hands enough (even though I'm weirdly obsessive about this and anti-bacterial lotion to the point that my hands feel like sandpaper).
I'm so concerned about getting sick and *not getting H1N1 that I was ready on day 1 to get the shot. We were on our way to our public clinic when Archer broke into a "feed me now"... "like NOOOW"-cry which made me turn around and go home at which point I checked the internet and realized that the public clinics don't open until next week in Toronto... urghh.
So while we wait not to get sick (knocking on wood everywhere), we all need to do everything we can to keep H1N1 away from our little guys - especially since many of them - including little Archer - aren't eligible to get the shot until they're 6 months old.
The best way to do this, I hear, is to make sure I'm healthy and others around Archer are healthy.
This first means that I have to not be so afraid of confrontation. As you can see, objectively speaking (I'm of course very objective about this), Archer is ridiculously cute. So much so that random strangers feel the overwhelming need to touch Archer. They want to touch his cheeks, head, hands... while I *totally understand this need, please, please, please STOP TOUCHING MY BABY. While you're at it, stop touching any baby unless you have permission to do so. I'm working on a way to tell this to people firmly but politely. How does this sound (picture me jumping in front of Archer's stroller right as the hand goes in for the touch): "Yo, I *totally get it - he's like cute - I too want to eat him up - but we're totally not down with this Swine Flu thing and not that I think you have it because you look nice and clean and all but I don't know you from Jack so feel free to make a goofy face at my baby to make him smile - although please do this far enough away so you don't accidentally spit on him - but please don't touch the baby. Please! And thank you."
Ok, I need to work on that. But I think the jumping in front of the stroller move will stay in whatever I come up with. I like that.
Second, I need to make sure that everything that I eat keeps me as healthy as possible. I'm not a doctor but I think anti-oxidants are important. While this gives me more of an excuse to drink red wine (like I need one), during the day, I'm loading up with anti-oxidants through smoothies. Here is a recipe that I like:
Blueberry Vanilla Smoothie
3/4 cup frozen blueberries (always good to have on hand)
1/2 cup ice
1/2 cup vanilla lf yogurt
2 tblsp orange juice
2 tblsp vanilla soy milk
Blend. Be healthy.
Finally, I am trying not to get stressed about all of this too much. Stress I think leads to getting sick and while we need to take all of this seriously, we should remember that we can only do what we can do. We can go on the 1st day to get immunized, we can *try as best we can to keep baby away from sick people -- all those things help -- but being stressed about all of this doesn't help one bit.
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