40 Days of Birthday: Day Three

“The beauty of the best-laid plans is that they are bound to be interrupted by even more delicious prospects.”

I’ll have to spin this one in the most existential way in order to make it delicious: my baby boy has a case of Bronchitis. After a near sleepless night, Lennon and I headed to the doctor’s office for the diagnosis. Navigating the U-Bahn and broken escalators while carrying a near thirty pound sick baby on my chest, lugging at least ten pounds from the Apotheke and Drogerie, including a nebulizer and big pack of diapers, left me defeated.

Lennon cries when he hears me using the immersion blender to make soup. The sound scares him. He has the same reaction to the sound of the nebulizer. I was able to distract him by reading The Cat in The Hat—the non-baby, non-board-book version, which is always so enticing with its rip-able pages. Finally, Lennon was able to fall into a deep sleep, the first for him in about a day.

Tomorrow is my actual birthday and I’m having doubts about baking a cake. Maybe there’s a little self-pity in the mix, but mostly, it all just doesn’t seem to matter when my baby boy is sick. I’ll hold onto the hope that the world may look more delicious after a good night sleep, for both of us. Until then, I’m grateful for a husband who comes home early, a son who’s getting better, and the pizzas in our freezer.