One of those days

I didn't really have anything planned for yesterday, and that was a good thing. It wouldn't have happened. It was one of those days. Since I wasn't trying to pack or prepare for guests or do anything in particular, it wasn't actually that stressful, and I almost found myself enjoying (with a kind of bemused enjoyment) the absurdity of it.

I think we may have had a bit of intercontinental virus exchange after all, since both kids have bad coughs and crusty eyes that look very similar to the eyes of their cousins when they arrived a week and a half ago. Anyway, some combination of her bad night-time cough, incoming molars, and the fact that I forgot to turn the heat on before we went to bed night before last (it's been warm during the day but still hits the 20's at night) meant that the Banana woke up screaming at about 12:30 yesterday morning and continued on in fine form until 6:00. Papaya Daddy & I each made at least two, and possible more, nocturnal trips to try to comfort her during this time period. We had very short-lived success.

Finally the clock hit 6:00 a.m. & we brought the Banana into bed with us, where she usually nurses before beginning her day. She nursed away, then vomited all over me and the bed. Since I'm a vomit-phobe, I always nurse the Banana on top of a towel, to prepare for exactly this type of eventuality. The Banana, however, cleverly evaded my precaution and rolled over to a non-protected section of bed right before she vomited. It went all over my feather pillow, as well as the sheet and the mattress cover (Thankfully, I ripped up the mattress cover before it went through to the mattress). The Banana then managed to vomit the rest of her morning milk in two more spectacular locations - all over her high chair, and then all over the new outfit Papaya Daddy was attempting to put on her. I had my morning's laundry cut out for me.

We hoped that the vomit was simply a product of exhaustion and coughing (the Banana had coughed pretty hard at the outset of each attack), so we wiped off the high chair & put the Banana back in it (in a 3rd outfit), and fed her a little bit of cereal. Meanwhile, I washed my hands well, then cut and wrapped up the cranberry white-chocolate blondies we had made for the health center's Commisioned Corps bake sale. I hoped that no vomit germs had drifted over to them. One of the blondies had stuck to the bottom of the pan a little, so I wrapped it up for my husband's lunch & he put it in his bag (he worked in the ER yesterday, which meant he wouldn't be home for lunch and would probably work late). We let the Banana (who didn't want much cereal) down, and five minutes later, she wandered into the kitchen, handed me a piece of plastic wrap, and said, "Thank you!" While I wondered where in the world she found plastic wrap, she held up a blondie and took a large bite, with an enormously self-satisfied look on her face. It's exactly the kind of food you hope you child will wolf down after three vomits in quick succession - cranberry white-chocolate blondies!

Husband left for work (with a much smaller blondie) & I began my day of coping with a possibly sick and definitely fussy Banana, as well as doing several loads of laundry. Everything went well for a while - the Banana took some Tylenol and a nap and was much better afterwards (no more vomit), the Papaya was well behaved and fun to be with, and three loads of bedding and towels went past beautifully. Then I washed our feather pillows. They did well during the initial washing cycle in our high-efficiency front-loader, but I probably shouldn't have tried to run the extra-fast extended spin at the end, considering that the tag on the pillows instructed me to wash gently. When I opened the washing maching door, it appeared that a large goose had thrashed around the interior of the machine for quite a while, eventually giving up the good fight. One of the pillows had split lengthwise from end to end, releasing all of the feathers and down in its outer layer, as well as quite a few from its inner layer.

Luckily, the inner liner, though pathetic at holding in feathers, appeared to be intact, and to still contain the majority of the pillow's feathers (hard to believe, considering the volume of feathers in the washing machine). I put the good pillow in the dryer, and decided to try to salvage the torn one.

First, though, I put both kids down for their afternoon nap. The Banana went down easily, but the Papaya decided to make things a bit more exciting by sucking out the entire contents of his sippy cup (in little bits) and spitting them out all over his shirt, his mattress, and his pillow. His shirt and pillow were completely soaked through. I stripped his shirt off, confiscated his pillow, and sent him back to bed with the understanding that he had not done a praiseworthy deed. I wondered whether I should try to wash his pillow, too, since it had spit all over it. I eventually decided that I had had enough of pillow laundering, and that he could live with it.

With both kids finally asleep, it was work time (again). I pulled out the shop vac & cleaned the inside of the washing machine as well as I could (I repeated this a couple of times more as the feathers continued to dry). Then, rueing my lack of a sewing maching, I pulled out my dusty cross-stich supplies (last used way before the Papaya was born) and did the best I could sewing the split pillow back together from end to end. It was no easy task, and let me tell you - a wet feather pillow smells BAD! Finally, with wet stinky jeans from the pillow sitting on them, I finished and put the salvaged pillow in the dryer with its twin. (Our pillows were wedding gifts, and pretty nice, & I hated to give one of them up, if only because of the sentimental attachment).

Our feather pillows are fairly large, and take about five or six dryer cycles to completely dry. So I dried them throughout the afternoon, occasionally checking them and congratulating myself on my excellent seamstressing job. Finally, near the end of supper & after my husband finally came home from work (he was three hours late), the buzzer sounded at the end of the sixth dryer cycle. Since it was almost time for bed, I was eager to pull out our two clean, warm, and fluffy feather pillows. I opened the dryer door, then jumped back and screeched as several dark insects flew out at me. I took another look. An entire gaggle of geese had just duked it out in our dryer. My seam had held, but the pillow had split in a different place. I sadly concluded that perhaps that particular pillow was not meant to be. At least our marriage is proving more durable than our wedding gifts. I felt happy that I hadn't bothered to put the shop-vac away yet. The facility with which it sucked up dry feathers and down was immensely satisfying.

While Papaya Daddy snoozed on the couch, I researched down pillows on Amazon.com. Finally, my purchase complete, I dragged my husband into our bed. Although it contained only one nice feather pillow, it was at least covered with fragrantly clean linens. And we all slept the night through.