Series of escalating fails

This was a day when kind of a lot of things went wrong.

The first thing was a major diaper leakage that happened overnight. Will slept from about 8pm to 5am, which was great, but when he woke up crying early this morning, he was soaking wet. He was wearing a Bum Genius, which are these supposedly leakproof cloth diapers. I don't know if my child is a super heavy wetter or what, but these diapers leak overnight for us about 75% of the time. Even when I use an extra doubler. The back of his jammies was wet up to the shoulders, and the blankets he'd been swaddled in were damp too. So by the time I'd changed his diaper, cleaned him up, and changed his jammies, he was wide awake and very much riled up. He ate and I reswaddled him in clean blankets and he went back to sleep. The next thing I knew it was 8:30 and I was feeling pretty well-rested. Will was awake, squirming around and making little noises, and when I got him out of his pack and play, he was wet again! After only 3 hours! With a doubler in his Bum Genius! I was soooooo aggravated. The poor dear was soaking this time-- his jammies, the 2 blankets I'd swaddled him in, and even the sheet of his pack and play was wet. I resume my search for the perfect cloth diaper.

The next thing that went wrong happened a couple of hours later, when I left to go grocery shopping and do some other errands. I got stuck in a snow drift at the end of our driveway. Now, I don't want to piss anyone off, but our driveway may have been shoveled in a very half-ass fashion. Plus, after the snowplows went through, they left behind a big pile of snow at the end of the driveway. I naively didn't consider these things as I left to go shopping, because I was more concerned about the very limited time frame I had to get everything done and get back before Will would want to eat again. So there I was, half in the drive, half in the street, and unable to go either forward or back. Rob and two neighborly guys had to push me out of the drift. I was mortified.

Running errands took me twice as long as I'd hoped, partially because everybody runs errands on Saturday mornings, and also because there is so much snow everywhere. When I finally got home, got everything put away, fed Will, and ate something, it was 3pm. And I still had to do an 8-mile training run--my first "long run" for marathon #9, the Illinois Marathon.

It was like planning a military operation to get ready to do this thing. Not only did I have to get myself ready, but I also had to line up everything for Will. It was going to be the first time I would be running long enough that Rob would have to give him a bottle of pumped milk. I had decided to use some frozen milk that was left over from the stash I had stored for my dissertation defense. This was going to be a major first. The few times we've ever given Will a bottle, it has been fresh milk. But I just didn't have time to pump for this, so I decided we'd dip into the frozen stash. I got everything ready-- had the milk thawing in the refrigerator, gave Rob written and verbal instructions, put on some mittens, and headed out the door.

It was cold. Somewhere in the range of 2 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chills well below zero. In my haste to get ready, I had not dressed warmly enough. It was going to be a long 8 miles.

As it turned out, I only made it about 6.5. My hands were so cold and painful I started wondering if it was possible that I had gotten frostbite. In the end, I decided it would be better to call it quits at 6.5 and avoid sustaining any lasting damage to my body, rather than push myself to go farther and get really messed up.

It was good that I came home when I did. Will had been crying the entire time I was gone, and he had flat-out refused the bottle of milk I had left for him. Rob said he would put the bottle in Will's mouth, but he was crying so hard he wouldn't suck and he wouldn't drink. I felt terrible. There I'd been, unconcerned about the time it was taking me to run because I knew that Will had milk to drink while I was gone. But he wouldn't take it! This is an entirely new thing. He's never taken a pacifier or gotten the hang of sucking his thumb, but he's always taken a bottle when we've given it to him. When he was very tiny, I gave him pumped milk from a bottle all the time. The very first time we tried this, he seemed confused and frustrated, but once he realized that milk was coming out, he sucked ravenously. In the past 2-1/2 months or so, he has only had a bottle of pumped milk a couple of times. It's like he's forgotten how to drink from a bottle? Or maybe it was something about the milk having been frozen? Did it taste different or had it somehow gone bad? Or maybe the nipple on the bottle isn't the right size for him anymore? I just don't know. The whole thing is really disconcerting to me because I have finally arranged some part time day care for him so that I can work on my dissertation revisions. Now I am freaking out that if he won't take a bottle, there is no way I will be able to leave him and work. Not to mention, it will be pretty difficult to train for and run a marathon if he won't take a bottle. I'm kind of hoping it was just a fluke, but I just don't know.

Aside from the several hours he apparently spent screaming today, Will was very sweet and cute. When I finally got home from my run and fed him, he held onto me like I was going out of style. I wonder what tonight is going to bring. Because he refused the bottle, he ended up eating fewer times today than normal. Maybe he'll be really hungry and wake up frequently tonight, I don't know. I guess I should go and try to get some rest while I can.

Thanks for reading.