Cold day in hell

I think I might be dying.

If it is possible to die from a cold, I should order the casket now.

My lung may or may not be in the bottom of the sink. I think I hacked it up last night during one of my 1,379 coughing fits. Of those, 1,378 occurred between the hours of 3-5 a.m. after we had finally gotten Jack to sleep for more than an hour.

I would rock him, cough, wake him up, rock him, get him asleep, cough, wake him up, wash, rinse, repeat.

Have you ever tried to stifle a cough? It becomes an all-consuming event. First, you try to ignore the tickle in your throat. Then, you start to panic because you feel it welling up in your chest. After gagging to try to keep it in, you can't take it anymore and you explode with a hacking cough that not only wakes the baby, but probably the neighbors three houses over.

Bonus points for doing all of this without the aid of cold medicine.

You see, they won't declare any drugs safe for breastfeeding mothers. When I asked my local pharmacist what I could take, "And oh yeah, by the way, I'm breastfeeding," she looked horrified and cast her eyes downward, "Nothing. I'm sorry. You could try some cough drops."

Well thanks much. I'm sure the Halls will help me sleep peacefully and deeply. Oh but no. I have to tough this one out without drugs. Just call me James Frey.

Jack is so used to my new coughing state that he now imitates me with a fake cough of his own. Not to be confused with a fake fever -- no, he was running a real fever of his very own this afternoon.

He felt a little warm, so I got out the old thermometer and wouldn't ya know, it registered a toasty 101.2 around 3 p.m. So I gave him some Tylenol and it dissipated nicely.

I don't know if he's teething, sick or just a general hothead, but it was his first baby sickness. And I felt terrible because we had chosen last night for the start of "Operation Get Jack Out Of Our Bed."

There was crying and pacifying and rocking and wailing and gnashing of teeth and four different wakeups. And the whole time the poor thing was probably sick and just wanted a little boob. Which he got at 3:15 when I stomped into his room where Josh was rocking him and announced I couldn't take it anymore and gave in to the boob and the bed.

We've suspended the siege until we know he is feeling better. So tonight we'll be back to him hogging the bed and me trying to cough into my pillow so as not to disturb him.