Forgive me, Heather
July 21st, 2004I owe Heather a belated Happy Birthday. One that isn’t tainted by vomit or diarrhea. Or delusional jabbering or by a screaming baby on the plane.
Heather, Happy Birthday! You are the love of my life and the most wonderful, talented, beautiful, hot rockin’ mama in the world.
I’m still recovering from the trip to SF, and it’s hit Heather particularly hard. As I write, she is hopefully sleeping. God, does she need to sleep. If there is a prayer circle that works, internet, get them/it to pray for Heather to sleep. We got food poisoning or some kind of crazy bug and I threw up for the first time in 10 years the morning we left. I threw up many times. I don’t envy the hotel staff for the HazMat team they had to send into that bathroom. Our last morning was a porcelain tag team event where Heather and I alternated between toilet and sink, with a poor, grumpy Leta trying to wake up and figure out why croissant chunks and Pepto Bismol and Orange Juice were spewing out of Daddy’s mouth in between I’m sorrys during pauses in retching.
I do not know how we survived our journey home, or how we got so sick. I wasn’t about to trudge up to the UCSF Emergency room, luggage and Leta in tow, Heather convulsing for hours while waiting for medical attention. I figured we’d be convulsing for hours no matter what, those hours should at least be spent getting us closer to home. And help.
During the descent of our flight, Leta would not be comforted. Heather would try to hold or feed her and Leta wasn’t having it. Sometimes the contact would force Heather to pass Leta back to me as she apologized and ran to the toilet to puke. I had a brief respite, when I gave Leta a teething biscuit. She loves these and they calmed her for a bit. I could feel her ire rising, however, when she’d lose track of where the biscuit was or couldn’t see it. Like a scene from a movie where the bomb squad person isn’t going to cut the right wire in the right time and the camera cuts to their face in the moments before the explosion, that’s how it was with me and Leta. Finally, she erupted and didn’t stop screaming until we were on the jetway, walking off the plane. During the landing, I held her close, and wept, my shit no longer together.
I couldn’t fix Leta.
I couldn’t fix Heather.
I found, in that moment when the tears started, a new respect for what Heather goes through every day. I couldn’t get to the Tylenol drops on the plane because Heather was hunched over in her seat and I didn’t have the heart to ask her to rummage through her bag for fear of further retchery. We didn’t get the drops into Leta until baggage claim, and then Leta turned instantly cute. After the hospital drop off (thank you Beth!) and a tortured attempted non-breastfeeding and bath, Leta was laid down for the night at 5:40 p.m. MST (she slept until 6:45 the next morning). I then promptly fell on the couch, being riled only by phone calls assessing Heather’s well-being and by Heather herself, feeling better and making soup for dinner as I drooled in bed and then finally passed out at 8:45 p.m. MST.
In all of this, I neglected to wish Heather a Happy Birthday on her day and I feel horrible about it. It’s taken a couple of days to muster the strength and attention span to write. I’ll say it again; Happy Birthday, Heather!
The weekend featured several Very 1998 Moments getting to meet in no particular order: mightygirl and b-may and Derek and Heather and Matt and a third of Adaptive Path and Lance and Leslie and Stewart and Caterina and Dinah and Judith and John and Jish and loads of other amazingly nice people (Apologies if I have forgotten you!).
Pictures coming soon.
Did I mention Happy Birthday, Heather? o
Oh, that’s horrible. I hope you guys are feeling better and that Heather gets to celebrate her birthday soon! Happy Birthday, Heather!
first of all: happy -belated- birthday and herzlichen glueckwunsch zum geburtstag heather!
and i really hope you’re both feeling better soon. good thing leta didn’t get the bug.. and i’m so sorry it kinda ruined your trip! get well!!
Reminds me of the time when I was returning from a month in Japan with my buddies, and the second worst case of food poisoning I’ve ever had.
(The first involved 24 hours of hallucinatory unconciousness that involved emptying the entire contents of my digestive tract via unconventional means three weeks into a six week long backpacking trip)
I sustained 36 consecutive hours of travel with the help of my freinds, with a boxed bicycle in tow that I bought in Hiroshima in tow, stopping every once in a while to puke or shit my brains out. I distinctly remember puking all over a display in a Condomania store in Narita Airport, and the uniquely uncomfortable last row of a 777 that I was stuck in the middle of. Customs was fun when I puked in the bin where they put all the forbidden foreign fruit.
Fucking `eh!
Ready, here it is…the infamous…”Well, at least you got great material for your blog.”
Isn’t it M_D_T?
I have had a couple of violent expulsion sessions like that, the most recent in March of this year. I couldn’t imagine travelling during those experiences let alone travelling with a baby. You are strong people…
Oh, you poor dears. I’ve been a long time lurker, and this is my first post, because I just HAD to wish you and Heather the best. I hope you both feel better and I hope Heather gets to celebrate her birthday. Leta will be fine, too, she won’t remember the scary airplane ride that made her scream.
I cant’ wait for Heather to update, to hear about the most glorious day she alluded to!
Hang in there, and get some rest.
Sounds like you probably need to sleep too! Hope you’re all feeling better.
after reading this, which followed 4 anxious days of re-reading and re-re-reading DOOCE, waiting for an update, i feel the following pales in significance. pail? whatever.
i beleive, and i would take this to the bank, but i beleive that i had a DOOCE sighting this past weekend.
Saturday morning, i am on Haight, just me Jude, and The Sausage King of Tiburon. I’m waiting around there to meet my sons future wife & father in-law. When across the street, i see Heather with Leta all bjorn’d up out front. I look for Jon, but no joy.
I feel like i’ve seen a famous person, for how i was all giddy. my compulsion to approach her and spew out this unintelligible THANK YOU was eclipsed only by my fear of utterly creeping the hell out of her.
Can you see it? Some strange, uber-caffinated dood with husky baby in tow accosting Heather in the street, freaking her out because someone recognises her for her website.
So i just smiled and from across that wonderful street, watched a portion of Clan Armstrong (and 2 others) idle their way up & into stores.
Content in the fact that this world really *is* that small. That in this huge city filled with a multitude of faces both tourist & local, i got a DOOCE sighting and there was no one around with which to share. Just me and my monkeyboy.
sorry about the illness you two had to tackle. dogspeed on your respective recoveries…
seannarae
Definitely praying for sleep for both of you. What a nasty mess to get through - you two ROCK. Of course, a late happy birthday to Heather!
How sad am I that I actually considered popping over to SF from Napa in the hopes of sighting the Armstrong Clan.
Since I felt I’d probaby heeb them out too - I skipped it and waited for an update instead.
Sorry the updates included so much vomiticiousness.
Hope you’re all feeling better.
xoxo,
L
Wretching? Retching looks wrong. But I may be wrong.
I was thinking about you 3 over the weekend and how disappointed I was that I managed to not see you in SF the last time you passed through. And how I thought about stalking, or arranging a coffe, if you must when I was in SLC last year. At least someone got to see you guys. Nice timing seannarae.
Certainly hope you are doing better…nothing worse than something like that ruining a trip. Leta was just upset that her parents weren’t feeling good!
Chad
Chad,
Retch is a verb and is used correctly in the above post.
Wretch is a noun meaning “miserable person, one who is profoundly unhappy or in great misfortune.”
I hope every wretch in the Blurbodoocery stops retching and feels better soon.
Jeez poor Blurbodoocery! I am super chuffed that you are all feeling better now, and very much enjoying the pics.
BTW seannarae, I recently got a work-related email from a woman named Heather Armstrong and I almost passed out from excitement. HA I am laughing at myself. Wasn’t Dear Miss Dooce, or even a real sighting (more’s the pity) but based on that event I can understand your reaction!
Oh my god. That flight sounds like the most torturous kind of hellish eyeball gouging torture I have ever heard. Glad everyone’s better.
Unfortunately, I don’t recall using the Bjorn once during our visit. We did, however, use the SWEET Maclaren stroller. Where is Greg Allen when you need him?
Sounds wretched.
HAPPY B’DAY!
I hope you two recoup well!
Wow, you talk about your Hot Forks of Displeasure. Jesus.
I never in a million years could have imagined your flight would be that horrific. Trial by fire.
happy belated birthday to dooce.
Kinda makes all that advice about how to create optimal conditions for flying peacufully with your baby seem a little ironic now, eh?
That super-sucks; I hope that, like the old platitude about childbirth, y’all end up remembering the fun parts of the weekend much more vividly than the nasty parts.
Happy Birthday, Heather!
You done good, Jon. From the small passasges I read, it sounds like you two are a great team.
And your entries about parenting are by far the most truthful and honest things I’ve read.
I thought I had a bad day recently when I was dumb enough to go on a ferris wheel with my daughter (the dumb part was doing that on a hot day after eating greasy fried vegetables…WHILE 19 WEEKS PREGNANT). I threw up, not my daughter, me. But it only lasted a few minutes, including the utter SHAME of it all, so I figure you guys had it worse than I did.
Happy birthday, Dooce, and hope you’re all feeling better soon.
good lord, i can’t imagine having to fly while that sick, let alone fly with a baby. john you are superhuman, and don’t deny it. should i ever find myself in utah, the bourbon is on me.
take all the letters from those names on that list and you have the genetic code of digital publishing.
i know i wouldnt be here if it weren’t first for halcyon and later, lance and derek.
blame them. i find it helps.
Man oh man. I can’t even imagine that kind of misery — my heart goes out to you guys. Good healing vibes from the Great White North.
Just read Heather’s post today and then your account of the wacky weekend. You’re both so refreshingly honest — and often funny — in sharing your lives with those who visit. I hope you’re both feeling better and that Heather isn’t brought too far down by the negative people who’ve chosen to share their views with her. I’d guess that most people who read Blurbomat and Dooce think you’re rockin’ parents!
Hugs to both of you. You’re great parents, I don’t care what anyone says.
Having just read Heather’s post, I can’t even imagine why people are choosing to criticize her parenting. Both of you display such intense love for your child; unfortunately, some folks take humor a bit too seriously (to those folks, “there is such a thing as CREATIVE writing, and I envy Heather’s purely natural talent”). I truly admire the honesty with which you both write, which can (obviously) bring with it vulnerability. Please don’t stop… and yeah, I’ll join you in the middle of the street, screaming.
happy birthday, jon! make heather listen to that waterboys cd on your special day, and throw in some ultravox or midge ure while you’re at it.
Happy birthday to both of you! Do something to celebrate when you’re both feeling much better. You guys deserve a break.
(((Blurbodoocery)))
Happy happy! If we lived in the same time zone, I would tell your wife to have you fix me up with a nice 39 year old friend.
Wait…it’s BOTH of your birthdays??? Within the same week or so? Cool! Happy birthday to both of you, then, however belated.
Happy, happy, happy birthday, DJ!
And before Dooooooce gets any more bent out of shape about your age difference (a decade? whatever!), let me comment on the joys of being with a man who’s 16 years older - when he was winning major international violin competitions, I was learning multiplication tables and learning the miseries of wearing glasses at 7 years old. (Four eyes!).
My sweetie definitely doesn’t look his age, either. So much the better!
So, happy birthday to you both!
For some reason, the entire middle of my comment was deleted! It went like this:
My s.o. (who is 16 years older than I) was winning major international violin competitions while I was learning multiplication tables. Somehow, that doesn’t matter in the long and short of it…
Wishing the Blurbdoocery a huge happy birthday!! My hub was graduating college while I was graduating high school and I can honestly say that I couldn’t have picked a better partner to help me bring a bebe into the world. Enjoy your day!
I’m sure my story can’t compare, because I didn’t have a baby in the mix, but when i was in High School, we took our senior class trip to Disney World!!! THe night we were supposed to leave, i also became violently ill, with what i still suspect was some kind of food poisoning. The trip was nearly $800, and all the money was NON-refundable. I threw up in the airport before take off, i threw up on the plane, i threw up when we landed, threw up in the Orlando Airport, threw up on the charter bus to our Hotel, threw up on street corner in MGM Studios, laid on a park bench all day, since teachers refused to let me go back to the hotel, threw up inside Indiana Jones’ Epic Stunt Spectacular, went to the first aid station where they told me they were going to have to send me to the Disney World hospital to rehydrate me if i didn’t keep something down soon. That trip SUCKED!!!
the rest of my post was deleted
I didn’t know your birthday was also in the mix when I posted above so I just wanted to add a Happy Birthday! My husband and I have birthdays 6 days apart (and he shares his with two of my closest friends, yet I don’t believe in astrology - curious).
Happy Birthday Jon! Here’s hoping Leta gave you a great present in the form of being a happy, smiley, non-screamy* baby today and forever!
*unless she’s screaming at the stupid fucks who send heather hate mail, in which case, she can scream as ear-piercingly as she likes directly into their brain cavities. She just needs to learn to be selective with the screaming.
coming back around to wish you, DJ Blurb, a happy birthday. Thanks for being an amazing man and taking such good care of the beloved Dooce and Leta. And I thought about you last night watching bits of the Democratic National Convention. Curious to hear your thoughts about it, as well about the great boob lock down!
Happy Belated Birthday to you and Heather
So Sorry about your wretched food poisoning…Hope you are all feeling better!
Happy Birthday Heather!!
as someone who has barfed/retched repeatedly in both a church and mall parking lot due to some nasty ass food poisoning….i feel for you.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEATHER!