I was feeding Nora lunch today when I dropped a piece of cheese on the floor and totally, accidentally said “Oh fuck.” Accidentally, guys.

And then Nora, very happily said “Fuh.” She said it. Fuh. And I knew exactly what she meant.

So we begin a new era.

Nora’s been sick in the middle of the night the past couple of nights (a saint, as always, not even waking us up) so today, a today that was meant to be spent working while she was in daycare, has turned into a sick day, “sick” being the new theme of caramcduna.com.

I know I haven’t been writing much lately, the reason being that I’ve had a lot of work to do. While this is GREAT (!) I don’t want to neglect this blog, since this blog is a venue for my favorite kind of writing, so I thought I’d take a few moments while Nora’s up babbling “baby, baby, baby” in her crib - I thought she was gonna take a long forgotten morning nap, I swear - and say hello.

As far as today goes, I’m hoping to have fun playing with my new Things program, although that seems like a kind of geekiness I’m not ready to embrace, brewing some more coffee in the French press, which is a lovely thing when you’re drinking for one, and maybe watching the episode of “The Wire” that J watched last night when I gave in to exhaustion and went to sleep. I do not like it one bit when he’s seen an episode that I haven’t.

And, of course, playing with my Nora, who, despite the unexplained throwing up all over herself and her mattress, is happy. I experienced a few moments of disappointment this morning when I realized that I was not, as I thought, going to go to the gym and then out somewhere to work on my laptop, but instead, was going to spend the day at home avoiding other children and reading “The Train Station” featuring Elmo eight or nine hundred times. But when Nora climbed up in my lap a little while ago and chose - surprise, surprise - that very book, then settled in against my chest, I am telling you, I felt very lucky that everything got turned upside down. And puked on.

Since I’ve been with J I’ve had food poisoning two times, the first due to a bad oyster or two and, very unfortunately, not that far into our relationship. J, like a champ, slept on my couch that night while I proceeded to throw up 13 times. THIRTEEN TIMES. I’m not really sure how it was possible, puking 13 times, how my body could have possibly sustained such trauma, but that’s what happened, I’m telling you the truth.

At this point, with a few years of marriage under our belts, a child and two sometimes-disgusting dogs, it’s not like we haven’t dealt with a bunch of stuff, so when I started feeling sick a couple weeks ago on Saturday night I wasn’t so much worried about the fact that J would have to witness such catastrophe; I was glad he’d be there to take care of me.

I was sick throughout the night until there was nothing more to expel and I became so dehydrated I couldn’t swallow. Even a sip of water wouldn’t stay down, I finally realized, so I lay there in bed, shaking and moaning, dreaming about tall glasses of ice-cold ginger ale I knew I couldn’t handle.

The diagnosis was a bad stomach bug, clearly. Nora had been sick a couple days earlier, although hers was an extremely mild version of what I was experiencing, thankfully. She had been through it in the course of a morning.

Somehow my nighttime adventures had not woken J and Nora. We just had our upstairs bathroom redone and beyond loving the way it looks and functions with a passion bordering on idol worship, I was beyond grateful that the project had been completed that week. Because I wouldn’t have made it all the way to the basement, first of all, where our other bathroom is located, but also because the new tile on the floor, replacing the old Southern Pine, cooled my writhing body and assured me that the horror would pass.

I mean, yeah, maybe I’m being a little bit dramatic, but only a little.

We all got up the next morning, me feeling wrecked, Nora feeling just fine and J feeling “a little weird.” I started in on him immediately, my sympathy nonexistent, asking him if he thought he had the same thing as me, because if he did, we could not care for our child. That’s what I said. That we could not physically “care for our child,” and we needed to figure something out right that minute. I was in panic mode. I could barely stand up without feeling light headed. I’d always wondered what happens when both parents get sick and are at home with the baby. Just deal with it? Call the cops?

Luckily, J’s parents live nearby and are always more than helpful when we need someone to watch Nora. I suggested that maybe we call them, since we might both be down for the count, but J wanted to wait and see. This is when I lost it and from my perch on the couch, in my sweats, covered in a blanket, taking minuscule sips of ice water, I told him that he’d better, for the love of God, decide right then and there whether or not he was sick.

Anyway, we’re sitting there together watching Nora play and trying to determine our level of parental skills and illness when I realized she had a poopy diaper. J was feeling sicker by the moment and I was developing a martyr/look-what-will-happen-if-you-don’t-call-your-parents complex so I took Nora up to her room, where I proceeded to start the changing process, which was unfortunately interrupted midway through by a very distinct feeling that I was going to pass out. I called out for J, who came rushing upstairs and took over where I’d left off, but only seconds in he proclaimed that was going to puke, leaving Nora on the changing table with her diaper askew. So I got up from the bench in her room where I was sitting with my head in between my knees, because, hey, you can’t leave kids on the changing table like that. They’ll fall off.

Somehow we managed to keep her alive for the next hour or so while we ascertained that, yes, J was sick with the same thing I had and, yes, we should call his parents, who, like absolute superstars, came over to our house to get Nora, and also brought us ginger ale, which I could successfully ingest by that point.

The two of us sat there alone all day, complaining about how absolutely terrible we felt, watching hours of television and, eventually, getting pretty bored. We got on the Internet and chatted with friends who made us laugh. We browsed Facebook. We read blogs.

And somehow, I know it sounds crazy, I think our sick day recharged us a little. No work, no baby, no errands, no productivity of any kind. Not because we were being lazy, but because we couldn’t do anything at all, and therefore felt no guilt for laying low and accomplishing nothing. Plus, we took care of each other, if “taking care of each other” on that particular day meant telling the other person not to worry, because “you are not going to die.”

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not anxious to lie down on the bathroom tiles again anytime soon with the world spinning and my stomach churning (although I really do love that new bathroom) but as far as the sickest of sick days go, that one was…kind of nice.

“I don’t like wearing my glasses.”

“Yeah. Do you feel like you’re not prepared for a fight?”

“YEAH! Totally. That’s exactly how I feel.”

“Yup. That’s why I don’t wear sandals. And neither does Max Bobbitt. Same reason.”

For the first time in months I have a lot of work to do - can you even believe it? - and I haven’t had time to finish the post concerning All The Puking, a sin, really, because it’s a good story.

So I thought that I’d post this picture before you guys started to think I’d abandoned this blog, taken in the rain forest area at the Baltimore Aquarium over Christmas break. It’s my dad’s favorite part of the aquarium, he told me, and when I asked him why that was, he said, “Because it’s so peaceful and so exotic and so real.” Um, ok. Cute pic, though.

Just so you can get yourselves prepared (not to mention excited) my next post is going to be about all the puking that went on around here this weekend. Now that I’ve emerged from the darkness, so to speak, I’m just about prepared to tell our story. You know, our story about the stomach flu.

By the way, I’m really pumped for warmer seasons, did I mention? When everyone in the world isn’t getting sick every other second. And I don’t have to navigate miniature icebergs to make it to my front door, not that doing so isn’t a thrilling part of my day.

Coffee delivered to my bedside table and a hug from my hilarious, curious and adorable child.

My first visit to the Yale Art Gallery and yet another attempt at appreciating things like ancient Mayan artifacts (never gonna happen).

An invigorating walk.

An entire evening with the most handsome man in the universe, and also some damn good scallops.

Observing what I am POSITIVE were former high school drama kids smoking cigars in a bar with a blues band.

A dirty martini.

Maybe January isn’t so bad after all.

About a month and a half ago I was having a really bad day. I had time to myself and was attempting to “work,” whatever that had come to mean in my life. Emailing people telling them that I was a good and smart person and a decent writer with experience, whatever. I don’t know.

I’d written one purely informational type email to a reporter at a newspaper that shall remain unnamed (The New York Times) and had received a rather curt and unpleasant email back. I mean, it was just so uncalled for, this email. I’d gotten her name from an acquaintance and was simply introducing myself in a polite manner, and her response, which, in essence implied that I didn’t know what I was talking about with regards to journalism or anything, made me feel like I should go home and turn on a soap opera and just get started on dinner. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So I did go home and sat on the couch feeling kind of low. If my life had been a movie, an agent would have called me up at that very moment and explained that he wanted me to write a memoir, which would, obviously, become a bestseller. A music montage would begin (maybe Vampire Weekend or The French Kicks?) and I’d open my computer, look at the blank screen, tuck my messy hair behind my ear and start typing. Publication. Fabulous book tour. Interview on Oprah. Roll credits.

That’s not what happened, but amazingly, something much more realistic (obviously because, well, it actually occurred) did. I got a call from the editor of a local paper who wanted to go ahead with a story I’d proposed, and that was such good news, because the story I’d proposed is exactly the kind of thing I want to write. That story ended up becoming this piece in the New Haven Advocate and I’m now writing a blog for them on motherhood and women’s issues. So, ok! Better! Much better!

Despite an improvement in my professional life in recent months, however, I still hate this time of year. I know I should be excited about the prospect of 2010 and all the newness, and I even have a birthday immediately around the corner. But still.

I have a hard time with transitions, something that I’ve written about before. I don’t mean I have a I-need-to-go-to-a-therapist hard time with transitions, I mean that I have to lay there and have J tell me that everything’s going to be fine - it’s going to be great! - and after a few minutes of a forced pep talk I feel all better. At this time of year, though, I need a few more pep talks than usual. I know a lot of people dread the parties and oversocialization of the holidays. Me? I love those things. It’s difficult for me to adjust when it’s all over.

But even people who aren’t hardwired to be as weirdly extroverted as I am sometimes have a hard time with this dreary portion of the winter season. It’s so fucking cold and, I mean, Valentine’s Day? Valentine’s Day is supposed to get us through? Come ON.

I know this post is all over the place but I think the point I wanted to make is that we all just might be going through this strange period together. And yeah, it’s just the Internet, but I like that togetherness. So whether you’d like to comment here on your own feelings about these semi-brutal months, or suffer in silence, I’m so glad you’re here.