Sick Mirror

My good pal Patrick came over last Friday night. It was a big deal because Patrick’s son James has more than a little of the early Elijah days in him. Which means he is extremely cute, but extremely fussy. Refer to the early days of HamannEggs for what that was like. Ahh, the early days of HamannEggs. So many misspellings. So many many misspellings.

To add insult to his fussy injury, Patrick had to witness Luca’s silent bouncy chair contemplation. If I were Patrick I’d secretly pinch Luca so that smug Rick and Diana could deal with a fussy baby for once. If I were Patrick I’d also refer to myself as “P-Dog.” So it’s probably best that I not be Patrick.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Stretching this story since I’m out of town and have no new material. After P-Dog left, we put Luca down for bed. And the weirdest thing happened. He started crying. And he wouldn’t stop. Luca. Baby Luca. Crying. Diana and I just stared at him, fascinated.

I began to wonder if fussiness was contagious. Patrick had fussy all over his hands and he was breathing fussy all over Luca the whole night.

Well, I was half right. Luca caught a bug, but it wasn’t from Patrick. He started hacking a deep, wet cough that lasted the whole night. Cough, cough, waaah. Cough, cough, waaah.

At around 4am, Luca woke himself with another coughing fit and began crying again. Diana suggested I take him downstairs, run a hot shower and let Luca sit in the steamy bathroom for a while. I have no idea which gypsy medical book she got that from, but I was awake and it was better than just listening to him cry.

On my way out of our room, Diana said, “Be sure not to put him UNDER the hot water.”

Once downstairs, I held Luca and listened to that delightful mixture of shower, baby cough and crying.

Suddenly, Luca stopped crying. I thought, “Son of a gun. She was right.” But then I looked at Luca. He had caught his reflection in the mirror and was smiling at himself. He’s a Hamann alright. Never met a mirror we didn’t like.

I’m not sure how much more I’ll write this week, since I’m out of town. But word from Diana is Eli is being a holy terror while I’m gone. So I’ll have new stuff soon. If Diana lets him live.