Mr. W is coming out of his sickness. Since the end of last week, he’s been quarantined in his bedroom and ate very little for the first few days. To keep the spread of viruses to a minimum, he hasn’t touched Allie, has no part in preparation of food, touches as few surfaces as possible, and what he does touch, I wipe down with a Lysol wet-wipe (doorknobs, counters, keyboard, mouse, etc). It’s been a little hard on me to have 100% baby duty, but it’s worth it if Allie could escape the norovirus. I’ve been taking my vitamins, extra Vitamin C, had an organic kale salad with the juice of an entire lemon the first evening, chicken soup, anything to keep the immune system up. I’ve even been sleeping downstairs on the couch. Allie’s been getting a Mandarin orange with her lunch and dinner, which she loves so that’s great.

It’s funny and sad to watch Allie play Marco Polo with Mr. W. When we come back from our walks or during her meal or just at random times, Allie would get a playful gleam in her eye, smile, and then call out, “Dah-dah?”
“Allie?” would come a response from the bedroom.
“Dah-dah?”
“Allie?” When Allie hears the reply, she would smile all excitedly and then go back to whatever she was doing. For Mr. W, it’s not fun and games as much as painful. “She’s calling me and I can’t go to her or touch her.” He was so sad. I honestly don’t think Allie’s noticed that Mr. W hasn’t been touching her. When she wants cuddling, she still comes to me, sits in my lap, or raises her arms to me to be picked up. Mr. W is the “play” parent. I’m the “comfort” parent. Since I’ve been both the past few days, she’s been fine with Mr. W as just the “mystery voice” parent. I mean, she’s knows it’s him, when she hears a noise she’d point toward it and identify it to me with, “Dah-dah!” But then she moves on.

The Sydney norovirus is contagious for 3 days after symptoms have alleviated, so Mr. W would effectively have an entire week of not having anything to do. I wish he’d take over medicating Dodo since I have to do everything else, but he hates doing that, and instead has been so bored in the bedroom he’s watched a ton of movies on his iPad, jailbroke his iPad3, even cut his hair when he was still febrile. Over the weekend he even washed all the sheets on his bed, but since he was still sick, I consider the sheets re-contaminated and still haven’t slept upstairs.

It was exactly a year ago today that Allie caught the RSV bug from Mr. W, who’d been sick with it from work. Hoping history doesn’t repeat itself.