Two nights ago I had a bad dream. I dreamt Andy had taken up with a lovely, vaguely european girlfriend and had kindly requested, after months of us all living together, that I pack my things and go.

But he wanted to make sure I didn’t take anything he and his new love might want. So, in my dream, I very patiently sat down with her and sorted through all our housewares making comments like, “Oh, Andy loves this, you should keep it for when you guys have parties”.

I do that. Maybe it’s the performer in me, but when I feel stressed and overwhelmed and frightened I go out of my way to be civil and understanding. When we were at the ER last night you’d think I’d be running around, tearing my hair out and screaming, “My baby’s vomitting blood, do something!”. Instead I’m asking the nurse if her stethoscope was a graduation present, asking the doctor where she got her earrings and offering to go find Andy a snack.

And the other thing that seems not normal is that I usually have a pretty good time at the hospital. I mean, yeah, my baby’s spitting up blood. But on the plus side I got to leave the house, traffic was light and there were movies in the waiting room. And then there’s the blog. I love this blog. I’ve never kept a journal and I’m really grateful to have discovered this format, not to mention how much I’m enjoying reading your comments. That’s not normal, right?

There’s a rare and very sexy psychological syndrome called Munchausen by Proxy wherein a parent, usually the mother, induces an illness in her child because she likes the attention. I’m pretty sure you have to make your baby sick to qualify for this, but should I be worried? Is it creepy to be seeing the positive things that have come out of Ramona’s illness?

Anyhoo. Ramona is doing much better. The doctors think that because of her cold, some mucous adhered her NG tube to her throat. Then when Andy changed the tape on her face last night, something back there got jostled and bled into her stomach which made her throw up. Hopefully it’s a one time thing. They did a CBC (complete blood count) and her hemoglobin is fine. We fed her once there to make sure she wouldn’t throw up again and she didn’t. Her sats were very good the whole time, in the high 70’s. They said that although it was nothing too serious, it was a good idea to bring her in, just in case she had lost a lot of blood or something like that.

So we are tired but hanging in there. Simon’s playing with his little friend Maddy today (thanks Dori and Carson) and Andy and I will take turns sleeping. My mom goes home today but Andy’s brother and his wife will be coming for a visit soon to help us, which will be great.

Oh, and when I told Andy about my dream and said, “Just don’t take up with any vaguely european girlfriends, okay?”, he replied, without missing a beat, “Okay, I’ll try and keep it domestic”. Ha ha.

Jane.