‘Cause it’s not as though there wasn’t enough mucus in my life already, what with the excessive spit-up and drool and all. There’s gotta be snot, too. Just to round things out.

And not just baby snot, either (which I got up close and personal with last week; more on that in a moment). Mommy snot.

Mommy’s got a BAD head cold and is feeling really, really miserable. Let me say that again, for the record – REALLY MISERABLE. If it’s bad to have a head cold when you spend the day in bed reeking of Vapo-Rub and surrounded by damp tissues, let me tell you, it’s sheer hell to have one when you can’t take serious medicine because you are breastfeeding and you can’t even sit down because you are clutching a crabby baby who may be teething at a ridiculously early age and who won’t nap and upon whose head your snot is dripping because it’s impossible to hold baby and spit rags and blow your nose at the same time.

Nice visual, I know. But, I ask, why should you all be spared when I am suffering?

I could go on, perhaps add something about the milky spit streaming down the half-open nursing top into which I’ve crammed fistfuls of damp tissues and anti-bacterial wipes…

But I’ll stop. Less to avoid offending delicate sensibilities than to stop disgusting myself.

Anyway, I should admit that I exaggerated above. I have taken medicine. Chalk one up for bad mother-ness. But I couldn’t go on, I had to do something before my head exploded from all the mucus (okay, I’ll stop talking about mucus, but if it really bothers you then I’m guessing that the whole parenting thing might be a bit of a challenge. But, ok, yeah, eww.) So the Husband went to the pharmacy and consulted with the pharmacist (one point for good mother – won’t take anything that hasn’t been vetted by a professional) who said that Neo-Citran would be okay and safe for Baby because only a little of the antihistamine would get into the breastmilk (take the good mother point away because a really good mother would suffer in order to avoid exposing her baby to even a little medication. But I’m not that mother. In fact, I’m so not that mother that I even wondered, secretly, whether that teeny little bit of antihistamine seeping into Baby’s milk supply might buy us an extra bit of sleep. See? BAD mother.)

ANYWAY. For the record, it hasn’t really helped. Taken the edge off, maybe. But still, this would be my advice to sicky breastfeeding mommies out there: TAKE THE MEDICINE. It’s not crack.

And the way I figure it – and apologies up front to all the crack-mommies out there – if you’re not exposing your baby to crack then you’re not the worst mother in the world.

And some days, people, that’s good enough.

Originally posted at Her Bad Mother, 2006. Copyright Catherine Connors 2006 – 2009.