OMG send help.

When Colin threw up last night he had a mouthful of food, and we figured that he choked. He seemed to feel perfectly fine.

Then this morning we took him down for the hotel breakfast and he threw up massive amounts of what seemed to be undigested breastmilk. All over the table. 90 minutes before our train.

He had dry heaves at the train station and threw up the few sips of water we'd given him.

I'm nursing him because he needs hydration rather desperately, but I fear the likely result. We've got a five-hour train journey on Amtrak's busiest day of the year. Because it's the end of our trip, Michael and I are down to one clean shirt each, and Colin has one clean outfit and one pair of pajamas. We do, at least, have a good supply of wet wipes and plastic grocery bags.

I wish to say, for the record, that I am not having fun.

The kindness of strangers.

We're home. It could have been much worse.

Colin threw up once on the train and once on the sidewalk in Baltimore. In between he lay limp and floppy on my lap, barely speaking or moving. He asked several times for food. I hate when they're too young to understand why they have to be deprived. At least I could nurse him, and did. He seems to be keeping it mostly down, although not entirely.

Michael and Alex were awesome. But so were a bunch of other people:

The taxi driver at the Williamsburg train station. We were running late this morning, for tolerably obvious reasons. We got our stuff unloaded at the station with about 20 minutes left for me to return our rental car and get back to catch the train. I asked a taxi driver to lead me there and bring me back. He broke all kinds of speed limits and didn't even start the meter until I got in the cab.

The guy on the platform in Williamsburg who helped us put our bags on the train and the guy on the train who put our bags on the platform in Baltimore.

The conductors who went through the train telling everyone else that they couldn't have bags on the seat next to them because it was a crowded train, who somehow never got around to telling me the same thing.

The woman who made eye contact with me when I was comforting and cleaning up a recently-sick Colin, and smiled at us. Not, obviously, because there was anything cheerful about our situation, but because she wanted to send a message of sympathy and acceptance. That helped a lot.

It makes a difference. It really does. If you've ever done a small kind thing for someone in distress, allow me to thank you and tell you how much it mattered. The kindness of strangers is an awesome thing.

Belated realization.

About five o'clock Michael and I had a horrifying thought: when had we last changed Colin's diaper? In Williamsburg, that's when. Nine hours ago.

It was barely damp.

It turns out that when you're the kind of nursing mom who doesn't feel letdown, it's possible to nurse all day without noticing that your baby isn't drinking much.

Now we're doing a teaspoon of Pedialyte every three minutes. We're supposed to call the doctor back at eight.