Momma Mondays - "Tylenol?!"

Oh dear blogsphere, I have been dying for today to roll around so that you can share in another jaw-dropping moment of My Life As A Queens Momma.

As you know, my 9 month old son has been sick for over a week, but the blog post du jour goes way back to where it all began last Monday evening. Knox started feeling rotten Sunday night and neither of us got much sleep. I was worried and took him to the doctor Monday afternoon, but the pediatrician said he only had a cold and sore throat and that there wasn't much I could do except to give him the generic brand of Tylenol if he felt warm or maybe to help him sleep. It was a virus, not infection, so he'd have to let it run its course.

When my husband came home, we decided to take the little sick patient for a walk around the building. This is always a welcome distraction. A jaunt through the halls and down the elevator helps Knox get his mind off of his runny nose and aches. He loves watching the bright red elevator numbers move as we climb floors and he could watch the fountain in our front lobby for an hour if we'd let him.

So after a while, he started rubbing his eyes and whining a pitiful little whine. He had started to develop a deep cough and clearly felt just awful. We agreed to give him a steam bath and start his bedtime routine, hoping that he could get a little rest. The feeling of helplessness we had as parents was overwhelming, and as the baby started to cry, we headed back upstairs.

And that's when we shared the elevator with Bulgarian Woman Upstairs (BWU).

"Oh, is the baby sick?" BWU asked.

"Yeah, he's got a cold," I said.

"Are you going to medicate him organically?" BWU asked, nodding her head and pushing up her glasses. She wrinkled her nose and tried to get close to Knox, but my husband ran block pretty well. She straightened up and looked down at me. "Non-traditional medication is the best way to help them," she said in her thick and accusatory accent.

"Um, well, we'll probably give him some Tylenol before bed," I said, wondering how an elevator ride to the first floor from the lobby could possibly take that long.

The doors opened and our family stepped out as BWU exclaimed, "Tylenol?!" I turned back to see her cock her eyebrows and shake her head.

"That's what his pediatrician recommended," I said from the hallway, desperate for some reason to defend myself.

As the elevator doors closed, she clenched her teeth and sharply inhaled. "Tylenol," she repeated as if the word alone had a sour taste. And then she was gone.

My son's cry from our doorway was the only thing in the world that could have squelched the impulse I had in that moment to tear through the STAIRS doorway and race the elevator up to her floor. This woman, this insane, trouble-making, selfish, and idiotic woman had the nerve to judge my parenting.

Let's go back... back back back in time... to previous encounters with Bulgarian Woman Upstairs:

Encounter #1.
The first time I met BWU was over 2 years ago. The elevators were being replaced so the whole building had to use the stairs. I had just gotten back from Manhattan and headed upstairs to my apartment, when I was suddenly shocked to find a blond little toddler in the middle of the dimly lit concrete stairway. She was on all fours trying to crawl up the stairs. I supposed she could walk, but she was obviously still young enough to be wearing a diaper and she was alone.
"Where's your mommy?" I asked her, bending down to spot her in the case of a stumble.
She pushed her hair out of her face and continued to crawl upward, shaky but determined.
"Come on, baby!" BWU shouted from above. Annoyed at having to wait, she finally stalked down the stairway and found her child with me, a stranger. "She's taking forever, right? I just needed a cigarette, you know? And the baby takes forever. I couldn't carry her and the laundry, so I went on up. I need another one already."

Encounter #2.
"Hi," I said to BWU and baby one afternoon a few weeks later.
"Listen," she said. "I need to go back to school so I was thinking that you could babysit the baby 3 times a week for me. I can't afford to get a nanny, but you're already at home so it's perfect."
(Do I even need to comment here readers? She wants a stranger to babysit her daughter, not to mention that my time isn't of value.)

Encounter #3
Last spring, Jerrod and I were preparing our patio for company.
"When are you going to make me a steak?" BWU asked from the clouds.
We looked up and see her perched on the fire escape, (against bldg. policy), smoking a cigarette.
We laughed her off, she wrinkled her brow in confusion (def. not joking), and went back inside. Better to wait her out than engage in conversation.
A few minutes later when the coast was clear, we resumed setting up. When we uncovered the patio table and pulled it out, we saw that the chairs behind it were covered in ash and cigarette butts. BWU, apparently, felt that such items organically evaporate into the air rather than succumb to gravitational pull and litter up her neighbor's property.

Oh, how the list goes on, but for today's purpose:
the chain-smoking Bulgarian Woman Upstairs finds second hand smoke and leaving her baby in the care of strangers perfectly acceptable, while doctor prescribed Tylenol for a baby with a temperature of 101.7 bad parenting.

Comment away!