Daily Dose of Mama: Thoughts from the Other Side

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Thoughts from the Other Side

My life has felt completely unhinged for the past 5 days. Little Bug was sick....VERY sick. I was surprised at how desperate our lives had become. Literally, it was like everything we knew and held dear was thrown out the window.

Parenting? Nah. Survival was our game.

Little Bug was spoon fed on our lap. He had liquid poured down his throat like a baby bird. He went to bed in our bed hours past his bedtime. He got a bath at 11 pm (after an unfortunate incident that could have warranted a "Let's Talk About Bodily Fluids" post). He watched Classical Baby on repeat and was introduced to The Wiggles. He has possibly memorized the Dr. Seuss classic, Hop on Pop; I know I have. He got not one, but two balloons. He slept all the time. He didn't even have to look at a fork or spoon. (I'll admit, I liked that one a bit.)

It felt like this surreal world we were living in. Taking days off work and staying home, we all started to feel a bit nuts. With no schedule to latch on to, I felt very adrift. It didn't help that the exhustion from the bad nights was slowly killing us.

Little Bug has only been really sick twice before. Once was only a 24 hour thing and once was more prolonged, but while we were on vacation, so there were other people there and a different vibe. This was like being locked in a germ prison where no one sleeps or eats with any regularity.

I'll be blunt. It was HELL. Hell for us and Hell for Little Bug.

H

E

Double

Hockey

Sticks.

I know I am still lucky that my kid rarely gets sick, and I will be able to commiserate more now with some of my other mama friends who more often deal with illnesses, but it's honestly going to take me a while to dig out from this. Our schedule is falling back into place, although we now have to work hard at night to get Little Bug to stay in his bed, so sleep is still eluding us.

Little Bug is back to being his charming and stubborn self. I've never been so glad to fight a fork fight in my life!

3 comments:

KrisFebruary 2, 2010 at 2:21 PM
So funny to read that you've never been so glad to fight a fork fight!

Man, it sounds like little bug had it BAD. It sounds way worse than any of the illnesses Xavier has had. The first time that X was REALLY sick I was surprised to find that world outside never stopped. I was cooped up inside with him while everyone else continued to live life as normal. Once we were able to actually venture out, I wanted to shout, "do you people have any idea what we've been through?!"
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CindyFebruary 3, 2010 at 6:25 AM
I am glad to hear things are returning to normal. I know we always have a hard time getting our girls back into a good sleeping pattern after any illness. Good luck and hang in there...it'll come.
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JoJoFebruary 3, 2010 at 6:50 AM
Sounds horrible. I'm glad you guys are on the road back to normalcy.

Kris your comment is hilarious.
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Thanks for your daily dose of you....

Everyday Mama

I'm a 32-year-old everyday mama. My husband (Appa) and I adopted our first son Little Bug (at 10 months old) from Korea in September 2008. We adopted our second son, Little Bro, from Korea in April 2011 at age 21 months. We adopted our third son,Little Moon, at age 3 in November 2013. I've wanted to be a mama for a long time, but I'm still trying to figure out the reality of it all and take time to enjoy the delicate beauty of the highs and the lows.

I worked full time as an editor, which I loved; but I made the bittersweet decision to stay home with my children after Little Bro came home. I'm now clumsily finding my footing in a new world of housekeeping, menu planning, budgeting, cooking, cleaning, and rainy-day activities, as well as navigating the world of IEPs, parent advocacy, and special needs education (spoiler: I suck at house work). My husband is hot and smart and quiet and loyal, and I think (know) my sons are the cutest, happiest little boys in the world.

I also struggle at times with mild depression, anxiety, post-adoption depression, my husband's constant absence due to his stressful and super time-consuming job, the challenges of helping my older son with his sometimes exhausting special needs, and our transition to a family of three little boys with just 19 and 14 months between them. I worry way too much about what people think of me, hate talking on the phone, and I am trying to trust myself more.

Oh yeah, I'm unable to give birth to children; love books, writing, traveling, and the color brown; hate to clean, cook, craft, or do laundry; allergic to pretty much everything but food (thank God); and think camping in anything but a tent is lame.

I needed somewhere to drop my daily mama thoughts and musings on toddler poop to avoid massive clutter and ramblings on our private family blog. Writing it down on paper is so '90s.

This is my everyday "blournal" as I navigate through my life as a first-time (or is it third-time now?) mama and long-time me. So....hi.

You can contact me at daily.dose.of.mama (at) gmail.com.

THE CONTENT OF THIS BLOG IS COPYRIGHT PROTECTED.

As an editor, I deal with people on a regular basis who think images or content on the internet (whether it does or does not have a copyright designation) are "fair use." Your lesson for the day is that anything someone writes or creates that is published on the internet is copyright protected, whether he or she spells it out or not. Although I doubt anyone wants to steal my riveting posts on toddler poop, it doesn't hurt to educate the world about the wonderful magic of online copyright law.