Anatomy of a Cold

Monday Morning dropping Lena off at daycare
Me: Oh Hello, Other Kid.
Other kid: COUGHCOUGHCOUGH

Wednesday Night very very late
Lena: Mommy, I am coughing, I need to sleep in your bed.
Me: *grumblegrumble*
Lena: COUGHCOUGHCOUGH

Monday Morning at work
Me: COUGHCOUGHCOUGH

Not keeping track but…

Parenting things done today:

• Scheduled and rescheduled a doctor’s appointment for Lena’s mysterious illness that only strikes her when she’s at day care.
• Fielded the doctor’s office questions as to why Lena’s medicaid is inactive.
• Called my Medicaid caseworker to check on the status of Lena’s Medicaid. (She keyed it in today, it should be in the system by tomorrow. This woman is the awesomest most helpful woman in the world. Have you thanked YOUR caseworker today? I have.)
• Answered the dreaded call from day care saying that Lena is not crying, not feverish, but lying quietly on her favorite red chair and not participating in any activities. To which I answer, call me when she’s crying or has a fever, I have a doctor’s appointment for her tomorrow, but until then I REFUSE TO WATCH MORE FINDING NEMO.
• And it’s only 11.

in the sick of it

There’s a learning curve that comes with parenting. Maybe not so much as a curve as a learning bus that you probably miss the first time around and then you run like hell to catch up so you don’t miss it the next time it stops.

So let me take you back to the first time I missed the bus. The date is October 17, 2009. My birthday! A wonderful wonderful birthday, filled with cooking wonderful things, cheese pancakes in the morning, carbonara for dinner. Lena loved both of these things. She’ll eat two or three cheese pancakes, and at dinner she gnommed on some pasta. Who wouldn’t? Cheesy eggy bacon-y goodness.  So then she goes to bed. And about 10 minutes after going down she starts crying. Not just “I don’t really want to sleep right now” crying, but like, screaming bloody murder crying. So I go in and get her, and it’s dark, and I put my hand on her, and it’s wet. And warm. And…chunky. And now my eyes have adjusted to the dark and I see that Lena is COVERED in puke and her crib is. And all stuffed animals. And blankets. And did I mention her hair? And I don’t really like puke, especially not other people’s, so I stood there frozen for a minute and then screamed for my parents. Because when you are covered in puke (because I just put my hand in it) Lena is, the bed is, EVERYTHING is, where do you start?

Needless to say, it was not one of my shining moments as a parent.

(It was a good birthday though, besides that.)

Then Lena gets send home sick on Wednesday, And it’s all, whatever, sick feverish baby. So she spends the day home on Thursday, and then thursday night, it’s just me, and I put her down to bed, and I hear her coughing, and then crying/coughing, so I’m like, Okay, I’ll go get her. So I go and pick her up and she just yaks, all over me. And this time, man you would have been impressed, I was like, calm cool and collected in the face of extreme danger smell. I was like, okay. First order of business, set Lena down, remove my sweatshirt that has been soiled, stop a vomit covered Lena from running into my bed (she of course just wanted to go back to sleep), remove her clothes, wash her in the sink, get new jammies, put her up in my bed, and remove the sheets from the bed and clean up spare chunks that were on the floor. BOOYAH. (Too much information?) BOOYAH Just call me the vomit clean up QUEEN.

It was awesome. I mean it was horrible, and I felt really bad for Lena, but she groggily croaked “feel better.” after yakking, and I asked her if she wanted to brush her teeth, “yeah…” and then if she was ready to go back to sleep, “mommy’s bed”, and all was well. And I laid down next to her, so pysched that I did this, you know, great parenting feat of overcoming vomit. I am maturing. I mean compared to like two years ago when Lena would poop out of her diaper and I would call my mom asking her what to do. (“Well? What do you think? Clean it up!”) I now do not need to ask what to do about erratically placed bodily functions. You clean them up, duh.