Being Sick While Caring for your Toddler {Hell}

I feel/look like the adult version of this but am too vain don't want to scare you so you shall not see a real picture of me.

So, this blog post topic seems to make the internet rounds now and again.  Just about every blogging mother of a toddler writes about it at one time.  I've read them all, with a a little grin on my face at their obvious "exaggeration".  Ha ha, sorry y'all.  Now realize that, if anything,  you were severely under exaggerating.  Let me explain.

Lucia has been sick.  One of those sicknesses that is nothing more than a cold, but you're absolutely certain that this is the kind of cold that may kill a person.  On Monday afternoon, I began to feel it creeping into my neck and I just knew I was in for something awful.  David was at work, but I miraculously survived because Lucia was still feeling the crud and was thus a bit lethargic like me and I was able to interest her with a little Mickey Mouse a la español.  About 9pm Monday night hit and I knew that Tuesday was going to be my worst day ever as a mother (just sign me up as a fortune teller, because I predicted that future like a pro).  I was getting sicker and getting sicker fast.  Achy body, nose that leaked like a faucet, head in a vice, all those goodies.  So obviously, I got about 60 minutes sleep total, spread out throughout the night in about 3 minute increments.  

Enter morning.  Despite a leaky nose and spontaneous coughing fits, Lucia no longer realized she was sick.  Which meant she was in high destruction mode to make up for the relatively benign days that preceded.  I was failing and failing fast.  All I wanted was sleep, but if I closed my eyes for a moment, there would be a tongue in a wall socket, I just knew it. The only way I made it through the morning was by lying on the couch and throwing lots of these at my feral toddler:

And these:

I was sent these to review and is it too overdramatic to call these "the only thing standing between me and imminent death"?  I was also able to spend three hours recently at a coffee shop with a friend with Lucia on her best behavior due to four packets of these babies.  I've tasted them myself and while I wouldn't sit and eat packages, I definitely think they taste like real food unlike a lot of "toddler" grub.  

Anyway, back to my death day.  Thinking logically, I realize that I only spent two hours with Lucia before putting her down for a nap.  It felt more like two millenia.  It really did work out perfectly though.  David worked an early morning and the nap was timed perfectly so he should get home before she woke up.  He called to ask if he could work a half hour late and all I could think is, "Dude doesn't get it!"  I'm rarely sick and when I am, it's usually no big deal and I go on with my life like nothing's different but this time was different and he should know that if I'm actually real-life complaining then I must be near dying.  Anyway, I think he did eventually get it because he ended up leaving about 15 minutes early.

You would think I would have been in the clear once Lucia went down for a nap, but it's at that moment when I no longer had to care for anyone that the full force of the sickness and lack of sleep hit me.  If you don't believe that I was very close to the end of life, peruse this email that I sent David:

If tu get this befor you leave can tu bring me delicious tea wtb hm y. Herbal not caffeinated pleas. Lu Pi is sleeping I am on bed. Need ibuprofen and water and a massage when you yet home. Very dire situwtion. Need love too. Donzt tarry long.

Unfortunately, he did not get this before he left work and got me a caffeinated tea which definitely would not help my sleep deprived state.  I proceeded to wail, and cry, and gnash my teeth when he told me this and was quite certain that he needed to call an ambulance to come pick me up.  At about this point of the conversation (he's driving home), I hear my toddler, who should still be sleeping, screaming.  I'm torn.  Do I go get her, knowing full well that I cannot even stand before dizziness ensues and I fall on my face?  Or do I wait the five minutes until David gets home to get her.  I imagine her somehow having put her head through the bars of the crib and them smooshing together until she has suffocated/been decapitated.  (Why do I picture the trash compactor in a Star Wars movie?) Although it is obvious that this hasn't happened yet because she can still wail just fine.  

David gets home, he gets Lucia (screaming = pooped), piles mountains of blankets upon me, puts sweatpants and socks on my chilled body, gets me warm Cream of Rice, ibuprofen, and massages my neck.  I sleep for a half an hour, wake up feeling MUCH better (and very, very hot), I lay downstairs on the coach, we attempt to watch the first episode of Downton Abbey but get interrupted and never get past minute 17.  I wallow in pity, and then, here I am.  The day is over.  I survived.  Not quite sure how, but I did.

Thank goodness David is off tomorrow except for a short tutoring stint.  I'm quite convinced that I'll be up to par by Thursday and this day will be a long lost memory. 

I know, I know what you're thinking.  I'm a whiner.  Yep. totally.  But today was hard.  I have no idea how I could do this with more children or several days in a row or pregnant.  Ugh.  99% of the time I think that I'm much more cut out to be a SAHM than a working mom, but not with sickness.  Totally wished I could have stayed home today but had David shuttle Lulu off to daycare. 

A while back I wrote a post titled What Parenting a Sick Baby Taught Me About the Heart of God.  Not quite sure what the lesson of this is.  Maybe, How Parenting a Toddler While I'm Really, Really, Horribly Sick Showed Me that I'm Capable of Entertaining Her with Food and Leaving Her Poopy in Her Crib.  Has a ring to it, doesn't it?

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