One step forward, two steps back

Rachel — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:46:23 +0000

Last week I briefly mentioned that in my quest to be more frugal, I was following the advice of the book and tackling my grocery bills. Oh, I so wanted to write a post on the beautiful, organized spreadsheet I had developed in order to compare prices. I wanted to talk about the shock I felt when I realized how much more money I was spending than I should have been. I had big dreams!

But then…we were struck with the thing that can bring a home with children to its knees: illness. With some pretty crappy timing too. Not that any time is particularly convenient to get sick, but still… The husband and I started school again and in an attempt to make our schedules work, coordinated a baby swap a few times a week with a neighbor also trying to finish school. In the midst of the craziness the husband and baby were hit with a doozy of a cold. That’s right, a DOOZY! Poor little Claire especially, and any parent knows that there is little worse than having a sick child.

My schedule for the last week basically looked like this:

4:02 AM- Baby crying, offer comfort.

4:37 AM- More crying, more bleary-eyed comfort offered.

5:15 AM- Baby too congested to sleep. Sit in rocking chair with baby to keep her upright and help her breathe.

6:20 AM- Crawl back into bed.

6:35 AM- Baby cries. Discover diaper leak, urine everywhere. Awesome. Baby in tub.

7:55 AM- Leave for school.

10:00 AM- Baby swap so husband can go to school. Tend to sick child.

10:12 AM- Wipe snot

10:23 AM- Wipe snot

10:37 AM- Restrain child in order to wipe snot

10:42 AM- Give up on keeping snot river under control and accept that everything will be covered in mucous for the next several days.

11:00 AM- Naptime!= homework time for mom

12:45 PM- Baby awake, wipe snot, lunch time, sick and tired husband comes home

1:15 PM- Work, work, work…

8:30 PM- get home, start getting baby ready for bed. Baby’s coughing fit induces BARFING. Baby in tub.

9:15 PM- baby finally asleep. Eat late dinner.

9:35 PM- Lapse into a coma from exhaustion

So! As you can see, there has been no time for organized spreadsheets or meal planning or even checking my email. Besides, had I even printed off one of those lovely spreadsheets I’m pretty sure it would be covered in snot.

Let’s hope this week runs a little more smoothly.

When it rains, it pours

Rachel — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:03:47 +0000

I totally fell off of the NaBloPoMo wagon. I was doing so well, too! Oh well, there’s always next year. This year a little thing called life got in the way, I’m afraid.

Last weekend I got a flat tire that couldn’t be fixed, and since my car needed new tires anyway we had to deal with the whole rigmarole of arranging driving and all that fun stuff until we could finally take my car in on Tuesday, which also happened to be the day that I was irrational and emotional, probably due to lack of sleep and hormones, and the hubby was the same way so that equaled out to some marital discord.

The previous night, Monday, all was going fairly well (except the car thing) and since the hubby had to pick me up from work he thought it would be nice for us to go out for a family dinner to my favorite restaurant. We didn’t have a baby-sitter or anything, but figured Claire would be just fine and would enjoy getting out for a bit. Everything started off great- Claire was happy watching all the people and playing with crayons and we were enjoying our salads and bread. I look up from my salad to glance at Claire in her high chair and HOLY CRAP! She’s spewing vomit everywhere! Not a sound did she make, nor was there any inclination whatsoever of her not feeling good. But out of the blue she starts barfing copious amounts,which is a mystery to me, since she was still avoiding eating that day.

I grabbed all the napkins I could find, including ones off of other peoples’ tables in an attempt to catch/clean up some of the mess. The poor girl is crying pretty hard now and we’re trying to figure out a way to get her to the bathroom without smearing puke all over ourselves, all the while pretending that all the other diners aren’t staring at us in horror. I finally managed to escape to the restroom, strip her down, clean her up, and put her in the spare onesie in the diaper bag. We hung out in there for a little while, just in case, and when I felt the coast was clear we headed back to the table. However, the second I rounded the corner and approached our table…

“BLEEEEEHHHHH!! WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

She barfed again. Back to the restroom we went, leaving the hubby to get everything boxed up and in the car. So much for the nice evening. One of those things you put under the “WHY DO WE EVEN TRY?” category.

I do have to pause for a second though and mention that while I was in the restroom with my crying, half-naked, smelly child that I felt very grateful for the sense of camaraderie I felt with the other women in there. None of them stared, none of the pretended to ignore us in the hopes of avoiding something unpleasant and uncomfortable. Each woman that came through offered her sympathies and help and shared stories of when their child had done something similar. It made me feel as though I was part of this network of mothers that understood and cared. We didn’t really know each other, but we had an understanding of what the other had been through. For some odd reason feeling as though I wasn’t alone in my struggles made everything easier.

So with Monday and Tuesday both in the crapper, the week was off to a pretty un-promising start. More to come of the remainder of the week’s events…

Mommy By The Book » sick baby

One step forward, two steps back

When it rains, it pours