Leeches and drop-boxes
My toddler got sick this week and it was a feverish sort of malaise-inducing illness that completely erased his normal spirited personality. He was depressed, sunken-eyed, prone to picking random spots on the floor on which to stretch out and whimper, clutching his ever-present -- and increasingly filthy -- blanket to his runny nose. It was so utterly unlike him I felt he'd been replaced by Pod Toddler. A Poddler. A creature (surely an emo fan) whose presence was like a black cloud of mucusy despair.
While I tried to tend to my unhappy two-year-old with goopy doses of Tylenol and helpless words of comfort ("Dude, I know: colds suck"), the baby decided that it would be a fine day to refuse all naps and act as though his legs were being gnawed by piranhas every time I put him down. I eventually found myself staggering from one end of the house to the other, first trying to get the baby in a state where he'd be calm for five consecutive seconds, then heading back to the sobbing toddler while the baby's inevitable howls of dismay echoed down the hall.
I have never literally been covered by leeches whose purpose it is to suck every last drop of blood from my body, but I can only imagine that the sensation has to be very similar to what I experienced on Wednesday. At some point after Failed Nap #8571 on the baby's part and my toddler's insistence that the only thing that would make him remotely happy was playing a battery-powered toy from hell precisely one quarter-inch from my ear while I bolted my one meal of the day, I entertained a brief but vivid fantasy of just . . . returning both children. To something like a library drop-box. I could imagine the scenario so clearly: opening the metal doors, allowing the boys to slither down the chute and drop with a merry thud somewhere out of sight, driving off with my stereo blaring Tom Petty's "Free Falling."
"I'm sorry," I'd have to tell my husband when he got home. "I just couldn't hack it." On the plus side, I'd remind him, now we could eat dinner in peace.
Of course, none of that happened, and we all made it through in one piece, and for the moment the plague seems to have left my house, thank GOD. But hoo boy, it was, like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day -- all that was missing was the gum in our hair.
Tell me about your most recent Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day with the kids. Do you have any tricks for surviving days like that?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris 5-09-2008 @ 10:35AM
I've sooo been there. You have to laugh at the insanity otherwise all you would do is cry.
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Joanne 5-09-2008 @ 10:40AM
Um, everyday? Not really but man, some of them are rough. They are usually the worst when my three year old has therapy because he doesn't like me to leave the room but invariably the screaming that he's been doing has woken up my four month old so I have to leave and then he screams more and I bring her down and she starts screaming and he screams more and I want to RUN from the house and never come back. I am tired, which adds to the drama, and lately we have all had colds.
BUT I try to tell myself that I will never have these kids here this age again. I tell myself that they need me. I tell myself that my husband will be home soon (sometimes 'only' eight hours from now). I tell myself that this is the definition of sacrificial love and there has to be good that comes from it. I tell myself that I'd rather have them here screaming than gone.
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Deb 5-09-2008 @ 11:09AM
Wow, that was SO me yesterday. I put my toddler down early because I couldn't take the two of them crying anymore. The legs being gnawed by piranhas image is dead on. I don't get why altitude makes such a difference to infants. I would be happy to hold her while sitting for hours, but when they are in that mood you HAVE to be standing, what is with that?
Today is looking only mildly better than yesterday. Wish me luck, as I can only come up with the TV as a way to not want to return my toddler. Of course if I go there that means he will want to watch the TV again the next day even if he is feeling better.
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Sophie 5-09-2008 @ 11:33AM
I have the best "I'm being eaten by leaches story ever". It happened one year ago EXACTLY. My anniversary is May 12, so falls the same weekend as Mother's day. My husband's best friend had an opportunity to visit us for the weekend (he lives in another country, so its not often he comes) and I was fine with him being here the mother's day/anniversary weekend.
BUT.
The Wednesday before my 3 year old got the flu. On Thursday - day of friends arrival - I got it. I called my husband on his cell as he was doing the airport drop and said "I've got the flu, you'll have to take care of the kids". On Friday my husband got the flu.
Are you familiar with a man-flu? Not only is it apparently as painful as say - flesh eating disease - but it also cancels out the woman-flu. Woman flu no longer matters.
On Saturday friend got it. Now I had two man flus and a better-but-not-quite 3 year old and a not-yet-sick baby who was just miserable and wanted to nurse 24x7. The symptoms of the flu were gastro-intenstinal by nature, so picture me - mother's day. anniversary. Sick kid. two sick men. tears streaming down my face as my head was in a toilet trying to clean the shit splashes from the two winers on my couch wondering how I ever let my life get to this.
Leeches indeed. Ya - had their have been a return box, I'da dumped the whole lot of them in :)
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Jill 5-09-2008 @ 12:25PM
I tried to repress those moments. However, my toddler thought eBay was something like Time Out since I threatened him with it enough times.
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JJ 5-09-2008 @ 2:18PM
Hehe, I've only threaten my hubby with being sold on EBay. heheh
barb 5-10-2008 @ 10:09PM
Having children more than 5 years apart is key to avoiding days like that. Or only one for that matter. Otherwise just grin and bear it knowing one day they ill grow out of it.
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riki 5-14-2008 @ 12:05AM
Did the leeches eat you alive? Where did you go Linda?!
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JJ 5-21-2008 @ 7:10AM
How do you handle an 18th month old who screams as high as his vocal chords can go. It's not just when he is angry, he screams when he gets excited and is happy too.
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