Friday, March 18, 2016

The terrible, awful, how is there still more?! bad day

Let's take a look at yesterday. We'll do this chronologically so you get the same build up I had the joy of experiencing.


  • Husband hits panic button on car at 5 am, waking me on the one day of the week I get to sleep in. Eventually fall asleep right before husband returns home from the gym. Sigh.
  • Wake up and shower. Realize that I still have a bit of a cold, but can almost breath through one side of my nose. Things are looking up.
  • Husband leaves for work.
  • Child wakes up as the car is pulling out of the driveway and immediately informs me that he's had an accident. His diaper leaked, so I navigate my pregnant bulk around to strip and remake his bed. I toss all the bedding in the wash hoping his special comforter will be ready to put back on the bed by naptime. I contemplate throwing the pee-sodden feather pillow away (I don't know how that happened either), and instead decide to try and salvage it.
  • Whatever. Move on, cause we're in a hurry.
  • Feed child while trying to get ready to leave the house.
  • Drive 20 minutes to a meet up with a mommy facebook group I recently joined. Try convincing an increasingly reluctant 2 year old that it is fun to meet new people while silently reiterating this point to myself.
  • Actually enjoy the meet up and leave with a happy 2 year old. Though he does not fall asleep in the car on the way home as expected/intended, because of course not.
  • Feed child. This takes a whole hour even though half of the meet up was eating. This gives me time to make sure the special comforter is dry. Things are going to be okay. Then the cat jumps up on the counter, knocks off the tv remote and breaks it. Awesome.
  • Child does not nap. Use "rest time" to make a bigger mess in the kitchen than is already there (hey, even a neat freak gets tired of doing dishes once in a while) by painting more of the back splash...yeah, I added that to my endless nesting to-do list. 
  • See that the neighbors did put their house up for sale. Google it and look at pictures of their house and eagerly await discussing it with my husband. (What, you'd do it too)
  • Reluctantly release tired child from confines of nursery. Child becomes increasingly whiny and truculent as the afternoon progresses.
  • Realize that I read a recipe wrong. I do not have time to make the dinner I planned, and that's almost all we have in the fridge. After contemplating the disaster I have made out of the kitchen, call husband and insist he pick up dinner on his way home.
  • Husband complains of not feeling great. He is uninterested in dinner. He agrees to hit a drive thru on the way home. Sigh. Whatever. Child is becoming increasingly louder and trying to earn a medal for Worst Listener in the History of Ever. Beg husband to just bring food.
  • Husband arrives home with room temperature fast food, changes, and rushes downstairs to quarantine himself from the family. He complains of an upset stomach. I swallow my disappointment that we don't even have time to gossip about the neighbor's house. Oh well.
  • The spectacular workers at the fast food restaurant messed up my order. I eat the now-cold food that I did not want while mumbling angrily to myself and thinking about how I have to do bedtime with Mr. Fussypants by myself. Grrr.
  • Clearly sick husband comes up. Mommy senses kick in and I insist he take some Imodium and check his temperature. No fever. 
  • Try to keep my temper while my over-tired toddler refuses to stay on the potty, though I know he needs to poop. Why does this have to be an issue??
  • Finish bedtime on a happy note. Yay! Good night! I'm going to relax get to cleaning the kitchen.
  • Child comes out of the room with no prepared excuse. I interrogate him about his need to use the toilet and am assured that it is not even a possibility. He's fine. He just wanted to tell me about bears. I scoot him back to bed.
  • Toddler comes to the door and tells me "something smells like poop." When asked if it's him, he resolutely denies pooping, but admits "It sounded like I pooped and now it smells like poop." I don my Sherlock cap and check his sleep diaper, and, of course, find the offending substance. And then realize that he's holding his hand out talking about the smell because he has reached down and touched said substance!! I try to maintain but instead lose all chill. Why did he not go to the potty? Why would he not stay on the potty in the first place?? And, most importantly, WHY DID HE TOUCH POOP!?! 
  • I scrub poop out from underneath my child's fingernails and then have to touch-inspect his jammies and bedding, risking poop fingers, because I still can't smell a damn thing. I then angrily disinfect all hard surfaces of the nursery, focusing my anger efforts around the nursery door.
  • I hear my husband calling me as I am sternly placing my son back in his bed.
  • When I run downstairs my husband is clearly not doing well. He is pale, shaking, and says he can't move his hands, which are distressingly distorted with muscle cramps. I haul ass upstairs and start to get us ready to go to the hospital.
  • Husband yells to call an ambulance. I run downstairs in time to see him fall off the toilet onto the bathroom floor.
  • I spend the next 15 minutes frantically talking to the 911 dispatcher while trying to find my husband's wallet, medication, etc. that he might need if they take him in an ambulance. I am simultaneously answering medical history questions with the dispatcher while chasing down the cat so she isn't loose when the paramedics arrive, keeping my curious toddler confined in his room, and checking on and reassuring my husband who is having a not-so-good-time convulsing on the floor with leg and arm cramps. Did I mention that everyone is on a different floor of the house and I'm 8 months pregnant? 
  • I'm flushed and sweating by the time the firefighters arrive. They seem to find this amusing. I've got the toddler "keeping the cat safe" in his room. I've helped my husband maintain a certain level of dignity before the paramedics arrive and I have most of his essentials gathered together.
  • It is determined that my husband has an especially virulent 24 hour bug that is going around. The muscle cramps are a result of extreme dehydration. We are given three options: 1) wait it out alone and force fluids on him and hope for the best, 2) I drive him to the ER where he will likely be given fluids intravenously, or 3) they take him in the ambulance and charge us a lot. 
  • We choose option 2 and the firefighters and paramedics hover around while I try to get my toddler ready to go, grab my husband's things, and keep our pissed off cat locked in the nursery. My toddler seems pretty ecstatic to have been rescued from bedtime. I am reminder half a dozen times how bad this virus is, how I should be very careful as I'm pregnant, and how bad it would be if my toddler got this. Basically, they suggested disinfecting my house at regular intervals for the next 48+ hours and wearing latex gloves and maybe a hazmat suit.
  • The emergency responders help my husband into our car and I drive to the ER. I spend half the time admonishing my toddler not to touch things and to keep his hands away from his mouth (having to explain about germs each time because, "Why can I not touch my mouth?" and "Where are the germs?"), and the other half trying to keep the toddler entertained/distracted because we are surrounded by bleeding, hurt, and obviously unhealthy people.
  • My husband and I agree I should take the toddler home around the time a guy is wheeled over next to us, blood running from a multitude of wounds, and no amount of gentle distraction will prevent my toddler from asking the man what happened, why he was making those sounds, and was he in fact bleeding. We text some neighbors to see if they would be able to sit at our house when I later return for my husband.
  • I get home, ready to put my son back to bed, and smell a really bad smell when I open the nursery door (and it's bad because even I can smell it). I take two turns around the room, scrutinizing everything, before finally deciding the cat was very flatulent. My son crawls into bed and lifts up his hand to show me how it is now covered in cat crap. The cat has shit all over his bed. The one that I just remade and laundered this morning. And yes, it's on the special comforter. And one of my son's special little blankets. And on a stuffed animal.
  • I now hate the cat and cry while telling her so.
  • I strip and remake the bed, explaining to my toddler why he is using a different comforter. And no, he can't have (insert everything that was crapped on). Toddler, fortunately, is now so tired he puts up little fuss. 
  • I do laundry.
  • I disinfect all the light switches, stair banisters, door knobs, drawer handles, facet knobs, and toilets in the house.
  • I make a bed for my husband downstairs.
  • I try to coordinate childcare without any idea when my husband will be ready to come home.
  • A plan is put in place - man, we have the best neighbors!- but it is around 1 am before I pick R up from the hospital. The doctors literally did nothing but give him a gateraid and tell him to stay hydrated...after having him sit for 4 very uncomfortable hours in the waiting room insisting he couldn't have anything to drink. Looking forward to the bill.
  • I do the laundry again because there is still cat crap on it.
  • The baby monitor, which was just working for the neighbor, can suddenly not locate the camera in my son's room. I fight with it for several minutes in the dark before having to ask my poor sick husband to help because I am too short to reach the actual camera to reset it. 
  • I settle my husband, glare at the cat, and finally get into bed near 3 am. I fall asleep reasonably sure that tomorrow/today will be better.



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