Un-fun

Like most things in life, parenting has its ups and downs. We've had a pretty good up run with Wren-Lee so the down had to come along eventually...we just didn't think it would be quite so steep a slope.

Sending out an SOS

On Saturday night, Wren-Lee decided she just wasn't going to sleep after her last feed. I left her to babble and laugh in her cot which she did for almost 3 hours. Eventually, I figured I'd just top up her feed seeing as it had been so long since her last one. She had her fill and I held her upright for a burp. Instead of a pleasant belch, I was drenched with milky puke. It was down my chest, over my shoulder, all over my fluffy winter gown and even my PJ bottoms were soaked on one side. Totally freaked out, I had Trev grab her and get her cleaned up while I ran around looking for clean PJs and generally trying to stay away from the precipice of a small nervous breakdown. She, of course, was happily laughing as Mommy ran around trembling like a flower in the wind while Daddy smiled and got her into fresh clothes. 

When I need order in my life, I clean. In a desperate bid to calm down and process the volume of milk my small child had just vacated from her tummy, I got stuck into hanging up laundry. Dumb, I know, but it helps me get a grip and I was trying not to hide in a corner and sob. She vomited again not half and hour later. This time it's all over Trevor and thankfully missed her clothes. I took charge of clean up this time and we ended up staying up till almost midnight to watch over her as she went back to sleep. The next morning, she's all fine and we have no problems all day. We also chose to not give her the medication she usually has for her reflux as it had made her vomit a few days prior. 

Monday afternoon comes along and we get a call from Trev's mom who informs us that Wren had been throwing up again and it's mostly slime. We rush over to get her and manage to sneak in an appointment with the paediatrician. Kiddo didn't enjoy having her ears and nose checked out but the diagnosis is good: A sinus infection which we caught right before it went down into her airways. It was all the infected mucous heading down into her stomach that made her so sick. The doc also says it's ok for her to go off the meds for her reflux and we can see if she no longer needs it. 

So, the following day, what do you do with a sick baby? You take her to work! It made sense seeing as my mom was in the office and we could keep an eye on her. Wren-Lee helped with filing, learnt how to do a bank account recon, read my e-mails and played with GD's new iPhone cover :-) All in all, it was a good day and we figured our little person was feeling much better. 

Well, she had other ideas. I let her fall asleep on my chest or in my arms straight after her last feed for just a few days. That night, I put her to bed when she was tired but awake and she was not having it. With my patience tested to the absolute limit and lots of deep breathing, I sat next to her cot and waited as she fought against sleeping. Please note; I'd come home, fed her, cleaned up the house, made dinner, went straight to Pilates and endured a killer workout, came home and fed her again and was now dealing with this. I hadn't eaten and I hadn't taken a break in hours. And so I waited and watched. Eventually, she figured out what her comfort blanket was for and nodded off. 

As I forced myself to eat dinner at 22:30, still sitting next to her cot because she kept on waking briefly, I knew that this was the start of the not-so-nice part of parenting: The exhaustion from a busy day, a small child who's sick and can't tell you what's wrong, having to exercise an enormous amount of patience and by far my least favourite, being puked on. 

I knew when we got into this that it wasn't going to be all moonshine and roses. I don't mind all the other stuff and it was kind of nice to feel like a real parent. This story does have an upside though. After a solid night's sleep, I woke up before Wren-Lee (for a change). As I woke her up, she turned her little face to mine and greeted me with a big smile. I could see she was content and I knew all the drama before was worth it. There's not much that could dampen how much I love my kid and how much joy she brings. As long as we can keep the puke to a minimum, I'll go through all the sickness, the tiredness and the tantrums for years to come.