Caloden

A special sort of hell is being falling down, hacking up loogies, feverish and dizzy sick and getting to spend all your days with a healthy, happy, active toddler. Oh yeah, my Karmic Muse is having a hearty laugh right now. Bitch.

For the past five or six days I have been able to do little more than stumble down stairs and huddle on the couch. And some days I have stayed confined to my bed with a bottle of water, a box of kleenex and a book of vampire smut for company. From time to time I haul myself up to do a small project that has been needling me as I lounge in my sickbed. One day I took the two laundry baskets filled with odd socks and made pairs of all of them. The process took me the better part of an afternoon and at the end I even went so far as to throw out the remaining mismatched ones. In the past I have always saved the loner socks in a bag, holding out hope that the mates would someday return. But being a new year, I decided to take that brave new leap and toss the singles -a gut wrenching babybstep, for sure.

Encouraged by my sock success, yesterday I tackled the pantry and my tupperware collection. It’s not really Tupperware, I’m not the kind of mom who routinely gets invited to those sorts of parties. Containers make me giddy and I would LOVE to have a collection of jewel-toned plastic boxes and bowls. But I think the hostesses know that I am far too irresponsible to be trusted with anything so precious as Honest-to-God-Tupperware. So I get the cheapies at the grocery store, and eventhough they are disposable I cherish those plastic bad boys. So yesterday as I cleaned and organized I was shocked and saddened to realize that what I thought to be a fairly presentable collection, actually turned out to be mostly odd tops and bottoms -very few matches. So I did what any sane person does, I scoured the house from top to bottom for the missing troops. I had an empty sick feeling when I came up with squat. I couldn’t bring myself to toss the lonely tops and bottoms, afterall their mates might be out there somewhere. And in a final bit of desperation I bagged them up and looked for a place to store them. Finding none, I took them to my mother’s house to see if she might need them. She looked at me as if I were insane and silently pointed her finger towards the door. Ouch.

Last night as I reflected upon my daily achievements I had a flickering of doubt about my character. Am I incredibally cheap? Perhaps reincarnated from The Depression, thus my attachment to small, homeless tidbits? Or maybe I have too much materialism? Or a touch of OCD? I don’t know. But now that I have a free shelf in the pantry, I am going to fill it with happy box families of matching tops and bottms.

Usually I feel guilty if I haven’t gotten the kids out into the fresh air before noon. I sense myself a bad mother if I let Loren stay over at a friend’s house and don’t make contact before 9:30 in the morning. I get ancy if I see the kids eating meals at the coffee table while they watch TV. And although I don’t battle Cassidy with the Hair Brushing Issue (if she wants to run about looking like an orphan, that is up to her) I try to make sure she has clean clothing.

That all went out the window today. I haven’t changed out of my pajamas since the ER visit a couple of nights ago. I never saw Loren today and tonight he is at a different friend’s house. We never ventured outside today because the television was far too enticing. I didn’t even bother with Devon’s booster chair, we took all our meals and snacks at the coffee table. On the plus side, sock sorting is an activity easily performed while watching TV, we haven’t had so many matching socks in years. I am hoping tomorrow I’ll feel up to going outside and joining the world of the living.

I am locked. Drained. Void. The New Year struck with Cassidy awakening and vomiting all over the bed. She woke up the next morning and started again. Monday was spent recuperating. And Tuesday she was sent home at snack time after she vomited her snack in the girls’ bathroom. Wednesday at 5:30 a.m. I found myself snuggled around the toilet as I heaved and hurled for all I was worth. I spent that day sleeping at my mother’s while she watched Cassidy and Devon. On Wednesday afternoon Devon began coughing. Thursday morning Cass, Devon and I were able to get an actual appointment with our doctor. This was mostly due to Devon’s status as an infant cardiology patient, without his gimpy heart we would still be wasting away in waiting room hell. Cassidy passed a flu test, a completely nasty procedure in which she had to honk boogers into a dixie cup that I had the pleasure of holding for her. Had I anything in my stomach, I would have again barfed right then and there. I can handle many things, but mucous in any form is not on that list. The doctor diagnosed us all with General Muck, prescribed cough medicine and sent us on our way. So last night I medicated Devon and tucked him into bed at 7. He was up hoarsely crying at 8:30 and 10:30. When he awoke at 11:30 he had no voice left and was having difficulty breathing. I alerted Matt and we headed into the ER.

After nearly four hours, a breathing treatment, a steroid shot and lots of entertaining on Matt’s part we were sent home. Devon has the croup. When we got home he slept until about 6:30 and was up for the day. Except he wasn’t the Sweet Thing with whom I usually spend my days. He was Miserable, Crying, Fussy Baby. He was only happy so long as he was affixed to either my hip or boob. Tonight I drugged him at 5:45 and had him in his crib by 6.

If he will only sleep for most of the night I will forever be grateful. I will donate more to charity, hell I’ll even start my own charity. I’ll recycle more. I’ll try to go to Mass more often. I’ll plan healthier meals, play more games with Cassidy, listen more attentively to Loren’s skateboard stories…. Maybe not, but I’ll definitely be far less of a bitch in the morning.