Welcome to the struggle bus. I'll be your driver today. Be sure to keep your eyes on the horizon lest you get sucked into all the things that seem to be going awry.
I had a tiny breakdown today. I may be in the midst of a larger breakdown, actually, but I've put in on pause for bath time with RB. That's a skill I didn't possess before motherhood. I can't quite decide if I want to revisit it after he goes to bed. Though I'm not sure that would be a voluntary decision.
I got message from daycare as I was pulling into the parking lot to pick him up this evening that he has a fever of 100.8. It's like we can't catch a fucking break. He won't be able to go to daycare tomorrow, which means my tomorrow just got significantly more complicated. Is it a cold? Is it an ear infection? Is it something more sinister? Who fucking knows. Well, I guess I'll know tomorrow morning because we'll be taking a trip to the pediatrician. If it's an ear infection, that's not something you can really let ride. If it is an ear infection, that means it's his second in six months and we are back on the road to needing tubes. If it is, they can prescribe antibiotics. If it's not, and it's just a cold, no antibiotics. I'm grateful we've recently gotten sign off from his doctor to give him a little bit of cough medicine and a little bit of Zyrtec. Right now, he's got both of those in his system, plus some Motrin and some honey.
You know what feels like shit? Giving your kid four substances at one time that have to be administered using a syringe. That doesn't feel good, at least not to me. I watched a TikTok the other day where some mom said her kid had had Tylenol something like three times in their whole life. I was dumbfounded. We're lucky if RB gets through a week with that same count. Between the ears, the teeth, the growing pains, and the random diseases, we may as well be investors on Motrin at this point. At least we'd get dividends. Right now, we're just getting fuck all. RB is literally so used to taking medicine and if he sees the syringe he opens his mouth. Daycare complimented his medicine-taking abilities the other day. Please don't get me wrong. I'm thankful for medicine and all it can do. I just wish our household didn't need it as often as we have.
Selfish thoughts: I just recovered from the stomach bug he brought home last week. I'm just catching up at work from being out. I'm just catching up on laundry. I'm just catching up on housework. I'm just starting to not feel like total shit all the time. This is so shitty to say, but another illness for him (and then likely for me) would be very inconvenient right now.
It feels like I'm already starting at zero and now there's another thing to deal with. It feels like there's always some thing to deal with. Was life ever simple before? Or was I just blissfully unaware? Ironically I was talking to my best friend today about how, regardless of the situation, once rose colored glasses come off, they can't go back on. Maybe I lived the first quarter of my life with rose colored glasses.
The next day
Yesterday was a hard one. The news of RB being sick just really hit me in a way that it hasn't before. Obviously I was hearing that news for a very selfish lens, but I'm only human. Humans have limits to their selflessness, and I am susceptible to that as well. Obviously I do not want my son to be sick. Obviously my son is going to get sick. Obviously it is going to result in a not fun time for both of us. I'm aware of these truths and still I struggle.
Thankfully RB slept great last night and woke up without a fever. Should all go well, he will be back at daycare tomorrow and hopefully I can have a very productive day at work. Part of my reaction yesterday was related to work. I've got my maternity leave looming over me and I've got so many things that I'd really like to get organized before then, both professionally and personally. I'm trying to take some time next week to get some of those personal things organized, like a nursery for a newborn, but it feels selfish because, well, cuz I have a whole team at work that depends on me and I feel like I'm not ready to set them up for success during my time out. I know they're more than capable of handling everything that comes our way, more than capable. But I need to get some documentation together and I really just need to get my shit in order. It's hard to do that when I toddler is home sick every four business days. But we're making it work today.
Since he's not actually sick, he's mostly just been playing today. Right now we're having some lunch and then he'll go down for a nap. I'm hoping it'll be a long and productive nap so I can get some things done while he's sleeping. Recently my mother-in-law sent him a slide, so I set that up in my office today and surrounded it with the Nugget pillows that my parents got him for his birthday. He was actually quiet pleased about that and entertained by it for a little while. Now, toddlers don't have the strongest of attention spans so it didn't last forever but it did occupy him for, I don't know, I'd say 20 minutes. He's been mostly in a good mood except for right in this moment when I'm not allowing him to have any of my orange soda that I'm having with lunch. But he's got juice! Which he just remembered that he had and is now aggressively drinking.
I'm a little embarrassed about my tiny break down yesterday even though nobody knows about it at the time of his post other than me and my mother. Maybe there are other working moms out there who feel my pain. Other working moms who feel like total assholes when their kids get sick and their first reaction is from a selfish point of view. I don't know if that's the right way or a healthy way or narcissistic way of thinking about it but I guess if you are one of those narcissistic moms like me, it might feel good to know that you're not alone.
I think it would make me feel good to know that I'm not alone in this reaction. To know that I'm not a monster for thinking about the ways that my son being home from daycare inconveniences me as a person. I'd really like to not have to deal with the inconvenience of human emotions while I navigate motherhood, because I do find my own feelings to be inconvenient, and probably make me feel good to know the other mothers feel the same. But maybe they don't and maybe I am indeed on the narcissistic side of the spectrum. God, I really hope not.
Comments