Friday was a terrible, no good, very bad day. Although there were lots of graces when I look back. The glass that didn't hit his eye. The lego piece was retrieved from the body cavity. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I woke up on Friday feeling especially sick, but when you are pregnant, it's hard to know if you are sick sick or just normal sick. So I plowed through our morning routine, eeked out two math lessons from the couch, and did some reading with the kids. My stomach pains and nausea were unpleasant, but that's part of pregnancy, right? The baby screamed through her entire morning nap, so after 30 minutes of it I got her up, hoping that would mean I'd get a good afternoon nap. I am very thankful to have semi-trustworthy kids (haha...more on that later) so I was able to leave them all reading quietly in the living room for 30 more minutes while I napped. Eleanor was in the pack and play, and was quiet enough for me to fall asleep for a few minutes. I promised the kids that after a short nap I would be up and running again (that's what usually kicks the nausea). So, that was a grace...they did let me sleep.
I woke up, still in my pjs, feeling no better. The kids watched the grumpy nap-protesting baby while I directed from the couch, and soon enough, it was noon. Sigh. We made it to lunch time! I made smoothies and leftover waffles, all in disposable cups and plates so the kids could throw everything away and clean up after themselves. I did have to spoon feed the baby, but did it all in 10 minutes and fell back onto the couch, feeling triumphant to be in the PM part of the day. Naptime would soon be here!!
In the mean time, no breakfast dishes had been done, none of our morning routines had been checked off (dishwasher unloaded, bathroom given a once-over, rooms tidied, morning chores done) so the house was slowly deteriorating. But we were alive and fed, except me, who wasn't managing much in the eating and drinking department.
Naptime arrived, and I put the baby down around 1pm, got the kids settled with a marathon Little House on the Prarie movie, and emailed Warren to let him know I'd be out of reach for several hours. I turned my fan on high, cozied down, and fell asleep for 30 minutes, until the sound of a lawnmower woke me up. A thoughtful friend was mowing our yard for us, and even had been considerate enough to come at a time when we weren't usually resting. Within moments, the baby was also awake, despite the roaring noisemaker. I quieted her, laid her back down, and got back in bed, hopeful for another hour or two of rest.
Two minutes later, I heard a crash- which I admit- I decide to ignore. Thomas came upstairs screaming, which is what I actually hoped would happen if something was really wrong. Turns out that the mower kicked up a small stick that came blasting through our basement door window panel, blowing glass to the back wall of the basement, 20 feet away. Glass on my laundry, in my mending, in my food dehydrator, computer desk, all over the floor. A few hours ago it was a triumph to get myself off the couch for 10 minutes to make lunch, and now I was realizing I had a big job ahead of me, and it didn't really matter how sick I felt.
Another grace- Thomas was standing at the window when the stick barreled in, but the stick came through the upper window panel, and not the middle one he was peering out of. The result was only a small hit in the head (which didn't even draw blood) and boots full of glass, which only produced a tiny cut. (He got new rubber boots the day before, so he had been wearing them all day.) The bad part was that he came upstairs and dumped his glass-filled boots on the upstairs floor, making a mess upstairs and down.
After a brief cry in the bathroom, and a reminder that God was with me in this day, planning every moment, and a quick debate about whether or not I should call Warren and ask him to come home, I sent the kids outside, left the still-screaming baby in her bed, and got to work. It took me an hour to clean up, and I noticed I was having slight contractions, which I figured were just because I was dehydrated, but I was a little worried.
After the mess was clean, I rescued the baby from her crib prison, gave the kids a snack, got dressed, and told the kids to follow suit. If the baby was going to be fussy, and I wasn't going to sleep, we were at least going to check some things off my to-do list. We had overdue library books, and I needed to get some bloodwork done. We piled in the car, and about 5 minutes into the trip, Thomas says, "I think my lego guy hand is in my nose!" What on earth? I told him to blow his nose, and that he was probably wrong and we would find it in the car. I asked the phlebotomist for a flashlight while he was draining my body of blood, and I got a funny story about a barbie shoe in a nose from him, and a marble from someone else. But he had no flashlight, so off we went to the library. More grace: due to a computer glitch, no fines were showing up on my account. The librarian said, "oh well, let's just go with it" and I was thankful for that little ray of sunshine in my glass and nausea filled day.
I talked to Warren on the way home, and he offered to leave 30 minutes early so he could be there when I got home. I don't think I've ever felt so relieved to pull up and see his truck in the driveway. He also told me to call the midwife and let her know what was going on. After a few minutes she said, "I really think you have the flu," and the lack of eating and drinking was causing some other unpleasant symptoms.
So, Warren got the lego guy hand out of Thomas' nose with a flashlight and some tweezers, we threw some leftovers on the table, the baby went to bed super early, the kids watched another round of Little House on the Prarie, and Warren and I snuggled down to a movie in bed. I was asleep shortly after 9:30pm, and he even left the house the next morning before 8am to feed the kids at his parents house, so I could sleep in a quiet house. Twelve hours of sleep and a quiet morning seemed to do the trick, and my bad day dissolved into a Family Fun Saturday with barely a trace of the flu.
Friday morning I read this article, which was timely, and helped me remember that we are all experiencing days like this from time to time. http://www.stevewiens.com/
Of course, the next night, Adeline threw up from 10:30 to 4:30am. But that was another day, with new graces and several more loads of laundry.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment