I'm sick of sick

         Motherhood can hurt. Literally. No, I mean literally--just today Livia has already tried whacking me in the face twice. But let me back up to the Tuesday before last, Nov. 25th. I was dreaming that I felt sick to my stomach when I woke up. You know that huge feeling of relief that it was all just a dream and now you can get on with your life? I love that feeling. Unfortunately, that feeling lasted about the length of time it took me to get my hiney out of bed and stumble into some workout clothes. Once again I felt sick to my stomach. My daughter missed the memo and instead of waking up at her usual time, decided that a half hour early would be a better decision. Nature waiteth not, even for toddlers, and she ended up getting quite the show, first thing in the morning. It turns out that puking up sweet potatoes, just two days before Thanksgiving, is a bad thing. The rest of the morning was a bit of a blur as I did everything I could just to stay up until Matt came back from a meeting to work from home. Thankfully, just as I was contemplating the merits of super gluing my eyelids open, Matt walked in the door. 

        As it turns out, the low point of my day was just the beginning. The fun was just getting started :) Feeding Livia later that evening I got up from my chair to take off her bib, a giant fuzzy blanket wrapped around me (yes, this is the stay at home mom version of a sick day). Forgetting that I'd scooted back the chair, I went to sit back down and of course, missed completely. So there I was on the floor: a tangle of fuzzy blanket, one very dirty bib in me and a smarting elbow (the result of whacking it sharply on where my chair actually was on the way down). Livia, startled from the commotion (I had made quite a bit of noise on the way down), got so scared that she tossed whatever she could find at hand off of the table. 

        The problem was, this was her unfinished dinner plate and her flinging target happened to be my face. Once I'd gotten over the initial shock of it I managed to get her down, reassure her and laid myself out on the carpet to recuperate. She grabbed her sippy cup and headed over, convinced that she now needed to keep a close eye on Mom. Unfortunately, just as she was taking a swig of milk she happened to spot her pacifier. Dropping the sippy cup, she reached for it. What I didn't mention before was that she happened to be just above my head when this happened and that very full sippy cup hit me smack on the jawline. Whenever the going gets tough I try to remember that Momma said 'there'd be days like this' but I have to admit that Momma didn't warn me that there would be a single day where I'd puke my guts up, feel as if I'd been run over by a tractor, topple to the floor, have luke warm peas thrown at my face, and then get punched in the jaw by a sippy cup. So I did what any mature, grown, hormonal woman would do: I rolled over and cried like a baby. 

        Surely, I thought, this was the worst of it. Light started glimmering at the end of the week. It had been a hard week, I was still weak from my stomach flu but life was going to get better and on Saturday we got to celebrate Thanksgiving with good friends. Take that: Life 0 Tal 1. That night Livia had trouble sleeping. Lots of it. When she was no longer comforted by me holding her I started to panic. Matt was gone and at first I couldn't reach my mother in law (a doctor). And then she puked a couple of times. Wait a minute, this is all too familiar, right? We just did this dance earlier this week. The next morning Livia was up at 6 crying. It was too loud to go for a 'selective hearing' approach and since it was my morning to get up with her I slowly complied (I say slowly because we'd been up most of the night with her and my body was feeling it). When I shuffled out to the living room I just stared dumbfounded. In an act of solidarity, the cat had thrown up all over the living room. You have got to been kidding me. Seriously? 

        And so it continued. Livia, sick and grumpy all day every day--no more throwing up at least, turns out that that had been caused from excessive coughing--sick and grumpy all night as well. One night she was up just about every hour, sometimes multiple times. One day in the haze, her and I were going through the box that contained her new play kitchen for Christmas (more on that later) and had just arrived by special delivery. Trying to be helpful, she turned around to give me a longish wooden rod, only to whack me smack in the forehead with it. Later that day she had a tantrum (one of many when the girl is sick apparently) and tried to scratch anything in a toddler arm radius. This just so happened to be on my neck and sternum area, leaving behind scratches that are horror film worthy. Thankfully it looks like hope might be on the horizon and I'm going to attempt going to work tomorrow. All this to say, however, that one lesson has been imprinted on my mind over the past two weeks: parenting is definitely not for wimps. But it might make one out of ya! ;) :)