Well. Today was certainly a memorable day. If this was an NCIS episode, it would begin with me standing in a vomit-filled kitchen, covered in vomit myself, laughing hysterically with tears running down my face. There would be a freeze frame on my maniacal, regurgitated-mushroom-risotto spattered face, it would turn black and white and then we would flash back to the beginning of the day. It would be an awesome episode start.
Actually – I guess it would start with me sitting at this laptop with that giant glass of wine, typing…. not such good dramatic value though, eh?
Anyway.
Today was one of THOSE days. With a kick in the nuts just for shits and giggles. Have I ever sworn as much on one day as I did today? I think probably not. Despite my earnest efforts of late to curb my cursing, by replacing – well, you guess what – with ‘fairies and unicorns!’, today a fair few plain and simple ‘fuck’s’, ‘for fucks sakes!’ and ‘fucking hell’s’ came flying out of my little mouth. Geeeeeessssussss.
Started, really, at 11.30pm last night when my 3yo repeated the previous nights performance and woke up, coughing and crying. (I wasn’t mad – I was sad – I hate that she’s unwell. See my previous post about that here. I’m not all fairies and unicorns, I promise). Anyway – she came to my bed, which, thanks to a FIFO husband, was conveniently half empty – and promptly fell asleep, still coughing her little heart out every couple of minutes and turning more than a wagon wheel. Hence she got a pretty decent sleep while I ‘woke up’ at 6.30am feeling like I’d been rolled through a pasta maker (flat and stretched, not pliable and supple, in case you were confused).
In positive news, the 11mo had slept well and didn’t wake up until 6.44am. WINNING on that one, lemmetellya. When a kid, who until now has considered 5.30am a sleep in, sleeps until 6.44am….. well HALLELUJAH. I was grateful, but apparently not enough to stop the karma fairy punching me in the face with a thunder hammer.
Anyway. The morning went OK…. made pikelets for breakfast and then packed the kids in the car for a trip to the park (the house was already seeming a bit claustrophobic). At the park noticed the 3yo left eye was all gunky… awesomeballs. Conjunctivitis. Or sand? Maybe sand. Let’s go with sand. Enjoyed my coffee and the company and then packed the kids into the car to go home. 11mo fell asleep on the way home… which was great, except he woke up as we got home because the 3yo insisted she was a baby and I needed to carry her inside to put her in the portacot to sleep…. and grab that toy for her… and a pillow… and by then the 11mo was woken by the motionless vehicle. Sigh. No worries, he needed lunch anyway right?
I won’t bore you (more than I already have) with the mundane details of the day, suffice to say it was one of those days where what could go wrong kinda did, could have been a lot more bad stuff happen I know and I have perspective; but, when you’re very tired from 2 nights of little sleep, you are doing it alone cause your partner is not around, you have a 3 yo who is just loving saying things like “No!” and “I don’t want to do that!” and “Why?“, and you have a list of things you have to do and things you should do and things you just want to do and NONE of them are getting done… well, it can be a little draining.
And then, suddenly, it all improved. Somehow, I had dinner cooked by 4pm, we had all our little jobs done, we got all our many animals fed and put away and we were sitting on the trampoline enjoying a warm autumn evening in golden sunlight, and I thought – “Wow. Isn’t this a lovely way to finish off a pretty stressful, pretty unpleasant day? All the ‘jobs’ ticked off, looks like an early bedtime, probably get some time for me before bed even! And this is nice….I’m so glad me and the kidlets could have this fun time to end the day.”
Bahahahahahhaha.
Get inside and start cleaning up. Give the kids their milk – her a cup of milk, him his bottle – while I do dishes. They have enough and start playing, she follows him into the kitchen and does ….SOMETHING, I don’t know exactly what, to him, just behind me and he starts screaming his head off. Whole head turns bright red. Like a tomato.
I pick him up to soothe him and tell her to “GET ON THE COUCH AND WATCH TV!!!” (Yes, parenting 1-0-1, but by god I’m so glad I did) and then it happens. The kick in the nuts I mentioned earlier… my little guy does this weird little burp …. and then he power vomits half digested mushroom and chicken risotto mixed with 200mls of formula all over me, my kitchen floor, my kitchen cupboards and himself. So. Fucking. Awesome.
Sigh.
Cue the early bedtime going out the window because I spend the next hour cleaning up the boy, me, the floor, the cupboards, re-feeding the boy (carefully), putting on a load of washing (after rinsing off the chunks, of course!) and only then, did I tackle bedtime. And of course part of that was giving my 3yo another dose of the eye drops for her (maybe, and in hindsight, probably unlikely) conjunctivitis. Which went down a treat, I tells ya. Even better than the first dose earlier in the day. Cause, memory….. sigh.
But – you know the real kicker? The moment of today that really, truly broke me? That made me cry when telling my husband about it on the phone?
It was when, as I was putting my 3yo to bed, she touched my face and told me that I’d been ‘sore’ at her today, all day. That she was a good girl. That she knew I was sad because daddy was at work.
I can justify 100% my frustrations of today – I know I’m extra tired, I know my kids have been quite challenging and I have a lot on my ‘must do’ to do list. So on one hand, I forgive myself for the short tempered, impatient and shrill moments I had today, the times when I raised my voice or showed clearly my frustration.
But – on the other hand, and any mother or father can probably understand this – I feel terribly, horribly guilty for being so obviously shitty today that my little girl noticed enough to talk to me about it at bedtime. And that’s just a contradiction I have to live with, as a parent, every day pretty much. It sucks balls.
Anyway. The day is done. I’m ready for bed. I can hear the 3yo coughing and I am fervently hoping she settles without needing me and sleeps all night in her own bed so I can get some much needed catch up sleep.
So yes. The NCIS freeze frame would be me, at a laptop, with a big (now empty) glass of wine. Its time to close down the PC and hit the shower. Cause, you know, I can still smell the vomit …. on me….fun times.
Hope your day was better than mine, or if not – hopefully this brought you a little smile and a feeling of at least not being alone 🙂
x S
mammadontstress 