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Pity party--with pumpkins!

I don't know, exactly, where I want this post to go. I don't know quite why I signed into Typepad and hit the Compose button.

I guess I'm not completely comfortable with my vitriolic entry from Sunday and want a fun, breezy post to usurp it. Though, sadly, I'm not experiencing many fun, breezy thoughts at the moment.

Fruit Bat had to get a filling today, and it didn't go particularly well. There was the fear and the needle and the bumping out of a tooth that was loose but that he wasn't quite ready to part with.

Also, we are up against more food issues at school in the form of a gym teacher who's decided that handing out candy is a good incentive. Because physical education and sticky sweets should always go hand-in-hand.

I just received a mass email from an old high school teacher (who I loved) urging her friends to vote YES on a proposition supporting stem cell research. She has ALS (otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's disease) and reading that this dynamic, energetic woman has to type her emails with a drool rag stuffed in her mouth was almost more than I could bear.

And then there's the late October GRAY. The rain I can hear pattering the roof. The shiny half dollar I'm about to slip under Fruit Bat's pillow. The rumpled bed that's urging me in, but that I'm resisting because I'm a little afraid to shut my eyes and let my brain whirl.

And aren't I just a hoot tonight.

Tomorrow will be better.

And that's why I posted the sunny photo of pumpkins. Apropos of nothing. But cheery anyway.

Please tell me it's really over

Kitty Cat has, I think, slogged her way through the worst part of this virus. God, it's been a doozy. Definitely the sickest I've seen her in her three-and-a-half years. 

72 hours of vomiting. 84 hours + of fever. Snot that would (will) not stop.

For getting us through it, I have several entities I'd like to thank:

• Pedialyte popsicles--for being one of the only things Kitty Cat could stomach over the last four days

• Chewable Motrin

• Puffs Plus

• Kindergarten--for keeping Fruit Bat mostly occupied

• Xanax

• The Internet--for preventing me from clawing holes through our walls

• Trader Joes Bittersweet chocolate chips--for being one of the only things that brought me comfort over the last four days

• Caffeine

• Toast

• The Whirlpool Duet washer and dryer

• The Hoover Steam Vac Spin Scrub Carpet Cleaner

• Smells Be Gone

• My husband, for never throwing away an old towel or potential rag. We needed them all

May we never meet up with the likes of those particular bitchy germs again.

Cat Video Friday--I wanna be sedated

It's been a hard week. A really hard week.

And this is what I hope to do a lot of on Saturday and Sunday.

Why does my child's sickness bring out the worst in me?

Kitty Cat is sick.

Not the kind of sick where her nose is stuffy and maybe she's a little warm.

The kind of sick where she takes a drink of 7-Up and barfs. Takes another drink of 7-Up and barfs. Takes another drink of 7-Up and barfs.

And then I take away the 7-Up.

The kind of sick where she's singeing the bed covers with fever.

The kind of sick where she just lies on my bed, or the couch, staring at the ceiling.

The kind of sick where she's missing school for the week  which means it's Mommy Time for me day and night.

Yesterday I was full of healthy optimism that she'd kick this thing's ass! And fast! Some 7-Up and Saltines and she'd be on her way back to preschool by Thursday. I wore decent clothes and sat with her on the bed, then bustled around doing laundry and chores, then sat with her some more.

But this morning, at around 7, after three hours of diving for Kitty Cat's barf bowl and fetching her sips of water while sleeping in snatches, Fruit Bat woke us with a ukulele serenade.

This morning, at around 7, I was bleary and headachy and IRATE. I snarled and cried and slammed a few doors. Just another hour of sleep was all I wanted. Was what I felt I DESERVED. And it took every ounce of my restraint not to smash his beloved ukulele to tiny bits.

Not my finest mothering moment. Or human moment for that matter.

And now I'm in sweats, my brain operating as though clogged with bits of soggy cardboard, just wanting some time where I don't have to nurture anyone.

Why?

Why can't I just make it through one bad week and think: Yeah, this sucks. But it's just one week. You can set aside your stupid manuscript-that-no-one-will-ever-buy for one week, let the chores go and focus on what's really important: your child's health. For. One. Week.

Why does my child's sickness bring out the worst in me?