“Mommy, you’re terrible. You’re a terrible mommy!”
My son is sick with lung and ear infections. (This is completely and totally unrelated to the vomit-mania that occurred last Friday. He started getting sick with a brand-new cold on Sunday the 6th.)
We spent 6 hours in the Emergency Room last night with Lucas coughing terribly and burning a 103-104 degree F fever. Now we are armed with antibiotics, fever-reducing suppositories (he gags and spits up any oral cough or fever-reducing medicine), and medication for his lungs to be administered by nebulizer. Needless to say, I have not been able to accomplish much editing on the 5 projects I am currently juggling.
Childcare is great (and essential) for freelancing/WAH/working parents, except when your child is sick. Caregivers don’t want a sick kid. And other children’s parents certainly don’t want Lucas’s germs. If I had a job and weren’t self-employed, I’d take a sick day (or three), stay home with Lucas, and not worry about my work not getting done. Someone else would put out fires and take care of things in my absence. But, being self-employed, the buck stops here. And it’s my ass if I miss a deadline.
Lucas is driving me crazy. I’m running away to join the circus as soon as Ian comes home tonight.
Lucas told me today that he doesn’t like me anymore. That I’m terrible. I’m a terrible mommy. Literally! I’m not kidding! “Mommy, you’re terrible. You’re a terrible mommy!” He says he only likes daddy now.
We had tons of nap drama today. He was in his room shouting, “I’m still, still awaa—aaa-ke!” over and over again. He climbed out of his crib (a feat never before accomplished) three times directly onto the 3-foot-high bookcase that sits beside it. He threw books. Knocked over the lamp. Three times I found him either sitting or standing on this bookshelf. (It is no longer standing next to the crib.)
I swear I’m about to feed him to wolves.
Well, things have calmed down a little since the horrible napless fiasco. He completely won that battle, and by saying mean things to me, even managed to make me cry. That was a big emotional bomb for us both, because the moment he knows that I am sad, he begins bawling and sobbing about how sorry he is and how he wants me to “be happy, mommy!”
The kid is sick, and tired. And I’m sick and tired of it. Great compassion, eh? I know, it’s my job to be the unending source of all love, affection, comfort, and confidence. But quite frankly, my confidence is a little shaken right now. I’m tired from being out at Kaiser until 12:30 am. My nerves are rather frayed, and I have to keep him home tomorrow too.
