(What Should Have Been) The Third Day

Tuesday night the Crazy dialed it up a couple notches. I think I mentioned that B is sick right now with a cold. But if you know him, you know that he has a Go Big or Go Home philosophy when it comes to illness. So yesterday evening while I was giving Emma a bath and Ben was using the toilet he grabbed his ear and started mashing it. He said, "there's something in my ear." Frick. A couple minutes later he started to cry. Hard. He sobbed out that his ear hurt. Double Frick. We gave him a eucalyptus and lavender bubble bath, gave him some Tylenol and Chestal, put him to bed, and crossed our fingers. An hour and a half later he was wailing. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth. And coughing until vomiting. And hyperventilating. Sigh. We turned on Cars 2. I called the sub line and wrote up sub plans for a class I barely know. He slept in our bed and had a couple more attacks. Poor, sweet boy. During one of them he cried that he was peeing his pants. We reassured him that we'd put a diaper on him for the night, just in case, and that it was okay. It was a long night. Wednesday morning I packed up the kids, dropped off the sub plans and made copies, dropped Emma off with the nanny, and went home to have a sick day with my little love. In the afternoon we went to the doctor's and got drops and antibiotics for his two ear infections.

On Tuesday night I had a mini meltdown about the whole thing. I sobbed to Matt that it was too much. Trying to go back to work, being sick, leaving Emma, Ben being sick...too much. He reassured me that I could do it. That the sicknesses were temporary, that my students would be just fine, that I can't change it, and that I would adjust.

By Wednesday morning I was okay. This is what it is. This is parenthood. You try your best, and life happens. Your kids come first, and at the end of the day it isn't a choice--kid trumps job. It is what it is, and I can't do anything about it or control it. The best I can do is adjust and deal. So I chose to accept it and embrace it. I did a load of diapers and picked up, but otherwise I rested with my boy. We watched movies and ate comfort food. He played with his cars and I played with yarn. I felt good about taking Emma to the nanny so I could focus on taking care of Ben and myself. The house is picked up and the diapers are clean. But I decided that for the next couple of weeks we'll use disposables, because I think I need some time to adjust to the busyness and trim anything I can. That extra load of laundry every other day is something I can trim for the time being. I packed up the car last night and pinned a list next to the door of the things I need to load up this morning so I don't forget anything.

One thing at a time.