“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”

Buddha

Don’t expect much from me this week.  (Such a statement isn’t exactly the best way to entice readers, but I’m going to tell it like it is.)  I feel LOUSY.  This is probably the most ill I’ve felt during Fig’s life.  Mastitis ranks high on the list of unpleasant ‘itises,’ but I’m suffering from a bronchial infection this time around, and it’s not pretty.  I’ve been coughing so much that my abs are sore.  (I wonder if I’ll come out of this with a six-pack.)

I’ve learned from this sickness that there is just no room for moms to be ill.  It doesn’t work.  Before I had a family, I would simply call-in sick and retreat to my cozy little cave.  I’d spend my time sleeping, reading, resting, movie-watching and of course drinking fluids.  Now I realize that the kind of recuperation time I enjoyed as a single woman was a luxury!!!   WHAT I WOULDN’T GIVE FOR A DAY IN BED!!!   There is no cave for the mother of two young kids.  Well, the cave is here, but the rest and relaxation are not.

I have also learned that thinking about what you’d rather be doing, when it’s just not in the cards, is sheer torture.  It does not help to send yourself messages like, “All I want to do is curl up and sleep,” when you’re changing your daughter’s diaper and she’s fighting you all the way.  It’s much easier to accept your current reality and make the best of it.  For instance, I managed to do a lot of horizontal parenting today, and the girls didn’t seem to mind.  There was more book-reading than bike-riding, to be sure, but it was still enjoyable for the girls and more comfortable for me.

This  nasty little bug has been taunting me for three weeks now, and just when I decided I was well-enough to take a family trip to the big city, it called all of it’s nasty-bug-relatives and declared war on my body.  I decided to rally, and do all of the things we had planned to do while in Vancouver, but I clearly overdid it.

Both girls have been suffering from colds during the past two weeks as well, and I find it impossible to focus on my own health when my children are sick.  Pip sleeps well through the night, even when she’s sick, but Fig has been averaging two wake-ups every night and it’s bloody exhausting!  Just when I think I’m on the mend, I have a night with little or no sleep and I’m back to square one.  It’s like my immune system is too tired to fight the good fight.

So last night at 12:00 pm, and again at 4:00 am when I dragged my coughing, sneezing,sleep-deprived body upstairs to nurse Fig, I thought to myself, “there’s no gratitude in this.”  But of course, there is.  For starters, I’m sick, but I don’t have a life-threatening illness.  I can’t imagine the bravery it takes to face that kind of challenge.  Secondly, my kids are generally pretty healthy.  This is small potatoes compared to what a lot of parents with really sick kids have to endure.  I volunteered at the Vancouver Children’s hospital years ago, and it was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.

Thirdly, this may sound kind of bizarre, but I’m repeatedly reminded of a woman I saw on Oprah last year.  I don’t watch the show regularly anymore, but I suppose I was meant to see this particular story.  A pregnant woman went into the hospital to give birth to her second daughter, contracted flesh-eating disease during her cesarean section, and had to have all of her limbs amputated immediately.  The hospital staff kept waiting for her to crash; become angry or depressed-but she never did!  She said that she felt lucky to be alive, and she had two beautiful daughters to love.  That kind of strength ASTOUNDS me!!!  She went home from the hospital without arms or legs.  Can you imagine?  I can’t.

So, although caring for two young kids while I’m ill is challenging, I know that things could be a lot worse.  For that I’m grateful, and sometimes, finding the gratitude isn’t easy.

Thornton Wilder

Does anyone else feel as though they need a holiday to recuperate after a holiday?  We went ‘away’ for the long weekend.  We only drove 10 kms to my parents’ beach [...]]]> “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

Thornton Wilder

Does anyone else feel as though they need a holiday to recuperate after a holiday?  We went ‘away’ for the long weekend.  We only drove 10 kms to my parents’ beach house, but let’s face it, packing for a weekend away from home is the same no matter what the distance; you still require an extraordinary amount of gear!  The ‘pack and play’ for Fig to sleep in, the high-chair, the dog’s bed and food, the bikes, the toys, books and games, the outer-garments for all weather, the favourite blanket, the plastic dishes, the footwear for all weather…you know the drill.  (F.Y.I. the only items that were forgotten were my underwear.  Nice.)

We seem to get hit the hardest in the SLEEP department when we’re away from home.  On the day of our departure, Fig missed her nap completely for the first time in her life and she never quite recovered.  She fussed at the drop of a hat for the better part of three days.  Pip had trouble falling asleep each night, but once she was out, she filled her eleven-hour quota without a problem.

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner out a the beach house; everyone pitched in and cooked a dish or two, so the evening was definitely a team-effort, but my husband and I marveled at how fatigued we felt after our gathering of seventeen had dispersed.

All in all, it seemed as though the ratio of ‘preparation for fun’ to ‘actual fun’ was way out of whack.  Maybe that’s just the way life is: good things take some effort.  When I think to myself, was it worth it?  The hours of laundering, packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking and laundering again?  The increased sleep deprivation?  The cranky baby?  The answer is: of course it was worth it!!   For starters, we had our first family beach-fire  and sang ‘The ants go marching…’ as the crackling fire met the crisp, fall air.  The next day, six happy children ate Thanksgiving dinner together, then retired to the family-room for some ‘ring-around-the-rosy’ fun.  And how cool was it that my daughter could look ahead down a beautiful forest path and see her two Grandmothers and her dad walking together?  Pretty cool.

When my mother-in-law was packing up Monday to head back to her home-town, Pip reassured her, “Don’t worry Grandma, we’ll have another one of these ‘Thank’ days again soon.”

I’m all for it.

George Bernard Shaw

Get this:  Fig has gone down for her nap three days in a row without me, or my breasts.

Here’s how things have gone down:

Big Daddy-O takes the girls out for a stroll to a park [...]]]> “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

George Bernard Shaw

Get this:  Fig has gone down for her nap three days in a row without me, or my breasts.

Here’s how things have gone down:

Big Daddy-O takes the girls out for a stroll to a park with a picnic lunch while I get some work done.  When they return, I hide out in the basement so that Fig won’t see me and say, “boobie,” as she typically does around noon.

The next thing I know, my husband is descending the stairs to tell me that Fig is asleep.  No breast-milk, no bottled-milk, just a little cuddle from her dad before she hits the crib.

This is progress.

My breasts have been uncomfortably full each day by about four o’clock, but that won’t last long.  I must admit though, they sure filled out my bathing suit nicely yesterday.  (We’ll skip the photos today.)

Bill Watterson

I have a confession to make.  My sixteen-month-old daughter has been waking up in the middle of the night, (usually around 3 or 4am,) and I’ve been nursing her back to sleep.  I feel as [...]]]> “It’s a cruel season that makes you get ready for bed while it’s light out.”

Bill Watterson

I have a confession to make.  My sixteen-month-old daughter has been waking up in the middle of the night, (usually around 3 or 4am,) and I’ve been nursing her back to sleep.  I feel as though we’ve regressed back to the first months of night-feeding.  It goes against all of the marvelous sleep-strategies that I’ve read about, but I’ve been feeling too exhausted in the wee hours to let Crazybaby cry it out.  I know she’s not teething, she’s not sick, and I don’t think she’s hungry.  My hunch is that she likes the comfort of nursing to help her get back to sleep.

Crazybaby was pretty good at sleeping through the night until we went on holiday at the beginning of the summer.  We were sleeping in the same room and when she woke up, instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, she’d see Mama and think, “Boobie!!!”  Unfortunately, it only takes a night or two to establish a new habit, and this is a bad one.

I know that I could probably break this pattern if I just got tough; I’m pretty confident that she would get herself back to sleep eventually if I just let her cry.  I’m just not thrilled about waking-up the household at 3am and losing another hour of sleep.  So, I tell myself that she’ll grow out of it.  I tell myself that there’s no use getting tough while we’re still on summer holiday.  I tell myself it’s going to be easier in the fall when it’s still dark in the wee hours of the morning, when the birds are still asleep at 4am.  I tell myself that, in the grand scheme of things, my sleep-deprivation is only short-term.  Am I telling myself lies?

(Here’s the Little Miss who’s responsible for the dark circles under my eyes.)

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