Smudged

In my mind these past six months have flown by so quickly its like a smudge in the journal of my life. In reality there are times that have seemed to drag.
This week has been one of them.
This cold, it is not going away. It is an actual, start in the nose move to the chest type of cold, complete with the puking of mucus all night long. And I am totally exhausted from it.
How do women, who don’t share sleep and nurse their babes, get any sleep? I marveled that as I lay in bed last night after the puking ensued at about 3 am. I couldn’t imagine having to get up and make a bottle, or hearing my tiny one crying from another room. How did I manage with Rhayn, she couldn’t nurse. It was hard on me, I got a lot less sleep. I think they must just do it, and function on less sleep that I want. But she was still right next to me in bed. I remember thinking “I’ll never co-sleep, that is crazy, how do you get any sleep, aren’t you afraid of rolling over the baby?” before Rhayn was born. Her first night home, that all changed, because I couldn’t imagine her in that cold cage on the other side of the room. My arms would not be around her, she couldn’t possibly be SAFER in that crib, so it started.

This morning when I woke up, my baby sounds like an unwanted uncle mucus has taken up residence in her tiny lungs, and its awful. She coughs, the wet nasty cough that breaks up the mucus. Its productive at least, but is there an end to this cold in sight? Not from where I am sitting, it feels like it has gone on for an eternity.

Bug still smiles as she wakes up, she still grins up at me, and reaches to me. If she doesn’t want to be put down she makes her small body as rigid as steel, so I can’t make her sit on the floor. She yells at me to pick her up, and I nearly always do.

Yesterday we picked up this beautiful bookcase from Costco that we had ordered. Will needed my help getting the 74 inch tall, 4 foot wide bookcase from the truck into the house. Bug was asleep when we got home, so I removed her carseat from the truck, and placed it in the living room. Not 5 minutes later she was screaming, this defeated screaming cry that she has right now because her poor throat is so raw. I couldn’t rush to her, I had a huge bookcase in my hands. It made me want to cry. My poor baby could not be comforted and I was not immediately able to comfort her.

We finally had the bookcase in the house, and I ran to her, to pick her up. Her face all red and blotchy from crying, her eyes filled with tears. What a bad mama I am, I thought.
She calmed down immediately, but her tiny fists were gripped onto my shirt in a death-like vice, another of the reasons I cut my hair.

I had finally started giving her a meal every day, a tiny bit of oatmeal, or some other mushy food. But her cold has stricken that from our repertoire. She will not eat it, she pukes when she does. Last night I tried her favorite some potato, but 2 bites in and she was puking all over herself. I allowed her to play with the potatoes instead, since she needed a bath anyway. That occupied her long enough that I was able to eat some of my supper, and she didn’t make a huge mess.

So today, she is still being clingy, and still being sweet. I feel badly, like its my fault somehow that she is ill. I know its not, and I know that soon she will be better. But until then, I guess I need to take a nap with her in preparation for the long night ahead.