Who needs titles when you’ve got Nyquil?

Aaaand, we’re back. That was … special. Some of that is certainly sarcasm, but some of it is also that it WAS special. Honestly, it was fun. We had fun. Sam had a blast running around with her cousins, and even tried surfing a little, if by surfing, you mean standing on a boogie board while the waves came in and ran over her feet.

“I DID it, Mommy! I did it! Like TOODEE!” Oof, my heart. Kid was so proud of her surfing abilities, and honest to God, she really thought she was doing it. Also, errr, that’s how pervasive her Yo Gabba Gabba obsession runs, friends. There’s ONE episode (“Ride”) where Toodee goes surfing with Foofa’s big brother, Foofle (I cannot make this shit up, people), and Sam was OBSESSED with surfing like Toodee. She even made me sing the damn song while she did it. (“Surfing today, sunny day! Into the water to play!” And hahahahaha, I KNOW THE LYRICS OH MY GOD.)

It was actually quite sad that on our first day back, she woke up and asked to go to the beach. Oh darlin’. It’s not warm enough up here, yet.

The bad was … kind of really awfully bad. Over the course of the two weeks since we left our house, Sam had three (3) separate fevers, a horrid cough/cold (separate from the fevers!) and a – oh I can barely type it – a VAGINAL INFECTION FROM THE SAND-SLASH-SWIM DIAPER. HOLD ME. HOLD ME. All this, plus she slept in two separate hotels, a strange house, followed by a DIFFERENT strange house, along with a FOURTEEN HOUR DRIVE, split over two days. I mean, honestly, the kid was a hot fucking mess, and so was I.

I am not even going to pretend that I handled it well, because I didn’t. I cringe at how touchy I was on Wednesday — which, conveniently, was my day to cook dinner for everyone — and how I was chopping onions, sobbing while my kid sobbed and chased after me, stuck to me like glue. That morning, I’d lost it on my poor dad — AKA the man who requires the least amount of sleep of ANYONE I KNOW, EVER — because he rises at 5:30 or 6 and makes coffee, waking up the first floor. Meanwhile, he acquiesced to my demand to come out a LEETLE BIT later and guess what? Sam continued to wake at 6, exhausted and miserable, ANYWAY. (Note: I don’t mind the 6 a.m. wakings, except when they mean that she hasn’t gotten enough sleep, making our mornings EYE-POKINGLY MISERABLE, because all she wants to do is go back to bed, at like, NINE AM. But she won’t, natch, and besides, it would eff her nap for the day.)

Plus, I was alone. I’m alone a lot, obviously, as the primary at-home parent, but it’s too easy to discount the role that Adam plays at home and on the weekends. He plays with her the second he walks in the door. I get extra sleep on the weekends (we alternate days). I get nights out with my friends as often as I want. He can give her a bath if I’m feeling wiped out or lousy or just having a long, tired day, you know? He’s a great dad, and he does a lot, and GOD I MISSED HIM. All of him, obviously, not just the parts of him that help me out. To be clear.

(PS, he cleaned the WHOLE HOUSE while we were gone. I walked in to a SPOTLESS HOUSE. Who does that? HE DOES.)

(He also bought a new TV. Surprise! Oh, wait … )

I was just … alone. Not that my parents and siblings weren’t willing to help me — they WERE — but my kid was so disoriented and cranky and feeling so lousy that she wouldn’t let them touch her. NO ONE COULD TOUCH HER. For two. weeks. And not only was this sucktacular for me, but it was hardly the bonding experience with the rest of my family that you would expect, you know? I mean, the kid just RAGED any time anyone came near her — and this includes my paternal parents, who are the very same people who kept her for a WEEK without incident while we went to Vegas. Was bizarroland. And also, uhh, kind of sucky for all of us.

Mind you, I’m fully aware that single parents do this day in and day out (I WORSHIP AT YOUR FEET), but I will also say there is a difference between having velcro kid in a strange environment and just having a kid at home, doing her normal routine. It was kind of exhausting, and I kind of handled it pretty badly. I was loose with my emotions, and I kind of felt like everything was just there, bubbling so close to the surface that everything exploded at the slightest provocation.

And I just felt ungrateful and awful and UGHHHHH, I know, I sound like I’m just over here self-flagellating (I AM), but there’s something about parenting my kid at her worst in front of people I don’t normally live with, no matter how much they love me (and they do!), that makes me feel so exposed. Especially if those people are other parents and THEIR kids are acting like near-perfect children with only minor imperfections. Meanwhile, I had a kid with an INFECTED VAGINA, FOR THE LOVE.

This is one of those times where I can’t tell if it’s just the snowball effect of, you know, EVERYTHING, or if it was just, hello, a challenging situation that anyone would have broken down in. I was extra-weepy and I let myself lose it in situations — and in front of people — I normally wouldn’t. I mean, not that I’m afraid of being judged by my own FAMILY, but I guess I do have a thing against appearing weak and/or crazy and BELIEVE ME, FRIENDS, I WAS BOTH. Yet, I like to think it was the latter — that is, it was a normally shitty situation to lose it in — but I’m not entirely sure. One never knows these days.

Honestly about the Other Thing, I do feel better — I feel more ready to tackle what’s to come, and I feel more focused on what’s in front of me — the life part, that is. Honestly, I suppose it’s hard not to, when what’s in front of you is a sick toddler while you YOURSELF are hacking and wheezing, but strangely, I’ve got a lot of OTHER good stuff to focus on. Friends who claim to have missed me terribly (and I, them), new work projects, an entire summer to play in the water with my kid, an assload of books to read and the resurgence of the Book Lushes, which I SWEAR is coming, but HA HA, UNEXPECTED EVENTS have precluded that little project.

And, uhh, fertility work-up stuff. Again. But even that I feel relatively calm about at the moment. Apparently the whole “one day at a time” mantra really seems to be working. Recovery people! They know what they’re talking about.

Hey, have a happy Tuesday.

35 comments June 13th, 2011