All in Good Time

I think I used to be one of those types of people that found humor in everything. I mean, I'd be all bitter and bitch about stuff, but I'd be bitter in a funny way by making jokes about it and whatnot. This is either what I recall or what I want to recall. Whatever. All I know is that in the last few months I have been unrelentingly grumbly, and there ain't nothing funny about it, goddammit.

But this is not the place for that. This is the place for Kiki news.

The news on Kiki: She has RSV. And croup. At the same time. I want to feel so sorry for myself for not having slept since Sunday night, but it's hard to concentrate on a good, cathartic self-pity party (without booze and) when there's typically happy happy happy baby who now is just a puddle of snot and miserable.

Her eyes are all red and swollen and weepy, her snot factory is on full-tilt like there's some snot shortage in the northwest that MUST be FILLED by MIDNIGHT by God! and she rattles and snorts and whistles and toots like a miniature carbon-based choo-choo train.

She's on prednisone; mommy's always and forever wiping her nose; and she's getting albuterol treatments every 4 hours. This is a fed-up baby.

But the most heart-breaking thing is that in the middle of a screaming good cry, wherein she's letting us know EXACTLY how miserable she is and just what she thinks of us for torturing her like this, she'll suddenly stop, swing her head around like a drunk mime to look up at me (almost falling over backward at the same time, of course), and when she's certain I've got the full effect of her tear-stained red cheeks, purple swollen eyes, snotty nose, and trembling mouth, she'll give me the bravest little happy grin she can muster. Like she's saying, "You're such a trooper, Mom! Hang in there! You know this isn't really me!"

And then that saps the reserves, and she slips right back into being miserable.

I wish I could just take the sick right out of her. It breaks my heart to see her so miserable. She's usually so active and laughing; she'd gotten to the point where she just on the verge of crawling even. But now she only has enough energy to protest her every 4-hour torture sessions, and then she's out until the next one.

The doc says things will probably get worse over the weekend, then start to get better. Yippee! At least it's over the weekend, so Kipp and I can take turns staying up at night with her.

ha!!! I make myself laugh.

I mean, it's not like he wouldn't. But the thing is, he's been through RSV with babies twice before, and he's just not panicked enough to sit by the crib and analyze every gurgle and burble for possible signs of imminent snot drowning. And also, Mommy's still her most favoritist person -- now that she's sick, even more so -- and as he point out, she screams when I'm giving her her treatment, but I'm able to calm her down within seconds of ending the treatment.

Kipp, on the other hand, wipes her nose, and she's inconsolable until Mommy sweeps her up. And not just fussy, but honest to God screaming herself hoarse.

I am honestly going to have to get therapy or something. Everything that happens seems to me to be incontrovertible proof that I am the worst mother in the world (well, not the worst. I mean I haven't actually killed my child.) And Kipp is getting frustrated that I won't listen to him, but that I'll listen to anybody and everybody else, which if that is true, sucks donkey balls because I so completely know what that's like, and I have no reason to be treating him like that, especially since he's got experience in this stuff, hello.

Which I think may be part of the problem. I think I resent that he has experience and I'm such an utter newbie. He's so calm, and I freak out over absolutely everything. And I get pissed that instead of speaking to me in calm tones and stroking my hair and treating me like a scared baby -- which, hello, is what I am -- he gets frustrated with me and goes into lecture mode. Gah.

So if I do do the other thing, it's probably a passive-aggressive retributional response to him not being patient with me.

Honest to God, I think we could make some couples' therapist very very happy.

Wow what a negative post, all in all. I think I need an attitude adjustment. Or sleep. Or booze. Or cigarettes.

Yeh. We quit smoking last week. We haven't smoked allllll year long. Hahaha. I make myself laugh.

Yup. It's the nicotine withdrawal; it's got to be.