Traditional Catholic living in the modern world
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Mama's Long Day
A rare moment of John smiling today. (I was too tired to take any additional photos.)
I am a tired mama. I forget that first-time motherhood is getting easier day by day until I have a day that is harder than usual.
John either is teething or suffering a cold. He has been extremely irritable and clingy since yesterday evening. Can't sleep. Nose running. Seems to be in a lot of tooth-pain. We've given him Tylenol three times. We had to walk him up and down the hallway several times during the night.
Of course, today I tackled more cooking than usual when running on little sleep and juggling a crabby child.
I spent all afternoon cooking a beef stew, about which I will report more fully tomorrow when Chris tastes it. (I made it a day ahead because I heard that beef stew really needs 24 hours to mature.) Needless to say, it was thin like water, so I had to make a roux to thicken it up. This I'm trying to figure out while cooking tonight's dinner. I forgot that the chicken dish I planned requires 45 minutes to cook so at the last minute Chris rescued the chicken by grilling it. Meanwhile I made a more-laborious-than-usual tomato-zucchini tart, which I had made successfully once before. I did something wrong and the pastry dough was gooey and raw on the bottom. Chris valiantly ate his serving, but I decided that the texture was unacceptable, so I simply threw it out.
All the while, John is being a total fussbudget. I scarfed down a microwaved vegetarian burger for dinner, then hauled John upstairs, determined to skip his bath tonight. That's when I discovered the huge poop blow-out. It covered his legs and arms and when he started rubbing it on his face, I gave up hope of skipping the bath tonight! More experienced and better mothers than me would have handled such a day with only one child in stride, but I had had it by the end.
Meanwhile, Chris very sweetly drove to the too-nearby McDonald's to get me a treat of french fries and a sundae. John remains awake and miserable now.
It's going to be a long night!
This ends our complaint-fest. We can all returned to our regularly scheduled cheerfulness now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Bless your heart! I hope your night ended up better. My limited experience is that those kinds of blowouts (for which there is almost no way of avoiding a bath no matter how tired you are) coupled with the irritability and the runny nose are indicitave of either molars or eye/canine teeth. They are awful! Motrin at night might help for sleeping some. I hope today is better for you both.
ReplyDeleteAshley
Hang in there sweet lady! Even the most experienced Mamas have days when they've "had it!"
ReplyDeleteYou're a very good Mama and doing a terrific job. I hope today improves for you!
My public apologies to my wife ... she took on too big of a cooking task because she had $10 worth of fresh meat that she wanted to cook rather than freezing...
ReplyDeleteIn hindsight I should have stopped her and then driven out to pick her up some take out dinner. I would have rather thrown the meat away than let her cook a complex meal on a day like that.
Sounds like my *potential* night i posted about last night. Thankfully, I didn't have to get up even once!
ReplyDeleteI love humidifiers!
I don't know if it really does get easier with more kids, or if my mommy skills have just improved (I'd like to think it's the latter)!
ReplyDeleteI pray God will give little John the gift of siblings :-)
Thanks for the sweetness, everybody! Yes, it was a long second night, but at least there was no screaming. John wanted to nurse all night, either because his teeth hurt or he's feeling ill, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteChris: Don't you worry! You tried to get me to relax and you cleaned up the very mess kitchen for me. :D