This just in! Motherhood = Hard

These last two days haven’t been great.  I’m supposed to be at BlogHer RIGHT NOW, meeting and partying and networking and learning and swag-collecting and dining and partying (see: sidebar) but instead, I’m home. On the couch. With no patience and a sore back.

Asher has Hand, Foot and Mouth disease, which is not the same as Hoof and Mouth disease thankyouverymuch, but sucks the big one nonetheless. A week and a half ago he started a sleep-marathon, waking for maybe 6 hours in a 48 hour stretch. I thought, “Oh, how cute! A growth spurt! Now I can read magazines and eat popsicles catch up on work!” When he woke up, he was kickin’ it with a high fever for a few days, and then a rash on his back. We went to the doctor, where I paid a nice man $30 to wait in his office and exam room for an hour and a half to be told that it was what I thought it was: Roseola. Totally common, not painful, every baby gets it by the time they’re two yadda yadda. The end. Right? Wrong.

Tuesday night was a tiny piece of Hell, one where babies wake every hour to scream and be generally pissy. Wednesday morning when he woke up, his lips were swollen and wonky, and by noon there were blisters on his tongue. Instead of driving an hour to pediatrician A (see: above) I tied Asher on and walked out our back door to see pediatrician B. We didn’t have an appointment, but I figured they’d be way less likely to say they couldn’t squeeze us in if I was standing right in  front of them. It worked. 30 minutes later we had a diagnosis. And a, “Good luck!” since there’s no treatment for a viral infection. So now we wait it out.

Last night turned out to be a slightly larger piece of hell, featuring less sleep and more screams and tears. Mine and his. Today, the blisters are gone, but have been replaced with a refusal to sleep, or eat anything I put in front of his mouth, including my boob. He won’t take a sippy cup, so all day (ALL SLEEPLESS DAY) I’ve been pushing pedialyte and pediasure in a bottle. It’s kind of working, enough so that he’s at least peeing more now. He’ll eat lots of junk (sweet potato puffs, yogurt puffs and cheese puffs), but I can’t get him to take anything out of my hand or off of a spoon. I don’t know what gives. It seems like more of a political statement than anything, because I know his mouth is feeling better. He wants to be held, no, he wants to be put down, no, WHY AM I ON THE FLOOR PICKMEUP! Poor baby just wasn’t happy today. And I kind of wanted to lock him in a closet.

I’m physically and emotionally drained, and it’s only been a couple days like this. I feel like a total amateur, drama queen, bad mother, all-around jerk. Sometimes I just don’t think I have enough patience and empathy for this job. Because man, it’s hard. It’s not like anybody told me it was easy, but still. I don’t know.

He went to sleep at the regular time tonight, and has woken to nurse once, so I think, I hope, that we’re coming out of this. I’m cautiously optimistic. And if things are better in the morning, we might actually make it into Chicago.

And now, simply because it makes me snort every time I see it (or think about it, honestly) and I need some laughs tonight, I give you this: