I’d Like a Head Cold With a Side of Guilt, Please.

You would have thought that Bean being in the hospital early last week was the hardest part of him being sick.  But you’d be wrong.  The hardest part of a baby’s sickness, I am finding, is the point where they are about 90% healed.  When Bean was really sick, he slept all the time.  We had to wake him up for diaper changes, bottles, and for the nurses to check his vitals.  He just slept non-stop.  And while that was really scary and hard to watch, it was infinitely easier to handle than this point in the process.  Bean is just about back to normal now.  Except for a wicked bad cough that keeps him awake as he tries to fall asleep, he is pretty much back to his normal health.

But over the past two weeks as we were nursing Bean back to health, his little schedule got all messed up.  He wasn’t eating (which is how we ended up in the hospital to begin with) so when he finally started showing any interest in his bottles, we would give him whatever and whenever he’d take it.  That meant he’d get a random ounce or two every hour or two.  Which in turn meant he was waking up every hour because he was hungry again.  It was like he had reverted back to the newborn period.

Now that Bean is taking relatively normal sized feedings (although still not as much as he was taking before he got sick), he is still on some weird, funky schedule and its messing up his life.  And mine and Chris’.  Since we know he’s not in danger, we are starting to be a little tougher about his routine in an effort to get him back to normal again.  This means we aren’t picking him up every time he cries.  Which generally leads to louder, longer crying.  And when Chris and I are already at the end of our nerves and when we have a house full of house guests this weekend…well…the situation is rough.

To make this weekend even more fun, I decided to get a terrible head cold, complete with a raging sinus pressure headache.  So, whatever energy and umph I had in me left after this past week rapidly deteriorated with my cold and by this morning I was completely useless as a mother.  I had hit the wall.  I couldn’t go anymore.  In the past week, my son had been hospitalized, my sister had gotten sick while visiting, I missed a week of work, my car was in the shop twice, we had 11 unavoidable house guests for the weekend, I had a stomach bug, and now a head cold.

I was done.

Normally, Chris and I are pretty good at taking turns.  We try to give each other a break every now and then and that seems to be the key to our success so far as parents.  We recognize that we can’t be on call 24 hours a day and so we each give the other time to recharge their batteries every so often.  But this week has been draining for both of us.  Really, really draining.  And asking Chris to step up to the plate because I have hit a wall just doesn’t seem fair right now.  I know he’s tired, too.  I know his nerves are fried just like mine.  And it just doesn’t seem fair to me to ask him to take on even more so that I can take some cold pills and get some sleep.

But you know what?  Life isn’t fair.

And parenting sure as hell isn’t fair sometimes.  There are days when all Bean wants is me.  And on those days, I’m on call.  Its my turn.  And then there are days when Chris really has to step up and do more than his fair share of cooking and cleaning and tummy blubbering.  And sometimes those days just aren’t even.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to ask for help when I need it.

That’s a hard lesson for me to learn and I am struggling with the guilt that I feel about it.  But that’s the thing about being at the end of your rope.  You sort of don’t really care anymore what’s fair and what’s not fair.  You just want to fix things.  And if that means that I have to ask Chris two mornings in a row to get up early with Bean, then that’s what I’m just going to have to do.  And if that means that I have to take some Tylenol and go lay down, leaving Chris with a crying, screaming baby, then that’s what I’m just going to have to do.  And I know that under normal circumstances, I would do the fair thing.  The right thing.  I would take turns and pull my weight.  But I just don’t have that in me right now and so I’m going to ask for help, even if its not my turn.  Even if it makes Chris mad and even if he is short and snippy with me for the rest of the day.  I am still going to ask for help and I’m still going to take the time to get myself healthy again and – eventually – I’ll be able to do that without feeling guilty.

Life isn’t fair.  And neither is marriage or parenting.  You pull your weight with your spouse as much as you can, but when you hit that wall, you have to be able to say, “I’m going to need you to help me here.”  And you have to be able to say it with confidence, knowing that it doesn’t mean you aren’t a good wife or mother.  It just means you are human.

And now, if you will excuse me, I am going to take my human self up to bed.  My medicine just kicked in and if I’ve learned anything about blogging its that its never a good idea to blog when you’re doped up on cold pills.  Its awkward for everyone.

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