If you can’t stomach gross stories or just don’t like them, please stop reading now. Come back tomorrow. I promise to have a more upbeat post then. Something light, short and funny.
I think my body actually believes that if it can cause me to vomit frequently enough or violently enough, it may just be able to rid itself of that pesky little ball of cells causing so many problems. My throbbing head, aching abdomen and unsettled stomach are about to convince me that they are right.
With my other pregnancies, nausea slipped in the door quietly at about 9 weeks…and just as polietly excused itself at around 12, knowing when to make a discreet exit. I have to admit that during that whole time(from the beginning of pregnancy #1 until now) I thought you “sickly” type preggos were drama queens. Playing all the rest of us for the fool, just trying to gain some sympathy. I’d roll my eyes whenever I heard things like, “I just can’t handle cleaning the toilet when I’m pregnant” or “I can’t even look at feta cheese without wanting to hurl.” Stop your whining! Clean the toilet and eat the cheese, I’d smugly think. You can’t be that bad off!
And then along came #3A Nausea marched in horns a-blaring, announcing that (s)he was here to stay. Initially, after the miscarriage only months before, I was glad to see the nausea. It was my friend. It meant that there was actually still something there. But now…well, it’s really starting to get old! I can’t change a poopie diaper(or sometimes even a pee diaper!) without losing it. And trying to deal with the potty training?? I’d rather have my toenails ripped off slowly one by one than have to suffer through one more episode of “dump the poop in the pot from the now-stained underwear.” Poor Tucker has even gotten to the point where when he has an accident he asks, “Mommy, am I gonna make you frow up?” The child is never going to poop in the potty if he thinks I’m going to toss my cookies every time!
I’m pretty sure I reached rock bottom last week. Home alone with the kids, I thought to myself: “It might be a good idea to get ni the bathtub and relax, see if I can coax this nausea into hiding.” Oh, what a great idea it was in my head! The kids could watch TV while I left the door cracked just enough to see them from the tub. I could soak away all the aches and pains that come with constant vommiting. (Who knew you used so many muscles to throw up?) I could dip my head under the water to help relieve the tension of my now-ever-present headache. I could just do my pest to think about nothing. Nothing at all. My husband assures me that this is possible, although I’ve never actually achieved it myself! Enevitably, something always comes up. So today Em toddles into the bathroom and announces that she “tooted”. I can assure you that the girl did more than “toot”. But being the horrible(and, let me remind you, very sick at the moment) mommy that I am, I say, “Just go finish watching Wilbur, okay? Then I’ll help you.” Oh, but no. She’s persistant! I guess he had the right to be…what with poo smeared all over her butt. So she stayed in the bathroom and “chatted” with me like only a 2 year old can do.
Tucker all of a sudden realized that the book on Wilbur is no longer intriguing, and that he is missing all the fun in the bathroom. So he joins us, still in his pee-soaked overnight diaper. (See, I am a horrible parent!) 16 weeks ago I’d have never have left him sitting around in a diaper as disgusting as that! But pregnancy can change a girl! So…he tells me that he needs to pee, and proceeds to pull the diaper off like underwear.
Now, for those of you who don’t have kids or who simply don’t ever leave your kid in a diaper for too long like I do, let me explain to you a little about diaper physics. Inside diapers these days are these little moisture-absorbing crystals. They’re tucked discreetly between the inner pee-catching layer and the outer pee-containing layer. When these little suckers get wet, they swell up to something incredible like 500 times their original size. That’s when normal parents notice that their child has a soggy bottom and, like a responsible non-vomiting adult change the diaper. OH, but not me! If you continue to push the absorption limit, you’ll eventually find that the diaper begins to desinigrate, leaving behind a urine-crystal covered kid. It’s gross. Trust me. But it’s even grosser to watch said diaper as it is rolled down the bony little legs of a 3 year old, pee-crystals flying this way and that. I sat in the tub, watching them cascade dwon his leg and all over the bathroom floor like everything was in slow motion. And as I tried to so hard to say “No”, I began to vomit mericlessly into my bathwater. All over me…all in the tub…everywhere. I started to cry, as did both of my now-completely-traumatized-and-destined-for-therapy children.
And that’s when I realized that I truely had reached a low point in my life: home alone with two scared and crying children, whom I can’t comfort because I’m soaking wet, completely naked, and covered in my own puke. Welcome to mommyhood!
So…that’s my bad mommy moment of the month(hopefully it’s bad enough that we’ll be able to catch a break the next few months!) Please don’t hate me, think I’m a truely terrible mom, leave mean comments or call DFCS.