Motherhood in the time of Cholera

Posted on | June 28, 2010 | 14 Comments

There is no rest for the weary.

Unless you’re male. Then you can get all the rest you want and then some.

Let me back up. I am sick. J is sick. Husband is perfectly well. I don’t know if J’s sleeping for the past little bit is because of something we’ve done or because he feels like the floor of a middle school bathroom. He is SICK. And I say this with some authority because I have the same disease.

My throat is raw. My chest hurts. I have the cough of a lifetime smoker. My stomach hurts. My head may very well explode. And guess who is caring for J?

If you guessed Husband, you are obviously a first-time reader. Welcome. Take your shoes off. Pour a glass of wine, and seriously? Get real.

On Saturday night, J woke up around 2:30. I was feeling like a trash heap so I rolled over and asked Husband to go get J. (Side note… yes. I said rolled over. As in I’ve been sleeping in the same bed with Husband again! FINALLY.) He takes a little while, but finally creaks out of bed and heads over to the nursery. All is quiet for a while. Then after about five or six minutes, I feel Husband climb back in bed with me. Awesome, right? Baby is back to sleep with zero effort on my part.

Yeah, no. After a few minutes, I hear a cough. Then a sniffle. And they don’t sound like Husband. Then, a few seconds pass, and I feel a tiny hand tugging on my hair.

HE BROUGHT THE BABY BACK TO BED.

This is a big deal for several reasons. First, as mentioned, I’m sick. Second, there’s a perfectly good bed in the nursery. Third, he proceeds to do the following:

Husband: “Baby? I think he’s hungry. He spit out the passy when he saw you.”
Me: ::silence::
Husband: “Baby? Here you go.” :puts baby down beside me::
Husband: “I’m going to go sleep in the nursery.”

If it had not been 2:30 in the morning. If there were not a baby in bed with me. If my throat hadn’t been burning like the pit of hell… I would have said something along the lines of Offspring in Bad Habit. Instead? I nursed the baby. And proceeded to suffer through the next hour or two of Jungle Gym Mommy as I was pulled, poked, prodded, pinched and climbed upon until J fell asleep catty cornered in the bed after throwing up on my pillow.

And that was just Sunday morning.  It got worse. Much worse.

I had to go to work so I left Husband in charge of J. Granted, I knew this would be tough because J is sick and when he’s sick all he wants is me. But I didn’t expect to come home after four plus hours to the following exchange:

Me: Hey little guy! ::picks up J:: Hey baby. ::kisses Husband:: When did he last get his diaper changed?
Husband: Oh. Um…. when did you leave?
Me: ::dumbstruck::

I didn’t even know what to say. It was after four o’clock. I had left before noon. In his (ever so slight) defense, he did start laughing and apologized profusely saying how very sorry he was that he sucked at life. And then he went to Best Buy for a Universal Remote because he managed to break ours while I was at work. And left me with the baby.

Being a mom, when you’re sick, is so. freaking. hard. Because all you really want is for someone to be your mom. Someone to bring you soup and a blanket and fun movies and maybe, I don’t know, a milkshake or something. And instead? You’re being the mom. You’re taking care of the sick baby. And doing the laundry. And unloading the dishwasher. And feeding weird liquid mac ‘n cheese to the baby.

I can handle sick J. But I don’t handle sick J when I’m sick quite as gracefully as I’d like. So I might have snapped a few times at Husband and I may have started this blog post in a fit of rage wanting to slam Husband against a wall.

But then a miracle happened.

Husband came home. And he brought me Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. And ice cream. And more hot chocolate.

And all of a sudden I realized that yeah, I love him a lot. Even when he forgets to change J’s diaper. But if he brings J into bed with us again tonight, it’ll take more than Sherlock Holmes to fix it.

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