Family - Pocketful of Joules

Fast Forward

I mentioned earlier this week that I was going to take Jack for his very first professional haircut in preparation for his birthday. I had done little trims here and there over the past year – first when all his baby hair fell out, then again when he grew a pretty sweet mullet. Even though they turned out well, I didn’t really trust myself to fully cut his hair. So we decided to take him to a kid salon that specializes in squirmy babies.

Before our appointment, when my mom or friends would ask if I was going to keep some of Jack’s hair for his baby book, I kind of snorted a little. I mean, I have plenty of pictures of him but haven’t ACTUALLY done a baby book yet. I know, bad mommy. I do have a baby box, full of things that would eventually go in a baby book. So I guess that counts for something.

Anyways, we went to the salon on Wednesday and patiently waited our turn. We decided that Travis would hold Jack on his lap, so that I could snap a few pictures. I’m proud to say that Jack didn’t freak out at all and was pretty calm through the whole thing. There were a couple times where he didn’t get the meaning of “look down” but um… he’s just turning ONE. I’m pretty sure that’s not an order that typical one year olds follow, right?

So the lady started chopping away at his hair – first with the clippers and then with her scissors. At that point, some crazy animal instinct took over and I darted forward and grabbed a handful of baby hair off his shoulder.

At that moment, when he was morphing from my preemie baby to an almost grown boy I freaked out a little. I mean, I swear I might see some beard hair sprouting away if I looked close enough.

What’s done is done though and somehow it creeped up on me that my little baby has turned into a toddler. It’s only a matter of time before he releases his tight grip on the ottoman, the bookcase or the chair and takes his first steps.

He seems ready. I’m not.

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My Life is a TV Show

Do you ever feel like the people on TV are reflecting your life back at you?

I mean, of course we watch television shows that are relatable, but I watched two different shows on Monday night that mirrored my feelings right back at me. Totally weird, right?

First, I was watching How I Met Your Mother (as I’ve been known to do). Lily recently had a baby and has been struggling a bit with her transition into motherhood. In Monday’s episode, she confesses that she thinks she’s a bad mother because sometimes she just gets so overwhelmed with her responsibilities that she wants to just run away.

Then, about a half hour later on Bones, Angela says almost the exact same thing. She misses the old version of herself – the version who would walk through museums and enjoy the artwork. She’s not happy with who she currently is and isn’t quite sure how to change things.

I’m there.
So incredibly there.

This past weekend was HARD. All last week I was dealing with my own sickness, my husband’s cold and Jack’s hospital stay with bronchiolitis and RSV. Oh yeah, and working on top of that. All I wanted for the weekend was to curl up on the couch with a book for an hour or so. Just an hour would have been fine.

Of course, this didn’t happen. Jack decided that naps were for chumps and Travis had planned a full weekend working in the garage with a friend. Leaving me to be Supermom for another two days.

I was done. DONE.

I was frustrated and angry and just all around DONE with the situation. At one point, I wanted to walk out into the garage, hand Jack to my husband, and get in my truck and leave.

I don’t know where I would have gone, but it would have been somewhere where I only had to worry about myself. I didn’t though. Instead I unleashed my fury on Travis when he came inside. Which apparently worked, because he then took me out to dinner and gave me a massage.

I’m feeling better this week. Everyone is almost totally healthy again (knock on wood), which brings my stress level down a half-turn. I also booked a beach vacation for March, which gives me some relaxation to look forward to. Will this cure me forever? Um, probably not. Motherhood is HARD FREAKING WORK and sometimes you need a break.

It’s nice to see them dealing with the same issues on my favorite TV shows though.

It makes me feel like a little less of a failure. Because when I take a step back and look at it with clear eyes, I know I’m not a failure. I’m actually a pretty awesome mom. But I’m also Joules, a person other than a mom. Sometimes I just need to remember that.

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In & Out of the Hospital

Those of you following along on Facebook already know this, but we ended up taking another trip to the ER on Monday.

Jack’s wheezing had gotten progressively worse and my mom was concerned that it had turned into stridor. Long story short – Jack was diagnosed with bronchiolitis and RSV. His oxygen levels were low and dropping, so he was admitted into the hospital Monday night.

We were given a room with a crib that looked like a baby cage in it and a small couch which converted to a miniature bed. I spent the entire night fighting with Jack to keep the oxygen hoses up his nose.

It pretty much went like this:

Step 1: Hoses are inserted into nose. Jack cries so hard that his overtired body relaxes and he starts dozing off. He sleeps for 2 – 5 minutes.

Step 2: In his half-asleep state he swipes at his nose with his hand, ripping the oxygen tubes out. His oxygen levels lower, causing the machine alarms to go off. Jack wakes up fully and starts crying.

Step 3: I jump off the mini bed, lower the side of the baby cage which makes a huge squeak each time, wrestle Jack into submission to reinsert the hose. Soothe him back into a half-asleep state. Put up the crib railing {SQUEAK} and shove my arm through the rails so that I can continue patting him into sleepytime. Slowly walk away and get back into bed.

Step 4: Repeat

So that was life from about 9:00 pm – 2:00 am.

Then, it was time for another nebulizer treatment so I put Jack in my mommy ninja hold and kept him restrained while holding the dragon-shaped apparatus over his face for 10 – 15 minutes while he screamed.

At this point, I begged the nurse for something to knock him out so that he would just get OVER that hump of being half-asleep and finally get some actual sleep. I asked for anything – Tylenol, Benadryl, a tranquillizer dart to the neck…whatever! She came back a few minutes later with both Tylenol and Benadryl and we dosed him up and waited for it to kick in.

Finally, Jack fell asleep.

For about 20 minutes. Then, he went back to trying to scratch his nose and pulling out the oxygen hosing. We tried the crib, we tried the mini bed with me, and we tried the crib again. I finally got him to sleep on top of me like a scarf around 3:00 am. Of course, that is when MY sickness started kicking in even more and the next few hours consisted us sleeping together, me slowly extracting myself from his hold, me vomiting in the bathroom, rinsing mouth/brushing teeth, return to bed and scooch myself back under him. Rinse and repeat. Oh wait, there was random kicking and punching from him too. I can’t forget about that because I’ll most likely find some odd bruises in a few days and wonder how in the heck I got them.

We woke up around 7:00 and spent the day just hanging out around the hospital room. To get a good idea on how that went, try to imagine keeping an almost one year old confined to a small space for more than 20 minutes. Yeah, it went that well. Luckily, Jack went down for a nice, long nap around 10:00 and my mom arrived with some small toys for him to play with.

Even better, when the doctor stopped by to check him out she said that we were allowed to leave the hospital that day! It took a few more hours for us to get released, pack up all our crap, drive to pick up his new nebulizer prescription and get the little guy home. Pretty much the second we got in the door I stripped us of our germy clothes and gave him a nice, long bath. He then went down for a nap in his own (non-cage-like) crib and I took the world’s longest shower.

I’m back at work today and my husband is home with Jack. They have a pediatrician appointment scheduled for this afternoon, so hopefully she sees enough improvement that we can cut back on the nebulizer treatments (I had to give him one at 2:30 am, which made my morning alarm clock hurt a little more than usual).

Jack is doing so much better now though and I really appreciate all of the kindness from everyone on Facebook, Twitter, my email box and in real life. Except for those two people who “unliked” my Facebook page in the midst of my hospital updates. You guys suck.

Everyone else is fantastic though, so do me a little favor – wrap your arms around yourself and give yourself a big hug from me. Don’t do this in public though, that would be weird.

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