A Crazy Tale of Woe

Have you wondered when something “crazy” was going to happen in the Medina household and when you were going to hear about it? I know you’ve been waiting impatiently for a tale of woe and misery. Well, wait no longer. Have I a tale of affliction to share with you.

I can look back on today with a little more amusement than misery at this point…because…I am assuming the worst of it is over.

Background: Gideon had been super cantankerous this week, refusing to go to sleep at night (taking 2 or more hours before he’d fall asleep), refusing to nap, refusing to eat his soup, and just well, as I assumed, trying to assert his independence and control. I even read about it on babycenter.com, though I usually disregard much of what they say. This behavior, I assured Jeff, was completely normal conduct for a two-year-old. I did hear him coughing occasionally, and he’d had a runny nose with a streak of greeny-goo every now and then, but I just thought my little guy had a cold to go along with his two-year-old orneriness. Quite honestly, he was wearing me slap out. We thought he caught the cold from us running out of oil (ahem, I won’t point fingers or play the blame game at the man in charge of checking said oil because I didn’t think about it either) and thus we’d spent a VERY COLD and MISERABLE weekend last weekend WITH NO HEAT. (That is a story unto itself and better left for another day)

In addition, Scarlett is just getting over an ear infection and finished up her medicine a few days ago, but she is trying to cut a new tooth, and that stubborn pearly gem refuses to emerge and is causing her much pain for her and for us many a sleep-deprived night.

Today: This morning around 5:00 a.m. when Jeff was getting ready to leave for work, and we’d heard Gideon coughing pretty regularly for at least an hour or more, Jeff came back upstairs and said that maybe we should take Gideon to the doctor since they were opened on Saturdays and just so we wouldn’t have to take him to Urgent Care on Sunday. I guess I was feeling like maybe something could actually be wrong with him, so I got up, woke up the babies, and took Jeff to work all the while planning what to say to the doctor because, remember, I still only thought he had a cold.

Boy was I wrong. I explained Gideon’s symptoms and said “I know it’s just a cold for which you can do nothing but he is coughing, not sleeping, and not eating like normal. I think maybe his throat is just sore from the drainage or something.”

After listening to Gideon breathe and checking his ears, the verdict was in. He had a respiratory infection AND an ear infection. Good one, mom. You really paid attention to the signs real well. Suffering child meet dismissive mom. Makes for a great team, don’t you think?

So, while I was tormented from the guilt of missing the obvious, I ran my few errands with the children just because I was happy to be out of the house. Jeff has been working long hours and since we only have one car I was going a little stir crazy…had only been out of the house to check the mail in 4 days and nowhere else. No pity please. Just stating the facts.

Anyway, the tale deepens. We leave the house after the children have their naps to go back downtown to pick up Jeff from work. On the way home, Scarlett starts coughing, or so I think. Jeff whips his head around and yells at me to “Quick, hop in the back. Scarlett is choking and throwing up.”

I move as quick as this pregnant bulbous body can go. It’s not quick and I get stuck midway between the front seat and the back seat. Remember, we own a 2007 Chevy Cobalt (a compact car). I cannot maneuver my every-growing body any which way AT ALL.

“I’m stuck,” I tell him dramatically.

But, good little mama that I am determined to now be, I ignore my own discomfort and twist just enough to proceed with using up all the wipes/napkins in the car to mop up the mess dripping all down Scarlett’s front. It’s mostly trickling down between her legs, oozing to the back of her cars seat where I can’t reach. And the stench is unbearable. I see chunks of cheese and curdled milk and I start to feel queasy, much like in the first few months of pregnancy. Knowing I can’t throw up, too, I will myself into emergency mode and focus on the task at hand. I clean her up as best I can, and stuff the odious used wipes in a plastic baggie. Jeff rolls down the window for a little fresh air and I just pray I can keep it in. I do.

In the meantime, I still can’t move and we have a good 25-minute ride left before us.

“Jeff, I’m really stuck.”

As he’s driving, he tries to pull me by the legs back into the front seat. No good. He swerves a little and I holler at him to watch the road. I’m wedged tight, like a pig trying to squeeze its massive girth through two slats in a picket fence. Obviously, not happening.

My left arm is resting on Gideon’s seat. He pushes it off and orders “Get up, Mommy. Get up.”

“Mommy can’t. Mommy would if mommy could.”

I now pray that no police cars will see this odd sight and ticket us for me not wearing a seatbelt, endangering lives, reckless driving, and so forth. I wonder if maybe Jeff should pull over. Naw, let’s just get home, I decide. Miraculously, we make it home and I’m only in a slight amount of aching unpleasant distress.

I do manage to dislodge myself from this position, and with most unladylike maneuvers, I’m free!!

I gingerly remove Scarlett from her chair, holding her away from me, tell Jeff he and Gideon get to clean out the chair, and I whisk Scarlett upstairs to toss her in the tub.

At this point, I can only smell the appalling aroma of throw-up and nothing else. I whip off her clothes and her diaper, only to discover she has also made yet another personal recorded best mess in her diaper.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter to myself as I notice it’s up her back. I decide it would just be easier to rinse her off in the tub than try to put her back in the diaper, hunt down wipes, and clean her up that way.

I toss her under the faucet which I had neglected to check, but her scream was enough to inform me that it was much too hot. I pull her back, adjust the temperature, and then look down in utter and complete horror, as a log (which was still attached to her cheeks), now sorely flattened, slides down her leg into the bathtub.

I don’t DO logs. My mind starts yelling for my mom in yet another unladylike verbal squawk. “Mom, come quick. Scarlett’s crapped in the bathtub and I need you!” And then I remember, no mom. She’s 800 miles away. I’m the mom. Jeff’s outside hosing down the car seat, so he’s no help. It’s just me. No, not me!! I’m not that caliber of mother yet. I need my mom. I don’t do throw up (though I forged through that terror) and I REALLY don’t do wet skidding logs across the bottom of my tub, especially the pea-green smooshed-up type.

Again, as I stare at the unwelcome bits and pieces of unrecognizable solid food particles, I start to feel that queasy sensation build up.

Don’t think. Don’t think. Just act.

I finally convince myself I can do it, and I come back to reality to see my poor little baby girl holding on to the edge of the tub for dear life, lips purple and quivering, and her little feet spread eagle, practically doing a split of which Shawn Johnson would be proud. I grab her up with my left hand, and much to my disgust (if I had stopped to think, WHICH I DID NOT), I used my right hand to wipe off the remaining poop from her baby bottom. The flattened log, meanwhile, is still sliding around as if it were contending for a place in a bobsled race.

Don’t think. Just act. I repeat my new mantra, and pull the now-drenched-but-poopless Scarlett out of the tub, run into my room, grab the wipes, snatch a handful out, close my eyes, and PICK UP the log. I toss it into the toilet, flush, and refuse to watch it swirl into its watery grave. With a shudder, I turn to tackle the particles o’ poop still remaining.

I then retrieve the disinfectant from under the sink and scour that tub to the point that I felt a little woozy from inhaling the chemicals. I probably shouldn’t have put Scarlett back in right away, but she needed a proper bath.

Splashing and chattering as if nothing happened, she was having a blast in the tub,watching me and saying "mama" especially since she wasn’t sharing her time with big brother Baby Sharky.

The queasiness lingers, but I ignore it, bathe my little girl, take her downstairs and flop to the floor.

My wonderful husband has just started dinner for me. Blessed man. But, that queasiness that began in the car is now an insistent drum of gurgling in my belly.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

When I’m pregnant, you’ll remember that once I’m past the throw-up stage, the other end sees all the action. And yes, for the next two hours, I’m in and out of the bathroom myself, wondering what in the world I could have eaten that caused the little baby growing inside me to kick it back out with such terrible ferocity! I was miserable, but if you want a picture of that, check back into the old blog archives. The nastiness hasn't changed.

What a miserable mess. But, as I sit here and type, it’s over. I breathe in and out, in and out. Thank you, Lord, that this is over.

At least, I think it’s over.