Thursday January 31, 2008
It’s been a (hopefully) unbeatable week. One schedule got changed and I forgot to notice another thing on my all-important external brain (aka planner) and the next thing I knew my week was looking crazy. Sunday morning I crawled into the car to go to church and realized the fight with my back had begun. I writhed all through church Sunday morning and gratefully sat Indian-style Sunday night when they turned the lights out for the slide show.
Because of the baby’s compromised size, I knew I should get back on prenatals. So I did. And every subsequent morning is more nauseous.
As though the week wasn’t full enough, I noticed Adam was having trouble hearing. Not just when he was playing and didn’t want to hear, but everywhere. In the car in a normal conversation, he would ask a question and we’d answer. “What?” It happened almost every time. Since there is no real way of picking up concrete symptoms on him that indicate illness, I followed my gut feelings and took him to the dr Monday morning. “Has he had this low grade fever at home?” Uh, no, I hadn’t noticed. I was feeling a bit glib inside that at least I’d probably guessed correctly this time. Dr. A checked his ears. Nope, they’re clear. So Michelle came back in and did the hearing test. Passed with flying colors. Odd. His throat was just a tad red and with his history, they also did a strep swab. Positive. Smile. Are we honestly going down that road again?
I begged her for new generation antibiotics. Please, please, PLEASE tell me I will not go through another three months of strep. We got groceries and stopped at the pharmacy on the way home. Six loads of laundry, a closet-full of ironing, and three gallons of chili soup later I dropped at the supper table, exhausted. Tuesday morning Adam woke up with a definite fever and a terrible, coarse-sounding chest cough. Thank God for Grandma’s…(who else will volunteer to take care of a sick child?) … because I’d promised Martha I’d help clean their house to get it ready to move. Wednesday took some baby-sitter shuffling to keep Adam away from children again while Emily and I helped Jo fix food for her freezer. And 2 gallons of the chili soup disappeared at the moving day.
So now it’s today. Adam still has fever; but at least he’s eating a little more. The cough sounds very pneumoniaish; but it must be viral as opposed to bacterial if it is, because he’s on day four of antibiotics. I should actually listen to his lungs. Mostly I just try to keep him hydrated and make sure he’s not breathing too fast because unless he needs an inhaler, the doctors wouldn’t do anything else anyway. I thought I was going to clean and do laundry today; but I’m so tired it would take a tow truck and a very strong tow rope to move me. I feel nausous and achey and headachey. Cranky? Yeah, that, too. Waking up every 45 min for half the night from back pain is not conducive to feeling rested in the morning. Neither is a burning up with fever, hacking sputum, three-year-old crawling into bed with me at 6:50. I think I’ll go drink a Coke and lie on the couch and hope for better hours after lunch. Because tomorrow I have four cakes to decorate for the school’s open house. I’d agreed to do them if someone kept Adam; but now he can’t go there because of germs. Maybe there will be cream cheese icing and real roses instead of decorator frosting unless things turn around pretty fast.
I wish I still had the comic strip I saw in a magazine several years ago for women who don’t know how to say no. It said, “Turn head to left. Turn head to right. Repeat several times.” If any of you wanted me to do something, you better call in the next few days; because next week is the beginning of change. I’m going to start turning my head. Except uh, oh. I think the time already ran out. I already said no when Gina wanted me to babysit tomorrow. Except that she never quite got the chance to ask before she got an earful of woes and only told in retrospect what she’d been planning to ask! Sorry, Gina.
Are any of you overachievers? What do you do to keep from overbooking yourself? And for all you people out there who live well-balanced lives, what is your secret to keeping things that way? I don’t do this all the time. I go in this ridiculous cycle of not doing anything and then seeing all these things at once and volunteering for too many things and not leaving enough slack for things to go wrong, or bumped. Then I get burned and say no to everything until I/we recuperate before starting the cycle again. And the truth is, I always survive. Sometimes even better then I expect to, and yeah, sometimes not so well. And I always can do it. Just not always without repercussions. How do you decide when to say yes and when to say no? And is that fight for balance even right? Jesus took time to rest; but there are many times when He moved with compassion in spite of being exhausted. I notice those words a lot when I read the Gospels. Compassion. Not pity. Compassion. Empathy. And whenever I think about that, I wonder if my own things are really that important.
I think it’s time to go take a nap before this gets any more disjointed. Adam is probably about ready to take me in to get my ears checked because I squint and wait 30 seconds to process what he just said before I answer. It’s sort of foggy around here. Oh, and if you want one of the best chili soup recipes in the world, see if you can get Emily to post it. But beware, there won’t be any leftovers.
Oh dear, I hope everything’s better around there soon and that your back doesn’t hurt all the time. No advice on over-extending yourself, because my husband’s the one who does that in this household.
ryc… to funny. I had that down and then started doubting myself! And also… I really do not like when someone copies me 🙂 and I was trying to think , why, when it should make me feel good that they liked what I did! I even catch myself wanting to tell Alexis to think up her own designs!!! What a horrid MOM! 🙂 Hope the sickness soon leaves your place!
ugh. I’m sorry. I know just what you mean about the whole squinting thing and then standing there dumbly for several moments. I usually have to get the poor people to repeat what they said before I make a lame attempt. The time Alex had strep and Logan was in the hospital was bad enough, and I wasn’t pregnant! 🙂
chili soup…. Yum. to put it mildly
I can see where you are coming from!! Over-commitments is a down-fall for me, too. BTW, you DO have an unborn baby, yourself, your DH, and your son to see after. Guess I’m going through some frustrations w/ a teething baby and a son who feels neglected when I rock baby. Yest. He was laying down w/ a pillow and whimpering b/c his feelings were a bit hurt. Hope you all feel better soon!
I understand the ” disability-to-say-no” problem. How often have I found myself almost in tears because I said “yes” one too many times. Hubby sometimes just has to set his foot down. Later Im always grateful that he did:)
Saying “no” has never been a big part of my life, but one day I stopped and looked at why I say “yes”, and then asked myself what would happen if I would say “no” occasionally, when I really should say “no” for my family’s sake. I actually learned a lot about myself, and my own insecurities. I realized I was saying “yes” a lot only because I was afraid people would be disappointed in me if I said “no”. In my experience, (to my shame), sometimes I was only saying “yes” because of what I thought it would do for me in return. (i.e. respect or positive affirmation, etc, altho most of the time I did care about the person in need of help.) People do know who will always end up saying “yes” and may take advantage of it. (Especially if you are one of few who doesn’t have a lot of small children). I have been blessed to be able to help out a lot because my children are older, but I do have to remember my own limitations and take in consideration my family’s needs, also. Hubbies have a way of knowing when you are stretching yourself too thin, because unfortunately they often get the short end of the stick in those situations!