Thursday, April 13, 2006

What day is it? What's a shower again? There are clothing items other than sweatpants and old college T-shirts?

Ok - so the sterotypical image of a new mom is being played to the maximum here at the Harris household. I would have thought it more likely to have occurred right after Liam's birth - and I certainly had my moments - but I am the definition of frazzled mom to a newborn and mom of a toddler right now. I think Nick has come home from work the past couple of days thinking "Where is my wife?" "What has happened to my home?" "Why is my daughter wearing pajamas at 5pm?" "Why is my WIFE wearing pajamas at 5pm?"

Though, bless him, he would never say so or let on as much! :)

It is true. I am a mess! :) We have been hit by a disgusting baby virus that has entrenched us in VERY messy diapers up to our elbows, multiple baby barf episodes, and lots and Lots and LOTS of CRYING. Poor Liam has a bug of some sort and it is refusing to be squashed.

So here I am in the land of pampers and pedialyte galore. Kate is wondering what the heck has happened to her mom and brother and Nick is doing whatever he can to help. It is craziness here. I cannot help but wonder how this happened? With Kate as a baby I was overly cautious and barely left the house for the first 6 weeks, fearing that her tiny baby body would be attacked by the big bad world's nasty germs. She remained pretty bug free for almost her whole first year. NOTHING like this nastiness that Liam has. When Liam came, I fell under the typical "seasoned mom" spell - taking him out and about with Kate and I to storytime, Target, playgroups.......thinking I was all cool, and oh-so proud of how I was handling the "two kids" world. I know I shouldn't blame myself - but look where I am now! Argh!

To top it off, Kate just told me "Mom - I think I need to go lie down, I don't feew so good". When I asked her what hurt she rubbed her stomach and said "my bewwy".

INSERT image of me on my knees, shaking my fists at the sky, screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO"!!!!!

Whether Kate really is getting this bug or she was trying to garner sympathy after seeing Liam get a lot of constant attention (which has to happen when you have 5 diaper changes in an hour, complete with three outfits going in the wash from being dirtied) remains to be seen. Please pray for us! :) No, seriously. Pray for us.

I write this not to have people feel sorry for me, or to whine (though the effects of writing ARE rather therapeutic). It is just life! Someone recently mentioned that it seemed our life was rather "Norman Rockwell-ish". I challenged myself - do I really only mention the happy blissful moments? Well, mostly yes - but not because I want people to perceive my life as such....no one's is. I write about them because joy is what feeds me and I want to share that! Also, I don't want to burden people with complaints. I mean, there are so many WORSE things in the world - who am I to complain when blessed with so much. And anyway, does anyone REALLY want to read about stressful sickness and baby poop and puke?

So I figured I would give it a try....the poop and puke aspect of our lives is now officially on display. Sorry if it is too much information! :) This too shall pass and we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming of adorable Kate antics and happy healthy baby pics in a number of days, I hope.

Wishing you all health, health, and health. It really stinks to have any part of it missing! And I do mean STINKS in the literal and figurative sense here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Poor Maggie. Remember that when Kate was born, you didn't have a germ-carrying toddler around kissing all over her (not that Kate's dirty - she's one of the cleanest, most well-kept kids I've ever seen, but she *is* two, and that means she touches things).

It's not the staying in for 6 weeks, necessarily, that kept Kate bug free, it was the lack of an older sibling and associated older sibling slobber.

Too bad they don't have kiddie litter. Kind of like "Tidy Cats," only called "Tidy Kids." Multiple strength for multiple kids. Just stick the baby in the bucket full of Tidy Kids and no more messy clean-ups!