This is the first post of 2011! Great! What thought provoking topic shall I tackle? Well, how about I'm sick and I feel like something on a biker dude's shoe!
I hate feeling sick and I feel like I have been sick more than not over the whole of 2010 and certainly all of 2011!! :) I went about 3 years without getting sick before I got pregnant. I used to get horrible upper respiratory infections about twice a year, and then I started taking better care of myself, exercising and eating less dairy. Then I got pregnant and it was like my immune system got low and I got 3 head colds during those 9 months. After Smug-Baby was born, I had a few more head colds, a couple stomach bugs and a few more head colds.
I know that I have spent the majority of 2010 adjusting to new ways of life. From bringing a whole new person into our lives to going back to work, first part time and now full time. I know that I am run down from all the change and stress that comes with a new baby and new responsibilities. My darling husband spent most of the holiday weekend bitching at me for being sick. Well, really he was bitching because I don't take as good a care of myself as I should and thus I am sick and he hates that!
I know that part of what he hates is that I feel terrible and he can't do anything to fix it, but (and keep in mind that I am sick and haven't slept more than an hour at a time in over two weeks) the bigger part of him is pissed that he has to step up. He has to clean up the kitchen, make the meals, run to the store, whatever. I normally try to take care of all the household stuff because he brings in more of the financial than I, so I want our responsibilities to be even, to be fair. However, when I am sick he tells me to rest, just focus on Smug-Baby (which is another thing - you can't really rest much when you have to walk and bounce a crying baby for hours and hours) and let him take care of everything else.
Then the problems start, because he doesn't actually want to take care of everything else. He whines and bitches about the kitchen being a mess when 5 minutes earlier he told me to stop cleaning it and he would do it. He says that he will run the vacuum, but hours and hours pass and the floors remain gross.
The whole house cleaning yesterday is a good example. I really felt strongly that I wanted to get all the Christmas stuff packed up and the whole house cleaned. I wanted to get all the germs and dust wiped away, all the clothes clean and everything in order. I know that women will understand that you do feel physically better when the house is clean. When I clean the house myself (with Smug-Baby in a carrier or napping) it takes me about 2 hours. I figured that with needing to pack up the tree and other Christmas stuff it might take another hour.
It took all freakin' day! I started the first load of laundry at 6:45am and sent the vacuum back to Smug-Grandma at 5pm. Smug-Hub kept saying that I was to rest and he would do______, but then spent 4 hours putting the Christmas tree back in its box. He also managed to bring all the storage boxes upstairs and get the lighted garland from the outside packed up, but I cleaned everything else in the house and packed up every other Christmas item. I cleaned the bathroom and dusted and mopped and vacuumed, I washed dishes and did laundry. The last thing I asked him to do last night was fold the sheets and the last load of laundry. When I got up this morning (12:03am is technically this morning right?) the sheets were still in the basket and the last load was still in the dryer. So, he says that he can take of it, whatever it might be, but he doesn't! He doesn't want me to do it, because then he would feel guilty that his sick, sleep deprived wife did everything, but he doesn't want to do it himself - so he spent the day pissed at me for "not listening to him and resting"
Now, let's go back to the 12:03am thing. Smug-Baby is horribly sick. She has been sick since Tuesday of last week and seems to be just the same and she was - not really any worse, but not any noticeable improvement either. I finally broke down and got some children's benadryl, thinking that it would clear up her nose enough so she could nurse and sleep. The first day, she didn't know what was happening and swallowed most of the liquid and slept most of the day, then we tried to give her more that night so she could find rest and comfort during the night. She got some of it down, screaming all the while and got so upset that she threw up buckets of milk, medicine, and phlegm. I didn't think that I could judge how much medicine came back up, so I didn't feel like I could give her another dose, and just tried to finish up what I left in the spoon.
She slept for about 3 hours that night, which was wonderful, but then she was up and I think because she was laying flat, everything settled and she spent a good hour or more yesterday morning crying and coughing and throwing up phlegm. I decided that I wouldn't try to give her more medicine until night time. Last night, when she saw the bottle of pink liquid, she started to cry, the story is the same, we got some down her and then she threw it up. We tried to give it to her in a sippy cup of water - but she won't take the sippy cup at all. We tried to put some on a spoon with some baby food, but she wouldn't let the spoon near her mouth either. It's like she knew that we were trying to trick her and she kept looking at me with these eyes, I can't explain. Like I betrayed her. She counts on me to take care of her and keep her safe and then I held her down and forced something down her throat. I can't do that again. I don't think that she is getting enough to do any good anyway.
She fell asleep last night after a hot steamy bath and slept almost 2 hours, then she coughed and cried and nursed and fell back asleep. She slept 45 minutes and then was up again. I got up with her and we went to the big chair and she nursed back to sleep and I just stayed there in that upright position which seems to help keep the mucus from choking her until 3:30 and I did doze a bit. I got Smug-Hub up then and asked if he could play with her while I slept the last hour until I had to get ready for work, he lasted 15 minutes before bringing her to me. While I was a bit upset that he couldn't cut it, I know that when I am sick, only my mama will do.
That brings me to work. Let me start by saying that I love my job and I love my company! These people are like family and I love them! I wouldn't have been here, going on 10 full years if I didn't truly love it! That being said, there is a policy that I am against. The policy states that in order to receive pay for a company holiday (like the Friday before New Years day) you must work your scheduled hours the day before and the day after said holiday, unless you have a pre-approved vacation request. I know that this policy was put in place to stop people from calling in sick to extend their holiday time off and thus leaving the company short-handed. I get it! Except for when a person is legitimately sick. Employees are penalized if they stay home and 1, getting better and 2, not infect others. Rather than having the managers and supervisors deal with those employees who are abusing the holiday time off, the policy punishes everyone. The company begs employees to stay home if they are sick, but punishes them if they do.
So, here I am getting ready to leave for work, with a massive head cold and pink eye that I will soon be spreading to my unsuspecting co-workers! Lovely right??
Thats it people - the first post of 2011. What a way to start off a new year, full of complaints and placing blame for all my problems on others! Oh well, tomorrow is another day and maybe, just maybe, I'll finally be feeling better and the post will be all sunshine and rainbows!!
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