Today my little man turned 2. SUCH a special day for him, and I wanted it to be a day that was all about him, and making him happy. You know, giving him the foods he likes best to eat, going for a walk outside, playing at Nana's, presents to open, friends to play with. I wanted it to be exciting and happy.
Except it wasn't. Ohhhh, no no no. Today was a bad day. A horrible day! Words fail to describe today.
First? I've been fighting a cold. The kind that makes my throat hurt a teeny bit, that makes my voice sound husky, and that gives me lovely stuff to cough up. Mmm.
Then Abigail had a bad night. Normally she wakes up once in the night between 3 and 4am to feed and then goes happily back to sleep until 7-8am. I'm lucky, I know. I was NOT, therefore, expecting her to be up at 1:30 and 3:40 and 5:10 before deciding at 7:15 that she was up for the day. Maybe some of you do that every night, but there is something to be said for conditioning, and I am not used to having my sleep interrupted so much. So not only am I fighting a cold and feeling tired from that, but I had a crappy night's sleep too!
I go to change Abigail's diaper to find that it had leaked. BIG time. Like, a foot-long pee-stain on her back. And now the couch smells like pee. I used a cloth diaper for the first time last night, and I guess I'm not used to its capacity, and I treated it too much like a super-absorbent disposable. Not so much! Also, I noticed that Abigail suddenly had a bad diaper rash. 99% sure that it was somehow caused by the diaper or the detergent my friend uses to wash them (we borrowed a bunch from my friend Julia, so that I could test-drive some before investing in them...) So yeah, diaper rash is not so fun. Sad, and just all around...blah.
I was an emotional roller coaster this morning. I was happy and fine one moment, and then freaked out on Matt the next for watching me while I tried to think up an eloquent status update on facebook. I stormed off upstairs and got in the shower just to spite him, because he was supposed to be leaving for work. I knew it was childish, I just felt suddenly and irrationally mad. It's the hormones.
Then I get back downstairs and realize that I hadn't nursed Abigail yet since 5:10, so I nurse her as Matt is walking out the door. She poops while nursing and I immediately set out to change her after she's done feeding so that it doesn't aggravate her diaper rash any further. Well. Was that ever an ordeal and a half. I'm actually emotionally traumatized by what followed. NEVER have I heard her cry so hard in my life. It didn't even sound like her crying. She just sounded like some poor wounded animal who would be screaming bloody murder, then whimpering desperately, and then drawing shaky breaths of air into her. It sounds terrible, but I had to say it. It WAS terrible. It was and IS one of those things that is just too sad and awful to really convey with such vague sentences as, "Abigail had the worst diaper rash ever today. I've never heard her cry so hard." It just doesn't do justice to exactly how traumatic this experience was.
Anyway, she finally fell asleep 45 minutes later, and I snuck out of the house, leaving the monitor and Elijah with my MIL. I had a ton of stuff to pick up for Elijah's birthday party tonight, so off to Walmart I went.
I had a good time wandering around on my own, destressing a little as I wandered the aisles mindlessly. That is, until I went to go leave and couldn't find my keys anywhere. Commence panicking. I had to have walked around for 5-10 minutes looking for them, and had just resolved to sit down and cry if I got stranded at Walmart with my diaper-rashy, -due-to-be-nursed baby at home when I thought I should check customer service. Thankfully some kind soul had found the keys and promptly returned them, so that crisis was averted.
In the 1.5 hours that I was gone the world had gone from green to white. The roads were awful, the snow was coming down heavily, I had to drive slow, I forgot my glasses at home. NO FUN.
Then I got home and Abigail was awake but happy. Until I nursed her at 12:30, when she pooped again and had to be changed again. This time was even worse than the first!
Where was Elijah in all this? Ohh, he was just wandering around with his Doctor Jekyll hat on, completely adorable and helpful to boot. I felt amputated, to be honest. Here was this sweet little boy who was supposed to be celebrating a birthday and I could give him no attention because I couldn't even hear myself speaking over the baby screaming in my arms. And then, here is this poor, helpless little 3-month old baby who was crying and trying to tell me what was wrong, but I already KNEW what was wrong and was helpless to do anything about it. AWFUL.
Finally I got them down, and instead of making brownies I destressed for an hour. Then Matt got home from work early, and instead of giving me a hug and making it all go away, he sat down on the couch and told me HE was having an awful day too! It's not fair, that when we have bad days at the same time. So then he went upstairs to sleep, and I started making the brownies for tonight's party. Except part-way into making the brownies Abigail started to wake up, so I went upstairs and got her up so Matt could sleep. I figured she'd be fine and happy now that she had rested (because she was fine before, after sleeping!) but no. No, no, no. I ended up sitting on the couch with her for 1.25 hours, once I'd found a position that she did not cry in. Matt came down the stairs, got Elijah up, relaxed on the computer, I snapped at him a couple times because I wanted to be getting ready for tonight but couldn't because I had the baby so why couldn't HE start making the brownies and wrapping the gifts? Which of course he did not take kindly to, so he snapped back. It was beautiful.
And then! I call Farrah to see if she, Dave and the kids were still coming tonight, but they weren't feeling well. And then Matt got an email saying the his brother and SIL weren't coming because of work. And then he talks to my MIL and finds out that his other brother, SIL and their daughter weren't coming (which was a mistake, they were just coming later) and I lost it. Honestly, I just cried and cried. With the snow this morning, my parents were already not coming, and I hadn't heard from another friend all day and assumed (correctly) they weren't coming either and I felt so hurt and angry. I had wanted this day to be so special for Elijah, and instead we had a double-batch of chili, 24 rolls, way too much ice-cream, brownies and bananas, and no-one to celebrate with. I grabbed my wallet, determined to go to McDonald's and buy Elijah some food that he would actually like to eat (because he can't eat the chili...) but Matt stopped me at the door and gave me a hug, which always brings on the tears.
Oh, did I mention that Elijah woke up as Mr. Hyde? It was great.
So yeah, that was my day. In a nutshell, anyway. There were other details but they seem pretty minor when written out. Just little things that wore away on me, and made me feel crummy overall.
Thankfully, our evening turned out well. It wasn't what I had imagined, but it was nice nonetheless. We had a quiet dinner with Matt's parents, and then a couple of Matt's grandparents and Aaron and Rachelle showed up with their daughter, and we ate junk and watched as Elijah opened his gifts and Terrah stuffed tissue paper up her nose and then ate it (true story.) Abigail did not have a screaming reprise thanks to the brilliance and experience of Rachelle, who suggested rinsing her bum rather than wiping it when she pooped again, and all was calm and happy once more.
Still, though. I feel sad that I didn't get to celebrate my little man like I wanted to. I hope he felt loved today. I hope he felt appreciated, and very very VERY wanted. I'm glad that I forced myself to take photos tonight. I wasn't feeling much like it, but I knew I'd regret it big time if I didn't even get pictures of the day my boy turned 2. I haven't edited them yet, but I'll post some when I do.
It's funny how different Elijah is to me today compared to yesterday. I can feel that my love for him has grown, just since yesterday, and I also know my attitude towards him is different. Things that were in the not-so-distant future are now at the forefront of my mind. I suddenly am thinking of getting rid of the soother, potty training, and Elijah dressing himself as a reality rather than a distant thing we have to work on. I can no longer say, "He's not even 2 yet..." and it feels so strange. He's entered a completely new phase of his life. Babyhood is gone, and childhood is here (as are the terrible two's...haha.) To look for toys today, I deliberately avoided the baby aisle. I bought him a truck that he loves, and some play doh. Those are things big boys do, and it just felt right somehow. That makes my heart both sing and sigh at the same time. I've avoided baby pictures today, because I don't think my fragile emotional state can handle the reminiscing.
Anyway, it's late. Matt always predicts that I'll stay up late and I always aim to prove him wrong until I find something else to do, some other blog post to write, or someone else to email. As it is, I still need to post about Abigail's ultrasounds, but I'll do it another day. For now, it's time for sleep.
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