I Stand Corrected

Today’s blog post was beautifully written and ready to be posted by 1:00 pm this afternoon, but then the afternoon tumbled out of control and it no longer made sense to post something beautifully written about how good everyone was feeling. How do things just get out of control so quickly?

First, Spice woke up feeling better. Her sister convinced her to take a sip of water and she “drank water like GULP, GULP, GULP.” It was at that point that I thought all was well and that we would enjoy a snow day at home together. I got up around 8:30 after having been up multiple times through the night to check on Spice. A sick kid is exhausting on the mama.

I checked Spice’s tongue, hands and feet and she definitely seemed more hydrated. I asked if she had gone potty and she told me that she had peed. I thought we were all set. I made her sip at her purple Gatorade through the morning while EN went out and snow blowed the latest ridiculous deposit from Mother Nature.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Spice use the bathroom again and I had yet to collect that blasted sample. I asked her if she had gone potty and she laughed uproariously and said, “Isn’t it funny, I’m not using the bathroom today.” Well, I knew she wasn’t going in her pants and I asked about her having gone earlier. “Um, well….” I asked Sugar who said that her sister had lied and hadn’t gone at all. At 1:30 today it became apparent that Spiced hadn’t gone since 7 pm yesterday. I immediately called the doctor’s office and waited anxiously for the nurse to call me back.

Lucky for me, I got the nurse from hell. I do believe she would have happily called the authorities about my Bad Mothering and given me an award for Bad Mother of the Year. She yelled at me for waiting so long to call. She yelled at me for not giving Spice more to drink. She yelled that I should have been giving her water with a syringe through the night.

Fucking seriously? I was up through the night trying to force Spice to drink. I dribbled water from her water bottle into her mouth a couple of times. I did everything but pinch her nose closed and force her mouth open. Please answer me this, when you got your Mothering Handbook, did it come with instructions on how to force water down your kids throat? Was there a syringe included in your Mothering Kit? Do you know that you are a Bad Mother if you don’t do these things?

I was horrified by what the nurse said to me. I paced the house waiting while waiting for her second phone call after she consulted with the doctor. She gave me very explicit and specific instructions on how to take care of my kid and “hydrate her properly.” I am stupid and incompetent after all. Her final instruction was that if here was no pee by 5:00 pm, I was to call back and probably bring Spice to the hospital.

So Spice and I sat here and drank. We had a chugging contest. I fed her Gatorade with a spoon. I held the cup to her lips and forced her to drink. Finally at 3:00 pm, she peed. It wasn’t a trickle and it wasn’t a torrent, but it was pee and I found myself not knowing whether to cry or applaud. It has been years since I gave a round of applause to someone for peeing in the potty.

So I find myself needing to apologize for an error I posted on Facebook today. I said, “I’ll never again say it’s possible to force water down a kids throat.” Apparently it is possible to do this. All the good mamas know how to… it’s just us shitty ones that don’t know to squirt a syringe full of water into a sick kids mouth.

I don’t know about you, but since I gave up my heroin habit, I find my syringe cabinet empty.

xoxo

Ice Princess