Spring Break sure ain’t what it used to be

In true Spring Break fashion, I started the weekend last Friday night by going out with a friend after work SANS BABY.  OMG, y’all.  It happened.  It really, really happened!

Just one beer turned into…five?  eight?  Gosh.  I’m almost ashamed to admit that I don’t remember.  Anyway, it was fun while it lasted, but I doubt I’ll be doing that again any time soon.  The Mom-Guilt just isn’t worth it.  And boy, do I have a lot of Mom-Guilt.

Saturday was supposed to be a good day.  The three of us were going to enjoy some of our new Spring sunshine together and just sort of hang out as a family.  Maybe go for a walk.  Attend little miss Austin’s first birthday party Take in a nice dinner.  Who knows!?!  The day was ours!

Then Dan got a phone call. 

The person who was supposed to show up for work didn’t.  So Dan had to go to work.

Then Joshua threw up his lunch.  And he was running a 102 degree fever.  And the snot.  OH. MY. GOD.  The snot.  And the snot still hasn’t gone away and in two days I have gone through almost an entire box of tissues. 

Then I frantically called the nurse’s line because I was terrified he was having some monster reaction to the Chicken Pox vaccine. 

While I’m on the subject, let me just say that, AGAIN, I let the nurse get to me.  I gave him that damned shot knowing that chicken pox are like a rite of passage for kids.  Dan had them.  I had them.  ALMOST EVERYONE I HAVE EVER KNOWN HAS HAD THEM.  And I gave my child a vaccine with a live virus that could be the cause of his ridiculous crankiness.  (Wait.  Who am I kidding?  I have the most ridiculously difficult, cranky, stubborn child imaginable.  I swear I was not this bad for my past to be revisited upon me one-hundred-fold like this.)  Anyway, regarding the shot, I should’ve passed. 

I called the nurse line and she called me back and asked me a million questions and heard Joshua sneezing and whining in the background and finally she decided that the vomiting was likely just a reaction to all of the snot dripping down his throat and the fever was likely from the ear infection (but he didn’t have a fever BEFORE we discovered he had an ear infection and he’d been on antibiotics for two days BEFORE developing the fever?!?!). 

So she advised that I just put him on clear liquids for 6 to 8 hours and watch and see and call back or go to the children’s clinic if we felt he needed to be seen.  So I did. 

And did I mention that I might’ve been a wee bit hungover through this whole ordeal?  See, that’s where the Mom Guilt comes in.  It just isn’t worth it for me to go out and have a good time because, inevitably, the gods will smite me.  Or God will smite me.  Or Buddha.  Maybe it was Buddha. 

WHO CARES?  The point is that it is my luck that when I try to have a good time, I am brutally reminded where my priorities are supposed to be.  With Joshua.  And with his well-being.  This is not the time for me to be selfish. 

And while we’re talking about being selfish, I totally understand how moms let themselves go after having kids.  There just isn’t enough time and help for me to take care of me and continue the standard of personal hygiene I was used to before he arrived. 

I haven’t had my eyebrows waxed since September.  (NO WORRIES.  There are not caterpillars growing on my face.  I have plucked in between.  But I can’t guarantee that they look good.  They certainly don’t at the moment.)  I haven’t had my hair professionally dyed since last January.  As in, of 2009.  Three months BEFORE he got here.  I’ve had ONE haircut since then.  ONE.  And it wasn’t even a very good one. 

I’m trying to remedy that on Thursday, and I have an appointment made.  But it’s two counties over and since Dan had that employee flake out on him, I have to take Joshua to daycare and then drive to get my hair done and I can’t spend the day in a really leisurely manner because I’ll have to get back here to get Joshua from daycare that afternoon, which means I have to leave before traffic gets bad between there and here, which means I’ll be rushed, which means I just shouldn’t do it.  But I NEED it.  In the worst possible way.

I wish I could be all happy-happy, joy-joy (Ren & Stimpy, anyone?  Or, the beginning of when cartoons started to suck.) but I can’t.  I’m not happy, or joyful, really. 

And now I just feel like crying.