It's official: I've been inducted into REAL Motherhood.
I have cleaned up my first REAL kid puke. Not spit-up... Not drool.... Not masticated, spit-out food... REAL barf.
I think this makes me a REAL mom.
The poor kiddo threw up thee times this morning. At least the third time, he was already in the bath.
The whole thing actually made me feel like such a BAD mom. Let me explain:
Noah had been quiet for his morning nap, so I figured he had fallen asleep. But only 30 minutes into it, he started fussing. I was frustrated, like, "It's not time yet!!"... so I waited. And I THOUGHT I heard retching... but I was in the next room, and was listening to something online, and couldn't be sure, so I brushed it off... besides, Noah got quiet again for a bit. When he started fussing again, I had moved into the other room and was finishing a quick project. I only had 10 minutes left on it. So when I heard Noah again a few minutes later, I told myself I'd finish the sewing, THEN go get him. All the while, a niggling feeling in my head that he might have thrown up.
And of course, he had. I went in to him sitting in the corner of his crib, crusted in puke, his blanket and lovey right by him, crusted in puke, and two areas of actual barf... ...he looked so pathetic and pale and sad. I felt like such SCUM.
So I got him wrapped in another blanket, got him out of his puke-covered jammies, then sat him on the rocking chair with a book to look at while I stripped his bed and got a bundle of puke-stuff to wash. Then I took him to the bathtub and started a bubble bath for him, started the laundry, and just really lavished him with coos and soothing murmurs and soapy washcloth backrubs....Feeling like SUCH a bad mama.
Oh, and of course, I had given him some black bean brownies for part of his breakfast (can you BELIEVE me???), so when THAT came up, I felt crappy for giving him such sugary, rich junk.
*sigh*
anyway.... That's been my morning.
It turns out he has a slight temp, (99.1), and he is not really interested in food... So he is napping right now, and hopefully it will be a good nap to help him heal a bit.
Meanwhile, I'll be waiting for him to wake so I can hover and snuggle and soothe some more. If only to relieve some more of my Mom Guilt.
3 comments:
That's hard but has happened to everyone I would imagine. I let Bailey "cry it out" one night covered in vomit AND diahrea! She cried for an hour before I finally went up, ticked off, to find the mess. And man oh man did I feel awful!
And something my ped. has reiterated to me over the years... a baby's fever doesn't even count until ithits 100 and it's still considered low-grade until it hits 102... and fevers are good b/c it means his body is fighting the bug.
Hope the little man feels better and there is no more puke for you to deal with! I HATE it when they throw up! Ugh!
Don't be so hard on yourself. You are a WONDERFUL momma. I know it!
I'm so sorry you felt like you were lacking today--it's easy to beat yourself up over something that you reacted completely normally to! After all, he fusses when he naps sometimes, and you wait it out to see if he'll fall back asleep...and it sounds like you MORE than made up for your bad feelings all day.
One of my FB friends is a new momma, and her status the other day was "Shannon feels like a terrible mother because Will just climbed out of his crib and landed on his head...!", followed by many other mamas' comments of "Oh my goodness, we have ALL done that!"
Love your honesty on here...!
Post a Comment