Ouch

August 26, 2010

Yesterday I had an amazing friend come over to help with the babies! Thanks Hannah! J There are some amazing people out there!

Tuesday night was a little rough. Lately I have been taking Heidi off her apnea monitor because she has not had any apnea episodes, just some occasional bradycardia (low heart rate). I think there is something wrong with the cord because it always beeps that it is disconnected. It is the most obnoxious alarm ever! The ones at work constantly go off for no reason but there is something horrid about drifting off to sleep for a couple of hours to be woken up by the screeching banshee (monitors nickname).

I always have to check and make sure it is not her, because sometimes she requires stimulation to breathe. Fun times.

I almost would rather have a cardiac monitor & pulse oximeter so I could know if they were true reads. (Haha).

I was downstairs cleaning up the kitchen and making bottles (different nipples, different contents and different Dr. Brown’s inserts for each of them). I heard the screeching banshee go off so I very leisurely went up stair with my arms full of clothes and other things to put away. Sure enough she was having an apnea episode. I picked her up, hung her upside down and beat her (just kidding, but you get the point). She then had two more within 30 minutes.

CRAP! Worst nightmare would be for anything to happen to her or have to call 911 or use my CPR skills.

Ok, it wasn’t that drastic but it is very scary when you are holding your own kid and they are not breathing, even if for just a little longer than 20 seconds.

My PREMIE infants scare the crap out of me- the tiniest things that if it were my patient I wouldn’t think twice. But when it’s my kids I go on the freaky side of flipping out. I worry about them.

They are both taking meds for reflux. Heidi seems to be experiencing a lot of side effects from the Reglan, and her puking is not getting any better.

I couldn’t remember the mechanism of action for Reglan so I pulled out my graduate pharmacology book. Bad Idea. I somehow decided that she has irreversible tardive dyskinesia (involuntary movements of tongue & face twitching). She also kicks her legs a lot- it can cause involuntary movements of hands & legs, diarrhea & sedation. In my delirium I am convinced Heidi has irreversible damage and I start freaking out.

Really, what is the matter with me? I know better!?!

After my freak out moment & crying for a second I take Carter to the bath. He is old enough now to occupy himself alone in the tub while I am in the next room or on the computer. I hear a lot of suspicious noise in the bathroom. Carter has gotten out of the tub, pooped in the toilet and gotten back in the tub with out wiping. He said, “The bath was going to clean him”.

GROSS! (So sick of cleaning up poop)

So in my two hours of sleep blur I got so mad. I let the water out and he gets out and runs down the hall wet and naked. I just started screaming at him to get back in the tub so he could take another bath. After chasing a wet, dirty bottomed 3 year old I was over it. He was pretty ticked too. He took a bucket of clean water and threw it at me. That’s it. I lost it. I was so mad!

I just wanted to get in the car and drive a way for a minute. I was sick of screaming infants & a temper tantrum-throwing toddler. I marched downstairs, got a baby, bathed the baby, took the other baby and gave them back to Justin. I said goodnight I’m done. I slept for seven hours, and felt a little saner in the morning.

In the morning Carter remembered my temper tantrum and told me “I want my Daddy to stay home and you go to work. You were mean to me yester morning.”

Ouch. He was right. Honesty hurts when you are the offender. I didnt mean to heurt him either.

I said sorry and I would try better today.

No one tells you that this is what it is like everyday. No one talks about the crazy, hard side of being a parent. Parenting books make you feel inadequate because your child does not respond to the old “do you need a time out” or talking your child out of horrendous fit throwing and melt downs.

Lately everyday I am just on the edge of having a few temper tantrums myself, sometimes I do after the kids are in bed for a minute or something small goes wrong. But I can’t, I have to keep trying to manage.

It is hard to even take it one day at a time because I still do not have this down. I am still getting thrown curve balls and missing all of them. I suck at sports.

No one tells you how three little people can push you past the physical limits of exhaustion, exasperation and desperation.

They also never say that one smile or moment reminds you why you are pushing past those boundaries of sanity for those amazing little people.

I have no idea if I ever feel like I have a grip on life again.

Right now it doesn’t feel that way. I know from previous life events that someday it will get better and I just have to ride it out!

So to all you other Moms and people out there just trying to get through- You can do it, maybe not in the way your pictured but you can survive and come out sane (I think?).