My Glamorous Life as a Lesbian Mom

I would’ve had a fabulous new column for readers this month, except that the last two weeks have been full of being Super Mom: juggling full-time employment with a sick child, a drying out lawn, a visit from out-of-town family members, a garden overrun with weeds, broken household appliances, and more vomit than even a mother can handle. So instead of creating some masterpiece for you to read while sipping coffee on the patio of some fabulous independently owned (and operated) coffee-shop, I instead bring you a recycled post from my blog (available, if you haven’t started reading yet, online at qweirdutah.wordpress.com).  

Today was the first day in seven weeks of my new job that I woke up DREADING the thought of going to work. Let me add that this had nothing to do with work and everything to do with the contents of this post. I got a mere two hours of good sleep last night.
 
Not for lack of trying, thank you.
 
I actually put face to pillow in my son Riley’s bed at around 10:00 p.m. Both of my beautiful children were having a hard time shutting off their brains, so I crawled in next to Riley, turned on their model moon and the model solar system that we got on clearance at Costco because it included Pluto, which really has no place on a revolving sun-lit solar system anymore. We also turned on the Dora the Explorer music CD, and within minutes Riley was asleep. Casey didn’t fare so well. He crawled out of his bed and onto the mat on the floor. He then got up and retrieved all of his stuffed friends, his special pillow and his blanket from his bed and placed them on the mat as well. Next he decided the mat wasn’t so comfy after all and returned all the items and himself to the bed. Then he repeated this process. I went over to comfort him. I rubbed his back. I soothingly told him a story. I was so effective I put myself to sleep. An hour later Kim came in the room to find me crashed and Casey moving his gear from mat to bed again. She told me she’d take over and that I should go crawl into bed.
 
Only, as is often the case these days, once I was awake, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, medicated my cold sore that is still pissing me off on day nine of its intrusion into my life and then lay in bed for 20 minutes before Kim arrived to announce a victory: Casey had gone to sleep. She returned to her office to continue working on a publication deadline. It was an hour before Country Legends 107.5 finally lulled me to sleep with its relaxing twang.
 
That was around 12:30 a.m. I was awakened one hour later by coughing in the baby’s room. Then at 2:00 by Kim coming to bed. And again at 2:15 when Kim decided to bring Casey into bed with us because his coughing was getting worse, sounding croup-like. Since she was awake worrying about his breathing anyway, she figured he might as well be between us where we could both really worry. Somehow I managed to keep drifting back to sleep between the croupy coughs and gasps for air. At 2:30 I was jolted awake by Casey puking all over me, all over Kim, all over the bed, all over Lambie, and all over Special Pillow.
 
Kim, who got the majority of the splash, crawled into the shower with Casey and I gathered up pukey laundry and started a load of wash. I sprayed Lysol. I obsessed over the Clorox wipes. I changed the sheets and then I got Casey out of the shower. We all lay back down to sleep.
 
The coughing worsened. Kim, who hadn’t even enjoyed a couple of hours of shitty sleep, was exhausted. I got up with Casey, got him some juice and sat down to watch a Dora DVD. I took his temperature and freaked out at the 103 reading. So I woke Kim to ask her what to do. She replied that I should give him Motrin. Now, this seems so logical, but at the time I didn’t even think about medication. Wet towels. Motrin. His fever lowered but didn’t break. He finally fell back to sleep at 5:00 a.m.
 
At this point I decided to change the laundry. Let me preface this by saying that our washing machine has been acting up for almost a week now. Its balance has been funky and it’s been wailing a bit during the spin cycle. I figured the whining was just a way to get attention – you know, like every other member of the household. But no, apparently the washing machine was also sick, and she chose this exact moment to completely SHIT THE BED.
 
The cycle had indicated that it was complete, but the laundry inside was still chunky with regurgitated raisins and cheese crackers. The laundry was soaking wet. The spin cycle was obviously ineffective. I turned the machine on for an extra rinse. The basket turned in slow motion, moaning as she moved. The water, the soap, the puke … it wasn’t going anywhere. So I reached in and removed the items one at a time. I wrung the water out as much as possible and laid the items over the shower and the sink, and a metal shelf. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever done, and you have to remember that I have given birth twice. Earlier, while we all swam in puke, my mind was on the babe and the vomit was less repulsive. But three hours later, while every other member of the household slept, I washed vomit out of sopping wet sheets all by myself and I cried.
 
And then I went to sleep.