Monday Motherhood Musings

As I type the title for this post I am thinking, "Wonder how many people use Monday Musings for a theme on their blogs?"  I'll have to Google that.

My weekend has been fraught with anxiety and self-doubt.  Things like, "I can't do it.  What do I have to say that anyone cares about?"  I'm trying to overcome that, so even if you don't care...just click away from the page and don't tell me; I can't handle it yet.

Along with my racing thoughts, we had an exciting weekend with a house full of kids, as we do on alternating weekends.  Six kids is a full-to-the-brim home in a 3 bedroom colonial.  This is a constant sore spot, I think...kids in blended families having to share bedrooms is difficult.  Coming from a family of 6 kids, I think on some level I enjoy the chaos and noise of it all.  My 4 kids are used to it and just go with the flow...my darling love's kids have enjoyed a quieter existence in the past and are not quite so keen on the whole thing.

My exciting weekend includes one very sick little girl, BeanzG11.  She just started with a cough on Wednesday, and having a million kids, I do not run right to the doc with every sniffle.  She went to school Thursday, then seemed worse Friday.  She stayed home.  She didn't do much that required her to be vertical Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  On Saturday I made a frantic trip to Target to get some sniffle meds that would not conflict with the expectorant I gave her in the morning, since everything suddenly moved into her face. 

The poor girl.  BeanzG11 gets sick in a major way.  When she gets a head cold or sinus stuff going on, she just starts leaking out of every orifice in her face, it seems.  Leaky eyes, leaky nose.  She just looks drippy.  Sunday the fevers set in and my relaxed, wait-the-virus-out attitude blew into the wind when ibuprofen wouldn't touch her fever, and frantic-mama-needs-to-save-her-baby blew in.  A call to the doctor's office got me a call back in a short few minutes, and I learned something new.   (Who knew?  With 4 kids, shouldn't I know it all?  I'll post about that another day.)  No need to be overly concerned if the fever won't come down with medicine, and it's very common in the evenings.  I'm not a new parent. My oldest is 13 (that's BananaG13).  BeanzG11 is, well, 11, but I've not had too much experience with fevers that cannot be controlled.

I also learned that I am too old to sleep in an overstuffed armchair with an ottoman pulled up to it.  This was my configuration last night while I let BeanzG11 sleep on the couch.  I mistakenly thought this would be more comfortable than sleeping with her in her twin bed, but I was dead wrong.  Yes, I could have had my darling love sleep on the couch while BeanzG11 and I stretched in the master bedroom, but he must work a long, hard day today and I didn't want him to be aching.  My night was a long series of waking up to find my too-big size 10 rear slipping into the meeting point of the chair and ottoman and pushing the ottoman out and away, causing me to constantly be dropping down between them.  It was lots of fun.  Occasionally I glanced over at BeanzG11 and thought about trying to comfortably fit us both on the couch, but by the time I thought of that I was hopelessly caught in the middle of too lazy, too stiff, too tired, too sore to bother changing everything. 

I hope my sore stiffness is a result of using the muscles in this flabby thing in an effort to stay afloat in my makeshift bed.  Maybe I found the answer...exer-sleeping!  If I was a better person, I would sleep there repeatedly and see if it toned my hiney so I could let you know, but that is so not happening.

We're off to the doctor today.  I'll take along a bucket and towels to catch everything leaking out of BeanzG11 and see what he has to say.

CPT

Update 2/12/12:
BeanzG11 has recovered quite nicely.  Doctor heard a nasty bronchitis in her chest; sent her for chest x-rays and just to be safe, started her on meds to treat pneumonia.  She perked up considerably after the initial super-dose of meds.  Chest x-ray came back a few days later to reveal no pneumonia.  She's fully back to her old self, lovely tween gal that she is.