I'm so tired I could...

thump.

That's the sound of my head hitting the pillow this afternoon for a well-deserved nap... or rather, it would have been if Little O hadn't been such a godawful ratbag and woken up time and time again to scream the house down or throw up.

I bloody hate Fridays.  Traditionally Tuesdays were my least favourite day of the week because while you can get a good nights sleep over the weekend and charge your batteries for Monday, there's no such opportunity for Tuesdays.  You've still got to get up and have a day of misery at work, but you're running on less sleep and more angst than the day before.  It's traditionally been a bit shit.

But now Fridays are a bit shit.  I'm just so tired and fed up with being forced to be stay-at-home-mom that I spend the whole day watching the clock and waiting for my husband to get home.  I had to get my sorry arse out of bed early this morning to take Bob to the vet for some vaccinations, so I prayed Little O would do the decent thing and let me sleep as long as possible... no such luck.  He woke up AS SOON as my husband left for work at 5.45am (a common theme, and I feel the two aren't entirely unrelated) and threw up, did a poo, then yelled at me to come and clean both messes up.  And of course I couldn't get back to sleep after that, so I was all kinds of moody at the vet and have continued to simmer and seethe ever since.

Little O is just driving me mental.  He's my favourite person in the whole wide world, which is why when he acts up I get a bit demented.  I feel like he's deliberately pushing my buttons( which of course he isn't), and sometimes when he cries or coughs or poos and MAKES himself throw up it feels really personal.  It feels as though I'm failing him somehow, and he knows it.  We have a procedure next week to try Botox injections into Little O's stomach.  And an endoscopy.  And a contrast study.  And anaesthesia.  And all kinds of other bollocks that I'm too tired and miserable to discuss.  I just want something to change.  I want the doctor to point at a screen, go, "Oh look!  That's the problem!", and fucking fix it.  Little O and I have been dealing with this for 15 months now.  It isn't fair.  MAKE THIS REFLUX GO AWAY.

I was at the gym yesterday doing a Zumba class, and right slap bang in the middle of some kind of ridiculous twisty move, two things happened.  One, I felt a rib go 'pop'; and two, it struck me how pointless everything else in my life is until this reflux gets sorted.  Why the hell am I investing my time and energy into an extremely camp exercise class, when my child is at home throwing his guts up every two hours?  My mother wants me to go and visit the UK in February with Little O.  By myself.  For 'a break', as she put it.  Yeah, right.  Because travelling for nine hours on a plane with a baby who won't stop throwing up will of course be 'a break'.  That's it's very definition.  Don't get me wrong: I don't mind going to the UK and taking a small child with me, but I don't want to do it alone.  It took all the strength in both of us to keep calm and carry on when my husband and I flew over at Christmas, and it took even MORE strength in me to do the same in Seattle.  It's just different when you're by yourself, and it's hugely different when you're dealing with a baby with special needs.

Still, Sunday beckons, and with it the enticing invitation to appear on BBC Radio.  I'm naturally a night owl so I'm actually really, really looking forward to drinking loads of Diet Coke and staying awake until the wee small hours.  And I'll have a fantastic, legitimate reason for poking my husband to get out of bed in the morning to deal with Little O's vomit/poo/screaming, because I'll have been working until 3am.

It's amazing that I consider that 'a break'.

Tina.

Seattle and other stuff

Since I last updated, Owen and I took a short break to Seattle to see some friends who moved out there last year.  I was pregnant when they moved so they've never met Owen, and it was really nice to travel out there and do some catching-up.  They have a two-year-old who is completely off the wall, and it was hilarious watching her interact with Owen, wondering on earth they were making of each other.

I'm pretty impressed with myself for managing this trip alone to be honest, as there was a four hour flight out there, and (once you calculate in all the frickin' delays and shit) an even longer one home.  And not only that, but on the Wednesday before we left Owen woke up with a cough, which slowly became an absolutely horrendous sinus infection, complete with five minute cycles in the middle of the night of falling asleep, coughing, waking up and then throwing up.  I'm not kidding or exaggerating - every.  single.  five.  minutes.  We left home Thursday morning after me seriously considering not going, and that night was possibly one of the worst I've ever endured with my son.  The last time things were so bad was in September, when he was not only recoving from hernia surgery, but also had pneumonia AND a 48-hour EEG monitor stuck to his head.  Yup, that was pretty bad, but at least Mike and I were in it together and we were in our own home.  This time I was by myself in someone else's flat.  I felt absolutely miserable and exhausted the next day, which really put a dampner on the entire trip.  He did improve slightly over the next few days, but he was still very poorly on Sunday during the flight home, so Mike took Monday off work to help me get some rest and to take Owen to the doctor.  You know things are bad when Mike takes time off work.

Little O is now responding to antibiotics and seems basically back to himself again, other than being a bit more sleepy and cuddly than usual - which I am in no way complaining about!  He's back on the nebulizer for a bit and the antibiotics are making his poo purple, but other than that things are getting back to normal.

I'm so glad I went to Seattle, even if it was incredibly tiring.  Now I can REALLY put up an argument when people humm and harr about flying with small children.  Get over it!  Heavens; if I can fly solo across a continent with a very poorly, tube-fed, refluxing 11-month-old, then you can fly with your very normal, healthy child, fully supported by a spouse! 

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But Seattle was nice!

Tina.