The Queen's Rambles

When Erik was a baby I was all over different baby sites. I knew all the pitfalls of babydom. I knew the diseases inside and out. If he was sick I could diagnosis him in three seconds flat. Doctor? Pshaw. Who needs a stinkin’ doctor.

I don’t know what happened. I don’t know anything this time around. I haven’t logged into my Babycenter birth board since the day before Elsa was born. I don’t read anything about developmental milestones or anything else. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just. . . well. . . I don’t know. What will happen will happen, right? Nothing I can do to control any of it, except maybe make sure she’s not eating ant poison from behind the couch or licking all our goose poop-y shoes.

So she had a high fever for a few days. Fever broke, suddenly she was covered in a rash.

As a first time mom I would have immediately known “Roseola! Nothing we can do but wait. No need to see a doctor. Poor, poor baby. Panic panic panic my sweets is in pain.”

As a second time mom with almost five years between the kids it never even occurred to me to look up her illness online. I barely connected the rash to the fever. It’s covering her head, mainly, so I thought she developed a sudden allergy to her shampoo. Mike was convinced she was allergic to the sweater he was wearing. I checked the label and it was 100% cotton, so not very likely.

Off we trotted to the doctor, only to be told there was nothing we could do. No way to comfort her. Poor baby has a common virus.

If I was a first time mother I would be beating myself up for not knowing. As a second time mother and one who has seen roseola before? Eh. I can’t be too fussed about beating myself up. I’m more concerned about beating myself up for being mean to my son.

Mike and I got no sleep last night. No sleep. None. Elsa was screaming and scratching herself all night. We tried various creams and potions but they did nothing but make her scream more. I don’t have much patience today.

Erik is still obsessed with his jewels and his crystals. After listening to him talk non-stop about them for at least 2 hours, constantly being asked “Do you like jewels, mommy? Are jewels your favorite thing in the whole world? Why not? Which jewel is your favorite jewel in the whole world? Do you like that I have jewels in my backyard? I’m the only boy in the world with jewels in his backyard. I love jewels. Do you love jewels? Do you love jewels? I love jewels? Jewels are shiny. Do you love my shiny jewels? Am I rich? Do you love my jewels? I love jewels. Look at my jewels! Hey, random stranger in the grocery store, look at my jewels! My mommy loves jewels. My mommy loves me because I have jewels in my backyard. . . ” You can just imagine how drained I am about this conversation about jewels.

I went with him into the backyard and discovered the little step area in front of our storage shed that had been carefully balanced with stepping stones and little shiny rocks is a completely sunk in mess, almost totally devoid of little shiny rocks.

I try to be patient. I really, really try. Sometimes my nerves get a wee bit shot.

This evening I finally went over to see my neighbor’s new baby. Her older son is 3, but looks like he’s 5. He speaks very limited English. He is more than a handful and Erik had no idea that A) he is only 3 and B) He doesn’t speak English. It turned into a nightmare with Erik hitting the kid, screaming at the kid and basically being the most embarrassing child I’ve ever had the horror of taking with me. I thought I was going to start crying right then and there. Of course I disciplined him, but I was feeling very ineffective with the mom saying “it’s ok, it’s ok” and the other boy screaming and I was holding the six week old baby. When we got home it took every single effort of self-control not to just start whaling on the child, I was so embarrassed. That is NOT how he acts and I don’t know why he thought it was ok. Just thinking about it is making me angry all over again. Sometimes I think he wants me to string him up by his ears. I don’t want to string him up by his ears. I just want him to act like a normal human being.

And now I’m going to go take a hot bath or something. Except I hate our bath tub so that doesn’t sound very appealing. Taking a nap would be best, but maybe I can wait a couple of hours for a proper bedtime. The real doctor and Dr. Google both say that her rash could last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Here’s hoping it disappears sooner rather than later and we can get some sleep tonight.