Chunky Milk

Some days motherhood is such an easy, joyful experience.  Some days it sucks the life out of you.  Some days you’re just trying to survive.

My youngest son, Cy, had a 104.3 degree fever this week.  A fever this high should require immediate attention by a doctor and some sort of fast-acting medication.  Instead, it requires the 25-pound squirming, whining ball of fire to lie on top of his mommy for a good 24 hours.  There was very little sleep for me, although I guess Cy was pretty comfy as he drifted in and out of sleep all afternoon and night.  The next morning, I felt like death.  I had not had any sleep, and I started the day with cramps.  Fill in the blanks there.  It was not a good day.  I struggled all day to be nice to my sons.  I wanted to crawl into my bed and sleep all day, but that wasn’t an option. 

Every whine sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Every request for food or drinks or help in the bathroom took all my energy to complete.  I took a lot of deep breaths that day, especially as my oldest son refused to nap.  I had finally gotten Cy to nap in his bed—this was my chance!  But Will was not so cooperative.  There went the hope for a little catch-up sleep. 

Will’s been learning a song at preschool about the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians.  We practice it at home, so I constantly have the running list in my head.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  I’m pretty sure I had none of those that day.  Maybe they were lurking somewhere deep down, but they were definitely not on the surface and not evidenced to my kids.

There are days when I feel like a good mom, when I take my kids to the library or the park, when I get them to eat vegetables even if they don’t know it, when I have quality time with each of them.  Then there are days like these, when I actually run out of shows on the DVR because I’ve been sitting on the couch for so long just trying to get my baby to sleep only to have to wake him up just to take his temperature (rectally, no less) to make sure he’s still under 105 degrees, when I yell at my three-year-old for something ridiculous and feel horrible afterward, when I find chunky milk clinging to the sides of a sippy cup in the corner of the house that needs to be cleaned desperately.  I try to remember that every mom has days just like this.  I’m not alone.  Thankfully, we get to start fresh the next day.  And that’s just what I did.  This time, I even mopped.       

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