The Baby Hates Life

The little angel is still sick. I apparently caught the virus that caused her ear infection, and now I understand why she would stand screaming in her crib at 2 a.m., begging us for a DNR with her little, crocodile tears and high-pitched wail.  Yesterday was the sickest I have felt since labor (a memory forever burned in my mind - all that stuff about "forgetting the pain" is crap).  My throat was so sore my voice sounded funny, and after that passed, my abdomin was seized with cramps like ten tiny men stomping up and down on my innards.  It was hellish.  At one point, my beloved (who had graciously taken the day off to care for our diarrhea-covered child while I mourned my birth in my own bed) saw me attempting to fill the little, blue, newborn bathtub with water (the little angel has now equated her big-girl bathtub with ear pain and screams whenever she sees it), doubled over in pain.  He sent me back to bed.  I felt useless, but was happy for the excuse to go moan pathetically in peace.

Last night, the little angel would sleep approximately an hour and a half before her congestion got the best of her, then she would stand up in her crib and wail until we came in.  She was so tired - the minute you cleaned her nose and put her back down, she would try to sleep - but it only last another hour and a half. For the past two nights, I have had to invoke the 5 .m. rule (in which the babe gets to come to bed with us after 5 a.m. in a beautiful example of Ferber-inspired parental rationalization) to get at least two hours of sleep before preparing for the day.

When I took her to bed last night, or this morning, as the case may be, I noticed she was not sleeping about ten minutes in. I looked down in the wee morning light to see these two blue orbs peeping up at me from mid-chest level.  She had been just staring at me for who knows how long. Staring with her little "please, Mama, make it go away" eyes.  (sob!)  All I could do was pat her head and reassure her that this would be nothing compared to junior high.  My poor princess!