SICK of It, So To Speak

I’m getting tired of typing the words “It’s been a tough week.” It’s starting to feel like every week is a tough week. Charlotte is sick. Again. She’s on antibiotics. Again. This time she has a lot of congestion in her chest. If the antibiotics don’t clear it out by the end of this weekend, we’re doing a chest x-ray on Monday. Woo. Hoo. All this is bad enough. The thing is, we were stretched pretty thin to begin with as we launched this week. Chris is overworked and overscheduled (a billion meetings per day). He has practically no desk time, so he has to work on actual work when he gets home. This leaves Mommy to feed/bathe/put down Charlotte and, on occasion, make dinner. Fine. Then he got summoned for jury duty. And of course they selected him for a 3-day criminal trial. At least it’s not a 2-week trial, right? Meanwhile, this is conference season at my work. I have more books than I can count that I’m trying to get to press before April. I hate, hate, hate the conference rush, and I have people harping on me from countless directions. I’m totally buried. So of course yesterday morning I received a call from Charlotte’s teacher. My girl had a 101.2-degree temperature. I was in NO position to leave work, but Chris was stuck in the trial. So I literally ran around the office sending things here and there to keep at least one book moving forward, threw a few hundred pages of proofs into my work bag, and raced to pick up Charlotte and take her to a 10:45 appointment with the pediatrician. I’m home with her today, working during Charlotte’s naps. Chris is skeptical that the trial will wrap up today, but it just has to. Next Monday and Tuesday, I have 2-day training course in Alexandria that I absolutely cannot miss because my organization has forked over a very large amount of $$ for me to get smarter. So if she is still sick and the trial is still going, Chris will just have to tell the judge. I mean, that’s why they have alternates, right? Even if the trial ends, Chris can't miss a fourth day in a row at work, should Charlotte still be sick. And I can't miss my training. We'll deal with that on Monday, I guess. Then we have a thing we have to attend next Wednesday night, assuming Charlotte is better. Then Chris has to go to Dallas for work for the remainder of the week, returning very late Friday night. All of that makes for an unusually stressful week, but as we’ve learned, a little cough from Charlotte indicates every little plan or task can get about 100 times more complicated and difficult to accomplish. Now, I don’t want to turn this post into a who-has-it-harder competition, but I cannot overemphasize how difficult it is to not have family near as we raise this little girl. I know, I know, we chose to live on the East Coast. It’s our own fault, but I also won’t apologize for living someplace where we both have decent jobs. The economy is too crappy to be picky. Besides, we adore our little town. Still, we can’t just call Grandma (either one) to help us out when things get tricky. We are entirely on our own, and if I think about it too much, it makes me feel strangely lonely. Our city slicker friends (whom we love) are in a different “life stage” (i.e., sans kids), so we can only fake being cool to a very limited degree. I mean, attending a happy hour is a joke. We have to pick up Charlotte! Unless, of course, we plan it a week in advance and drive separately to work that day so Chris can meet up with some friends while I go gather the child. And so forth. We’re making friends with the neighborhood folk, which is very kid-centered and that’s really, really nice. But just about everyone I can think of has one (if not TWO) sets of grandparents within 20 miles, not to mention aunts and uncles. Some might live as far away as Pennsylvania—which is CLOSE, in my opinion. I feel like we’re the only ones raising a family without a net, so to speak. Like nobody else I interact with GETS IT. I'm sure this isn't really the case, but it sure feels like it. Meanwhile, last night Charlotte had a rough night and eventually ended up in Mommy and Daddy’s bed, as endless rocking was getting us nowhere. We were like heap of puppies in the family bed, with one puppy in particular breathing like Darth Vader, randomly popping up like a ferret, and kicking, kicking, kicking as she slept. So as I tried to avoid getting kicked and thus failing to sleep in my puppy heap, I tried to put everything in perspective. This week and next week will be manageable. Hard, but manageable. For starters, we only have one kid. What if we had two that were sick? Well, that would be harder. Second, when Charlotte gets sick, at least I don’t have to worry about how much a doctor’s visit or her meds will cost. The child is insured. Next, my boss is VERY understanding when I (repeatedly) have to say, “My kid is sick. I’m leaving.” And, well, at least we HAVE jobs to neglect when Charlotte becomes sick. Finally, my girl is not ill with anything serious. Spend a few days in the pediatric unit at your local hospital, and you’ll spend the rest of your life awash in gratitude that your kid actually is, despite the thermometer reading, quite healthy. So. My mom says, “You’ll do it. A few years from now, you’ll wonder how you survived the little-kid years while working, but you’ll do it.” She then followed up her sage words with the caveat, “Of course, I stayed home with you—and you were never sick. And, well, I only worked part-time after Tyler was born, before eventually going back to full-time.” “See?” I said. “It’s not the same.” “Maybe,” Mums said. “But I didn’t have cleaning ladies who came to my house every 2 weeks.” Okay then. We’re even. And now I feel better. See? THIS IS WHY I BLOG.