Bleh.

I was sick all day on Friday.  Seems to be a 24-hr stomach flu, because it left as quickly as it came.  But for all of Friday, I was sick.  S. I. C. K.  When I tweeted "it's like your worst hangover, anxiety attack, and morning sickness rolled into one" I wasn't kidding.  The only answer to the tweet asking if I could mix pepto and immodium was from Pepto themselves, reminding me that there are warnings on the labels. 

Being sick as a single parent is a special kind of ... experience.  Normally I would just call in the reinforcements (my mom).  However, she was on a preplanned road trip to a winery with two good friends, and - although my first throw-up was early enough that I very well could have called her and asked her to cancel plans or take the wee one - I thought I could tough it out on my own.

By 3:00 in the afternoon I was counting minutes until her return.  When she asked me to pack a diaper bag I just randomly threw some crap into a reusable grocery bag and hung it on the door for when she arrived.

In the interim, I laid on the couch and watched my kid destroy the living room.  I got up long enough to make her a cheese sandwich that she didn't eat.  I slept while she napped, and then couldn't get up without throwing up, so I let her play with all the "no-no"s in my room while I laid in bed and tried not to shiver.  She went through a brand-new box of tissues, another one of my toothbrushes, a partial can of coke, a bottle of contact solution (hey, the saline helped dilute the spilled coke that I had to wipe up off the floor), and finally, my phone.

My dad brought me some phenergan and some other stuff.  I took the phenergan, went to bed, and woke up happy and normal.  Amazing.

They did not fare the evening so well, apparently.  Dad said that Mom didn't get her to sleep until after 9:00 - they didn't do bath or books, so I'm wondering how Mom expected her to even know it was bedtime, but okay - then during the 3 am wakeup, my mom started getting sick herself.

So the first all night sleepover at Nan and Grandpas wasn't totally smooth, but now the weekend is over, and we've all had The Sick, and now it's time to survey the aftermath.

My house is a wreck.  Not just because of Friday, but just because.  I did at least do dishes on Saturday, so that's something.  Even when I "clean", my house is still a shitty wreck, because I don't have the energy to, or know how to, properly clean.  Cleaning is HUGE anxiety trigger for me - I didn't understand this until reading stuff other people write about the same issues I have.  Then suddenly it all makes sense for me.  Amazing.  Now, what to do about it?

So a friend was giving me a tv.  I had straightened up the living room enough that my dad wouldn't curse too loudly when he got here with the tv.  But then he asked me where I wanted the old tv.  I thought of a day a couple of months ago when I wanted to finish watching a football game in bed, and thought it would be nice to have a tv in my room again, so I thought I'd move it to my room.  In order to do that, I had to move around The Mess to make room.  So now that room is all disrupted and even Messier.

Then my dad wants to go to the basement to check out the cable, to see if he can run cable to my room.  To clear a path, I shove dirty laundry, all carefully sorted yesterday, into a side area of the basement.

While they are checking out the cable I try hanging baby clothes in an attempt to do something that might make a difference.  Guess what?  Closet is too full, and one laundry hamper of put-away clothes doesn't make a damn bit of difference in what the house looks like. 

So I'm freaking out and overwhelmed at the new tv, which is huge and doesn't seem stable enough and I'm now convinced it's not safe for my living room with a toddler.  I'm loathing my bedroom which has a tv that's too big and now the dresser is in the wrong spot and the whole place is a wreck ...

So I head back to mom's to get the wee one.  Mom is also in the throes of organizing her house.  Since she's the one who taught me everything, you can imagine her house is in a similar state.  She has pulled everything out of a back, insignificant closet, so her stuff is now all in the living room.  I decided that feeling overwhelmed at my house in the middle of my own chaos and crap was much better than being at her house in the middle of her chaos and crap, so we came home.

In the middle of all of this, I start getting crampy, and yes, it has been two weeks since my TMI post, hasn't it.  PMS much?

While trying to clean the kitchen, I throw away two entirely full, never touched, containers of yogurt.  Sometimes my kid loves yogurt, sometimes she doesn't.  But what drives me nuts is that lately she will ask for it, then refuse it.  "yo-ee?".  She will even get a container out of the fridge and bring it to you.  "yo-ee?  yo-ee?"  You open it in front of her, stick a spoon in it, and she shakes her head.  You try to feed her, you leave it set on her table in the hopes that she will feed herself, and it sits there until you pick it up and throw it away.  So after throwing away two of those today, my kid asks for yogurt again.  And when I say no, she throws a fit.

So by this time, I am Out Of Patience.  It's the chaos, it's the PMS, it's the yogurt.  It's the prep for work that I need to do this week but haven't.  It's the assignment that I need to work on for my class but can't.

But what can you do?  You can't walk out the door and go have a drink like the olden days.  You can't call mom yet again, when she saved you when you were sick and she watched the kid most of the day while you were getting a new tv.  You can't yell.  You can't punch a wall, no matter how much a third container of uneaten yogurt may make you want to.

So when she asked for her bath at 5:30, I quickly obliged.  Of course you can take your bath and get ready for bed now.  Please, please do.

On the rocking chair, reading books, she's yawning (as am I, but too much to do before I can sleep).  It's 6:00, this is awesome.  I might even be able to clean the sticky shit off the kitchen floor, which might help the chaos feeling, right?

When suddenly she gets a second wind.  Wants to read every book in her room.  Wants to chant "Nee, Boppa, Sage (the dog), Mike (the friend who helped with the tv)" for an hour.  Wants yogurt.  Wants juice.  Wants Dora y Boots. 

There goes time for my clean kitchen floor.

Finally, I rocked her to sleep.  Despite the early bath, she went to sleep right at the usual time of 7:30 on the nose.

I was hoping that writing it all would help me feel less ... overwhelmed/angry/anxious/overwhelmed.  Maybe with the angry.  Not with the rest.  I can't even figure out what's the more important thing to work on now and what can wait for 8 am, so I'm doing nothing except blogging.  Which is totally helping the kitchen floor/messy bedroom/laundry thing, right?

And now I want to just delete this whole thing, because it's just crap.  It's just me being hormonal crap, and who needs that?