Saturday, September 30, 2006

What's that smell?

This is not my favorite part of parenting. I haven't slept since, um, let me think...Thursday. That's assuming today is Saturday. I think it is, but I can't be sure. One thing I am sure of is that I smell really, really bad. Besides my own special brand of when-did-I-last-shower, I have also been peed on, puked on, cried on, snotted on, and possibly even pooped on, much of that repeatedly, since whenever that last shower happened. I also don't think I have brushed my teeth lately, or eaten anything resembling actual food. Oh, wait, yes I did eat meatloaf last night, courtesy of my fantastic life-saving friend Cole, who recovered my crockpot from the bottom of a sinkful of filth and washed it so I could make dinner. Love her.

Where was I? Oh, right, hating life. Or at least life with sick babies. This is how I feared life with twins would always be - chained to the couch, covered in babies and nastiness, trying everything and still having at least one of them crying all. the. time. Mercifully, it really isn't usually like this, but it sucks for now. Really, really sucks. Really. Funny word if you type it a lot. Really.

So, I had an epiphany while on the phone, also with Cole. I apologized for being whiny (which, dude, I really, really am), and I said I should suck it up. She very kindly suggested that I was sucking it up by still being here. I explained that I couldn't possibly run away, as just my odor would frighten away hotel clerks or other vagabonds, wherever I went. The moral of this story is that one of the tools babies have for keeping you around is to make you too disgusting to run away from home. They really have quite an arsenal (really), considering that they can't control their limbs or blow their noses (damn, I wish they could blow their noses) - first they reel you in with the cute, then they tie you down with the gross. Plus, I'd have to at least pack a toothbrush, and that's all the way upstairs. Yeah, I don't see that happening any time soon.

Thing 1 (aka girl twin) won't take medicine. Well, she'll take it, as she's very small and we can make her, but she won't KEEP it. She vomits up anything that isn't milk, along with huge amounts of other ick that she seems to store in her stomach, squirrel-like, as if on stand by in case the need arises to express her severe disapproval of medicine. This means that she is not getting better yet (we can hardly keep any of the antibiotics in her) and that she can't get pain relief. This, in turn, leads to the no-sleeping. I can't really (really) remember much of last night, and I'm having a very hard time telling what memories really (really) happened and which were catnap dreams, but I think she was up all night. I'm pretty sure of that. It sucks to feel awful for the poor thing, she's clearly in a lot of pain, while also being very, very annoyed that she won't just take the goddamned medicine so she can feel better.

Then there's Thing 2. He'll take medicine, and he seems to be feeling better, but he's the human vomit fountain. It doesn't seem to bother him that much, but I'm here to tell you, it's starting to bug the crap out of me. And anyone with a functioning olfactory system within a 100 yard radius of me. I've given up changing clothes when he pukes on me and I just use one part of my shirt to wipe up the newly wet part. My clothes are way the hell upstairs, and if I were going to go to that much effort, I might be tempted to grab my toothbrush and just hit the road. We so do not need me driving at this point in life. I feel close to hallucinations (which actually might be kind of fun, but not ideal for motor safety).

Well, I seem to have run out of whine, and have no logical wrap-up. That was always my problem in school (the wrap-up, not the whine). I'd write the intro, the body, sources, etc, but then just fizzle out. I guess the conclusion just seems redundant to me - if you didn't get what I meant from the introduction and the body, I guess I feel like it's too late. Wow, this is free association at its least intelligible, I think I'll just stop typing. There's an idea!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Deb, honey, you are earning your stripes! You must be living in a blur. I once spent a good hour calling all-night pharmacies to chase down a rumor that you can get antibiotic suppositories (and no, of course, you can't).

I think they give you more dose than you need because they account for half of it going down the chin or in the air, so Thing One might be getting something useful.

Laura said...

Sorry that you and the Things are suffering.

Though, on a lighter note, your descriptions of your suffering are extremely entertaining.

Gina said...

i so vividly remember the feeling that i had been somehow dunked (like a doughnut!) in milk and regurgitated milk. i too, pretty much just gave the hell up. and i only had i kid!
you know you rock, right??