The hand break (and other things) Friday afternoon resulted in T and I going to visit Nats for wine around 4:30pm. I’d taken T’s dinner with us because then, for a change, I didn’t have to rush home for dinner time and it was lovely. At 6pm we headed home but N had a girlfriend visiting and they were going to braai, and to be 100% honest, I felt sad that I was going to miss out on a fun evening. When we got home I asked Shaun if I could rather go back to Nats for dinner instead of making (another) zoodle dish. Long story short, he said yes, so once T was asleep I sped out of here like a bat out of hell!
It was seriously so nice to go out on a Friday night, have wine, ciggies, girly chat and just let my hair down a bit. But, the hand break brought me back to reality with a hard BUMP! Aka, the fact that I am first and foremost a mum! And you know what, that’s 100% ok and I wouldn’t want it any other way. T is everything to me!
So Shaun messaged me around 9pm to say Tristan wasn’t settled and kept waking up coughing, crying then lying back down again. I needed to pick him up some cough mootie but there are NO pharmacy’s open late in the Southern Suburbs; Wynberg closes at 10pm and I wasn’t going to make it there in time. So I went to Kate and got some from her before heading straight home. When I got home Tristan was awake sitting up in his cot, I gave him the Flemeze and tried to get him back to sleep but he wouldn’t, he just wanted to be with me. Shame he must have been feeling so horrid. About 1,5 hours later I gave him some Dimetapp to help dry up some of the snot as well. Let’s talk about THE SNOT for a second. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much of it come out of one small human in my life. He just sneezed and it came pouring out, I sucked it out with the aspirator and more just kept coming. Shame the poor guy could barely breathe, and he wanted to obviously suck his dummy but couldn’t as he couldn’t breathe through his nose. I felt so sorry for him! Eventually, between moving from his room to my room, he fell asleep around 1/1:30am. I woke at 2am and took him back to his cot. I’d have loved to keep him with me but I knew both he and I would have a better sleep (no matter how short) if we were in our own rooms and beds.
This morning he woke at 5:45 and has had a ok day since. Last night seems to have been the worst. But what’s so bizarre is, he was 100% fine before he went to bed. No snotty nose, was happy, etc. It literally came on within a few hours of him being asleep! We went to the doctor just to rule out anything more sinister underlying but he’s just got a terrible cold. So we’ve given him Dimetapp through the day and he’s now sleeping peacefully. I hope he is able to sleep through and wake up normal time tomorrow (i.e. 6:40am-ish) and feel better. I have my fingers crossed I don’t get it though!
Something that I’ve been thinking about today is how I handled last night and today; I’ve had 4 hours of sleep. For me that’s dangerous territory; I used to lash out verbally, be just a horrid person to be around, was cold towards Tristan, etc when I still had my PND and today was a revelation that, when times are tough, I could still be a mom to T. Since I’ve been on my meds I haven’t had a “test” of hard times to see how I’d handle them and last night was the first. And you know what, I handled it like a pro! I didn’t even need to talk to myself like, ‘keep calm Jenni, you can rest tomorrow, it’s not his fault,’ etc. I sat with him on my chest all night till he fell asleep, I didn’t get angry with him once last night, I had compassion and I didn’t once have to think about it. I was just the mom I always wanted to be and it felt amazing. Even today with only 4 hours of sleep I have not gotten cross once, I’ve been, once again, that mom I had always dreamed I would be and have now become. So proud of myself and I’m taking a moment to bask in it!
