In The Trenches

That's my title (explanation?) for those parenting weeks when it just all comes crashing in.
My upper respiratory cold is kicking my butt. Most likely because I can't stop to be sick, rest and recover.

I am on the verge of tears at all times.
Like when I get a call from the six year olds school telling me that one of her staples has come loose/is falling out and maybe I should come and get her for a return visit to the ER.

The baby is napping. I was hoping to. The baby is, of course, now infected with my cold.
You know the drill, seems fine all day except from the tell tale runny nose - but lie her horizontal for sleep and all hell breaks loose.
Being up every two hours comforting a snotty, wailing baby does not fit in my personal recovery strategy.
(I would like you to know that I am so tired that it took me four attempts to spell strategy and I was so far off the mark the spell checker could not find a viable alternative. It did suggest tragedy - dramatic but poetic - I feel.)
Oh and did I mention that she is teething?

Back to the staples. I decide that I will not wake the baby so ask the school just to ignore dangling staple unless there is blood in large quantities. Amazingly - they agree.

I spend the next two hours feeling guilty and imagine a yawning hole spreading across the back of the six year old's head.
I am therefore unable to nap.

At pick up - I discover the staple is wiggly at best. it does not seem at risk for falling out. We do not go to the ER.

Instead we come home to work on the 28 Valentines needed for Friday.
I picture a sweet crafting session. I seem to have forgotten about the baby. I bought 28 wooden hearts for the six year old to decorate. What was I thinking? (Probably how much I'd like to be in bed with a hot drink and a good book.)
The baby is furious. She is literally standing with her arms folded across her chest giving me a filthy look.

"Me do too!" she asserts - quite rightly.

"Of course lovey - here's yours" I say, whilst lamely giving her a piece of paper and some pens.

"NO! WANT. THAT." She says pointing at the pile of wooden hearts.

With all my being I want to cry and shout "Well I want a hot bath and a day in bed but I'm not getting that am I?"
I remember just in time that I am not a teenager so instead go off in search of something that will satisfy her.
As it turns out I do have some other wooden shapes from some other craft that she is happy to scribble on.

The whole time I am spelling out the names of 28 people for the six year old to write on her hearts.
We manage to finish the 28 hearts and they look great (with the exception of one little boy's which instead of having his name on it - Jay - now bears a reference to sexual preference.)
One very creative fix later - we avoid a potential lawsuit.

We survive the dinner, bath and bed routine. I medicate the baby in the hopes of a six hour block of sleep.
The husband walks into the lions den - also showing signs of the dreaded cold. He was our last man standing. What now?
We are in the trenches.