Browsing Tag

cranky

motherhood

My kid went through ancient Chinese torture

August 10, 2009

I love long weekends but this one is turning out to be the worst long weekend ever. Now I wish it was a short weekend. First, Tru was taken ill with a flu of the most massive proportions. Then I broke my specs so it’s got a huge crack on the right lens and it keeps slipping off my nose and I have to keep pushing it back up like some gawky kid (the husband wants me to fix it asap as I also apparently look like the victim of domestic abuse.  And Kirsten has been terribly cranky, refusing to sleep and screaming away for extended periods.

After hearing a lot of good stuff about traditional chinese medicine, we decided to bring Tru for a consult. Believe it or not, the doctors are called physicians and this one had a particularly deadly name – Peng Ya Ling (whom I suspect was a former pugilist master). I was half expecting her to channel some “qi” (internal energy) into his system and attack his acupuncture points, but it was all pretty mild. All she did was look very thoughftul and  scribble furiously on her notepad while we explained all his symptoms. After that, she came back with a concoction of 25 herbs and spices in 14 neat little packs. On another note, despite his illness, Tru decided to turn on the charm and spent the whole consult flirting with her, touching her hand and smiling at her. Little Casanova.

Returning home with the meds, we were instructed to feed him the powder twice a day for 7 days. Now how does one feed POWDER to a BABY? The husband had a couple of ingenious ideas.

Husband: Maybe we should add it to his milk.

Me: He’s not stupid. He’ll refuse the milk and after that we’ll have to struggle with feeding him milk.

Husband: I know, we can add it to peanut butter to disguise the taste.

Me: Oh i know, i know- how about putting it into a piece of bread and rolling it up?

Husband: I think we’re just going to have to go primitive.

The first attempt, we tried adding water to it and then feeding him with a syringe, except that we added way too much water and he had ingest 15 full syringes of meds. The whole time, we had to pin him down and force open his mouth while he was screaming and kicking like he was being tortured.

The next round, I wised up and decided to go with a spoon. I also added less water to the mix so it ended up like a HUGE CLUMP OF HERBY PASTE. The screaming and kicking continued and this time, the clump was so huge that he puked it all out and there we were, trying to force back the puke into his mouth. I felt like a Nazi.

it looked like this - except worse. I kid you not.

it looked like this - except worse. I kid you not.

We can”t quite post an actual picture, just in case Social Services hauls us down for an interrogation.

I think the whole experience traumatized him so much that for the rest of the day, he was suffering from panic attacks, resulting in random screams throughout a day. And as I found out, crankiness is contagious. The screaming rubbed off on Kirsten and she too decided to join in the fun.

So that’s how my weekend went. Hang on while I push up my specs. I hope I don’t develop a lazy eye from having to see through one eye.

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pregnancy

10 reasons why baby is crying

July 28, 2009

The toughest part about taking care of a newborn is their inability to indicate what they want. After a while, the body adjusts to handle the late nights and the diaper accidents, but the crying is what really gets me. They’re so helpless and all they can do is cry regardless of whether they’re hungry, tired, fussy, gassy or bored. I know there are theories that suggest one can easily tell what the baby needs from the type of cry but 2 kids in, I’m still as clueless as ever. It all sounds the same to me and every time Kirsten cries, it’s all a matter of trial and error. Mostly error, which then leads to me being on trial.

With a toddler, it so much easier because they can point to the object of their desire and it’s pretty obvious what they want. Tru has this way of grabbing my hands to do his bidding as if they’re an extension of his own. He also grabs my face if he wants my attention. Life is much simpler when I get him and he gets me.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to infants. Whenever she starts screaming, it’s “take it from the top” time. I’ve got a checklist that I run through in order of importance to eliminate all the options until I find out what’s the cause of her displeasure.

1. Hungry. This is the top of the list for my little milk drinking machine. 70% of the time, she cries out of hunger, and milk quickly solves the problem.

2. Dirty diaper/nappy rash. If milk doesn’t solve the problem, check the diaper for poop.

3. Gassy. The solution is simple – burping, but it sometimes takes a helluva long time. I can pat her back for 45 minutes and still not hear that elusive burp. Believe me, at 4 in the morning, it’s sheer torture.

4. Sleepy. If the crying is due to sleepiness, Chucky will usually surface within a couple of minutes. Her eyeballs will start rolling up to the top of her head, leaving only the whites. Oh so cute.

5. Too hot. Bring on the air-conditioning.

6. Too cold. Bring on the blankets.

7. Sick. This is a tough one. The obvious signs are fever, coughing, sneezing, runny nose or diarrhea, which should be checked by the PD asap.

8. In pain. Sometimes her little fingers get caught in the crib or Tru jabs her too hard in the face. A little kissing should make the boo-boos go away in no time.

9. Bored. It’s time to bring on the juggling and fire-eating. Very excite.

10. Fussy. This is the absolute killer. When all the above fails, it usually means she’s in one of those legendary fussy moods where nothing works. This can last anything from 10 minutes to 2 hours. Even more excite.

Studies show that the sound of a baby’s cry causes one’s blood pressure to increase tremendously. Especially for mothers, it’s the most distressing thing to hear. MAKE. IT. STOP!

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not feeling so supermom

Groundhog Day

March 24, 2009

Great, my son is now also infected with the flu, which makes three. I feel like one of those ebola virus carriers they quarantine in the maximum security cells. Plus I just had one of those insane pull-out-your-hair-and-scream kind of days where you wish it would just be over.

Question: What do you get when you put 2 sick adults and a sick baby together? Groundhog Day.

The day just stretches on forever, and I keep finding myself back at the same place over and over again. Like that scene in the Matrix where you end up in the exact same spot no matter which way you go or how fast you run.

Let me see, where should I start. Tru woke up screaming at 5.45 this morning, cranky and hungry. To put it into perspective, he hasn’t woken up earlier than 6.30 since he was 4 months old, and I certainly do not function before the sun rises. Then for the rest of the day, he refused to sleep without being carried, and he would wake up after 20 minutes.

Normally, I wouldn’t indulge this sort of behavior, but looking into his doleful eyes, I couldn’t help myself. He had a stream of mucus running down his left nostril and his temperature was at 38.2 degrees. Every so often, he would sneeze and rub his nose in that cute baby fashion. So I did what every mother probably would. I held him for the whole afternoon and bawled like a baby.

I have to say, the little man is a real trooper. Thanks to his stuffed nose, every time he tried to suck his thumb to sleep, he would gasp for air and then repeat the process again. Well of course, there was no way of falling asleep like that, but he still tried anyway.

It seemed like the day would never end. But it did, and he finally drifted off to sleep. And for this fleeting moment, he looked at me as if to say, “thanks mom, I couldn’t have made it through without you.”

I guess I live to fight another day.

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