off the couch....and into the fire

we have recovered.

i think when i wrote that last post, i was at the absolute low point of the sick week. i pulled myself together the next day, and by yesterday he was back to normal, tearing around the house like his normal monkey-on-crack self, eating solids, and making jokes.

today....well, i think i'd have preferred another day on the couch with bob the builder.

we woke up at 9, which is insanely late, especially considering that we had to leave for playgroup at ten and seeing as i'm the one running the damn playgroup we couldn't be late. so i jumped out of bed and into the shower, which was my fatal mistake. i should have taken him, or asked stephen to take him, downstatirs right away for breakfast, since it was an hour past when he normally eats and he was probably starving. but i didn't, and i paid the price. by the time i got him downstatirs---after getting him dressed while he screamed about wanting more of my body oil on his hands, which i wouldn't give him because his hands were already covered in it (he likes to put lotion on with me in the mornings, which is usually fun, we will never repeat the body oil again, never!)---he was at a dangerous point.

he asked for cheese and tomato jam on his toast. i checked the cheese; it was moldy. i told him no cheese. he then began a cry of "mama, want cheese and mato jam on my tooooooast!" that lasted through making our breaskfast (i put butter on his toast instead, he almost threw it on the floor), downstairs to get into his coat (he had a conniption fit when i tried to put his winter coat on him, insisted he wanted to wear his vest, so ended up in two fleeces and the damn vest), over the entire walk 8-block walk to playgroup in the stroller, and finally in the snack chair at playgroup, between bites of the butter-and-tomato-jam toast that he finally did eat. by the time he finished the toast, he was fine. i, of course, was fried.

which is how we ended up where we are now.... he is curently up in his room screaming "mama, want to nurse ba-boo!!" and i am down here trying to ignore it. see, i still nurse him down for his naps. normally he nurses for about 15 minutes, nods out, and sleeps for about 2 hours. today? 45 minutes and he was still wide awake. i just could not lie there another minute.

i'm not totally confident that he'll be able to fall asleep for a nap without nursing. i think at this point, since he has been nursing down to nap for so long, he may just stop taking naps when i stop nursing him down. which is a terrifying thought. but it has kept me from trying to wean him from the nap-nurse, because i haven't been confident that it would work.

and really, i'm still not. but i am confident that i am kind of at the end of my rope after this week, and this morning, and i need a break.

i told him that we were going to do this just like bedtime: i was going to go downstairs, and he was going to lie in bed till he fell asleep, and if he didn't fall asleep right away, he could lie there quietly. well, it's been 20 minutes, and "quietly" is not the word i'd use to decsribe how he's been handling it. i think he's started to kick the wall.

could it be that he's not tired because he slept so late this morning? maybe. or that he wants to nurse so much more because he's still not quite over the sick? maybe. but if i don't get some time without him during the day, i'll be nothing but crabby and mean the rest of the day. so, what's the better alternative? give in and resent him, or let him cry some?

i'm not going up there yet. i can't. i may sit here and cry along with him, but at least i'm sitting by myself.