I should have known better

And then a day like yesterday came around, and I forgot all my self-professed gratitude and spent much of the afternoon sobbing on the floor in a puddle.

It started out as one of those days where everything Josh and I said to each other turned into an argument, and because we can't leave well enough alone, one of us would call the other one back after the argument and escalate it by saying stupid things we don't really mean.

Then Gabe started acting up and whining over every little thing and demanding to be carried by my poor aching sciatica-ed back. Seriously, whining over every little thing. He wants to eat, he doesn't want to eat. He wants to play with his train, he doesn't want to play with the train. Oh my God, you can't possibly want me to walk the 10 feet into the kitchen without being carried- no, no, no, no, noooooooooooo and let me throw myself on the floor crying to get my point across. To make matters worse, he sat in his crib for 2 and a half hours and refused to nap for the entire time for the first time ever in his life and I couldn't relax because all I did was sit there and watch him on the monitor and listen to him whine and will him to PLEASE SLEEP ALREADY.

So at 4:30pm I decided that we absolutely had to leave the house, so we went to Blockbuster to rent some movies and CVS to buy some Children's Tylenol that was on super sale (this Tylenol thing may have been ESP on my part). It was a disaster. He was running around Blockbuster like a crazy person and throwing movies all over the place and it was impossible to pick a movie while simultaneously yelling at him to STOP RUNNING AWAY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. CVS was just as terrible because the cart was small enough that he could reach the things I put in there and he would toss them out while we were walking the aisles.

I finally gave up and came home and realized that we were past dinnertime and he was standing at my legs begging for a "nacks, pease, nacks" (otherwise known as snacks, please, snacks) while I was trying to cook at the stove so I served him a random piecing together of everything I could make in 3 minutes. Finally, FINALLY, I got him to bed and I breathed a sigh of relief and took the time to shoot Chatty Cricket an email telling her that this had been the most interminable day ever and I was about to curl up on the couch with a cup of Dr. Pepper and one of my favorite movies.

I did curl up on said couch, took a sip, and heard a strange mewling noise from upstairs and then that telltale awful cough that is followed by a gag, and you can imagine what happened next. Lots of vomiting. Lots and lots of vomiting, with lots of crying, and a child who busted out with full-blown croup like symptoms where he sounded like he couldn't breathe throughout the night and was up at 9:30, 10:45, 12:00, 1:00, 2:30, 4:30, and then 6:00 for the day. And in between those times, I was lying there wondering how serious this really was because it sounded like a barge was going through his lungs every time he took a breath.

Josh got home from work sometime after 11pm, and left sometime around 6:30am, so although he suffered through the nighttime wake-ups with me, he couldn't be much help.

And then today, I had to face the realization that he couldn't go to the toddler program this sick, as much as I really, really, really wanted him to.

So that's that. Today has been a tiny bit less miserable, mainly because I feel sorry for him so I'm trying to be more sympathetic, but when I stood in the hallway for 45 minutes while he screamed that he wanted to go back to sleep at naptime but then screamed louder if I tried to lie down with him in bed or put him down in his crib, it was tiring. I felt like screaming back, but kept it together, barely. We've watched a lot of television, and I have done a lot of sighing and eye-rolling.

Here's hoping tonight and tomorrow are better than today, and that I can get my upbeat vibe back.