October 16, 2010
Today was a completely useless day.
I didn't get up, I mean really up, until 3.00.
In the afternoon, that is.
How come?
Excema.
I have excema, and it always gets bad when the seasons change.
Especially the change from fall to winter.
The itching has been known to make me crazier than usual.
Consequently, I have prescription antihistamines.
And I had to take them last night.
Anyone whose ever taken Benadryl knows the power of over-the-counter antihistamines.
Prescription antihistamines. . . .ummmmmmm. . . .
Hence, I wasn't able to achieve full consciousness until around 3.00 pm.
Luckily, I've only had to antihistamines for excema.
Never for allergies.
However, I did, only once, experience hives.
I was still living in Southern Ontario, in a townhouse complex a 10 minute walk from my in-laws.
My ex and I were in the midst of what would be our last separation before I moved back to New Brunswick.
The ultimate separation as it were.
The hives. . .right. . .
To this day, I have no idea how I came to get hives.
I just know that one evening, around 10 pm, once the Meredyth and Keith were in bed, I started scratching.
And it wasn't just one spot, it was all over.
Peering into the bathroom mirror, I noticed these red bumps all over me.
And to say they were itchy is an understatement.
I filled the bathroom sink and slathered myself with calomine lotion.
All that did was make me look like I had fallen into a vat of pink chalk dust.
All night.
Scratching.
Not sleeping.
Finally, at 6 am, I gave in and called my in-laws who picked the three of us up and took us to St. Joe's hospital.
Luckily, it was the one and only time an Emergency Room anywhere in the Western world didn't have a waiting room jam packed with sick people squeezed together tigther than sardines in a can.
I was in and out in 20 minutes.
The doctor gave me a shot of some really potent antihistamine.
Home by 7.30 am, I fed the kids a second breakfast, having fed them before we left, and then we sat down to watch a movie.
Because when you have really small children, there is no time that isn't a good time to show a movie.
Especially when mummy is hyped on an injection of antihistamines.
Before I knew it, I was completely, sound asleep.
Not because I wanted to be, but because even my will to remain awake wasn't strong enough to overpower the antihistamines following freely throughout my body. Antihistamines that had taken control over my sleep center forcing my brain to send out messages screaming, "SHE MUST SLEEP!"
But my conscience was screaming equally as loud, "SHE CAN'T. WHO'LL LOOK AFTER THE KIDS????!!!!!"
My brain responded, "NOT MY PROBLEM!!!!!! THE MEDS HAVE ORDERED SLEEP!!!"
And we know who won that battle.
Let the games begin.
Meredyth, as any precocious child would, took complete and full advantage of her mother's unwillingly unconscious state.
Not willing to be completely silenced, my conscience would occasionally overpower my brain long enough to force me awake to survey the uncontrolled chaos that was taking place around me.
I would wake up long enough to see Mer exercising her artistic creativity all over the living room walls, in my best lipstick, using my eyeshadow to shade and eyeliner to makes those finer lines.
But before I could do anything, I was out.
This was one of the periods in my life when I wore makeup.
Events like this likely precipitated my eventual eschewing of makeup all together.
Mer also made a lovely pile of flour, sugar, and assorted herbs and spices on the carpet.
Every pot, pot lid and pan I owned was scattered throughtout the living room.
VHS tape towers tettered precariously.
But the worst thing, worse than everything combined, was swimming to near consciousness only to be greeted with the saccharine sweetness of the purple dinosaur with the green spots.
That's right.
Barney.
And friends.
Perhaps Barney and his obnoxious band of perpetually perky pre-teens was the mitigating factor in not being able to achieve full consciouness. My conscience was thinking, "Screw that. Waking her to Barney is considered cruel and unusual punishment. Let her be. "
Keith, because he was Keith, napped beside me.
Both of us woke up with our faces adorned in every single form, type, kind, of makeup I owned.
Finally, around 1.00 pm, I called my former mother-in-law and asked if we could please come over.
She arrived 5 minutes later, and upon walking in the house exclaimed, "I should have taken you all to my house this morning!"
Once at her house, I crashed in the spare room until she came to get me for supper.
After supper, I went back home and it took me hours to get Mer's lipstick graffiti off the walls.
To vacuum the concoction she so artfully arranged on the carpet.
And don't even ask about how I managed to get the makeup off Pookie's face.
No child under the age of two is ever excited about that much soap and water coming into contact with their face.
Not to mention make up remover.
Sleeping until 3.00 pm because of antihistamines is so not the worst thing I've ever experienced.
And the repercussions to house, home, and my face where significantly less as well.
Unfortunately for Keith, this was not the only time Mer used his body, or parts of it, for her own entertainment.
Once she accepted that, despite her begging and pleading, I was not going to take him back to the hospital, she decided that she may as well enjoy him.
Meaning one afternoon, while I was in the kitchen making cookies, I heard a lot of "hold still" and giggling coming from upstairs.
Upon investigation, it would seem that Mer thought that it would be fun to make her brother look like a mini version of the Michelin man.
Taking the paper like covers off all of my maxi pads, she gleefully plastered her brother with them, starting from the top down.
Poor little guy had no idea what she was doing.
When he was two weeks old, we lived in a scuzzy apartment in downtown Hamilton.
I saw this building in May when we went to a conference.
It has been gentrified.
But it wasn't then.
I have lots of reminisences about that building, let me tell you.
But for now, that was where we were living.
Happily making cookies for me and mine, I noticed that Keith wasn't making any of his happy gurgling sounds.
Because Mer had placed between his toothless gums a homemade chocolate chip cookie.
The pleasure on my little Pookie's puss was a sight to behold.
The world didn't taste like milky mush. There were foods that tasted like. . . .something.
When I removed this cookie, I was greeted with the not-so-happy-sounds-of-a-pissed-off-infant.
Mer piped up, "THAT'S why I put the cookie in its mouth. To shut it up. It make too much noise and I can't hear the tv."
Sibling sensibility.
Luckily, the cookie didn't ruin Keith's appetite for milky mush permanently.
He managed to ascertain that any food filled the void, no matter what it tasted like.
He still thinks like that.
Ask my grocery bill.
Title Lyric: I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon to Your Star by The Boy Least Likely To
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