Week in Mothering

My week in mothering:

• Sick baby. Croup. Breathing treatment and a dose of steroid in some chocolate syrup (at doctor's office) seemed to remedy it. Fever quickly subsided. Then the more normal symptoms of a cold set in. Lots of coughing. Lots. Also a lot of nose-wiping. Extremely grateful for modern medicine. Croup used to kill kids. Scary, I tell you.
• The illness produced a baby who refused to sleep. I took him on a drive on Wednesday night at like 10:30 to get him to sleep. (Normally we put the kid in bed about 6:30, he waves goodbye, and we don't hear from him until morning.)
• Thursday morning he refused to nap. I rocked him to sleep. Failed crib transfer. Rocked him to sleep again. Failed crib transfer again. Decided maybe if he just cried for a few minutes he'd fall asleep on his own.
• Loud thud. Baby on floor. Had no idea he could climb out of his crib. Tears from him. Near-tears from me. Decided to let him stay up and play. Maybe later we'd take a drive.
• By afternoon he was carrying his monkey around. When I said, "Do you want to have a nap?" he took my hand and headed to his room. Finally some sleep. For both of us.
• Eric lowered the crib when he got home. Again Ike would not go to bed. Went on a drive. Succeeded in getting the baby to sleep, but only temporarily. Brought him home, let him play, then let him cry for 25 minutes until he fell asleep.
• Friday and Saturday much more pleasant, but still a lot of snot.
• Now I'm coming down with the cold. Darn it.

All this interrupted with many moments of sheer mothering joy. Also, we can now add "cracker" to the list of words he readily says ahead of "mama." I'm not bitter - yet.