Get a grip!

So last night, before I FINALLY got tired enough to go to bed, I checked on the kids. I found Jesse sitting up in his crib, crying. I figured maybe he had a bad dream or a messy diaper so I picked him up and brought him out to the living room. I changed his diaper, gave him his pacifier and gently rocked him back to sleep, singing a lullaby. When he finally went back to sleep (he kept dozing off and waking up again against my shoulder), I put him back into the crib. Then I went out to the living room just to see my husband arrive home from work. I was too tired to stay up any longer so I told him I was going to bed. When I got to my bed, though, I felt like I needed to check on the baby one more time. He was awake again. Crying again. So I picked him up and took him out to the couch again. As I started to check on his diaper, my husband bent over to talk with him and pat his head. Right when he took the pacifier out of his mouth, Jesse threw up on the couch.

From that point, it was an endless routine of him throwing up so much and having diarrhea in his diaper. It got to be so bad, it ended up spreading onto his back and clothes. YUCK! So we gave him a bath and washed his clothes out with bleach.

But the whole time I was going through the motions of helping him after he threw up or he had a messy diaper, he was crying and screaming so much. It was awful. He must've had really bad pain in his tummy. I could feel gas bubbles on his belly and he kept gagging like he was going to throw up again.

Just seeing him crying and screaming so much, practically shaking as he had his tiny arms around my neck, just really tore at my heart. I felt so bad for him. My heart just went out to my baby boy. I almost started crying, too! I just felt so bad for him that he was having so much discomfort and all this other stuff going on.

But I knew I couldn't lose it. I'm the adult in this situation. I HAVE to keep my cool and stay calm. If I started getting upset or freaking out, I would be useless to him. I'd do more harm than good! He was the one who was suffering here. He needed as much help as he could get to end the suffering.

All the same, I wanted to suggest we take him to the ER or call his doctor. I was scared he might have an infection or there might be something seriously wrong here. But my instincts told me to just wait a little bit longer. Just wait and see if he gets worse before he gets better.

We did manage to get through the many hours of him throwing up, having a messy diaper and screaming and crying. It was awful but it eventually came to an end. Soon he was soundly asleep at 3:30 in the morning and everything seemed to be okay from that point on.

I am just glad I was able to get a grip on myself. It's so hard to get through things like this with your children. I mean, you do have to stay calm and have everything under control, but on the inside, it's hard to ignore that pain and sympathy for the children going through what they go through. When Jennifer was a baby, I couldn't even watch them give her shots. It just upset me too much. But I know it's important to get a grip when things like this come up. The child cannot be expected to be in control of everything and joining them in their panic and crying episodes won't help bring any miseries to an end.