My husband and I went on our first vacation sans bebe. It was magical.
Nestled in the hills of a Midwestern state, we drank lots of wine,
watched tons of movies, got a couples’ massage, and even managed to do
some work.
At
2am the day before heading home, we received a frantic phone call from
Zo’s grandfather (my father) and our babysitter while we were gone. Zo
had a fever, to 102! Granddad was ready to head to the ER.
Vacation-mode-mama put her momma-doctor hat back on. Triage mode: he was
indeed fine (eating, drinking, pooping, peeing) and most likely just
had viral upper respiratory symptoms. Watch and wait I told Granddad. We
okayed foregoing fitful sleeping in his pack-and-play for cosleeping
and Zo happily snuggled with Granddad until breakfast.
Flash
forward to our return. Zo was a febrile, coughing, sneezing, whining
fussy-fuss-face with 2 molars and 4 teeth coming in. We returned to
purgatory and Granddad went guiltily back to Grandma. Our week went like
this: waking 5 times a night for cuddling because self settling just
would not do, alternating ibuprofen and acetaminophen, a trip to the
Pediatrician for an ear, throat, and lung check, and finally the dreaded
call from daycare “Zo is fussy and has a fever, please come get him.”
And
every day he kept having fevers so he ended up out of daycare for an
entire week. The gains O and I had made in sleep and patience quickly
evaporated and now we are back to a little one who wakes up multiple
times throughout the night to be consoled. What is this behavior?!? Who
is this tyrant? Not to mention we ended up in the Emergency Room at 3am
(post to come). Our week was one of my most difficult of Intern Year in
spite of being after a 5 day vacation while on an elective; 1 step
forward, many many many steps back.
I
start a week of nights tonight and O will be on his own. Fingers
crossed and prayers uttered that Zo gets with the program and begins
sleeping through the night again. We are soo very tired but Zo has made
it successfully through his first day back at daycare.
****
Shout out to Fizzy for your timely post entitled “Need a Vacation”.
Vacations are work and I’m not sure if they are worth it at this point
either ****
We also just went on our first vacation alone without our 17mo son. Thankfully we did not come back to the sickness and fever, but we did come back to ruined sleep training and terrible separation anxiety. Everytime my son cries (which seems like every 5 minutes) I do two things: 1) mentally go back to Aruba for a second in my mind and think about a what wonderful marriage-sustaining time we had, and 2) remind myself that this too shall pass and my son will remember none of it. We are paying for it now but I have to believe those 4 days with my husband went a long way to preserving our sanity in the long run.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Holly that as soon as you are out of the sickness weeds you will appreciate more the time you spent with your husband and revel in the memories of the vacation. Zo would have gotten sick whether you were there or not, so don't knock yourself there. The time you spent with your husband away is NOT responsible for the chaos you returned to. Separate the two.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in the vacay post, I have turned yearly conferences into vacations for the past three years - as a single they are solo but still all important to my mental health. I know, vacation isn't sitting in a lecture hall getting path updates and info, but it IS. Daily exercise without worrying about backpacks and lunches and carpool and frozens, great locales to arrive at early and leave a day or two late to see the sights and get good R&R.
I have an ED post as well marinating. Scared because it is a bit of an indictment. Can't wait to see yours.
Can you guys talk about your husbands and what profession they are? Were they intimidated by your profession, were they mad you made more if you did?
ReplyDeleteMy husband is a public school teacher. We met in college though before either of us were anything. He's not the type to be easily intimidated, although I think on occasion it bothers him that society respects and pays more for my job than his. His father once told him it was "shameful" that his wife was a doctor while he was not! He comes from a traditional Asiam culture, and his parents really pushed him to be a doctor, which is a big part of why he rebelled and didn't go that route after college. Meanwhile, my mother is constantly telling me I should have been a nurse so I wouldn't have to work so much (even though I point out plenty of nurses work just as much as me!). In the end we are fine with it and that is what matters.
DeleteAs for our finances, we operate on a system where we each contribute an equal % of our take home pay to the family funds. Then because I think it's silly for me to have more "personal" spending money than him, I contribute much more to all of our savings accounts (retirement, college, etc) so we each have the same small monthly pay of our own to spend on whatever (clothes and pedicures for me, sports gear and beer for him).