Obvious Answer

So the answer to "When to use the nebulizer" is when your kid starts kicking you in the middle of the night because he doesn't have enough air to make what is usually a hearty cry.  Or before bedtime, to prevent the kicking.

Nemo woke me up with the kicking at about 6 am this morning, doing this weird sort of grunting thing and unable to cry.  So after a fog of about 5 minutes when I tried to wake up enough to remember how to put the blasted nebulizer together, he got his first nebulizer treatment.  He was fighting the mask, so I had to hold him and hold the mask fairly tight against his face.  I just sat there and held him as tears streamed down my face, because I was just so scared.

The good news?  I am now in love with Albuterol.  Seriously.  I want to marry it.  He only needed the one treatment so far, after which he nursed like crazy and went back to sleep.  When he got up with us around 9:30 he was fine - acting like his normal self, except with more snot.

So, tonight he will get another nebulizer treatment, and then another tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon, he will be baptized, and then we will have a fine afternoon having a little party at a beautiful park.

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This has been a particularly hard week this week for some reason.  Maybe because Nemo turned six months on Tuesday, and he is my last baby and while I'm delighted he's growing I am wistful that his babyhood is flying by so quickly.  Maybe because that was the same day I called the attorney to schedule the meeting to open my grandfather's estate.  That means this is real.  That he's really gone.  And I just can't stand it.  And I have everyone else around me needing something from me, and I feel like I just need to be able to take care of myself, and I can't take the time to do it.  Maybe because this week leads to Mothers Day, a day which for almost 22 years now has meant little but sorrow to me, and because of my grandfather's death, it has brought my mother's to the surface once again.  Maybe because my husband won't do anything for Mothers Day and I know it, and I know that without his help the kids won't remember what day it is, which wouldn't be such a big deal if he and the kids recognized in some small way the hell they'd be in if I weren't around doing what I do, but they don't, so it depresses me.

But God reminds us that we are not alone, and indeed Angels work through people to care for the souls of others.  Small things here and there - a few wonderfully nice emails and posts in response to this blog; a small flower arrangement from a friend, a new friend, because I was "having a tough week;" the entire collection of "Homicide: Life on the Streets" including the 3 Law and Order crossover episodes and the full length movie on DVD for under $100 (thank you, me); news that another friend with major fertility issues has turned up pregnant on her own, and while it is early yet there is much cause for hope; dear friends who belong to the Mormon church who have moved all kinds of things around so that they can be with us tomorrow for Nemo's baptism; and another dear friend who I hardly see since she moved three years ago who sent me a lovely message for Mothers Day.

May God Bless all of you Mothers out there -- new, veteran, foster, expecting, birth, adoptive, surrogate, or hopeful -- and may you have a wonderful, peaceful Mothers Day.

And may your children change their underwear, pick up their shoes, and clean up their rooms, without you having to remind them.

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p.s.  Check me out over here, plus all the other cool stuff at Props and Pans.

Comments

[angi]

And may God Bless you as well :) I pray that one day you can CELEBRATE Mother's Day, and I hope that it is sooner rather than later.

Many blessings & ((hugs)) to Nemo tomorrow too!

[kristi]

My son has had asthma since he was an infant. He would wake up and scream out in his sleep....and the dr. told me it was because he couldn't breathe. SCAREY.