Photo Week #35

After a week of sickness and a lot of time like this:

I am happy to report that we are 90% back to happy, smiling Junie!

By the grace of God we made it through a week of sickness. Also shout out to a lot of grandparent help, grandma cooked dinners, two-coffee days, Tylenol, Albuterol, Emergen-C, and Halls. Phew. We're still not totally out of the woods yet (and now everyone else is going through their own round of sickness) but it's such a relief to see Junie smiling and crawling around everywhere again.

I was just on survival mode the whole week, and I felt like I just had to let so much stuff go. As in, I had to stop caring about how clean the house was or not stop and think about how many times I had gotten vomit on me. I also have to stop feeling guilty that we have someone to come and help when Junie gets sick and I didn't have to take any sick days from work to care for her (or do the bulk of the caring). I don't know why I feel so guilty about having help. What am I trying to prove? And who am I trying to prove it to? (That question is probably easier to answer: myself.) Am I less of a mother if I feel like it's hard to take care of my child for a whole 12 hours? That happened yesterday and I had to call for backup during dinner. I felt like a failure. Other moms have to do this all by themselves, why can't I?

I know that isn't a productive question to ask. The real thing to do is just be grateful for my own situation and grateful that Junie is feeling much better. (Actually another real thing to do, probably, is to talk to someone, but the two times I've tried talking to therapists I've ended up not liking it, so if anyone has any other suggestions that is not therapy I am open to it.)

Check back in two weeks when I'll probably have more mental and emotional turmoil because we have a nanny starting next week! Again, I know I should be grateful that we are financially able to hire a nanny and that we were able to find one but... I have so many selfish reasons I am dreading the nanny coming. Selfish as in, none of those reasons are about the level of care that Junie will be getting or Junie's safety. Most of them have to do with my reluctance to talk to people.

Anyways, that will be a topic for another week. This past weekend we went to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito to try and escape some of the heat, and although Junie is still a little too small to really enjoy it, it was a lot of fun! Hopefully we will be back some day.

Stay hydrated, everyone!