Tired

It has felt like a long stretch the past few days! It triggers many thoughts and feelings for me with mothering that have been on my mind since we came, and I've been meaning to write about them...and someday I will, but not tonight! :) I must wait until I have energy for actual coherent communication of deeper thoughts. For now, suffice it to say that I think parenting takes trust, faith, and reliance on God to a whole new level of challenge...and parenting in Nepal is yet another level! More on that soon, but for now, just a recap of the last few days.

Thursday, when we were at this little singing group that some friends we have made here have at a home, we started to do "Ring around the Rosie." Isaiah did not want to put down the purple matchbox plane he had in his hands, and with wanting to join the group quickly and not cause a big distraction, I let him hold on to it. As we went around the circle and came to a part where we scooped up the little ones, I scooped up Isaiah, which he wasn't expecting, and the plane jabbed right into his eye. He screamed so much, and I felt completely sick. He wouldn't open his eye at all, and there was blood in his tears, and nothing outside his eye was bleeding, so I knew it was coming from inside. I honestly thought for a second that I had actually poked a big hole in his eyeball or something. He's a pretty cautious kid and hasn't had a ton of typical toddler boy incidents, but this one really scared me. I was trying to keep all my horrible worst-case scenario thought trains in the station, but they kept flooding, like what if he loses an eye or can no longer see! And, despite the logic of knowing that accidents happen, I couldn't help feeling like it was completely my fault! A long story made shorter, he did open his eyes after about 10 minutes, and he seemed to have no major injuries. I think somehow, miraculously, it scratched the inside of his eyelid without actually scratching his eye itself. I seriously believe God was protecting him in a BIG way! By evening, we were fairly sure he was ok but not wanting to take chances with his little eyes and trying to sort through decisions of what to do to follow up in a place where we have no idea HOW to do that.
I took him to a local clinic on Friday since we couldn't figure out how to connect with an opthalmalagist. A huge blessing was that, while we were there, our friend who is a pediatrician here but who we were trying not to bother with this since he recently had surgery walked past the clinic and came to talk to us, and his opinion of the situation was really reassuring. The clinic is not a fun experience; it's fairly chaotic. The appointment didn't seem all that worthwhile, but it made the pharmacy experience a ton easier than it normally is, and we got eyedrops for Isaiah, which started a whole new battle of actually getting them in his eye several times a day! Thankfully, a couple days was all that was recommended, and as long as all looks ok in the morning, I think we are DONE with those! Thank goodness for the mini M&M's my parents sent that we could use as "incentive."

So, that in and of itself, was an exhausting couple of days, but then last night, in the middle of the night, Isaiah woke up crying. It seemed like he was going to throw up, but it was just a bit of gagging and spitting up. He was having a really hard time going back to sleep, though, and after nearly an hour of praying for him and singing to him, he started to actually throw up. So, then, in the middle of the night, I found myself hand washing clothes and sheets and trying to deal with the mess on the bed. Then we realized he had bad diarrhea! We were sort of waiting to see if more was coming, and we thought we had entered the safe zone, so we took him into bed with us (because his bed had a big spot of baking soda attempting to soak up the moisture and smell). He had just started to drift off finally when I heard him start to gag. John scooped him up and hit the bathroom. Minimal actual vomit but more washing and more crying, and all of us were back to wide awake. That, thankfully, ended that stretch for the night after 2 hours of being up. I struggled to go back to sleep with him there in the bed with us. He fell asleep for a couple hours. In spite of a very short night, it seemed he woke up pretty happy, and we thought the day might get off to an ok start...until we realized that our sheets were covered in diarrhea! So, up again, rinsing, soaking, washing sheets by hand in the bathroom, running all of his stuffed animals through our laundry machine (don't bother thinking regular washing machine). And, a full blown sinus headache for the second day in a row with very few options of things to take to curb it because of being pregnant! And, those hormones don't do much for the emotional state in times like this! Poor Isaiah looked at me with a bit of shock this morning when I burst into tears after he dumped out a bin of toys on the floor!
Oh, and I was scheduled to take a meal this evening to some friends here who just went through a rough time. Could not have pulled that one off without my sweet husband's help in a big way!

It would seem that the little man's eye is healing up well, we think we have wrapped up the eyedrops, whatever intestinal drama there was seems to have been short-lived, but I find myself bracing a bit before believing that things are going to all be smooth again! And, as I finally sit down tonight, I feel the drain of the past few days. Hoping for a really good night of sleep and a low-key week ahead!!!