The Week from Hell

If it seems like Chris and I have fallen off the face of the earth this week, it's 'cause we have.

Our week from hell started last Friday night. Chris was recovering from a cold, doing quite well actually, but just to make sure he got a good night's sleep he took one more dose of cold medicine. About an hour later, after we had put Luca to bed and were watching a movie, he began to break out in a rash. Turns out he was having an allergic reaction to the cold medicine, which was shocking since he had been taking it all week. When the rash got worse the next day and his hands and feet started to swell, we made a trip to urgent care where, after waiting an hour to be seen they unhelpfully told us the only thing to do was keep taking an anti-histamine and wait for the reaction to get better.

Chris spent the next three days pretty miserable, basically sleeping through everything. Tuesday things seemed to be getting better, but then his cough, which he had had on and off throughout the cold became unbearable. Now, unable to take anything for fear of another allergic reaction, he was unable to sleep or even talk at times due to his coughing fits. This necessitated another trip to urgent care where they determined he had a sinus infection.

On top of all of this Luca hasn't been sleeping well. Last night we were convinced he was teething in earnest, as he woke up at 2am and screamed for an hour before he would even calm down, much less go to sleep. But this morning, I can't see or feel anything in his mouth and, other than being a bit tired, he seems none the worse for wear. So maybe, maybe not.

Maybe I was going crazy last night at 2am after getting a weekly total of 12 hours of sleep, but I was inspired to write a rather amusing (well, at 2am it seemed amusing) poem. I call it "The Teething March":

2am, the summoning
by the trumpet call, the baby's cry
to the midnight parade, to the death march.

Babe, dad, mom
the procession of sleepless warriors
the thud, thud, thud of our feet in the dark.

Bleary eyed, marching
the weary merry-go-round of parenting
again and again through silent, half-lit rooms.

Tired and groggy
we wear ruts in the floor as we drag our feet
to the silent, ceaseless drumming of the teething march.

Here's hoping next week improves. One would think it can only go up from here.

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