I was rushing around the house this morning, cleaning up before the cleaners came. I picked up a jar of Vicks VapoRub and it immediately reminded me of Grayson's first weeks of life.
Farrah, this post is dedicated to you.
Going from one to two kids is rough at first. I think looking back now, I blocked out all the hard times I had that first year. But picking up that VapoRub today reminded me of of Christmas Eve/Christmas 2005. Grayson was a brand new baby, not even two weeks old yet. Christmas Eve was my first day all by myself without any help from David or Family. David had to work that day of course. Lennar never let him have holidays off. I had gotten us all clean and dressed and felt a great sense of accomplishment. All 3 of us were sitting on the bed together. I was nursing Grayson. Afton was climbing around as usual. All of the sudden, Afton (14 mos.) jumps off the bed and hits her eye on the side rail.
She had a huge cut on her eyelid and was bleeding everywhere. I tried to secure Grayson somewhere and assess the damage. I couldn't tell if it was so bad that she would need stitches or not and there was no one there for a second opinion. So I called David, who was annoyed that I would call him about something so serious and there was nothing he could do. And there I was. Two crying babies in my arms and a ball full of "after pregnancy" hormones leaking out of my eyes. I packed them up and held Afton on my lap as I drove to urgent care (I know that is not the safe thing to do, but when blinded with emotion...).
I get there, trying to shield Grayson from all the sick people and comfort Afton and hold back my own tears. I felt so incompetent. It turned out the gash was only big enough for two stitches but because of the location, they couldn't even stitch it at all. She would be left scarred forever. So off we went to join my family for all the Christmas Eve festivities as I tried to recover from the trauma of realizing I had two children now and one of them was crazy.
The next day was Christmas of course and it happened to fall on a Sunday. Our plan was to meet at my parent's house and for David and Afton to go to church with them while I stayed at the house with Grayson. I got Afton all dressed up in her beautiful raw silk Christmas dress. I then proceded to get us packed up to go. All of the sudden I started to smell menthol strongly. I turned around and Afton had covered herself head to toe in VapoRub. HEAD TO TOE!!! I wanted to die. I just started to wipe her down with babywipes as fast I could, trying to lessen the damage. Her dress was totally ruined. We were late, so I just did the best I could and threw her into the car. We showed up on my parent's doorstep with a newborn and toddler who looked like she had been in fight and smelled like she had taken a bath in menthol.
Looking back, how did we survive? How is it that I only remember loving them and not the moments when I told myself (and David) I couldn't do it? Luckily, I have reminders like a jar of medicine to help me remember those moments in the beginning and just how far we have come.
