Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Mummy Hulk

I've been channelling the Hulk this week. At least the mummy version of it.

(reader has bemused look on face)

Have I developed enormous muscles, I hear you ask? Am I ridding the bad ol' Brisbane 'burbs of criminals? Am I a luminescent shade of green?

The answer is no. And no. And, definitely no.

Instead, I've found myself progressing from ordinary, garden-variety grumpiness to throwing-a-tantrum, eye-bulging RAGE!

Okay, it wasn't exactly eye-bulging rage. It was more eye-twitching irritability, mixed in with a good dollop of stress. But for someone not used to feeling angry - I've always been more of a teary crybaby than a wall-punching aggressor - I might as well have turned into some green beast, rampaging the streets.

It all began to go wrong on Tuesday.

I was dealing with a 3-day old headache while trying to get myself and darling daughter ready for her weekly swimming lesson. We managed to somehow get out to the car before being horrendously late, and as I fastened P. into her car seat, I put the towels and my wallet (BIG mistake!) on the roof of the car. I managed to remember to grab the towels and threw them into the front seat. But the wallet, sadly, went for an unexpected rooftop ride.

Now losing your wallet is not usually fodder for meltdown rages. But it signposted for me the turning point at which my week went from fairly good to fairly crap.

After driving back and forth along the same route after swimming was finished, the wallet could not be found. I immediately cancelled my cards and mourned the loss of my relatively new wallet, a cutesy aqua-colored one with a wide-eyed owl embroidered on it. I also felt somewhat embarrassed; I regularly tease my lovely husband for misplacing his wallet somewhere in the house. Here I was losing mine altogether.

(side note: when someone tells a lengthy, boring anecdote in our house, we ask them, at the conclusion of said anecdote, And then, did you find $20? It denotes that the anecdote was so boring, finding $20 would have been a more interesting story. It's at this point I find myself asking myself, So Kate, did you find $20?)

I swear it gets more interesting from here. Or at the very least, more disgusting.

That afternoon, after finally coming to terms with my lost wallet, P. turned around, arms out, appealing to me to pick her up, then proceeded to vomit all over my shirt. That delightful gastro bug that's been doing the rounds came to our place for an unwelcome visit.

We had a dreadful night's sleep that night (if you can really call it sleep when you're wakeful far more than you're slumbering). And not long after we crawled out of bed that morning, P. vomited on me again. This time in my hair.

Thankfully, after 24 hours of being P.'s projectile-vomiting target-practice (and, in case it isn't clear, being a loving, concerned mother to my poor, sick darling), the voms were over.

And the diarrhea began.

The upshot (or is that upchuck?) of it all is this - shit happens (that pun was TOO easy!) and those who survive it intact do so because they stop fighting so hard against it. Once I'd had a good cry to darling husband about the constancy of it all - not just the voms and poos but holding sick daughter round the clock, not getting any sleep, not getting five seconds to just be alone! - I surrendered to my situation and reminded myself THIS WILL NOT LAST. And tried to see the lighter side of things.

And you know what happened immediately after this?

I got a message on Facebook from the guy who lives in my old house in Bardon saying that my wallet was posted to that address, intact, by some lovely, honest, anonymous person.

So while I started the week in Hulk mode, I certainly didn't end it that way. Isn't it nice how things turn out sometimes?

2 comments:

  1. And to top it all off your husband went away and left you in peace. You is the luckiest girl alive! xx

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  2. I know, right?! At least my yummy husband dutifully reads my blog and writes a comment! Xox

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