From the Redneck Diva:
When we found out we were going to be parents we came to an immediate agreement: I was going to stay home with our kids. Shalom. Amen. It is well with my soul and all that. It was never even discussed that my husband would stay home, what with him being a redneck and all and thinking that beef jerky is a food group and totally okay for a 4 month old as long as you “hit it real good with the blender for a few seconds.” No, I was the nurturer, I was the caregiver, I was the prime candidate. It had been set forth in the stars many, many moons ago when the great wooly mammoth tromped across the barren tundra with my ancestors. I’m pretty sure my 20x-great-grandmother Oggina was a nurturer, too. I had babysat since I was 14, told anyone who asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up that “mommy” was top of the list, and just generally wanted to take care of my home and babies just as my mom and both grandmothers had. My husband has always worked hard to take care of us. Sure, we do without some things because one income isn’t always easy these days, but we have never regretted our decision.
With the said agreement of my domestic occupation also came other parameters, rules, and guidelines. One of those rules was that my husband would take care of the outside of our house and I would take care of the inside. This wasn’t a huge issue when we lived in town and had a yard the size of a postage stamp, but now that we live on 40 acres, I am totally thankful I am not in any way bound to mowing—whatsoever. This rule also included trash duty, although he has tried many times to push that boundary saying that technically the trash is inside the house. A few times of me setting it outside and a neighborhood cat or coon tearing it apart set him straight real quick-like. I mean, seeing as how the yard is outside and, oopsie, now so is alllll that trash.
One of my domestic occupational responsibilities is sick kids, or as we call it Couch Duty. Couch Duty has morphed and evolved over the years from Newborn Duty, otherwise known as “Our Child Doesn’t Sleep Through the Night, But You Don’t Have a Job to Go to Tomorrow and Can Take a Nap in the Afternoon Duty, So You’re Up, Slugger” of yore. Oh, of course, there were times I would lay our newborn child in my husband’s arms as he confusedly yawned while asking why I was sobbing uncontrollably, and I would tearfully snap something like, “Because YOUR son has decided that screaming is better than sleeping and I am just so tired I think I may vomit, so you HAVE to take care of YOUR son right now or you may wake up dead in the morning, just saying!” and I would go lie on the couch for awhile until that screaming son of ours had screamed for what seemed like hours lying next to my snoring husband, seemingly undaunted by the shrill cries emitted from his progeny. Since I wasn’t getting any sleep what with the irrationality of sleep deprivation telling me that if someday he fails Algebra it will be my fault because I let him cry one night just a little too long and a neural pathway didn’t connect somewhere in his little brain, guilt would take over and I would do the unthinkable: put our son in bed between us where he would promptly stop crying, sigh deeply, and go right to sleep. Then, finally, I would drift off to sleep and dream of all the articles in the parenting magazines relating the pros and con of co-sleeping, the greatest pro of all being SLEEP.
Couch Duty is different than Newborn Duty. Newborn Duty, while exhausting, is more of a “meet their basic needs” issue, rather than “make sure they don’t, you know, die” issue. Now, die may seem like a horrible word to use, but if we’re all honest, I don’t think there’s a parent out there who hasn’t worried about that very thing at 3 a.m. when that fever is 104.8 and your baby is as limp as a dishrag and you can’t do a darn thing for them other than pray. Couch Duty is a completely different kind of exhausting.
There has only been one time in our 15-year career as parents where my husband shared in Couch Duty. It was the time all three of our kids had a violent, horrific, Stephen King end-of-days novel type stomach virus, and I simply could not do it alone. At the time, our youngest was not much more than a year old. Our other two were four and six. The boy had started puking long before bedtime. The oldest began shortly before bedtime. The baby, well…she just likes to do things her own way and what we found in her crib that night was something nightmares are made of. After a quick bath to clean her up, I draped my husband in a sheet and a towel, handed him a trash can, plopped the baby into his lap and made it to the couch just in time to squat in front of it, a trashcan in each hand, as our oldest two children proceeded to hurl. That scenario repeated all through the night. Somewhere around 3 a.m., both of us veritable zombies, he with a sleep-sobbing baby in his arms, me leaning wearily against the couch with sleeping, pale-faced kids behind me, he said, “I don’t remember this being in our contract.” I looked up, blinked a few times, and said, “You got a contract? I wasn’t aware there was a contract!”
For those of you newbies out there, who are blissfully expecting or are currently childless and ignorant of the joy that awaits you the first time your child meets up with a dastardly germ from a Walmart shopping cart, here are my pointers for a successful bout of Couch Duty:
Couch Duty consists of, firstly, draping the sofa in a protective covering, usually that sheet in the back of the hall closet that, if ruined, is okay to throw away. It’s easier to wash a sheet than it is a couch cushion. That lesson I learned the very hard way. It’s also easier to just throw away a sheet than a couch as well. That epiphany came to me courtesy of my husband. His ability to think while sleep-deprived is just a perk I discovered well after I married him. He gave me that nugget of wisdom as he saw me crying over the washing machine, alternating sobs with gags at the wretched smell emitting from it. He also bleached the washing machine for me after he threw away the sheet and tucked me in to get some sleep and checked on the sick kiddo. He’s good people.
The second part of Couch Duty is procuring the barf receptacle. Some folks use a brown paper grocery bag. A friend from church uses a big bowl that is eternally designated as the “puke bowl.” (It makes me leery of large salads at her house.) We just use a trash can with about five Walmart sacks in it, plus a layer of paper towels in the bottom for extra reinforcing absorbency. Also, you must drape the already draped couch with another protective towel that is strategically placed directly under the sick child’s pillow and extends to the floor and under the barf receptacle. This is to protect the protective covering AND the carpet. Or maybe my kids are wild, rogue pukers, I guess, but better safe than sorry.
A wet washcloth must also be placed somewhere within the child’s reach. This is mainly to prevent the child from hollering at you as soon as they barf, asking you to hand them a washcloth. They probably will holler anyway and you will gently remind them that they have one right there and then they will probably burst into tears and you’ll go ahead reach over to hand it to them, but it’s nice in theory. One of these days I’m sure it will work.
After the child is settled into his or her protected end of the couch, it’s your turn to make your little nest on the other end. When they were toddlers and preschoolers, my nest was nice and roomy. I actually had room to stretch out and sleep somewhat comfortably—albeit, usually awakened every thirty minutes or so. But the naps were moderately comfortable. Now, my baby is a long-legged little thing and my oldest is taller than I am. This means that these days I find myself crammed into the corner of the opposite end of the couch, my feet placed on the ottoman, which moves every time I do, as I sleep sitting up. Well, I would sleep sitting up if sleep were possible in that situation. I usually end up refreshing my Facebook feed every 30 seconds on the iPod, seeing who has insomnia or a drunk ex who is stalking them, or if there is another unfortunate soul crammed in the corner of their own couch with their own puking kid.
How do you think this story got started? School’s been in session a little over a month, and I’ve already had Couch Duty twice.
If you’re pulling Couch Duty, the perk is that your kid isn’t going to school the next day and you aren’t working either. This means a day of cartoons and naps! Well, between the puking episodes, of course. Couch Duty is also how I justify cobwebs in the corners, either piles of laundry in the hallway and dishes piled shoulder high in the sink. Of course, those things obviously were works in progress long before the virus secured its grip on your child’s guts, but if you and your child look pitiful enough, your husband will overlook the obvious and let it go. If he looks like he’s on the border of really calling your bluff, just take your child’s temperature again. And as you look at the readout on the thermometer, shake your head and, if necessary, grab that gigantic Portable Pediatrician from the shelf and look very worried as you thumb through it.
The good thing about Couch Duty is that it is completely temporary and usually within 48 hours you and your now-aching back can go happily back to your own bed—which will soon very likely have its own trashcan sitting next to it because the Domino Theory is alive and well. Especially in homes with school-age children.
Diva
