I get to…..

The last few weeks have been rough in the Mackenzie household. It started with a runny nose and a slight temperature that we attributed to teething, and then morphed into a hell on earth of bilateral ear infections, throat infection, parainfluenza and bronchitis for Hannah, followed quickly by Mom with basically the same bronchitis, ear infection and throat infection.

We were plunged into a grueling regime of antibiotics, painkillers, nebulisers and suppositories, combined with no sleep and constant whining. All the while I felt like death myself – and Jared was in one of his busiest weeks at work. Finally we thought we saw the light at the end of the tunnel (I half hoped it was a train coming to run me over) and the illness passed, only to be replaced by the bane of all parents existence – teething.

At the beginning of the month, at a year old, Hannah had exactly 0 teeth. By the end of this month, she’ll have 6. (Insert face palm & hysterically crying emoji here). For any of you that know anything about teething baby’s, I don’t need to explain the living hell that is dealing with a teething baby. For those of you that don’t know….just picture constant whining/crying, refusal to be put down, explosive stinky poos, drool that never ends, sleep so broken you might as well just stay awake – it’s real fun guys!

Anyway, my point is not to elicit sympathy or pity (although it might be nice), my point is to explain that I’m at a point where I’m over this parenting thing. Every time she cries to be picked up, or spits out the medicine that will help her, or shrieks in the middle of the night …again!!!…I’m just hoping for someone to take it all away, make it all end, give me back my “old” life, I’m sick of all the things I have to do that never end. Or at least I was, until this morning.

I sat feeding an incredibly fussy, wriggly Hannah, who has decided to sharpen her newly found teeth and practice chewing on the milkmakers. I literally sat there thinking I’ve had enough, maybe I should go back to work. I was scrolling through Instagram, and came across a post of a mommy blogger I’ve been following. Her son was born incredibly prematurely and he’s been in NICU for weeks. He passed away yesterday.

I literally went cold, and tears welled up in my eyes. The realization of how selfish and impatient I’m being hit me like a ton of bricks. That mother will never get to nurse her son to health, will never get to see him cut his first tooth (or six), will never get to see his first steps. She’ll never get to hold him all afternoon while he battles with discomfort he can’t understand, she’ll never get to hear him screeching in frustration over another lost balloon. She’ll never change another one of his nappys or rock him to sleep in the middle of the night.

It made me realize how incredibly grateful I am. Grateful that I don’t have to do all these things, but that I get to.

I am so incredibly blessed that I get to spend every day with my child. I get to be the one she clings to when she’s sick or teething, I get to watch her get better, I get to rock her to sleep 12 times a night. No matter how hard it is, I get to watch my baby grow. Just being able to have a baby that is healthy and for the most part, happy, is more than a lot of women get to do, and for that I am eternally grateful. Tired as heck. But grateful.