Bitchujusmad.com - Stupid Dope Mom Blogger

I am losing it. This morning, my mother called and unexpectedly told me she was on her way to visit me. I didn’t expect her to be here until Friday, and its clearly Wednesday. Normally, my mother coming to see me would be a huge weight off of my shoulders, and honestly in a lot of ways, her coming IS a big help, when I need it. But, I am sitting on my bed, crying, because my mom is coming. I am crying because in Cleveland, the city she lives in, the one I used to reside in as well, is a huge bin of clothes that I left there when I moved in November. Sitting in storage is a heap of clothes…for summer. Every single pair of shorts I own is in that fucking bin. And here she is, on the Ohio turnpike, riding here from there WITHOUT A PAIR OF SHORTS TO PUT ON MY ASS.

I am admittedly falling apart because everything is a mess, not just the summer clothes bin situation. Monday morning, in the second time in two weeks, and on 4th Roommates birthday, EJ burned Ella with an iron on her leg. She has second degree burns on her thigh, and its totally my fault. Last week, 4th Roomy’s business partner came into town VERY late so they could attend a meeting in DC very early. In order to not wake anyone up, he moved the ironing board from our room to the living room so he could iron quietly, and so could his partner. I LOVED the ironing board not being in our room. I am a recovering furniture hater, I really only need a bed and a closet, but now, I have a HUGE bed, a dresser, an armchair, a walk in closet and some other pieces of furniture in my bedroom. I mean, it looks nice enough, but often I find myself overwhelmed by all of the STUFF. So of course, i thought once he moved the ironing board…hmmm maybe we should keep it in the living room. It stayed all weekend, in front of a bookcase and I enjoyed the freedom from it in my bedroom.

Monday, I regretted that. 4th Roomy sometimes leaves the iron on. Its something I noticed early, and when the board is in our room, I usually unplug it myself, and collapse the ironing board on my own as well. Well, out of sight out of mind, right? He had forgotten to unplug it, and it was in the living room. In addition to that backstory being in play, it was his birthday this particular Monday. I had arranged to pick up a cake so that we could give him a proper birthday celebration. Typically, anyone can tell you if I get a shower before 10pm, I am doing well. I just don’t have time with two 4 year olds to day shower, but on THIS day, I thought to myself…let’s shower before getting this cake. Don’t be the dirty mom out with the clean kids. So I took one. And it was SHORT. When I say, I rinsed lathered rinsed, five minutes tops. No spot checking, no lingering in the stream of water thinking about life. It was like a hoe bath in the shower. I got out of the shower, and walked into the living room where I had left my pancake eating children at the table, just in time to see EJ press the still on iron into his sisters leg.

The screams, from both of them, echoed in my head. I started to feel dizzy, to be honest. I had just seen my kid burn his sister. I could smell the flesh burning. I could smell the steam and skin, and I could hear Ella screaming and EJ screaming, scared because he didn’t realize what he had done. And I called my mom first. The woman who isn’t bringing me shorts. Fortunately, she didn’t answer and I got my life together and called 911 next. We rode in the ambulance to John’s Hopkins pediatric burn unit. I found myself wishing they could give ME a morphine IV and not Ella. As we rode, I remembered all too clearly, 10 days earlier, riding in our car to Anne Arundel Medical Center holding wheezing, gasping EJ in my arms. 10 days prior, EJ woke up around midnight, and couldn’t breathe. Earlier in the day, he had complained he was having a tough time breathing after running through our hallway. I chalked it up to the air conditioning, or dust and took the kids outside. He played outside, we went into DC that evening to have dinner with my father who was visiting with my step mom and sister, we ran around Adam’s Morgan and Georgetown without a wheeze, but sure enough around midnight, my son could barely breathe. All of us spent the night in the ER 10 days earlier, as EJ sat on a breathing machine. He had croup. Because, I am an awesome mom, and my son gets Croup out of nowhere. So here I am, 10 days out of ONE ER visit, heading toward another.

I felt like I had just forgiven myself for my sick son, but how could I forgive myself for this? This was my fault. Had I been on my job, had I been paying attention like I normally do…hell I could have even made them sit in the bathroom with me while I showered. I could have had the ironing board back in my room, where I would have smelled the iron still on or heard it clicking to reheat and unplugged it. I had to meet with a social worker, where I cried. She was almost amused, I think by my pain. She kept saying this was clearly an accident. I felt numb. I felt like I was watching my own errors just play out in front of me. Not to mention, I am messing up my husband’s birthday. I wanted to get tissue paper for his gifts, a proper git bag…and of course, that damn cake. Everyone assures you, when you’ve messed things up royally that it wasn’t on purpose and that it could happen to anyone, but the thing is, it doesn’t happen to anyone. Anyone doesn’t send their twins to the ER ten days apart. Anyone doesn’t forget to turn off the iron, or have a daughter with 2nd degree burned thigh. Anyone doesn’t pick up a move 3 states away and leave half of their wardrobe. I know I sound dramatic…but there’s also so much happening that I am NOT writing about too.

So you see, its not just about the shorts. I mean the shorts thing sucks, but just when i was starting to feel like I could handle this month, for the last week of it…its like “Nope, just kidding”. It still is throwing me the ultimate shade. Somebody wake me up in June.

 

Tags: 2nd Degree Burn, Burn, Cleveland, Croup, Iron, Second Degree Burn, Shorts, Summer