Mommy Confessions: Becoming a Mama Bear.

Hey everyone! Please forgive my lack-of-post, and this short post. You see, this past weekend, I was channeling my inner Mama Bear. Vivien started having a runny nose on Thursday, which turned into a cold and fever on Friday, and she kept having a fever all weekend. I could tell she didn’t feel well, and sleep at night time was a disaster.

Sunday night was the worst. She woke up 4 times screaming. Friends, she has slept through the night since the day I brought her newborn self home from the hospital. She loves sleep. If she doesn’t get it, she will easily “make up” for it the next night, by sleeping sometimes 12-14 hours straight.

Homegirl is a rockin’ sleeper. (Yes, I know I’m spoiled, and lucky.)

Granted, we’ve had a few nights here and there that have been rough over the past 16 months. But this? This was different.

Her screams were brutal, and she just did not calm down. Finally, she settled down around 6am, and when I woke her up the next day, she was just miserable.

I knew something was wrong.

I had spoken to an on-call doctor on Saturday, who assured me that the fever was fine, and there was probably nothing wrong. I knew that fevers meant that it was her body trying to fight an infection. I knew all this, but I was still torn up inside.

I became a Momma Bear.

You know? The kind of hovering Mama that growls if others approach her nest? The kind of Mama that sleeps on the floor in her baby’s room to be next to her if she wakes up again?

Guilty. As. Charged.

When she woke up yesterday and lay her head on my shoulder and whimpered for a good 45 minutes, I said, “Enough.”

She went to the doctor, and it turns out that she has a double ear infection, and her lungs sounded a bit congested, so I was sent home with instructions to keep her room humidified, and watch for sounds of a barking-type cough, and bring her to the ER immediately if that starts, because it has a high chance of escalating into pneumonia.

She started a heavy-duty antibiotic, and also got some pesky ear-wax scraped out.

So my confession? Well, it isn’t a confession, really, it’s more of a #SorryI’mNotSorry moment. I’m a helicopter parent when my baby is sick. But look at her sickie face above? How can you NOT snuggle her 24/7 when she looks so sad?

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You know the drill, homies.