Ok Moms and Dads, when do you hit your wall with your (child)ren?

Oh, Sweetie I hope he’s OK! When Katawagrey got run over in 2002 she was in PICU for 4 days, and I got no sleep, either. It’s a bear, and it’s amazing how long you can go without when you’re in Super Mommy mode. And from time to time I was tempted to leave the unit and find an empty bed in the main part of the hospital. The few minutes I could drop off, however, I relived the “finding her in the street” scene, so it did me no good. Hang in there, you’ll get through it, and you probably won’t yell at him when when he asks for the one popsicle that pushes you over the edge.
We are having way too much in common, here…have you noticed that?

When my oldest has his yet another hour long eating session with a thousand complaints. When I get the urge to smack his head with the spoon, I tell Alex to take over. Hang in there!

First and foremost, I hope your son gets well soon. And secondly…Oooh! the joys of motherhood. It’s just our nature to be nurturers and boy do we do it well. They are only children for a little while and then they are grown.

Thank you, everyone. I’m feeling like a horrible mother, but I think I’m just normal!

It’s a human thing. We’re so worried, we say we’ll never yell at them again…five minutes before we yell at them. Think how dull we would be if we were serene all the time! We’d be well rested, <sigh> but dull…

Do you mean pick them up and throw them against the wall!?

@lytrpophan: not hardly.

My son was 18 months old when he broke his femur tripping over a balloon. He was in traction for two weeks. That first night he was sooo doped up on every kind of painkiller he started to have hallucinations. After he woke up and tried desperately to get away from me (he had obviously seen something other than me) I sat in my chair and cried.

My mom came the next day and spelled me off so I could sleep.

I hope your son gets better soon.

Get some rest!

Lack of sleep = incredibly hard to maintain normal levels of patience.

When our daughter was in the hospital she LIVED on chocolate milk only. She got whatever she wanted.
We however were starved, exhausted and miserable in every way.
By the time we were waiting on a Resident to come sign her discharge papers on day 3 and he wasn’t responding to his pages I was so irritable I went down to the dang ER and asked every nurse I saw where I might find him until I tracked the guy down. One look at my (angry? impatient? insane?) eyes and he instantly ran upstairs and signed her out.

You’re normal. Hang in there..hope you’re both home soon.

You’ll sleep when your dead..sorry but it really is the truth I have come to know this truth.
My husband was in ICU 2 different times one for longer than 60 days, the second time he never came home :(( but sleeping at that time was on the edge and if you did actually fall asleep when the phone rang it gave you the wake up call from hell. Life is always “Livin’ On The Edge” even the song says so.

You’re certainly not a “horrible mother” by any stretch. You’re simply human.

Anyone who says their children never get on their nerves (particularly when under stress) is lying through their teeth.

Cut yourself some slack. He’ll never remember the frayed nerves or raised voices. He will remember that you were there for him.

Hope he feels better soon.

There’s nothing wrong with, “Mom’s tired. Let’s take a nap together, and we can tell stories.”

I agree with @cprevite. Lots of hugs for you.

Oi hon, I know how you feel. My 4 yr old had a recent accident in which she fractured her skull. It was days before I could get any decent sleep, because even when I dozed off, all I did was dream about her falling again. She pretty much lived in my bed for the first two weeks and I was her all, her everything, her entire frikkin world. I waited on her hand and foot and did my best to “keep her down”, which is hard with a 4 yr old.

My hubby gave me some much needed alone time, and I took advantage by running a super hot bath and soaking until my hubby woke me up in cool water. One of my girlfriends also came over and watched movies with my kiddo while I took a long nap.

My nerves were frayed, and I got frustrated when she begged for something specific then only took 2 or 3 bites. Or asked to watch a movie, then changed her mind and wanted to watch something else. It was hard.

But she’s great now and back to her normal 4 yr old self, and now I just have to deal with the same problem that @Simone_De_Beauvoir mentioned. She takes forfrikkingever to eat, and complains a lot about whatever she’s eating. We’ve actually had to implement the “go to bed without dinner” discipline twice because she was throwing such a fit over dinner. When that happened, I just had to carry her to her room and lay her down and walk away. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it seems to be working now.

You have a choice to be a servant and slave to your kids or a parent. It is your choice to make. Parents have a life that involves raising kids while not being slaves to the job at hand.

My son needed to write a story tonight. He was kvetching and kvetching about how he couldn’t think of anything, so I start doing my socratic thing, but he still doesn’t want to believe he can think of anything. So I start to get a bit heated, because I think he’s playing dumb and I know he knows how to make up a story.

Anyway, I tell him how I make up stories—which involves not making anything up, but just letting images appear. So finally, he says he’ll try….. if I type it for him. Well, I know that typing and writing is such torture for him, and I’m not sure if he has to learn to do it tonight. He hates writing with a passion, but that doesn’t mean he can’t think.

So I type for him. I’m pretty fast. I can almost keep up with him. He does seem to take my advice and his story spins out in a fairly cool way. I have lots of questions about why each thing happens, but I just let him go on because he’s on a roll.

Servant? You tell me.

CAK, I don’t think these things are at all easy to figure out. We’re making these decisions on the fly and a lot of times we’re so tired we can barely think, and inside we’re thinking, ‘Will you please shut up and leave me alone!’

Well, I thought I knew what I was getting into when I signed up to be a parent. I was foolish, of course. At a certain point all your idealism is gone. You’re just trying to make it through the night.

My best wishes for a quick return to health for your son, and a sympathetic hug for you. You can kvetch all you want here. Maybe we’ll send you a cooler full of sugar-free popsicles. How would you like that? :)

Thanks everyone! Today the decision is made for a feeding tube. Last night @ 1am, they changed his IV. Such conviemt times for these things! Have I mentioned I hate hospitals?

@cak I hope everything goes fine. My father had a feeding tube they are not as scary as some people think. The other thing is that when he had it once he was stable they let him go home. But his was almost a permanent solution I am not sure if your sons is like that. I hate hospitals as well coming from this womans POV and living in them for basically 6 months when you add it all together I could probably work there now. I actually refuse to go to the hospital myself now I hate them that much. I think it’s a rule of thumb that at least one person you know has a go at the place one time in your life, whether it’s someone very close or just an acquaintance but the close ones are most nerve raking. But again our survival mode will alway kick in and as long as you don’t choose flight as your path it will get eventually get better, the rest we leave to the man upstairs, or coincidence or whichever is your choice. I wish you all the luck. Hugs.