I'm not packing my mother guilt... or am I?

When I go away alone I zoom around going one million miles an hour, cramming as much awesomeness in to a short space of time as is humanly possible, and as awful as it may sound, I don't really miss my boys. I'm just too busy to.

I love my boy more than I can possibly describe and I (generally) enjoy being a stay at home mum to the Trickster...

But I'd be lying to you if the thought of hanging out with adults, uninterrupted sleep and not having to help someone to the toilet didn't excite me to the point of frothing at the mouth. Although depending on how much my friends have to drink, that last one may came up anyway.

I've been to four conferences and two blogging shindigs since the Trickster was born and he's only come to one of them because he was very little (and constantly on the boob) and Map Guy came along too for a bit of a holiday - the other times they've stayed home for some male bonding time. I've left for between one and three nights and it's only at the airport on the way home (or in a bath tub drunk as a skunk - don't ask) that the excitement of the time away fades and the realization that I haven't seen my boys in a while kicks in.

I don't feel guilty for leaving. For taking just a smidge of time to do something for myself. For lumping all the responsibilities on to Map Guy for a few days and having a bit of a holiday with some friends who I only see once every year or two.

As with any conference, I'm a ball of raw nerves and anxiety. But this time you can throw in some freaky strong hormones that have me swinging wildly from a blubbering mess to the Incredible Hulk. This previously reluctant-hugger is more than likely going to be hugging and crying then wanting to punch a cab driver in the throat (I have a thing with cab drivers, it's a long story). I may not have met you before, but I will be all gropey, guaranteed.

I'm now taking bets on just how long I last with the afore mentioned hormones coursing through my veins before I whip out my phone and come over with an attack of the mama guilts over photos of Tricky and MG, wailing to all and sundry that I MISS THEM! I MISS MY BOYS!! I WANNA GO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!!

Do you get the mama guilts and miss your babies? Or are you too busy having a break to realize?

Of anaphylaxis, ignored instincts and guilt

As far as mistakes go, I've made a lot. But none quite as grave and life threatening as this one.

I'm standing in the kitchen cooking up my favourite dish, chicken and cashew nut. From nowhere I get this gnawing feeling in my stomach that I shouldn't give it to Tricky despite him having been declared "not allergic" to cashews at a previous allergy test*.

But I don't listen to that internal voice. I push down my gut instinct and, with a haughty (and completely judgmental) "I'm not one of those paranoid parents", carry on.

We sit down as a family to eat. I love these moments, the three of us together, talking about our day and reconnecting. Tricky eats one cashew nut and looks unsure of it's texture. We laugh at the funny face he pulls and watch him enthusiastically spoon mound after mound of rice in to his gob. After a pretty standard bedtime routine, I put Tricky to bed without any fuss.

An hour passes and he cries out so I go in to check on him. He is scratching at his knees and elbows furiously - now someone else might have seen that first sign and known straight away something was wrong, but I've lost count of the number of nights Tricky has woken crying and clawing at his eczema so I don't think anything of it.

Instead, I sit with him in the dark, singing and massaging a soothing salve in to his inflamed skin, just as I always do, then leave the room telling him to go back to sleep. He coughs once or twice then falls back to sleep.

A short while later he wakes again, comes out to me wanting cuddles. Because I am still in "get him back to sleep" mode I don't turn a light on... if I had, I would have seen his face was swelling up and his body breaking out in hives. So we cuddle in the dark on the couch and after a few more coughs and being so clingy I decide that he is probably coming down with a cold. 

He coughs more. And more.

Less than five minutes pass.

He starts wheezing.

And it all starts clicking in my head. The scratching, the crying, the coughing, the wheezing. This isn't the beginning of a cold, this is an allergic reaction.

We consider calling an ambulance but think that since the allergy test has shown he isn't meant to be allergic, that this must only be a mild reaction, I'll drive him myself. So I do, picking up my parents on the way for support.

I feel like an idiot, but I'm not too concerned. A quick trip to the hospital and a dose of antihistamines, I think.

On the way there, Tricky gets itchier and he scratches his skin off parts of his arms and neck. What was once a faint hiss of a wheeze becomes louder and louder, clearly audible from the front seat.

Fuck. This is so much worse than I thought.

Triage takes all of two minutes before we are whisked through to a bed with a "we'll get your details in a minute" rush, and straight on to a monitor that showed his oxygen saturation at 89% and his blood pressure very low. What the hell is happening? My little boy is shutting down.

What have I done?

I hold him down while they jab the biggest needle in the world in to his tiny thigh. His scream pierces my soul and I squeeze him even tighter, smothering him with kisses in the vain hope that they'll help. I am barely holding it together when I look up and see my Mum starting to cry. It tips me over the edge and tears spring from my eyes. But they're not sad tears. They're angry tears. Embarrassed tears. Guilty tears.

How could I be so stupid? Why did I ignore that gut instinct? For a moment I let my thoughts run wild. What if he didn't get itchy? He wouldn't have cried and come out for cuddles... his airway would have just closed. Silently, without us knowing. What if, what if, what if?

My blood runs cold.

We're moved to the observation ward to stay the night. I sing and pat Tricky in an attempt to get him to settle, but he is, quite literally, full of adrenaline and isn't having a bar of it.

It's not until much later, in the early hours of the morning when he finally dozes off. He's still attached to the monitor and it alarms every hour or so as his oxygen levels fluctuate. They tell me he's fine, that it's just his sleep cycle, but I cannot look away from it, this machine that goes ping.

I manage to get about an hour of sleep before Tricky decides it is time to start the day.

I'm ladled with information on anaphylaxis and the use of an EpiPen. I'm given brochures and a DVD that I watch on a portable player as Tricky drives toy cars up and down the railings, unaware of how serious the situation is. We're given our EpiPen that he'll have to have with him at all times, a referral to an immunologist and we're told to never have cashews in the house again and avoid anything that contains tree nuts.

They bring us each breakfast. I read the label. May contain traces of tree nuts. Fuck you, world.

Got any allergy advice for us? I could really use some.
*I was told yesterday that initial allergy tests on children who haven't been exposed to an allergen aren't worth the paper they're printed on. The body doesn't always react on the first exposure, as was the case with Tricky, so it was the second exposure that caused anaphylaxis.

MANicure

In life BT (Before Tricky) I was a makeup artist. Well I still am, I'm just on hiatus. But before I focused on makeup I was a slashie. What's a slashie? A slashie is someone who has multiple titles (with a slash in between) because they do lots of things. I was a beauty therapist/makeup artist/masseuse/nail technician/dermal therapist which meant I used to do makeup plus massages, facials, peels, IPL, manicures, acrylic nails and waxing. I really enjoyed the work and (even if I do say so myself) was quite good at it. But I must say, I have pruned more lady gardens than I care to mention. So who would have thought, someone who has actually trained as a nail technician (such a fancy name for someone who files nails or puts on acrylic ones) would actually be afraid to cut their own child's nails? But I was petrified.

It took me three and a half weeks to work up the courage. Like most babies, Tricky was born with quite long, sharp nails so by the three week mark they were claws. Other mums gave me their tips on infant manicuring, saying to do it while they were asleep or feeding so they wouldn't try to move around too much. But at that stage I was still needing two hands to actively hold Tricky when I was feeding him and I was sure he'd wake up if I attacked him with miniature scissors in his sleep.

So I chickened out and got a nail file. Not just any nail file though, a proper 'Black Beauty' file from my nail tech days. It worked! Hurrah! Those deathly sharp talons were filed down to a much more respectable length and I felt super proud. I even announced it to Hubby when he got home from work - he wasn't as impressed as I was.

A week later though, those suckers were back. Are you serious? They grow that fast?! When I stopped and thought about it though, it made sense - the rest of them grows pretty quickly too. The file came out again and did the job but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that in a week they'd be back again. I was going to have to pull out the big guns. I was going to have to use nail clippers.

Even the baby nail clippers seem the size of garden shears next to those tiny little fingers. I did it straight after a feed when he was nice and milk-drunk and am pleased to announce it was a complete SUCCESS! This is what my life has become. Cutting an infant's nails is a high point that deserves being celebrated with streamers, balloons and cake. I got a full two weeks out of that nail trim (that too made me want to high five every person I passed in the street) so there I was, feeling confident for round two of Small Innocent Child Vs Sharp Instrument but alas, the scoreboard did not show 2-0 at the end... I CUT TRICKY!

Screaming? Crying? Wailing? Umm, no. He was so blissed out on the good stuff that he did not notice. And because he didn't notice it meant I didn't notice - that is until I walked back in the room after putting away the nail clippers to find blood streaks all over his little jacket. It looked like something out of a horror movie - how can that much blood come from such a small finger? And if there is that much blood surely the kid that it is coming out of should be letting the entire street know by now?

When Hubby came home I confessed my sin to him and rather than tell me that it was OK, that other people have done it before me and that no permanent damage was done, he instead turned to me with a completely evil grin and said "Aren't you trained in this?"

Have you accidentally injured your child? Who cried more, you or them? Leave a comment below with your story.