Back From the Land of Poo and Exploding Bums

Oh, and did I mention the projectile vomit?
Well, now I can lay back and joke a bit about it, but believe me, it was no joke...Maya had a very-very nasty stomach virus that lasted for a week and left my sweet daughter sheet white and with bruise-like huge dark circles under her beautiful blue eyes.
It was a fight and I fought along my baby, helping her to cope with the high fever, terrible stomach aches, debilitating diarheea and vicious bouts of vomiting. Medicine couldn't do much, especially after it was confirmed that it is a virus, so it was up to me to keep her confortable and hydrated - that is the most important thing with stomach bugs in kids, believe me. And because I am slightly (I lied, a lot) paranoid when it comes to dehydration (if you've been reading my blog, you know that at the beginning at the year we had an awful scare after Maya went all stiff and passed out and all the tests and stuff). And because I wasn't able to buy here in Israel sticks for testing her pee (my huband bought some online and we're waiting for them to arrive) I had to run every day to the ER or the laboratory and the d0ctor's office to ask (and beg, when I had to) for a simple test to see if Maya was dehydrated or not. Thank God, she wasn't... Because she is a bit (well, a lot) spoiled and very stubborn she doesn't want to drink tea or rehydration drinks or anything that looks or tastes "suspicious". Mind you, here we have this drink for kids, Minerali, with minerals and stuff, for rehydration, but it's taste is so horrible it makes Maya throw up ( it made me gag when I tasted it, and I can eat or drink any kind of medicine or such). But in the end, I managed to trick my daughter, by adding small quantities of stuff in her grape juice ( the only liquid she wanted to drink).
I am not going to bore you with all the gory details of the last week. Yesterday I was finally able to sleep for the first time in a week and I also managed to clean the house...I scraped vomit from the walls, for godness' sake! But now Maya is feeling better and that's the most important thing and she made it without the hospital...I am so relieved!

So, you see, this was the reason of my absence from the bloggy world, and from any other worlds. When my baby is sick she becomes the highlight of my actions (well, she is usually the most important thing in my existence) and everything else just slides somewhere in the background, blurred and unimportant...

For One Smile

Yeah, I'll do anything for a smile on my daughter's face...Fight wars, bake cookies, play with dolls, anything. And because she was such a good sport lately, fighting this bad cough she's got for over a month, I decided it's time for a little gift. She loves receiving presents, especially after a long (and dirty) day at the kindergarten. So I bought her today two puzzzles (she's so into them lately, I am surprised, my hyperactive girl, doing puzzles!) , a watch (not that she doesn't have a dosen) and something nice for her fair hair. And, of course, the all time snack of Israeli kids - "Bamba".

I Need to Banish this Demon That's Consuming Me

Today I was cleaning the house and when I reached the living room I stumbled upon Maya's collection of toy ambulances. Last year, after she was hospitalized, having been brought to the hospital in an ambulance whenever I bought her toys, she asked only for the damn vehicle...
For me, it is a torment. Every time I see her playing with them, in the back of my eyes I replay the horror movie of this year's events, when she was so sick! I still see her in my dreams, stiff amd sheet white, laying uncounscious in my husband's arms. I wake up crying and unable to breath.
I still have nightmares and whenever I hear her coughing I break in a cold sweat. When she has a fever, I have these terrible stomach aches. When she doesn't feel well I am so scared my body trembles and I cannot concentrate.
How do I stop this? I know it is not healthy for me or my family, me living in this dense cloud of guilt. But how to exorcise this demon that is eating me alive? I know that as a parent I have a lot of responsabilities and I try to cope with the challenges that come day after day. But I cannot live with this Damocles' sword hanging over my head. Could I?

Please don't judge me too harsh. If you're a parent, you can at least simpatize with me. I know it sounds exagerated, but believe me, when your child is very sick everything else fades, becomes unimportant.

Maybe I kept these feelings and frustrations burried inside me for too long. I didn't want to accept what I felt becuase I was ashamed I was so weak. But I think that in order to banish whatever demon is hunting me, I have to have the courage to face and confront it...

Fall? What Fall?!

Image via Wikipedia

I am reading this blogs and they are all about fall decorations, fall here, cold there, nice colors, pumpkin spices...and I am like :"Fall? What fall?" Here we have a very summery weather (actually, I've read in the newspaper that this summer, in Israel, was the hottest ever recorded!!!), it is still hot and humid, and everything goes dry because of the lack of water...
During a period like this I miss Romania. Oh my God, the clear autumn sky, the symphony of colors, the smells...beautiful...It is true what they say, that you realize what you had only after you've lost it! I trully understand now the beauty of the land where I was born and the deep connection I have with it.
Anyway, I am on a quest to find the fall colors here, in Israel. I cannot live only in my memories, can I?

I Am So Mad at Myself I Could Scream!

Image via Wikipedia I don't know what the hell is happening with me... I cannot write...It feels like, when you try to breath, and you don't have enough air to fill your lungs...it is like this for me, no air, no nothing. Just a big emptiness that makes me dizzy sometimes, and angry, most of the time. For me, writing is like a second nature. I become a professional journalist because I needed to write. After I came to Israel, I stopped writing. I tried to change my carrer, my priorities, but it didn't work. I had to "retrain" myself to write in English (my native language is Romanian) because I felt I would be heard better in English. It wasn't easy in the beginning, believe me, but I didn't have a choice, it was write or go crazy.
I started this blog because I needed a place to cool down, with so many contradictory things going on in my life and I have to say I am glad I did, it helped my immensely with my English and also with my loneliness, as I made some awesome friends.
I then started to write, really and truly write. Fiction. So many ideas, so many feelings I had to put down on paper. I finished the first draft in a couple of months, writing in a frenzy, like I'd been channeling some superior inteligence telling me what to write. I moved on to editing, cutting and adding, and now I AM STUCK. Big time. It makes me sick just looking at the manuscript.
I cannot go near it. I dream of it at night. Sometimes I am afraid it will dissapear, or I will dissapear and nobody will get to know the story I wanted to tell. I make excuses, I make myself busy. I tell myself I am not feeling well, I am tired, or Maya is sick. Poor excuses, I know, but I don't have anything better to get me out of this mess.

Help?