Attention, everyone.

10/10/14

Attention world. Joseph Blum is a spectacular husband and father. He deserves accolades.

This has been a long, exhausting week. To begin with, I needed to grade all of my class' first papers, which I felt nervous about and was a lot of work. Then, I got the dreaded call before my third class on Monday, "Z has a fever of a 103.6." Gah! Z got hand, foot and mouth disease and it was wretched. He was so miserable and uncomfortable, he barely slept, and needed to be held constantly. The first night I took care of him myself, with him only sleeping for about 30 minutes at a time before he would wake and need to be comforted back to sleep. It was way worse than when he was a newborn. No sleep. No naps the next day. Needing to be held all day and crying and crying because he was in pain. It was terrible. Add this on top of my ever-present first trimester exhaustion and hormones and I was a hot mess by the time Joe got home. We took turns holding Z while the other ate canned soup on the couch for dinner. I graded as long as I could stay awake and coherent while Joe insisted on taking the first "shift." Then I took over for my shift. It's just horrible to see your child so miserable and not be able to do a thing to help. Plus, add being exhausted on top of that and begging them to stay asleep... ugh. The next day, I won't lie, at one point I just sat in the rocking chair with him and we both cried. He was exhausted and miserable and I was exhausted and defeated.

But, we got through. Z started doing better on Wednesday and was pretty peachy by Thursday. I had to pull late nights to get all of my papers graded, but I managed. I wouldn't have managed without Joe. Now, I am tucked up cozily on the couch while he gets Z to bed so I can rest because he insisted. And I'm so grateful because I am honestly just bone tired. My eyes keep drooping shut even as I type this, but I wanted to get it down so I can remember how blessed I am to have such a partner in life. So many men are not like this. I know I should never take it for granted.

We love you, Papa! Thanks for taking care of all of us.