The Fighting Parents

  I took a nap with my youngest son today. I wasn't the least bit tired, and both his mother and I got good sleep the night before. About half an hour into his nap the eczema woke him up and he was ripping apart the skin on his elbows and fingers with his eyes closed. I laid down with him and started our routine of grabbing whichever spot he goes for and massaging it with aquaphor, vaseline, cortisone, and every other thing natural or man derived. He would fall back to sleep for ten minutes and then start up again. After an hour or so of this I just started falling asleep and waking up with him.
  After the twins woke up and the day kicked back into gear, I soon found myself bribing the twins with snacks, chocolate milk, and the i-pad. The deal was to let me off the hook from being dad for awhile because Tristan's eczema was running wild after nap time, and all my attention was directed toward putting the fires on his skin out.
  It's not always like this, but these days mommy and I are put face to face with a reality that any loving parent probably doesn't want to deal with on a daily basis. That is the fact that you would forget yourself for your child's well being. I'm not trying to sound heroic though because it's an ugly process that happens the opposite of smoothly. My ego doesn't want to let me go. It wants me to feel sorry for myself, it wants more sleep, less stress.
  My hands cramp, my shoulder aches. I've been doing this in my sleep for the last year plus. The massaging soothes him and sloughs off the dead skin. It's all about keeping the wounds cared for to avoid infection. When I reach my breaking point, after he ripped off the gauze, and starts crying because I start forcing his hands away from each other, I have to step away for a minute and let my neck unclench. I'm dehydrated, I didn't eat lunch, the house is a mess, but the itching won't stop.
  When I walk back to the fight I see a new sight that makes my heart come crashing to a daily low point. He's moved off to the corner and he's hiding his hands from me so I can't see him scratching.
I need to write because I'm a writer, I need to golf because I'm a golfer, I want to drink because I'm a drinker. I need to relax because my nerves are fraying. I grab a glass of water and decide to fill up the pool outside in the hope that it will distract him. His discomfort becomes my energy, we'll get him through this...it's just a tough fight.