My daughter is a fighter not a lover

The first day, before i realized Baby A was sick, i was congratulating myself on having changed a squirmy baby most likely to push you away before you even got to the beginning of a satisfying hug into a champion snuggler. Because all she wanted to do that first day she was sick was collapse on my chest and sleep there like she hasn't done since she was a mewling infant a whole year ago.

And then the next day when Tylenol couldn't tamp down her fever of 105 and i rushed her to the Urgent Care Clinic, she still clung to me, but she was all, "I'll cut you, beyotch" to any nurse or doctor who even dared to look at her. And she fought them on everything. Not just intrusive stuff like droppers of medicine, or the temperature thing they stick in your ear, but everything. Even the stethoscope. I really never thought anyone would object to that. 

It took two nurses plus me to hold her down while another nurse... checked her ears. At the end of which, my daughter was still yelling curses in toddlerese and i was crying snottily, and the nurse said: Well, it's a good thing she's a fighter.

And i think i was crying not not just because my baby was sick and i had to hold her down while strangers did something she didn't want. It was also because my head is sick with the things i read and hear, and holding her scared, fighting body reminded me of all the terrible things that happen to babies and children and girls, because you can get three other people and hold them down.

_