The Grumps

We had a blah weekend, capped off with a Children's Mercy Urgent Care visit tonight (not the usual after-hours clinic because it was closed this evening - more on this in a minute). Since the gorgeous weather from the other day, we've been cooped up in the house other than preschool, dance class, and a few lunches out. The household mood has been a little off - we are the house of grumps.

Lily is screaming a lot during the day and just woke up screaming, so she's either teething or has an earache. We'll watch her tomorrow.

Claire has been whiny and not taking direction well. This afternoon she kept ignoring my directions, so at one point I grabbed her hand and pulled her on the floor with me to tell her she'd lost a star and to listen better. She cried, said I'd hurt her foot (when she sat down abruptly she said she twisted it backward), and then went downstairs with Kyle and Lily. I played with Molly until dinner, at which point Claire said it hurt to walk so Kyle carried her to the dinner table. I got worried because she usually doesn't fake stuff like this, and with great fear I checked her foot and her toes looked blueish to me. I freaked. I assumed I had accidentally broken her toes or even her foot somehow, so after eating I gave her Motrin and took her to Children's Mercy for a foot x-ray.

She was in a fantastic mood the whole time but the urgent care visit took about 2 1/2 hours which was tough. I was anxious, assuming I'd really hurt her somehow and I knew the mother guilt would be extreme. Finally the doctor said he saw nothing on the x-ray (to be confirmed tomorrow by a radiologist) and he mused about how much pain she might be feeling (she chose the "zero pain" face on his pain chart) versus how much attention-getting behavior was going on. Instead of being annoyed with Claire or feeling stupid about wasting the doctor's time tonight, I just felt nothing but relief that I hadn't hurt her in a moment of frustration.

I finally got her to bed about 10:30pm and she was asleep in minutes. We'll see how tomorrow goes. If she's actually still limping then she has to skip gym class and sit out during preschool's "recess" time this week.

I got a text message from the nanny that she's sick and may or may not be feeling better tomorrow morning, so we might have a childcare crisis. We also might be getting 1-3 inches of snow tomorrow. It's supposed to be an office day for me, but we'll see how it plays out.