Honey I Put The Kids In A Bubble

I wish I could stick the kids in a bubble sometimes. After more than a month of sick kid hell, I want to quarantine them and keep them well and have a few moments of sanity. The past three days have been insane. Molly has cried nonstop, and after her sleeping pattern changed, I knew what the problem was. Tonight I took her to the after-hours clinic, listened to her scream furiously for over an hour while we waited for the doctor, and got the diagnosis I expected: a double earache. This is just like sister Lily's most recent earache, where no real head cold was apparent, but enough drainage had caused the earache. Parents take heed: earaches can occur without a head cold.

So this explains the evil baby behavior. I should have taken her to the clinic sooner - both for her sanity and mine. I was super busy with work since Wednesday, both because I was catching up from not working Tuesday and because I'm fighting through another work issue, so it was immensely stressful trying to work and care for a screaming baby (and two other needy kids). I've been a little frantic. Besides, I've slept poorly because Molly has slept poorly, so that hasn't helped my stress level.

Tomorrow should be a new day. We hope. The pink medicine has saved us again.

Even without an earache, Molly has definitely shifted into toddler behavior mode. She is feisty, angry, temperamental, and already throws tantrums by throwing herself on the floor. At 13 months. Huh? I didn't know this was possible at such a young age. Lily, in contrast, is turning out to be spastic and hyper when happy, but much milder in temperament (a total flip flop on temperaments from their infant days). The difference between Molly and Lily is that Molly gets angry whereas Lily gets her feelings hurt. It's a striking difference.

Molly, therefore, has become quite high maintenance recently. She can be exhausting. On the other hand, she also gives back a lot. She is the cuddliest baby I've ever had, needing constant physical reassurance (which is both endearing and tiring). She is also amazingly observant and is learning words at light speed. A few nights ago, during dinner, the babies had gotten messy with whatever food they were eating. Kyle offhandedly looked at Molly and said, "do you want a bath tonight?" (mind you, Molly loves nothing more than baths - she screams when you take her out of the tub). Molly immediately pushed herself back from the table and tried to unbuckle her safety strap while smiling ear to ear and looking toward upstairs. It was downright hysterical and made Kyle and me immediately laugh. Lily didn't comprehend one bit of the exchange, another striking difference between them.

Lily, as I said, has gotten quite spastic and hyper when she's happy, throwing herself around the floor for fun (her uncle noted we must put her in gymnastics as soon as possible). She continues to be overly active - though still refusing to walk - and other than occasionally sitting in your lap (just to practice the ability to maneuver herself into your lap) she doesn't much care for physical reassurance. She just wants to move. But she's mild all day, and content just to keep herself moving, and doesn't take much effort other than an occasional meal or diaper change. She's getting the short end of the stick right now due to both Molly and Claire's need for attention, but others remind me to forget the guilt and instead be happy that I don't have both twins being high maintenance right now. I just worry that Lily's lack of vocabulary can be linked to the current lack of attention, but I suppose she'll catch up some day.

Tomorrow is tap & ballet class, which was missed last weekend because of the vomiting, and lots of errands because we are getting ready for a family photo shoot on Sunday. It's Christmas card time!

The Virulent Virus

I have a perfectly acceptable reason for my lapse in posts. The Halloween weekend puke fest took Kyle and me out too. First Molly, then Lily, then Claire, then my mom, then Kyle, then the visiting Uncle, then me, and today I rushed home to relieve the nanny who felt it all coming on. So that is 8 out of 9 people who got this horrid awful thing. Only the visiting Aunt is still standing. It's a good thing Papa cancelled on his weekend visit otherwise he would have been another victim.

This virus just hangs with you. I came down with it Monday night at 11pm (after going to work that day and leaving a sick Kyle in the basement with the nanny taking care of the kids upstairs), was up every hour through the night, but thanked the heavens it happened once kids were asleep. Tuesday I stayed home, on the couch, and felt horrible all day. Today I'm at about 80% but my stomach is still feeling funky and I'm weak from not eating very much. I now understand why the twins are just now getting their appetites back. Claire, Kyle, and I are still barely eating.

I did not go to work today. I felt too weak. Instead, I spent the morning spraying every germy surface of our home with Lysol - this is my version of fumigating our house - hoping to keep the nanny from getting sick (clearly that failed because I put her in the hot seat on Monday). This afternoon the nanny showed up to help while I left the house to conduct a few conference calls from my car. I only made it through one call when I got the SOS text message from the nanny that she was starting to feel bad. I rushed home, sent her on her way (with many apologies), and had to keep Claire quiet and occupied while I finished working and joined another conference call. I bribed her with bubble gum. I admit it. I'm still playing catch up from not working Tuesday so I was busier than usual. I was lucky the babies napped for a couple hours this afternoon.

All I can say is that it is hellish to have five out of five family members get so sick in such quick succession. We have had a household full of stress and frustration. I can't stand times like this.

While I'd like to be an optimist, I never am, so realistically speaking with winter approaching I know we have a tough road ahead for the next few months. We'll get sick again and again and struggle through all of it. It would be nice if we could learn how to do it with a little less stress around the house.

The photos from today were actually taken by the nanny on Monday. Lily was napping so there are no photos of her in the bunch. The nanny did a nice job.

Cinderella and the Stomach Flu

I must post the requisite Halloween photos of Claire (of course she chose to be Cinderella, her current obsession). We should have had a very exciting weekend - Aunt & Uncle were in town (my sister/brother-in-law) - and Friday started out that way. But by Saturday morning Claire had come down with the stomach flu and proceeded to vomit her way through the whole day. Auntie and Uncle got the heck out of dodge and went to see Papa (I don't blame them!) and I hunkered down with the twins while Kyle was on puke duty. It was just one disgusting day.

The twins both vomited one time - Molly once Thursday morning (which we thought was random, but now realize it wasn't), and Lily woke up at 1:50am Friday night/Saturday morning and had thrown up all over her bed. Kyle had to clean up and get her settled back down. Molly heard the commotion (not to mention an overly sleepy Kyle came in to get the wrong baby and picked Molly up instead of Lily), and she then kept me awake for over two hours until she could get back to sleep. So we were exhausted yesterday.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that my sister, brother-in-law, and I avoid the stomach bug - if my sister gets it, I don't think she'll ever visit us again.

Today our visitors left early so we have the whole day to get Claire out of the house now that she's feeling better. I need a break from the sick den myself.

A Good Visit To The Doctor

Finally, we had a "good" visit to the doctor: we weren't there because a kid was sick or had a broken a bone, but just for a mundane well-child check-up. Even better was that I was able to get through the appointment without listening to two babies scream. Claire and I were alone, and the examining room was blissfully peaceful. Claire made one very small "ooooh" noise when she got her flu shot - the only shot she received today - but that was as bad as it got.

She is 41 1/2 inches and 37 pounds - 75th and 65th percentiles respectively. Please tell me how two very short parents continue to have a child in the 75th percentile in height?? We're still stuck in a regular carseat until she's 40 pounds, at which point we can move to a booster seat.

Claire also got a finger prick (she actually nervously giggled at that one!) and was supposed to pee in a cup for the first time but she didn't need to pee so we left without leaving them a sample. I begged and begged for 15 minutes in the bathroom but she couldn't come up with more than a drop. Clearly she inherited her father's stronger bladder. Mine can't make it more than 20 minutes.

I thought for sure she had rectal strep (yes, it exists) but the swab sample came back negative. The doctor and I were trying hard not to laugh at Claire's modesty and the ridiculous position she took to give the doctor a view of the area. I felt sorry for her embarrassment but the whole scene was downright funny. Even the stoic doctor got the giggles.

So basically the worst part of the day (other than Molly waking me at 6am) was at lunchtime after preschool pick up, where Molly threw an enormous tantrum in the Culver's restaurant over the ice cream cup. The entire restaurant was staring. I packed up all three kids in a matter of two minutes and was out the door, leaving a mess on the table in my expedient exit. I was mortified. Molly is definitely in a new phase, and she's incredibly demanding and very loud. I can tell she wishes she could talk to get her point across and her frustration level with us when we don't understand boils over quickly. She's got a very short fuse right now. Lily, for once, seems like the super-calm, super-easy twin. They've flip flopped on me. When Lily does have her (now more limited) meltdowns she's still unstoppable, but Molly is feistier all day long now. I wouldn't have predicted this one.

OK, off to bed .... office day tomorrow. Let's hope the nanny keeps it under control at home. I'm realizing my kitchen will never be cleaned well enough to my standards when she's here.

Playing Catch Up

I'm playing posting catch up again here. The darned television keeps sucking me in. Actually, as I watched CSI: Miami tonight (one of my guilty pleasures), I read Newsweek during commercial breaks and got through about half the magazine. So I had a mix of brain drain and enlightenment at the same time. I won't insert my personal politics here, but I can't get enough of the presidential political coverage at the moment.

We had a good weekend. Friday evening a family with 8-week-old twin girls and a 3-year-old boy stopped over to buy some of our baby clothes, and while maternal urges made me want to cradle a tiny newborn, I felt joy that I wasn't at the newborn stage anymore. Unfortunately we didn't unload the whole lot of 0-3 month size clothes, so I think I'll be a seller at the next mothers of multiples garage sale and finally get these tubs of clothes out of my house. We are drowning in girl clothes, matching and not matching.

Saturday Claire had her usual tap & ballet class and we ate at Mr. Goodcents afterwards. This is another one of those random restaurants where the people know us well and treat us nicely. We're well known at Waffle House, Mr. Goodcents, Pizza Shoppe, and Winsteads, and probably a few others I'm not remembering right now.

Saturday afternoon we blew up the bouncy thing for one last play time before winter hits, and Claire unfortunately took more interest in playing with her neighborhood friends elsewhere rather than in the bouncy thing. Urgh. This reminds me of the story my parents tell me about the time that my sister and I played with the boxes our Christmas presents came in rather than the presents themselves - I now understand the letdown a parent feels after getting a kid a present you thought she'd love but she isn't playing with. Kyle was supposed to use the afternoon time to switch the twins' carseats to forward facing (hoping to tame Molly's hatred of car rides), but somehow he got too busy with kids and a grocery trip and starting the grill. So that remains a task for this week as I'm sick of listening to Molly scream in the car.

Sunday we had a nice lunch with Papa, who pulled an Old Man on us and took a catnap on the couch after returning home from lunch (sorry, Papa, couldn't resist commenting). He was able to note a shift in our family dynamics because all three kids were awake and playing in the same room with him when he took that nap, so clearly the clamor and chaos is subsiding a little. In past months there would have been too much crying for him to take that nap. I'm not suggesting we're in a new magically perfect phase, but we do have a few moments of happy peace here and there.

Sunday afternoon I took Claire to preschool Lauren's birthday party. They had rented a commercial bouncy thing so she got some more bounce time, but the weather had turned amazingly windy and cooler so the kids gravitated toward indoors. Claire asked me to leave - yes, she really requested I leave for a while - so I went off to Wal-Mart to buy clear tubs for more kids' clothes and I returned later to pick her up. She had a good time.

The rest of the evening was spent switching out summer clothes to winter in both the twins' closet and Claire's closet. This is a massive task given the volume of clothes, and I finished about 85% of the task with the rest completed tonight after my office day. I hate doing the seasonal closet switch. Four years and counting, and I've never once gotten any help during the job. I finally made Kyle organize a few coat hangers tonight as his contribution. We added two more enormous plastic tubs of clothes to our collection in the storage room.

After the twins were put to bed, I bravely took a walk with my friend in the super windy cold night, but we kept it to about 4 miles because we were both freezing.

Today I had an office day which ended up being quite boring. Molly was having a super cranky and clingy day (what could be wrong with her??) and Claire had a full-blown meltdown tonight over her nightly candy (she stayed up too late last night). I let Kyle handle it and I guess she lost her chocolate for tomorrow also. Too bad for her, because with her 4-year check-up tomorrow and a few shots coming with that, she'll want a nice treat. I'll try to remember to check in with her well-child physical results tomorrow, assuming I don't get sucked into television tomorrow night. Good night!

Wrong Side Of The Bed

I admit it. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

There's something about leaving my kids with the nanny today, after Monday's 911 fiasco, that sent me straight into grumpy land. I was anxious. And I took it out on Kyle, Claire, and the nanny too. Well, I wasn't overly mean to the nanny, but I did leave her with a "let's not have a repeat of Monday ..." comment as I walked out the door. As if that ensures no accidents will occur.

I had a sick feeling in my gut for the first half a day at work. The afternoon was better. I calmed down, I checked out some really cool wireless phones at a holiday preview event, and then my friend and I snuck out of work (well, not really - I told my boss I was leaving) to VOTE. Yep, we live in an early voting state, so we cast our official ballot today. That made me feel happy, having done my civic duty.

I picked up a rotisserie chicken on the way home and made dinner while Kyle watched kids. Usually it's his night to cook - my office days are his nights to handle dinner - but I knew I could efficiently pull together a quick dinner if he could just manage the kids and keep them out of my hair. And that he did. Claire annoyed the heck out of me by not staying in her chair at dinner and refusing to eat much of anything. The grumps reared their head again.

Then, Claire and I worked on her birthday thank-you notes. Her task was simply to sign her name, and she messed it up at least 5 times which brought out the grumps again. I shouldn't have been so hard on her - she's only four! - but seriously I don't know why she can't manage to focus and get her name right on a consistent basis. She's always forgetting the 'i' in her name, or writing straight up the page rather than across the page. And she doesn't like being told that she didn't do something well or right. It makes her mad and she gets the quitting attitude. I get frustrated by that.

Tomorrow my boss has cancelled our weekly team meeting, relieving the nanny from her childcare time here, so the good news is that puts some space between me and her until next Monday. Hopefully that provides me some time to put this week in perspective. Tonight I came home to one knife and a cutting board that hadn't been washed, but more annoying was how she somehow went through all of our clean spoons when I just ran the dishwasher yesterday. She at least cleaned up the kid toy messes because I harped on it again this morning, but I guess she hasn't clued in to my bigger issue being an untidy kitchen. I know these are little things, but generally it's the build up of little things that frustrate relationships, right?

Time to get to bed and banish the grumps for a while.

A 911 Call

Starting with Lily's broken collarbone about a month ago, our rough stretch continues. I'm sick of it. I need some peace and stability.

Yesterday I had an office day, and I got a text from the nanny around lunchtime that Molly had fallen and hit her head. She said she iced the bump (and I do know that a bump is better than something that goes inward). I also knew that Molly's nap was upcoming, and the idea of putting a kid down for a nap who has just had a head injury scared me, so I told the nanny that I might send Kyle to check on Molly. I had a meeting I couldn't skip out of, otherwise I would have checked on her myself. I just wasn't entirely trusting of the nanny's judgment on the head bump. The summer nanny, yes ... I would have felt comfortable. But not this girl.

I asked Kyle to check on Molly. He never made it home.

About 3:45pm, I got a call from the nanny. It's bad if you get an actual call versus a text message. I immediately said, 'uh, oh no - what's the problem?'. She said, "uh, yeah, Molly woke up crying, and then she threw up a little".

I hit the PANIC button. Head injury? Vomiting? My child?! This cannot be happening. But it was. I started running through the office wildly, looking for another parent to consult, and only ran into one mother I don't know well. We agreed the nanny should call 911 and I would race home as quickly as possible.

And race I did. About 65 miles per hour home on normal side streets. I pulled up to the sickening sight of the fire truck outside my home. Heart pounding, I ran in, only to find three EMTs, Claire, and the nanny holding a smiling Molly. I only focused on Molly and the EMTs.

"She's fine" they said. I was shaking violently. "I'd still call your pediatrician for their advice, but she seems OK".

I signed release forms. I thanked the guys profusely for being called out unnecessarily - "better safe than sorry" they said to me. Yes. Better safe than sorry.

I couldn't look at the nanny yet. Accidents happen, yes, but she couldn't wipe that silly smile off her face or even show one hint of empathy, and it was making me angry.

Kyle got home, and the EMTs briefed him before leaving. The fire truck left, and I stood in my front yard, holding Molly tight, alone with her, and allowed myself the letdown. Ah, lord, my child, I am so happy you seem OK. Please be OK.

I talked to the pediatrician's office, who advised me on warning signs for the night.

We got through dinner, and while Kyle was annoyed by Molly's crying (she had only napped two hours the whole day and was tired), I wasn't phased - she could have cried for an hour straight and I would still be praising the heavens for her health.

I got Molly to bed, pulled together a photo thank-you card online for Claire's birthday guests, checked again on Molly to make sure she was conscious, and promptly left for my friend's house.

I drank a glass of wine. That will be one of maybe 5 whole drinks this year, but lord I needed it. And I basked in my friend's warmth and empathy and shared tears as I allowed myself a brief moment of self pity over the non-stop kid drama and everything else that doesn't seem right in my life.

I got home around 11pm, checked on Molly several times in the night, and didn't even want to strangle her when she woke me up at 6am this morning. Child, I am so happy you are OK.

The nanny? I'm wrestling with my thoughts about her. Everyone knows I've been struggling with her. Accidents happen - Lily broke her collarbone on my watch. It's not the accident that's most upsetting, but the sense that I can't trust her judgment or the story I'm getting out of her. I need to fully, fully trust the person watching my kids. And I don't trust her. That's the issue here. The question is what do I plan to do about this?

It might have helped if she had been able to say "I'm sorry". She didn't seem apologetic or overly concerned, other than from a clinical, cold standpoint. Ooook.

So today I enjoyed my kids yet also worked my tail off around the house ... dishwasher, laundry, cooking, etc. At 8pm I called it quits and watched tv for 2 hours straight before I finally got that shower I missed today. It's the new season of tv that is at fault for my lack of postings this month. I'm trying to figure out which shows are worth watching, so I'm watching a lot of them.

And with the collarbone and the earaches and the strep and the fevers and the pink eye (oh, whoops, I forgot to mention that last Thursday Claire woke up with pink eye) and now the 911 scare I have just needed A Break From It All. Including my beloved Internet. Television has been that break for me.

And now I'm off to blowdry my hair and go to bed. I'm exhausted. Bet you can't guess why.