Hoo Boy!

I've been single parenting this week, and holy crow am I tired! My place looks like a bomb went off in it - no way could I ever have ANY visitors over the state it is now.

We seem to have finally ironed out the 5 (almost 6) year old's sleeping challenges, only to have the 10 month old start to develop them. Lack of sleep makes Mommy patience in much less supply.

And yet, the oldest has gotten to school every day. Kids are fed, and seem reasonable happy even if the younger is grumping at me in the middle of the night. For my part I have developed an even greater appreciation for those folks who go it on their own all the time. And I'm upping my efforts to keep the coming summer as busy as I possibly can.

Just a Jab

How do you help your little ones handle shots? We had Daniel's 5 year appointment yesterday and I spent the whole time fielding the question over and over: Is this just a checkup, or am I going to get a shot? This was compounded by the fact that his pediatrician was running late and the poor kid was sitting in the exam room, on the table in his underwear.

I didn't know whether we were caught up on shots or not, and we certainly have the flu shot coming up... so the best I could do was to say I don't know. Lying would have been comforting in the moment, but would have caught up with me in the end. I tried several other tactics, such as shots are meant to keep us healthy... it's really quick, and it's done... and the capper: Poor Ethan will have to get a lot of shots coming up, you're just getting one.

No shots yesterday, although Daniel now knows that the flu shot is coming. I'm hoping it will be alleviated by the fact that Mommy has to get one too. Daniel is voting that I should go first.

Unfortunately it ain't just the ice cream

Don't get me wrong - I am super-excited to meet our new little guy! But at just over halfway there (23 weeks), my reactions swing wildly from Wow, where did the time go? one minute to Holy Sh*t, where did the time go? the next. I think it is most often correlated to the physicality of a moment. I'm five years older than the last time I did this preggo thing, and the bod is complaining! I'm also chasing the four year old, who is really a pretty good kid. It's just that his normal energy level could drain me when I wasn't pregnant, let alone now... thank goodness for the Mommy-break of preschool. Mix in a liberal dose of recent spousal stress, and whew! Lately I'm - not sure if a mess is the right word. I'll settle for stressed. And this conjures up worries for when I will need to do more than just carry kid #2 around. I've developed a healthy respect in recent years for my friend Kim - who does it all, with 5 children. I hope I'm as good a Mommy with two.

And on that note, I'm off to search out some ice cream, some chocolate, something...

Boo

So first my Yahoo email address got hacked. Highly embarrassing, and many apologies to anyone who has had any email contact with me whatsoever.

Now in the midst of this past week of single parenting with H out of town, I come down with yet again The Cough That Won't Quit. I was checking out at a store this morning and could hardly get a breath for the coughing. The poor clerk was sympathetic, but I have visions of her sanitizing everything as soon as I walked out the door.

Sigh.

This week has been hard. I'm off to hug my pillow and fantasize about ghost cupcakes landing on my doorstep.

The Stones Strike Back

Where I've been. Let's see.

There was that little matter two years ago of finding out that my year and a half of intestinal distress was being caused by gallstones. I had them take that gallbladder out, surgery, recovery, and things have been trucking along mostly fine.

Flash forward two years and minor pain last Saturday plus major pain last Sunday equals one trip to the emergency room.

Did you know that you can have stones stuck in a duct, even minus your gallbladder? Yup, new one for me too.

There were tests, calls to the GI (No, your symptoms aren't consistent with a stone...) only to have a CAT Scan say that yup, indeedy I was carrying around a boulder and my body had had enough. The endoscopic procedure uncovered a stone large enough that the doctor was very surprised that I had had no trouble before now. They pretty much had to crush it up, and put in a stent to help keep everything cleaned out and moving.

I didn't get to eat or drink until Tuesday. Can I just say that you never see more food commercials on TV than when you can't have anything yourself?

I'm on the mend, and getting back into the swing of things. I'm due back in a few weeks to have the stent taken out, and hopefully that will be the end of my intestinal saga.

Just to make sure the weekend was very interesting, we got the phone call while I was in the hospital that my nephew was in a very serious car accident on Sunday, the same day that I was admitted. Please join us in prayers for his speedy and complete recovery.

Ick

There's a wicked virus making the rounds right now. It felled me over a week ago, and took several days to pass. I thought we were in the clear, and then I was strolling the aisles of Wal-mart with Daniel last Sunday when I heard the ominous: My tummy hurts.

Uh-oh.

The kid's, shall we say choosy palate was working against us in finding something his system could tolerate while sick. And the only liquid he was willing to down at all was a juice that, while I questioned its value at least kept him hydrated. All in all, he soldiered through his first real stomach bug fairly well, and I think we're finally seeing the other side.

H woke up this morning fairly green, and I'm trying to work out strategies to keep Daniel away from Daddy. I guess not having everyone sick at exactly the same time makes it a bit more manageable... but exhaustion is starting to set in. And I'm just praying that this is the same bug I started with, because if I have to have another go round of this I am really going to cry foul.

Push Me, Pull You

Meals are something of a loosey-goosey affair around our house. H works very hard for long hours, meaning he is out a good portion of the time. All the physicality his job entails also means that when he gets home he is hungry. For me, left to my own devices I tend to subscribe to the eat when you're hungry, stop when you're not routine - one not governed so much by the clock.

Enter the three year old. The three year old who is currently surviving on crackers. He's steadily shrinking his list of acceptable foods, and it's driving me a bit battier than I already am to begin with. Days often start with a request for warm juice (not sure where the warm trend started for him, blech, but I'll run with it). Then it's a request for crackers. How about some peanut butter on those? Nope, just crackers. Crackers and cheese? Oh, Okay. Only to have me discover a plate full of cracker crumbs and a mound of cheese not long after.

I recently nixed a breakfast request for marshmallows.

And oh, the wailing and screeching at not getting his way! Well then, I'm not hungry and he marches away from the table.

And we all stage a repeat of this scene, center stage, at the next mealtime.

This tug-of-war is getting to me. Thank goodness for Flintstone's chewables!

Tired

A three year old boy and a Mommy with PMS makes for a twosome with short fuses today. This whole daylight savings time thing has messed the boy up a bit. We've been up at 6am every day, and absolutely positively refusing to take an afternoon nap. (Even though he could really use it. Come to think of it, so could I!)

It took me half an hour to get out of the house to vote this morning. Socks, shoes, whups not those socks, well OK those socks, THOSE shoes? On the plus side we could walk right in to the elementary school/polling place, and I was outta there in minutes. Waiting in line for any amount of time was SO not going to happen with the three year old in tow.

The school was running a bake sale, so Daniel scored a cookie out of the deal and we traveled on to a local park as it was a gorgeous day. Tearing around outside is always good for expending that preschooler energy. It's the arguing over every. single. thing once we step inside the front door that is wearing me into the ground today. I'm off for PJs and a drink of something warm and soothing. And bed before too long. New days in many ways tomorrow.

Stages

Okay, somehow, somewhere, somebody switched my sweet baby for a pod-person. It has been two days of: What is up with you? Then, I remember. I have a preschooler.

My local family network, a lifeline as I began this stay-at-home mom gig, recently held a parenting workshop titled: Why does my preschooler act this way? Do I need to mention that it was a pretty full house? One of the fliers cited a study which said that most 2, 3, and 4 year olds:

Pay no attention to what they are asked to do.

Say "no": refuse to do what is expected.

Are pokey: time wasting dressing and washing.

Leave tasks undone. They start, but don't finish.

Wriggle around. Don't sit still.

Laugh, squeal, jump around much of the time.

Refuse to share with other children.

Grab toys, shove, hit and attack others.

Ask for unnecessary help.

Cry easily, sulk.

Pick their nose.

Stay close to adults.

Seek attention by showing off.
Go to adults with criticisms of others.

Boss others.

Stay awake at naptime.

Refuse food.

Speak indisctinctly.

Are hard to reason with.

One-third to one-half:

Grumble and whine.

Chew objects, twist hair and suck their thumb.

Are shy and fear strangers.

Won't play with other children.

Are jealous.

More than one-fourth:

Bite nails, twitch, handle genitals.

Break toys, tear books and mark walls.

Have temper tantrums.

Wet self during the day.

Fear animals and loud noises.

Secretly take things that belong to others.

Of course, none of the 555 children did any of these things all of the time. But, all of the children did some of these things some of the time. Large percentages did some of them almost daily.

credit to: Exit., Agricultural & Home economics, University of Wisconsin.

Parents at the workshop were able to share tips and tricks that had worked for their families. In a big way it's simply reassuring to be able to think: It's not just me. The mom of a younger child recently asked me about things getting easier now that Daniel is 3 years old. I replied along the lines of: It's a new challenge every day.

Fight Club

Stressed. Standard operating procedure of my current week. I've come to the conclusion H and I don't know how to fight.

There are very few things that we really disagree on, and the biggie reared its' ugly head this past week. Details, details... I won't say they're unimportant. I'm just too exhausted to hash them out here.

I wish I were a screamer, a thrower, a blow-my-stack tantrum-er. We might actually get a resolution to this issue... Instead we both withdraw to our separate corners and the tension is permeating, deafening. Can you learn to be a yeller?

I wish this was a drooly post over Brad Pitt, but... there you go.

Looking to exchange my "Grumpy" hat...

Sleep drama continues at the house of Dirt Makes Fat. Daniel has begun fighting his nap, and he is one persistent kid. After a few days of struggling to get him down for the nap, I finally picked a day to just... go without. Maybe he doesn't need it anymore, I reasoned. He got a tot crabby and frustrated, and we were butting heads more than usual. He also crashed around suppertime which made bedtime more of a bear.

The next two days he napped of his own accord at 11 and 11:30am, setting up a nice amount of space to get him off to bed in the evening at a reasonable time and without too much ado. The next day a nap struck at 2:30pm, and today held off until 1:30pm. Once he goes down, the kid also power-naps until I decide enough is enough and I start trying my darndest to wake-im up.

No matter what time he gets to bed in the evenings, he is up at 6/6:15am. Lately I'm woken by him draped across my bedroom doorway, kicking his feet against the jamb while he waits for his parents to rise.

I am starting to give up on the idea of schedules for him.
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In the car report, after replacing the fuel assembly and spending much moolah, the frakkin' light was off on the dashboard of my frakkin' car for almost exactly 48 hours. And it's baacck! I suspect there will be additions to this report very soon. (Stupid deer.)

Cough, Round 237

Ugh. It's back. The cough. It's driven H to sleep in the baby's room, driven me to sleepless nights and I've driven myself to the doctor's office to plead for some codeine relief. Nothing works.

And on the nothing works front, we awoke to some veery interesting noises coming from our heating unit this morning. Short answer is that sucker is slowly dying. To the tune of lots of dough, since the builders in the early 80s in their infinite wisdom wedged a large heating system into a tight closet, leaving no room for said units to become obsolete and need to be replaced by bigger/different sized things. Such is the way my Thursday is going. This day can't end soon enough.

Rolling that stone

I feel like I have started about 18 different posts lately - with none of them landing on the "publish post" side of the coin. Life has just been kicking our respective behinds around here, and it's really starting to bug me. I usually have a much more relaxed season than this has been.

Tooth pain for weeks, a root canal, and car repairs for H. All while working his patootie off out in the cold.

For me: the cough without end, especially while having an MRI done on my liver where the tech is imploring me to hold my breath. The liver problem turned out benign, but the doc herself called me rather than one of the girls in the office to ask: Was I still having gallbladder symptoms? Because the MRI showed my bile duct as bigger than normal, and even absent the gallbladder there could be some debris in there which might require a procedure to remove.

Can we please stop finding things wrong with me any time now?

And I spent most of the day yesterday with my heart in my throat after Daniel took a skate in his socks across some linoleum at the favorite playspace and whacked the back of his head a good one. He was so stunned, he didn't even cry. And it is very unusual for him to clutch at me that way when I scoop him up... I think my heart rate has finally returned to normal as of Saturday morning.

Looking forward to a calm, stress-free Christmas.

When good relationships go bad...

It is nice to develop a "relationship" with the collection of doctors, dentists, etc. who touch your life. Even if it is somewhat illusory - as a professional, they probably see tons of patients - you are still part of those tons. And you get to see the same face, when you are often ill, in pain, or at some sort of vulnerable point.

What do you do when those relationships aren't quite going the way you'd hoped? If it is near the beginning, like when I was interviewing an OB for example, it can be pretty easy to just say Yeesh, no way and move on. But what if it's further along in the process? I've documented a bit of my battle with my gastroenterologist. I'm still more than a little peeved that it took a year and a half of my life (and nearly all of Daniel's) to diagnose and treat gallstones. Yet more testing is to follow to confirm whatever they think is going on with my liver. I'm being told it's benign, but we're still looking...

H has been going through his own version of this lately with a toothache. Our whole family followed our dentist to his own practice. Awhile back, my sister-in-law had a bunch of work done and suddenly came down with tooth pain of undetermined origin. It lasted a month, and eventually faded. H has had several appointments recently. First diagnosis: gum inflammation. Second appointment resulted in a prescription for antibiotics, and a potential upcoming root canal.

It's miserable. As anyone who has had serious tooth pain will tell you, it colors everything that you do. At what point do you say Enough. This isn't working. And move on?

The Calm before The Storm

A great big thank you to the person who parked next to me at CVS yesterday - darn near diagonally in their parking space - thereby encouraging some interesting acrobatics to get my two year old back into his car seat.

During this feat of gymnastics I happened to note the presence of at least one kid's car seat in said car... I can only hope that the van belonged to the woman in the store who was busily pushing the double stroller through the too-small aisles. She looked like she had her hands full, and that's the only way I can mentally cut her some slack at this point...

We are water-heater operational again, and I am composing my complaint letter to Sears next. More on that as I have more news to tell... The jury/trial that H landed on is still going on, much to our dismay as this is getting pretty inconvenient. Flu shots today for baby and I - H is next. Otherwise we are just hunkering down to outlast the remnants of Storm Noel.

Deluge

Water heater busted yesterday, which equals water all over the garage, hallway to the garage, and seepage into the neighbor's garage.

First contractor - HUGELY expensive. Second contractor - NEVER calls back. Purchase new heater from big-name store - ROYAL runaround about getting out here to install the @!&$*^ thing.

Say hello to Mom with the proverbial steam coming out of her ears, which yes, is the only hot water you will find around this place.

Oh, and H went for jury duty today and yep, they picked him. Out until at least Tuesday. Hope he wasn't looking for a hot shower to go to court.