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February 28, 2009
Continuing with the bad mommy theme...
Katie's been telling me for a couple of days that her ear hurts. She's also mentioned several times that a couple boys in her class were trying to hit each other, and hit her by accident in the ear. (This is totally my justification for not taking her to the doctor sooner, you know, if anyone asks.) The first day, I just assumed the ear thing was a con. I mean, they say stuff all the time because they heard someone else say it first. And when she didn't bring it up again, I figured it was just one of those things.
Yesterday (or maybe it was the day before?) I noticed her forehead was a bit warm, but since she's my little space heater, I figured she was just having a hot moment. She had mentioned the ear thing once or twice, but never with any real urgency, and usually after someone got a little rough with it brushing her hair or giving her a bath. I really meant to break out the thermometer, but I figured I was probably being paranoid, so I didn't freak out when I realized I had forgotten. Plus, they (who the hell are they, anyway?) say that most ear infections clear on their own, and just give Tylenol for the pain. I went ahead and gave her some before she went to bed, just to be on the safe side.
I should also point out that during this time, she's been acting totally normal. And I can't really tell if the mentions about the the ear pain were really related to the ear, or yet another way for her to drill in that she's concerned about this one boy at school who has some behavior issues. I mean, she brings him up regularly, worried about him hurting her, in spite of the fact that he never actually has. Then he actually does hurt her, (an accident, in her own words,) so I would totally expect her to escalate her concern.
So anyway, tonight, problems with Jamie, yada yada yada, Owen went to bed early, and Katie and I got to spend some time talking uninterrupted. The topic of her ear came up again, and she still felt on the warm side, so I went ahead and took her temp. And yeah, well, the kid has probably had a high end low grade fever for the last two days. I mean, nothing major, and she's still acting totally normal, but how could I not know that?
Mommy of the Year, I tell ya.
Posted by me at 8:30 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2009
Maybe next week will be better
This has been one of those days when I totally feel like Mommy of the Year.
I set Owen on the bed to change his pants or some such, and once I wrangled him dressed, he sat up and started playing with my nightshirt. I stood right in front of him by the edge of the bed, in case he got any wild ideas about jumping headfirst to the floor, but he was totally absorbed in that damn shirt. While I was standing there, I changed into a pair of jeans, and then for some reason thought I should check out how they looked in the mirror on our dresser. So I walked around to the foot of the bed, and in the 20 seconds I wasn't watching the boy, he freaking took a header off the bed. I heard that sickening sound of skull on floor through the carpet. Ugh. I'm still not sure what finally made him move, I mean, where he fell to the floor wasn't even on his way to me, which was the one direction I could picture him moving (and also, a great sea of down comforter that DOESN'T LEAVE BRUISES.)
At first, I could only see a small mark on his forehead, and after a minute or two of crying, he suddenly looked up at me and smiled. An hour or so later, I noticed that he has some scuffs on the tip of his nose, and what might be a bruise just under. I kept an eye on him all afternoon, but aside from having an idiot for a mother, I was pretty sure he was going to be fine.
This evening, Jamie had her first big school program. The whole Kindergarten did a bunch of songs about friendship. Jamie did great, aside from the meltdown she had right before she had to go meet in the gym. Apparently, the 5 seconds it would take to get a picture of her smiling in her dress was going to make her SO LATE. I ended up making her stay until she calmed down, which kept making her later, because she would calm down, and then get all WAH again. Kid drives me nuts. Anyway, she stood up there on the risers and sang and did her arm movements and was totally awesome.
I, on the other hand, was totally annoyed. We were surrounded by kids who stood on the chairs so we couldn't see, kicked things, talked in their outdoor voices, performed acrobatics across their mother, and generally made it hard to see/hear/enjoy. I was talking to some fellow PTA'ers afterward, and they were all "weren't you just in tears at that last song?" and all I could think was that I must be dead inside, because I enjoyed it, but I was at all emotional about it. Apparently sappiness is totally cancelled out by annoyance.
Posted by me at 9:02 PM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2009
Yesterday was a really shitty day
Let me count the ways...
On Friday, I packed up the van and as soon as Jamie got home from school, we picked Rex up at work and headed to Houston. This becomes important later, although it's really just a footnote on the whole shitty day.
See, we had a nice weekend, delivered a bunch of Girl Scout cookies, saw all the family, spent some nice catch-up time with friends, and then headed back to Dallas, later than planned, as usual. And it wasn't until we pulled into the driveway and Rex said, "Where's my car?" that either of us remembered that it was still at work. With three sleeping kids in the van, we opted to wait until morning. It was unfortunate that it was one of few days that Rex had to be there right at eight, but at least we would still be able to get Jamie off to school before we had to leave.
So we put the kids in bed, unpacked our bags, noted the dried cat puke in the dining room, watched some tv, and headed off to bed. Rex slid under the covers and then immediately jumped back up. Bubba had peed on his side of the bed. (All weekend long, I'm guessing, since I could see about half a dozen dried spots when I washed the sheets.) So we stripped the bed, Rex cursed the cat, and I cried myself to sleep, because I knew what this meant. Bubba only managed to stay around this long because we've kept him in our bedroom, and aside from the odd basket of laundry, he's kept his pee to himself. Whether this particular incident was another UTI/inflamed bladder or just a behavioral problem, it was two straws past the last. I've tried pretty much every humane treatment the vet and I came up with, and none of them do more than borderline manage his urinary issues. It was time.
God, I can't stand thinking about it even now.
Rex and I alternated getting up with the boy, and then somewhere around 5, Jamie puked. I pretty much have two fears revolving around that bed, and one is the obvious kid falling off and getting hurt. The other is trying to clean puke that's dripping from step to step off the ladder. Surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as I thought, although I still have to try and move the damn thing so I can clean puke spray off the carpet.
We installed Jamie on the couch, started a load of laundry (Katie's bed was collateral damage), and tried to go back to sleep.
Puke.
Puke.
Hmm. I don't want to put a puking kid in the car for an hour drive, how 'bout you? Rex thought about catching a ride to work with a co-worker, but of course he's on a different schedule this week. So Rex took off in the van, with the understanding that he could be called back at any moment in case of medical emergency.
We settled in on the couch for a long day of tv watching and oh, my, what's that smell? Cat pee, you say? Well, crap. So I took the cover off the couch cushion for washing, and did what I could to mitigate the smell in the cushion, alternating between laundry, hair holding, cat puke cleaning (from the dining room), crying and baby needs.
That pretty much sums up my morning. At some point I sent Jamie upstairs to change her pants, and when I went up to check on her, I found her pantsless and asleep face down in a pile of stuffed animals. I got her to bed, forced Katie to take a nap soon after before her attitude was the death of her.
And this is the part where I have to call the vet to make an appointment for Bubba. Rex came home a bit early so I could have the van and take Bubba in alone. There was just no way I could have done that with the kids around. As it was, I think I made the staff a little uncomfortable with the amount of tears and snot I exuded. I had hoped to be in and out of there quickly, because frankly I just couldn't keep it together, and every minute of delay was just another minute to say another goodbye and as horrible as this sounds, at some point you just need to GO. Halfway through the waiting, I almost grabbed him and left, but that wouldn't have solved anything. (To be fair here, the clinic didn't do anything wrong. Bubba wasn't a patient of theirs, and they wanted to confirm that he had issues. They were being morally responsible. The vet consulted with me for a long time before he was ready to take this step.) Finally, it was done, and I cried my way home.
And the final clincher of the day was that I cried myself right into a migraine and let Rex put me to bed right after the kids.
Posted by me at 8:21 PM | Comments (1)
February 17, 2009
When it rains...
Owen has officially cut tooth number four. Although, to be honest, it probably came in yesterday while I was too comatose to notice.
We've had a busy couple of weeks, starting with Jamie being sick, then me, then a week at Disney World, where both Katie and my dad got sick, and then we returned home just in tome for me to get sick again.
I'm actually looking forward to our normal, boring life.
Posted by me at 8:27 PM | Comments (0)
My daughter is a 15 year old boy
Jamie starts yelling out "I can see her boobies!" while watching Rachael Ray.
Posted by me at 6:06 PM | Comments (0)
February 4, 2009
The house gods giveth...
I can't believe we closed on this house a year ago. It doesn't seem like nearly that long. In fact, it feels like we just got here. And while this is home, I'm not sure it really feels like home yet.
That totally made no sense.
I think what I meant to say is that while no other place comes to mind first when I think of the word home, sometimes it still takes me a while to picture this place that we actually live in. It's beautiful, but not particularly personalized to us. The kids have marked up the walls and the carpet is started to look more worn in some places than others, but it's not really homey. It's big and bright and airy, but if you asked me which of our homes was my dream home, I'd still say the house in Houston, and I'm not even sure why that is. There are a lot of things about this house that are nicer than the Houston house (although it, too, was beautiful). That house made a big impression, though, for all that we only lived in it for six months.
All of these house thoughts are coming to the surface because we reached the end of our year's warranty on Saturday. We've had drafty doors resealed, a leak in the garage repaired, some cracks filled and painted. Today was our last day with workers popping in and out, fixing up the last of issues. We're on our own in this house, for the first time in a long time.
We got lucky today. While the cabinet repair guy was here fixing something in the kitchen, we asked him what it would cost to install the two cabinets I got for the nook in the living room. I bought them months ago, but didn't want to pay the store what they wanted for what I thought was a simple job. Then I asked a friend for a quote, asked a handyman who was here doing another repair, talked to my dad and brother to see what was involved, and came to the conclusion that I should have just paid the store and been done with it. In fact, we decided to call them and see if they would still come out, I was just waiting til we got back from vacation to set it up.
So I asked the cabinet repair guy, on a whim. And he offered to install it for less than half of what the store wanted, with no hemming and hawing about how complicated it would be, and we can't do it that way, and no why would you want to do that?'s. And he could do it right. Now. And then he did, and he did a great job, and I have one more weight off my back.
At least, I did until I found the broken window in Rex's office. Did I mention the house is four freaking days out of warranty?
Posted by me at 7:33 PM | Comments (2)