Camptown races sing that song

It’s been a little crazy around here and I haven’t had time to a) upload photos and b) do anything more with the computer besides refreshing Facebook 1,871 times an hour. So in two parts, here I am typing and later I will upload photos for the full effect.


Spencer turned three on Tuesday – THREE! Where does the time go? We got him a floor puzzle of Cat in the Hat (Top and the Hat to him), Candyland (conveniently left at my IL’s house for safekeeping) and a Fisher Price iXL video game system. My in-laws for once did not outdo us, and got him a bunch of clothes and a couple pairs of shoes, an educational game and a little ATV that professes to go 2mph … but there’s no way that it does that. It’s like 2 steps down from a Power Wheel, so he loves it and I’m not worried about him going 8mph into a tree. That comes next year. He loves his “bideo game”, and this morning I showed him how to play it a little better so now he’s playing the games and writing his letters and numbers to his heart’s content.



Henry is still sick, but he is a little snugglepuss when he’s sick so I’ve gotten a lot of cuddle time. We’ve been alternating between holding until bed and a bit of the Ferber system, but I don’t really feel up to doing that full steam until his nose is a little clearer because all that crying just makes things worse. He has been sleeping better through the night though. Not all the way, but we’re getting there. He’s had a fever for nearly a week, but when we took Spencer to his three-year check up, we snuck Henry in for a check too and they couldn’t find anything actually wrong with him, so we’re just on a Tylenol regimen for a couple more days. I think teeth. And a cold. And a miserable combination of the two.

He’s nearly 6 months old and we’re still not on any food other than formula. We’ve tried cereal, and bananas with cereal but he’s not that interested and I’m not interested in fighting it so we keep putting things off. He’s not hurting for food, that’s for sure – he’s a whopping 18.4lbs as of yesterday. He’s constantly up on his hands and knees trying to get around, and although he’s not technically “crawling”, he knows how to rock himself violently enough to scoot the back end of him forward and he gets around that way. It’s really truly insane how fast he’s progressing.

So let’s review:

Work – better, lower stress (and Suz, I know you hated working in my field but I actually quite like it so no offense … I couldn’t be a high school teacher, so there –ha!)

Home – better, less fights with Spencer, more cuddles with Henry. More take-out because I haven’t had time to cook but I’m making good choices there too. Mmmm grilled chicken Greek salad with no dressing or potato salad …

My house – a disaster zone. Seriously, my house is atrocious. I vacuum almost every day because Henry’s on the floor most of the time but otherwise? Stacks of paper everywhere, laundry day is every day, dirty pots and pans … oye. Maybe I’ll get on that tonight. Ha. I’ve let go a little, and it’s made things a lot easier (those who don’t actually know me, I’m a little anal about keeping my house picked up AT ALL TIMES).

Exercise – last week I didn’t exercise at all, not one single day. This week I’ve gone to the gym at work two days, and I’m going tomorrow, and hopefully Saturday I can get out in the morning for a long run or bike ride. I’m failing miserably at running for a solid 20 minutes without walking but I’m going to keep trying. I’m not giving up!

My mom – still needs surgery next week, but I think she’s getting to be in better spirits about it. She volunteered to babysit on Sunday so Hubby and I can get out for a date, so she’s obviously feeling okay enough to lift a 20lbs baby and play with Spencer (her favorite thing to do).

Crying Uncle

They put me on heavy antibiotics last week that I took for a few days and then stopped taking them because, well, they were too heavy duty for that yogurt thing to work and I wasn't having it. However now I have an earache and I'm wondering if I finished the antibiotics if it would clear that up too, so I have a stop by a drugstore for other medicine so that I can comfortably take the rest of those antibiotics. While I was there I also got infant Advil and more gripe water, and I'm hoping maybe that combination will get us through somewhat of a decent night's sleep tonight. He choked on the gripe water and threw up some of it so I'm not sure how much he ingested; he might get some more before bed but right now HE'S SLEEPING. I strapped him to me in my Mai tai carrier while I walked around the house doing nothing and he passed out so I've transferred him to his swing for a nap.

Let me tell you how much of a debbie downer I feel like lately. I don't really want to be around people because I feel like all I can do is complain these days. I don't smile, I don't laugh. All these things that happen aren't really happening to ME (well, okay, the strep and subsequent ear issue, but that on its own is no real big deal) but the stress of it all hits me like a Mack truck and I don't want to deal with anything. The thing is, I think I'd be better if I would be around other people instead of just hanging out at home fighting with the kids and watching the rain.

Henry's issues aside, both the kids have been so sweet and cute these days. Spencer is addicted to the shower - every day we come home from daycare and he wants a shower. Well, really he wants a bath but I won't let him stay in by himself so he gets a shower so I can continue to do stuff and he just plays for a half hour. I know it's a waste of water but he loves it, gets him clean, and I don't have to deal with the tv or him under my feet or complaining about this and that. We've been having a lot of power struggles, but what three year old doesn't. Today at Target he pouted and said, "I can't wait until I can be the Mommy." ha! He can be the mommy all he wants! Henry is crawling around slowly on hands and knees already and can't wait to follow his big brother around.

My mom is having a second surgery a week from Friday. They found cancer in all the lymph nodes that they took out, so they are going back in and are taking all the lymph nodes on that side. I thought she was starting to get herself together and starting to feel better about the whole thing, and now she's down again. Somehow I don't think she's going to bounce back quite as quickly from this surgery as she did the last one (she had been planning on going back to work today) but I hope she regains her spirits.

And Friday my friends' baby passed away. He was eight months old, and was a beautiful, sweet spirit. His memorial is tomorrow and I'm taking off early to go to it. I can't stay long because Spencer's birthday is also tomorrow but I feel it's important to me and to the family that I go. There's nothing I can say, Jonah was a beautiful, amazing little boy.

And that's it. Next post I'll be more upbeat, I promise.

PS- did I just tell you about my yogurt dilemmas? What in creation is wrong with me?

Wee

Here I am coming at you in the wee hours of the morning again. This time I have given up after 1 hour and 45 minutes of solid screaming and trying to will Henry to not wake anyone else up in the house (which was not happening, BTW) and I've now laid him in his crib, carried Number 1 out to sleep on the couch and I'm just done. He doesn't cry himself to sleep and instead just works himself into a state so I've been reticent about the whole CIO thing with him but now I'm floating on about 34 minutes of sleep before he decided to get back up and I can't do any more. He has had tylenol, and mylicon, and OH MY GOD WHY DIDN"T ANYONE REMIND ME ABOUT TEETHING?

At least that's what I assume it is. For all I know he has ear infections that he didn't have last week when I dragged him into the doctor for his cold but the substitute daycare lady said he's teething and by God, I'll agree.

And let's stop for a minute so I can tell you how much I like the substitute daycare lady? I wish she was an all-the-time one. She's one of those women who's youngish but you know she has 10 children and 25 grandchildren and loves each one of them to death but doesn't take any nonsense from anyone. And that's what kids need.

It's raining like the dickens out there - I love it. I wish I could sleep through it and I also wish my husband would take his butt to sleep and let me deal with things since it's my night and I just get more frustrated when he comes out to take over things since it's not changing anything. I'm tired, I'm irritable and damn it someone should get some sleep around here.

At least Spencer is conked out.

The little bits

It's 12:19am and I'm still awake. Why, you ask? I have no-freaking-idea. Henry keeps waking up, but truthfully I'm taking care of it because I still haven't fallen asleep. I have a great big headache, probably because I'm over tired and I haven't had my glasses on in two hours since I started trying to go to bed. So this is me, not really trying to go to bed.

-- my mom went home Thursday while I was at work. I can't decide if she had enough of me or just wanted to go home, but she called me at work and asked me if I minded. When I got home I realized she left her cookies, her tums, a key to i-don't-know-where and her shoes. Obviously she left in a hurry.

-- Henry stopped army-crawling and is now up on hands and knees rocking his way to putting Momma in an early grave. I have video. Sometimes he rocks too far and face-plants. Mark my words, he'll be fully crawling by Sunday. Which is 2 full weeks before he turns six months old.

-- Did you know eating yogurt helps prevent yeast infections when you're on antibiotics? Why has it taken 30 years for anyone to tell me this?

-- I still haven't blogged about my first 5k. It was hard. It was very hard. I felt very accomplished once I finished though. And I have another one in 3 1/2 weeks and I haven't ran since Sunday and there are a whole lot of my friends at this one so I'd like not to embarrass myself but I'm not sure if that's possible. And BTW, "trail run" with "challenge" in the title=not a beginner's race. Who knew we had terrain like that in Florida?

-- Spencer bit a kid at daycare on Wednesday. And then he said he didn't do it. Kid, you have one tooth. They can tell if it was you. "No Bites, No Fights" is going to be my mantra ... again. He's only done this once before, and it was the same kid about 10 months ago. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it.

-- I think I'm going to try to sleep now. I think I had more to say but it's burned somewhere in the part of my brain that's already asleep.

OH! I made it to the week's Top 10 for BBL this week! Too bad I gained 2 lbs back while not eating because I had strep. Everyone else gets sick, loses weight. I can't even eat (I'm serious, I couldn't eat) and I gain 2 lbs. It's nice to see a Top 10 even though it's unlikely to last. Not giving up though!

Thursday links

Because I'm going back to work today (kicking and screaming) and because everyone needs some comic relief after watching CNN for any length of time over the last 36 hours, I bring you these:

Dance your cares away, worry's for another day ..

It was another rough night last night, and at 3am I took another hot shower and drove to Walgreen's to get some Chloraseptic for my throat while I set my mom up with Henry and a bottle. Today we're doing better though, all of us on all fronts. I'm finally no longer contagious (the RN said 24 hours after I started taking antibiotics) so I stripped the beds and towels and I'm running laundry (six loads including my comforter - where did all this laundry come from? I swear I just did it!). My mom and I got out for a little while for formula (and cookies) and I got this awesome little contraption:

I was going to look for a garlic press, because I spent most of my adult life using jarred minced garlic even though I KNOW fresh tastes better because I hate to mince it. But then I ran out and I had a head of garlic anyhow from making garlic chips so I've been on a fresh garlic kick. But I hate to mince it so I thought I would try a garlic press even though I knew they press a lot of the juice out and you still have to run a knife through it anyhow ... BUT THIS THING WORKS AWESOMELY! We came home and I made an egg scramble for lunch - onions, mushrooms, spinach, ham, cheddar, egg/eggwhite combo and I stuck a clove of garlic in there, rolled it back and forth and Voila! Minced! I'm so excited I'm wondering what else I can stick garlic in.

I'm making this pot roast tonight. I'm not a fan of beef roasts because I don't think they often have enough flavor and I really don't like gravy (juices yes, gravy no). I plan on also making these potatoes and brussel sprouts with bacon. Yum!

I felt so helpless yesterday, not being able to help my mom with much of anything. Today though, I realize that she doesn't need me to actually do anything for her but just to help if she needs it. She'll be going home tomorrow or Friday, and she'll need to do things for herself but she needs me to be there in case she can't figure it out for herself. I can do that. In the meantime I can feed her and do laundry.

What? You say there's still work sitting on my dining room table that needs to be done?

Sick again and other goings on

Look at that face: it's enough to make you feel better, isn't it? My mom had her surgery on Monday, and last night after visiting her I started getting run down and feverish. I'm a terrible baby about being sick anyhow, but I had a bit of a meltdown since my mom was supposed to be recovering at my house Tuesday from major surgery and I was contageous. Fun.

We're quite a pair, my mom and I. She's crying about having one boob, I'm having meltdowns about not being able to properly take care of her. The thought of changing her drain is making me physically ill but I can't tell her that.

Tonight I made the greek pitas. Tomorrow I think I'm making pot roast and I think I'm making lasagna on thursday but otherwise I just don't know. Hopefully I'll be feeling better by then.

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