Showing posts with label grumpiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grumpiness. Show all posts

Friday, January 14, 2011

Hello, Weekend. How YOU Doin'?

Blizzards, doctor's offices, and a heavy workload: oh my! This is one week I'm not sad to see go.

I'm hopeful that the weekend will be better. K seems to have (mostly) rebounded from ColdOfDoom 2K11. She's still a little . . . snotty (and I mean that in every possible way) but she's left Zombieland and has returned to business as usual: today she ran laps around the house, naked, pushing her shopping cart and yodeling at the same time. Ah, to be a toddler.

After devoting the first half of the week to nursing duties, I finally got caught up on my actual OhYeahIHaveAJob work. Tall stack of manuscripts & playing catch-up & having to delicately deliver (a lot of) bad news to some clients = one huge sigh of relief when I closed my work e-mail window for the week earlier today.

Also? The house is cleanish. (Cleanish is about as good as we can hope for these days.) K took a long nap this afternoon after I finished my work, and while there's (always!) more to be done: the laundry is put away, the floors have been cleaned, all important/food prep surfaces are clean, and the dishes are done. I call that a win. Um, just don't go into the bathroom.

Now K is doing her best to lure mice into the house by leaving little crumbles of cheese curds all over the newly washed floor, and we're (kind of) watching Shrek, and not too long ago she told me, "Mom, I love you too much." So, yeah. Things are better.

Still, I'm itching for some time that doesn't include diapers or animation or, well, work. Which is why my Saturday, I'm hoping, will be full of this:



Bob, you're going to take K out for some father/daughter bonding time tomorrow, right? :-)

It's National Delurking Day, guys! If you read this blog, please leave a little comment to say hi, and tell me: what are your plans for the weekend?

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

I Hate the Smell of Resolve

*Resolve brand carpet and upholstery cleaner. (I'm cool with the word itself.)

I only bust out that red spray bottle of doom when something awful has happened. That something awful usually includes bodily fluids in places bodily fluids should not be.

Today it got a workout.

I feel absurd complaining about standard issue Mom-of-Toddler duties. I know lots of folks who are dealing with much bigger issues right now, whether in terms of overall severity or scope (I only have one sick little one, a friend is currently dealing with four children passing germs around!)

But I'm tired and grumpy, and this is my blog, and maybe if I internet grumble loudly enough the universe will take notice and say, "Yeah, we really have piled enough on her. Let's reward the way she bravely struggled by blessing her crew with eternal good health and a winning lottery ticket!"

K has had a little bug since sometime between Christmas and New Years. A sniffle here, a cough there. Pretty standard whatever-the-kids-are-passing-around-at-daycare cold stuff. I'm not a mom who rushes her special little snowflake to the hospital every time she sneezes. K is a strong kid with no underlying health issues and, for the most part, I trust her immune system to fight its own battles and get stronger as a result.

But then sometimes that little cold turns into a Big Scary Cold. A (relatively high) fever pops up where there was no fever before. The cough that was merely annoying before starts triggering the gag/vomit reflex. The lively little kid becomes a glassy-eyed zombie. Mom gets real worried real quick.

Sometimes it happens on a day when a major winter storm system is making its way across your area. Sometimes your doctor's office is an hour away because you haven't found a new pediatrician since relocating.

I'll spare you the play-by-play, but the highlight was driving home very slowly through the snow when K woke up from her nap (poor kid, she was exhausted!) to throwup three times in a row. In the carseat. In the middle of nowhere. I was like, look, K: I'm really sorry, but there is literally nowhere to stop other than someone's snowy driveway, and there's not much I can do for you now anyway, so -- here's a tissue. (Compassion, thy name is Karinya!) We were going to stop at the pharmacy before actually going home-home to grab the (sort of random) cocktail of drugs her doc prescribed, but I wasn't going to drag the poor girl around Target like that. I tried to call Bob to arrange a plan B.

My phone service had been "temporarily deactivated." You're killing me, Centennial Wireless. You know that, right?

Bitch, moan, whine, repeat.

Tonight it took both of us to hold K down so we could get the medicine into her. (She kicked the doctor earlier!) Even with a fever of 102.5, she will beat you up.

And now Bob doesn't feel good. (I seem to still be enjoying that temporary Mom Immunity. I usually *do* end up getting whatever K gets, to some degree, but it almost always holds off long enough that by the time I'm getting sick myself, she's feeling better and doesn't require as much care. I'd prefer to, you know, skip getting sick completely, but I suppose this way is preferable to playing nurse and patient at the same time.)

Tonight I'm camping out with K in her room. She's bouncing all over the place right now (though I don't know what is fueling this rally since she hasn't held much down today) and seems to be on the upswing, but the way this. . . whatever it is has morphed so quickly has me spooked, and I want to be there in case she spontaneously combusts or (more likely) just needs someone to quickly hand her a bucket. (Plus, you know, she's my baby and I like her and yadda yadda.) This will either prove to be a sweet bonding experience or a horrible, horrible idea ;-)

Good healthy thoughts this way, please, if you've got some to spare?

Saturday, November 6, 2010

One of Those Weeks

I don't really know how else to put it.

Monday brought with it a surprise letter from the IRS (ended up not being my problem, but it took six phone calls and an anxiety attack to straighten out). Tuesday brought sleep deprivation and tough work issues. Wednesday? Most of Wednesday was spent in a state of mourning due to the state's election results. Thursday I sat in a waiting room for over an hour before getting disappointing and unexpected news, then I topped the evening off by spilling the dish of the stuffed peppers I'd made for dinner. (Cue tears and Bob's offer to make it all better by ordering a pizza ;-) Friday I accidentally busted a bottle of wine during my moving efforts (one pickup truck load at a time... with a toddler!) and then later K treated the two of us to an epic, flail-on-the-floor, scream-at-the-top-of-her-lungs tantrum in the middle of the mall. (No nap & molars coming in & . . . being two, I guess.)

I'm not an especially pleasant person to be around right now. I'm tired. I'm overwhelmed. I'm burnt out. Those damn kids need to get off my lawn.

But the worst part of having a bad week, I think, is the way I let it affect how I parent. I can feel myself being short with her. Is it annoying when I find her changing shoes for the fourth time when oh for the love of God we have to go now this has to be at the post office today and they close in ten minutes? Of course. Is it worth screaming at her over? No. I know she's not part of a vast global conspiracy to mess with me (I hope?) and that she doesn't understand the way her usual toddler antics are, more often than not, just that proverbial straw that on top of everything else is making me lose. my. mind.

Today is Saturday, though, and I'm officially declaring today the first day of next week, which promises to be full of awesome. (Full of it!) The new week is bringing with it lots of exciting things, life-wise and blog-wise. We'll be launching the Unlikely Origins facebook page (and subsequently harassing you all to "like" us there), one of the Unlikely Origins crew will be turning the big two-seven (I'm sure you can't guess who!), Bob's sister has, perhaps foolishly, offered to take K off our hands overnight next weekend so we can do exciting grown up things (sleep),  and -- and! Unlikely Origins will be hosting its first "Celebration of Imperfect Parenting" giveaway.

Stay tuned!