Croup?! Really?

I seriously thought Croup was one of those diseases every knows about but no one really gets. I now stand corrected.

LO has the croup. I have an upper respiratory infection. DH hasn't been to the doctor but is feeling healthier. All the better to care for us sicko's.

Anyway, LO is on a prednisone liquid, and I have zithromycin (Z-pak) generic plus a codeine based cough medicine to help my abs (and pelvic floor) recover from the coughing I've been doing.

There's also an unfilled script for antibiotics on the chance that LO's ears go from "not normal" to infected.

I am hopeful that all 3 of us are feeling better by the end of the weekend. God knows I can't take another week of congestion and runny nose.

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In unrelated news, the dog fell down the stairs this AM and is now limping horribly on her right hind leg. She gets to visit the vet in the morning.

I'm assuming that's the 3rd of the 3 of things coming in 3's.

Misc. Things

In the area news recently, two sets of early-twenties parents of <1 year old twins have been arrested for child abuse in the severe injury or death of one of those children.

That just really sucks on so many levels.
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LO peed on the potty before her bath tonight. I know she's not ready for potty training (I'm not ready to deal with it either) so it was nothing more than good timing on my part to put her on the potty seat while we were waiting for the water to get warm and the tub to fill. Regardless of the timing, I praised her up and down.
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DH is sick. Again. Actually all three of us have runny noses but he's been hit the worst with symptoms neither LO or I had. It's so much fun up in this joint.
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Also fun? We had snow on Sunday, with enough to make a good sized snowman on Monday. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday? The temps were in the upper 70's. Going from winter jackets to short sleeves with a side of sunburn in 4 days is a bit of a weather whiplash.
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Going back to DH, he had a visit with a doctor in the past week who was pretty blunt in telling him that the combo of commute, work stress/hours, and trying to participate in family life was going to kill him. Just one more reason we need to move sooner rather than later.
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LO is talking more and tantrumming more and really pushing her limits more. On the bad days, my countdown to her bedtime starts before she goes down for her nap.
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There are certain things I know will trigger a tantrum. One example: I found some educational and entertaining YouTube videos (www.kidstv123.com) which she loves, but a bit too much, so not letting her watch those on demand is a known trigger. But what confuses the heck out of me is when she starts howling when she asks for something and I give it to her. Apparently I'm supposed to be able to read her mind and know she's actually asking for something else?
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That mind reading thing? Doesn't work for my husband and doesn't work for her!
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Anyway, that's where we are. Trying to get well, deal with tantrums and, yes, still that underlying stress of contemplating a move.

Applying for Preschool & Other Life Changing Decisions

Wrote the check and dropped it off on Monday for LO to start 2x weekly preschool in the Fall. She's #8 on the list of 9 open spots. Phew. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to those free mornings already. Sure, I may just go to work, but what I can accomplish without her in one morning is approximately equal to 6 mornings with her. So, I may drop my hours again and then I'll have one morning a week to myself! Glee does not even begin to fully express my feelings about this.

Of course, since we are talking about moving, possibly this summer if the stars align, whether she'll actually go or not is questionable, but at least she's on the list!

Yeah, moving. Not on my list of things I really want to contemplate, but the 45 minute one-way commute (when traffic cooperates) is really starting to wear on DH, and in addition to his crazy long hours negatively affects the time we get to spend together and the time he gets to spend with LO both before and after work.

Good news, or bad, I'm not sure, is that our next-door neighbors house is already on the market for less than we'd like to price ours, but our neighbor two doors over on the other side is listed for probably twice what we can get for ours. We haven't talked to any agents yet (to either help us sell our house, or purchase in the new area) since we're still trying to figure out the area into which we'd like to move and whether we have to compromise between decent school systems and proximity to DH's office. (This despite the high likelihood that LO will at least start out in a private school.)

We've been doing a lot of looking at the houses listed on Realtor.com, and there are some certain deal-breakers (a house at the top of our price range should need to have much, if any, work done - especially not painting or ugly wallpaper removal) for both of us, and some things that, even though they bother only one of us, will remove the listing from consideration.

That last bit brings me to the discussion about how I'm trying to see things in our house as a potential buyer would, and frankly, it's a little depressing. We'll have lived here 8 years in March, and there are still areas which need first time attention, and other areas which need attention in a re-do way. I'm thinking the walls and trim need to be repainted at least on the 1st floor, but it seems foolish to spend that kind of money (Believe me, with a 2 story foyer we will be hiring someone. I don't do scaffolding!) if someone who buys it doesn't like the color.

And the clutter, oh God, the ever loving clutter that seems to accumulate overnight and then grows roots where it landed. When I look at pictures, I don't want to see clutter, no one imagines their lives surrounded by clutter: they imagine themselves dressed super-chic, cooking a magnificent dinner in a gourmet kitchen with no mess whatsoever while the children in designer clothing play happily on the floor with educational fair-trade wooden toys or do homework at the breakfast table and an irresistibly handsome husband walks in the door and beams at his exceptional family. That may be over the top, but you get the idea. To be honest, if clutter and mess was an ideal, Pinterest would be a bust!

Another Life Changing Decision hanging out there....trying for #2....still on hold. I still have a feeling that LO should have a sibling, and time is certainly tick-tocking away for me, but that sense of urgency I had six months ago is gone. Maybe my feelings about this will change but for now I'm 100% happy to leave it up to chance if we decide to go that route. DH thinks we will have problems again but is unwilling to pursue help again (our initial efforts seem to have had more of a negative effect on him than I); I'm more optimistic since once my cycles returned post-weaning LO they have been about as regular as I remember from before I started Depo-Provera. So, who knows. Either one of us could be correct, or we could both be. But in any case, we're leaning towards 5 bedroom houses so that there will be more than one guestroom, and still allow LO and any potential sibling their own rooms.

So, that's where things are - yay for preschool and time for myself 2x a week, but boo for the possibility of the prospect of moving (and the likelihood that all the good preschools in our new location have already been filled up by the time we make a decision).

Today Was A Pretty Good Day

Well, apart from the visit to the dermatologist costing me another mole. This one about 4 inches below the large one I had removed over the summer.

My MIL came over to watch the Little One so I could go to the appointment, so that meant I had time to do fun things like run multiple errands without fighting the car seat battle at every stop, and time to wander a bit aimlessly instead of shooting through the stores like a scud missile.

I also got a chance to meet with the Director of the Preschool/lead teacher of the class LO would be in should we decide to enroll her in the fall. I liked her, I liked the classroom, I like that there is structure to the day but it also allows for some self-selection of activity within that structure. Yes, since the Preschool is tied to a church, there is religious overtones to the instruction but it seems to be pretty mild and not of the strident overbearing variety. Heck, even the older classes only have chapel 1x per month (unlike the weekly schedule my preschool observed). I definitely didn't have any gut negatives about the teacher or building, and the classes that were meeting today seemed to be pretty happy kids.

AND I bought a pair of trendy shoes. Well, trendy for me, the style is probably so last summer for everyone else. But they'll be great on our trip in April. Actually, I only bought one thing for another member of the family today (and it was on my list), everything else on impulse was for me! I don't know about anyone else but it's so hard to buy for myself now - I'm always finding stuff for LO or DH even if the plan is just to look for myself - so that limitation felt like a pretty big accomplishment.

I even got to go to the grocery store and not feel like I was tied to a ticking bomb which could erupt at any moment. But, by then I was running out of things I needed to do so I went home where I got to see LO and my MIL interacting without either one noticing I was there for a few minutes. (I really didn't sneak in, I just didn't make much noise.)

Yep, today was a pretty good day. Even if DH had a business dinner (wait, that meant I didn't have to cook dinner and LO and I could stuff ourselves silly with naan and hummus...it was a good evening, too!) and isn't going to be home until sometime before 10pm.

Update - bullet style.

Trying to get to bed early tonight so here's a dump...

• There must be an instruction in the secret kid handbook that says not to eat crusts. It's not something I've ever displayed, and yet, Little One follows it.
• Little One adores oranges, especially the "Cutie" brand Clementines. What she doesn't adore is my telling her she can't have any thanks to the worst diaper rash she's had in a LONG time. I'm just trying to keep her acidic pass-through to a minimum and she doesn't understand the short-term benefits.
• The diaper rash also lead to my getting peed on last night while comforting her mid-diaper change. Well, she hit not only me, but the play mat I was using as a changing pad, the floor, and the quilt on the bed under the mat (not soak through, over splash). It did a fantastic job of delaying bed time for both of us since I wanted to wash everything before it set in, and needed to spray the carpet for the same reason.
  
• We got to spend the past few days with the group of friends we made at breast-feeding class and I feel so fantastic for getting to be with other mommies who get it and with whom there's no longer that getting-to-know-you stress; and for how nicely all the kids interacted.
• DH and I are talking more and looking more at moving closer to his work so he's not spending the better part of 2 hours commuting daily on top of the crazy-long hours he works. The houses we're looking at are not cheap, and I realize that not everyone has the same taste, but I have to wonder why so many of these expensive houses have white kitchens and rooms full of wallpaper?! At least we agree that if we're going to spend X amount on a house, we don't want to have to spend another 1-2% of the purchase price on changing them. We did see one house we both agreed had potential until we realized that where it was located in the neighborhood meant having to give out full page directions on how to reach it - take the 2nd right then the 3rd left then the 1st left and the 2nd right....jeez!
• At her 18 month appointment LO was 33.5" tall and almost 27 lbs which put her just about 93 and 80 percent respectively. No wonder she's so hard to hold when she's upset - she's greater than 50% of my height now! My mom brought, at her last visit, the growth chart they had in my room growing up; according to it, I didn't hit either of those numbers until I was 2.5-3 years old. I still haven't quite wrapped my mind between reality and that I was expecting a kiddo who fell a bit lower on the ranges. Especially since there was some concern from the OB about her size on the sonograms, then there was the preemie factor. I don't think anyone would have guessed she'd sprout so quickly!
• Unlike one of her friends, she doesn't parrot/repeat back words, but I know they're soaking in since she occasionally comes out with something which surprises me (she correctly identified a "9" as nine, completely out of the blue!). But it still is currently driving me insane that she calls every color YELLOW! She can say brown also, but doesn't even try for red, green, blue...etc.
• Her most recent accomplishment: climbing on top of the breakfast table twice today. Up on the chair than from chair to table. At least she's given up playing with the timer for our family room lamp (knock on wood).
• Oh, she is working hard on bringing the terrible twos early. Falling down tantrums when she doesn't get her way on what seem to be minor things to me, but important enough to hold the line.
  
• There's been no improvement on the car seat front, though I have started resorting to bribery - fries are a big treat, so they worked the 1x I could offer them; I also will offer some yogurt bites by putting one in my mouth for her to take like a little birdie which is different enough to get her attention; occasionally I can find something interesting with which to distract her but those items usually have a one use limit. Worst case, I have to crawl in the back and physically press her into the seat. Dealing with her and the car seat does not bring out my best parenting moments. It also seems the harder she fights it, the quicker she is to crash once we are on the road, so realizing that has helped my frustration levels, but it is still hugely embarrassing to deal with in public.
  
• DH and I are discussing 2x week preschool for her in the fall. They take diaper-using 2 year olds and just happen to be located almost in our neighborhood. I'm hoping there aren't any red flags at my visit next week - I really need, and she needs, some time apart. It's not that I don't love her to pieces, I just need time to do things on my own and she needs more interaction with other kids than I can provide now that two of our friends have moved out of town.
  
• I am now the only official employee on payroll at work. The other employee is working on getting his contractors license back, and will be treated as a contractor. Times are tough for custom builders. I'm not terribly worried about my position, I've cut back on my hours to something like a max of 6 hours/week if I have childcare for LO, and my bosses wife doesn't seem inclined to pick up the remaining duties I complete. One of these day's I'll be able to catch up (I was almost there before LO was born and then it all went to hell) and then she might be willing to take over. Until then, it seems to be working nicely for all of us.
• DH and my 10th wedding anniversary is in March, and I have NO IDEAS! I thought our trip in April was the present to both of us, but DH keeps saying he has a great idea for and anniversary present, but can't find what he's looking for...it's a little nerve wracking!
  

Okay, it's quarter after 10 and I need to head to bed since I am on call until DH gets home in the afternoon/evening tomorrow. So much for weekends being a time for relaxations, as a SAHM all the days just seem to run together!

It Comes in Threes

In the past week I've gotten scary news from three friends, two through blogging and one IRL, about their children (or children in progress).

I'm sending out as much good juju as I can, but please join me in hurling enough good at these situations to help overcome the bad that's there now.

And now that the three have become known, the universe can settle down now, thankyouverymuch!

Selfish Mindfulness

Is there such a term? Because when I think about my resolutions for 2012 that's what comes to mind. If you are wondering, they are:

• Better meal planning.
• More effort into doing things for me.

They both benefit me, so there's the selfish part, but they both benefit the family in the global sense, so that's some mindfulness. Maybe.

Honestly, the first is really important because if I don't get things going late afternoon, the adults don't eat until 9pm instead of shortly after Little One goes to bed, which stinks when a good bedtime for us is around 10:30 or earlier. And the second is important because I need to remember to take care of myself so I can continue to take care of everyone else.

Doing things for me seems much more manageable as a goal than saying I want to exercise X times per Y ... or anything else.

Top on my list? Arranging an appointment with the best brow people in town for my first ever brow shaping. I figure since it's one of the first things I notice and don't like about myself in pictures and has been for a while, it's time to do something about it!

Also in my list is getting in shape for our island vacation in April. Those cellulite pockets left over from Little One (and thanks to age) aren't going to disappear on their own!