Exhausted!!

As if the multi-kid sleepover we had Monday night wasn't enough...

Last night before bed I got a terrible nosebleed. Yay! It took like a half hour to deal with. Horrible.
Then in the middle of the night my highly tuned body woke me up with major alarm signals. I was bleary eyed trying to figure out why I was waking up at 3 am...then I realized. I got my period. GREAAAAT!
FanTAStic!
I am not happy AT ALL!
I am on the phone AS I TYPE with the doctors office. This is shenanigans!

All that frickin pain for nothing!

ANYWAY!

I dealt with that and went back to bed only to be woken up at 4:30 am by the baby's crying. Ugh. Of course!

I listened for awhile to see if he would calm himself down or keep escalating his annoyance.
He escalated.

Of COURSE!!

So I went into his room and he was not sopping wet, not puked all over himself, not covered in poo, not trapped in the crib slats...hmm...just bored I guess.

I took him out of the crib, changed him for good measure and then laid down with him on Dylan's toddler bed. THANK GOD I'M SHORT. I actually can fit in that toddler bed! Ha!

He didn't seem to want to relax with me, preferring instead to pull my hair and slap my face. Not cool.
So I put him back into the crib, gave him a little bottle of milk and tried to go back to bed. But every time I would try to leave his room, Ben would howl. Great.
Back to the toddler bed for me, though, with my two big kids taking up all the room on MY side of MY bed, I probably had MORE space in the toddler bed.

So that's where I spent the next three hours of semi-sleep. In the toddler bed. Ben woke up again at 7:30 am and decided he was done with sleep, maybe forever.

I took him out of the crib and tried to get him to relax with me, but he was having none of it. He resumed slapping me and pulling my hair and also throwing baby books. Nice.

Eventually I gave up and brought him out into the living room for some cereal and I got my coffee started. It's gonna be a loooooong, tiring day.

Holidays make my emotions go haywire

We finally took down the Halloween decorations yesterday. Yay!
It was just four or five of those $1 flag/streamers that you hang from hooks and they have character faces at the top and streamers at the bottom and they're like barrel shaped....what are those things called??

Whoever knows what those things are called post the answer and if you are right I'll send you a prize.

Anyway. It was good timing since it's almost Thanksgiving! Yikes. This year is FLYING by right?
It seems like just yesterday I was still pregnant and now all of a sudden my little baby is about to sprout teeth and I'm not ready for all that.


Wow. Tangent.

This week officially kicks off the "Holiday Season" and with birthdays and all the other holidays our Holidaze begins around Thanksgiving and ends on July 4th. Whew. From now until then, it's going to be something every week pretty much.
Yeah, I just checked the calendar, it's a mess.
To prepare for all that chaos, I've been watching a lot of crap TV.
It relaxes me.

Today after a HORRIBLE day of errands (seriously, too horrible to recount) I plopped down and watched three hours of Wife Swap and then Engaged and Underage.
That's WAY more domestic issues than anyone could handle. I had to turn the show off halfway through the second Wife Swap and switch to Engaged and Underage because I couldn't take the hostility any more. Seriously.
It didn't relax me at all, so now I'm watching iCarly with the kids.

Very soothing.

Also I got the news that my new favorite show "My Own Worst Enemy" has been cancelled, so I'm totally bummed. I have to keep watching though, and try to convince everyone I know to watch so MAYBE they'll get awesome ratings and keep it on the air. So, if you love me, or you love Christian Slater, or if you love spies, or split personalities or guns, or puppies or Alfre Woodard...check out the show tonight or next week! I know, for some of you, I had you at "if you love Christian Slater" and for that, I am so thankful!

Of course, this being the week of thankfulness, I should also say that I'm thankful for my healthy happy kids, that we have a home to live in and food to eat and that Bob has stayed busy with work so we can have all those things. On those days, like today, where I'm following Murphy's Law exclusively, I am also thankful for chardonnay.
Yay.

I'm also thankful that we're NOT hosting the Thanksgiving dinner here this year. Sort of sad, sort of glad actually. I'm going to be making a dang turkey anyway because I LOOOOOVE Thanksgiving leftovers, so I won't be getting a break from cooking the meal so much but I won't have to scrub the bathrooms quite as harshly as I would if the whole family was coming over. Which is nice.

Unfortunately we're doing a potluck Thanksgiving, which is kind of weird to me but maybe I'm just a Turkey Martyr. I'm making my world famous Baked Artichoke Dip and a blueberry cheesecake. Yum.

Oh, by the way gas here is $1.87/gallon of regular and I paid $1.85 because I went to one of those stations where you get a discount if you pay cash. I almost cried.

Then I DID cry when Boyz II Men came on the radio...I know you're thinking it was "End of the Road" or some other sappy ballad. Nah.
I got all teary eyed listening to "Motownphilly"
Don't ask me why. Hormones, maybe? I just love the East Coast Swang.

"Then we started singing and they said it sounds smooooooth."

Whah!

What a day!

We had another awesome day yesterday...

I woke up at 8 am and all three kids were in the baby's crib. Don't ask. They weren't pinching him or laying on him, and it was cute enough. Though I did tell them that they PROBABLY shouldn't get into the crib with the baby anymore. And I didn't take a picture because I've found that encourages them to further misbehave...yeah, that's what does it, the photographic evidence of their prior bad acts.

After breakfast I did some work on the computer while the big kids played "Customer" out Elizabeth's bedroom window and the baby napped.
"Customer" works like this. Elizabeth stands inside her room and opens the window. She has no screen. It's lovely.
Dylan goes out onto the front deck and "stands in line" at the open window like a customer. Then he orders chicken nuggets and coffee. She hands him a toy from her room. He says thank you, she says have a nice day. Then they switch places.
It's quite funny.

That went on for a good hour. Ah to be so young and so easily entertained!

It's been cold here lately, high 40s during the day, so it took about an hour to find all the winter accoutrements for the kids' outfits and another half hour to find matching socks for everyone. Curse you runaway socks! Everyone is getting socks for Christmas, all the same size and all white. Then ALL the socks will match!

Finally we got into the car and headed to Elizabeth's school, late, as usual.
The boys fell asleep on the way so I ran inside without them to sign Elizabeth into class. It was like two minutes. They were fine. Don't panic.

I had a lunch "date" with some gals from my old job and some of their kids at the very exclusive and fancy McDonalds Playland. Oh yeah. I roll like that.

By the time we got there, Dylan had sweated so much sleeping in his winter coat that his hair was all wet and plastered to his head. Very nice look. He ate about 1.5 chicken nuggets, leaving the other 2.5 to be nibbled up by my pregnant friend Mandi. Preggo girls do NOT waste food.

We were at the playland for about an hour and a half burning off the pound of Hershey Kisses that Dylan stole from the candy bowl that morning running around and playing.
Then the boys and I were off to WalMart where I shopped like a lightning bolt, then waited in an interminable line. Sigh.
I had to beg the cashier lady to let me get my WIC items without my WIC folder. Anyone who has ever been on WIC knows what I mean. They are militant about that folder! Even though I had my ID and my WIC checks with MY name on them, she was like, "I'm not supposed to do this, I have to verify your signature."

I'm like DUDE, it's ME! How would I find WIC checks with my exact name on them and then steal them? It's improbable at best.

What I actually said was "Please please I need that milk and eggs! Oh please! I'll never tell!"

And she saw my pathetic begging and took pity.

After that I called my sister in law to check on my niece who had her tonsils out that morning. She was doing fine, eating yogurt.
I also texted my brother in law who had his OWN tonsils out that same morning. More on that later.

Then we went to have snack with Elizabeth's class. Here's where it gets, eh, interesting.

I'm standing there holding the baby while Dylan runs around and plays with the kids, totally normal. Then ONE of the kids in her class, the bad one who shall not be named, had some trouble making good choices right in front of my eyes.

First he laid on a kid and kicked him in the armpit.
I said "Hey 'Bad Kid' I don't think he likes that, you need to get off of him" but I WANTED to say "What the hell is the matter with you!??"

Elizabeth's little friend told me "He's really really bad. Don't talk to him. Just ignore him. He's a bad kid. You shouldn't talk to him."
I thought it was sweet that she was trying to protect me from the little bastard. Actually, I think his parents ARE married. But that's neither here nor there.

After snack was finished, The Bad Kid walked up to Elizabeth and just pushed her down. For no reason. She spilled her cup of water all over and started to cry.
So I grabbed the kid by the shirt and tossed him out the window.

No.

I said. "Hey BAD KID! That is NOT NICE! She doesn't like to be pushed down."
And in response, he looked straight at me and arm barred another little girl right behind him. Just slammed his arm right into her throat.

Then the teacher grabbed him up by the shirt and threw him out the window.

No.

But she did grab him and make him sit in her lap while she held him.
What a little freak!

There's a parents meeting tonight and I think I'm going to have to say something about this kid. I mean, how much out of control violent behavior do all the other kids have to endure before someone gets this kid out of this class? Clearly he doesn't function well in the school environment.

I feel bad for his parents, but dang, this kid is a nuisance, a distraction and frankly a danger to the other children. I'm just not sure that there's much the school can do about it.
Do schools HAVE to let violent little bastards kids who have trouble making good choices stay in class?

I don't know.

So, after that we left and my sister in law called me to tell me that her brother (who I previously mentioned had just gotten his tonsils out) was not waking up from his anesthesia and was in the ICU at the hospital. Holy crap!

I called Bob and told him to go visit his brother.
He did and reported back that yes, he was still asleep (about five hours post surgery) but the doctors said that sometimes people with sleep apnea sleep for-freaking-ever after surgery. Hmm. Interesting fact.

After Bob got home I told him about the Bad Kid pushing Elizabeth down. He got a very serious look on his face and said "I'm gonna kick that kid!"
Instead of child abuse though, we agreed that we would have to speak to the teachers about this. I know they're exasperated with this kid too, so...it's not like they aren't aware.

Then I made dinner, a lovely recipe for Tomato-Apple Chicken which is delicious. Bob opened the pan and said "Are those apples?"
"Yes."
"Apples and chicken?"
"Oh SORRY! I'll just make frozen burritos and pizza from now on!" I said, totally NOT overreacting!

"I just won't eat the apples."
Then I pouted for about an hour. It was hard work.
Then I did my football picks (AMY!) then we all got ready for bed.

We got updates from my brother in law's wife from time to time last night, basically that he was still sleeping but doing fine. This morning at 7:30 he called here himself to say that he had finally woken up at 9 pm last night, about 10 hours after surgery, and was being discharged this morning. Phew!

He said he was feeling good, but yikes! That was a bit scary for us!
Hopefully today will be less exciting!

Rock a bye baby...

Last night was perhaps the WORST NIGHT EVER in terms of baby wakefulness.

Not only did Ben wake up every two hours, for the first time since birth he wanted to STAY up all night long. No thank you baby sir.

When he woke up at 11 pm, I nursed him, put him back in the crib and he fussed. I popped his paci in his mouth and he quieted down and went back to sleep.

When he woke up at 1 am, I nursed him, put him back in the crib and he fussed. I popped his paci in his mouth and he spit it out and screamed at me. I picked him back up, snuggled him for awhile and he went back to sleep.

When he woke up at 3 am, I nursed him, put him back in the crib and he fussed. I popped his paci in his mouth and he spit it out and screamed at me. I picked him back up, snuggled him for awhile but he wouldn't fall asleep. Then I got a bloody nose. So I put him down and ran to get a tissue. Then he cried while I bled on a tissue. Then I laid down in my bed with him and he fell asleep. I put him back in the crib and he woke up. He didn't cry though, he just cooed and oohed to himself for about a half hour. Then he fell asleep.

When he woke up at 5 am, I cursed him, then I nursed him. Then I snuggled with him in my bed until he fell asleep. I put him back in the crib, he fussed, he cooed and oohed. He screamed a little bit. He finally fell asleep. This is when Bob jumped up, looked at the alarm clock, glared and me and Ben and slammed his head back onto the pillow...all while still half-asleep. He pulled a pillow over his head and started snoring again went back to sleep without snoring at all, because he DOES NOT SNORE! Heh.

When I woke up at 7 am I was bleary eyed and exhausted. I woke up to the house phone ringing. I was in the middle of a crazy ass dream that combined all the horrible school nightmares (nudity, not ready for a test, can't find my locker) with all the regular nightmares (getting chased by criminals, living in a WalMart, etc.) I was partially glad to wake up from that, but partially like, seriously? Who is calling me at 7 am????!!?

It turned out to be someone offering Bob a side job, so I can't be TOO mad. But still. 7 am? That's way freaking early.
The baby slept until 7:30 am, which means I got to take a shower this morning! Yay!

Naturally, I have turned to coffee to help me get through the day...If I could INJECT coffee right into my veins I would. It's just gonna be one of THOSE days.

I'm hoping this performance of Ben's is a one-night only engagement. I can't do a night like last night ever again.
Ever ever.

Did you read that baby? Never ever!!

At the bottom of the pile of laundry, was more laundry...

I've been cleaning all day and the house is still a wreck. How?
Here is what I have already done...

*Two dishwasher loads of dishes
*Four loads of laundry (washed, dried, folded) - still in progress
*Cleaned bathroom (swept, mopped, toilet, counter)
*Cleaned laundry room floors (swept, mopped)
*Vacuumed both living rooms and dining room
*Shampooed out stains in front living room and dining room (the one in the dining room was a VERY large mysterious stain that I swear looked like something invisible had laid down and died on our carpet. Very strange)
*I am too scared to clean the children's rooms. Dylan's is not as bad as Elizabeth's, since I pick his room up every night. But, her room is a PIGSTY! Toys! Clothes! Shoes! Who knows!

I also already made breakfast (french toast) and lunch (mac and cheese) for the whole family, and cleaned that up. Dinner is in the crock pot (beef stroganoff, yummy) and I straightened up the kitchen counter/junk accumulation station so it's just ONE pile of various papers and things. Yay!

Needless to say, I'm exhausted now. My legs and feet HURT!
Baby is kicking like crazy.

I also devoted quite a large part of my day to fly eradication.
Somehow, we've become QUITE the spot to be if you're a fly in Northeastern Arizona.
There has to be 500 million flies outside my front door right now.
The eradication effort has been about a weeklong undertaking, but the pinnacle was definitely today.
They are gathering right where the garbage can was. So two days ago we moved the can. The flies stayed.
We hosed down the whole area around the garbage cans. Multiple times a day.
The flies stayed.
We moved a piece of wood that seemed to be attracting the flies. The flies STAYED!

I hung up oh-so-attractive sticky fly paper. No flies stuck on the paper, but the flies stayed.
I dumped bleach on the flies.
I dumped vinegar on the flies.
I sprayed the flies with FLY KILLING SPRAY.
The flies did not die.
I convinced Robert not to pour gasoline on the whole area and light it ablaze. Seriously, he was getting that desperate.

The only sure-fire way to kill them, we found, was to swat them with a flyswatter. Though as effective and satisfying that was, we discovered that when it was two against 500 million, it was not very EFFICIENT.

So today we moved on to homemade fly traps.
We have several working right now.

Molasses and cornmeal paste trap
Sugar water and vinegar in a bottle trap
Just sugar water in a bottle trap
Maple syrup in a bowl trap
Pickle jar of yeast and water trap

So far, no traps have actually trapped a fly. Not ONE. NOT ONE SINGLE FLY! These are all bonafide traps, not just crazy things we dreamed up. Internet inspired traps having (so far) failed to make a dent in the fly population....

....we moved on to deterrents.
We hung a gallon sized ziploc freezer bag half full of water over the infested area.
We hung a scarf with sequins all over it over the infested area.
We hung an old CD over the infested area.

All with the same purpose...to cast weird patterns of light and shadow that the flies are apparently convinced is a giant spiderweb or a giant mutated killer fly or something and they are scared and leave the area.

Results still pending...stay tuned.


In other news:
Bless her heart, my little girl is such a sweet doll baby.
In an attempt to reduce our power bill, however insignificantly, I have strung up two clotheslines in the back yard.
No HOAs here. I can do whatever I want! Ha!
Anyway...
I hung a load of wash out to dry this morning and just went out to take it in. Elizabeth begged to help me take the clothes down even though she a) can't reach the lines and b) always ends up dropping the clothes on the ground.
I said she could help. Then she disappeared into her room. Like I said before, the disaster area.
I finished folding the laundry pile I was already working on and then went outside and took down all the dry clothes.
As I'm bringing in the basket, Elizabeth comes running over from her room in hysterics!
I'm worried that she has hurt herself or seen a giant rat...that is how badly she is crying.
I drop the basket and she runs into my arms sobbing.

"Yooooooou went outsiiiiiiiiide without meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! Yooou said I could heeeeeeeeeeeeelp!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!"

Oh dear.

I had to promise to let her help me hang up and take in the next load of laundry AND give her a free pass to call my mom to "tell on me" AND let her have some Smarties candy to get her to stop crying hysterically.

Such a sweet little kid.

what was I going to say???

I've got 12 days until the baby is out of me! Yay!
I'm exhausted.
EX-HAUSTED!
Not that it will get much better after he's born, but at least my mom will be here! And I fully plan to sleep in the hospital as much as I can.
This little baby is sapping all my energy and then using it to kick out a jam on my kidneys. STOP IT BABY!

The last three days have been the worst.
I usually find myself tired by 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Today I am already tired, and it is just 10:30 in the morning.
I only just woke up three hours ago and I'm already falling asleep here. This is not good.

I read this passage from an article on Dr. Spock's website. Not MR. Spock. Doctor.

If you have other children, it can be hard to make time to rest. Try to lie down at the same time your other children are napping. If they don't nap, try telling them it is quiet time and Mommy needs to rest.

Oh my goodness I about died laughing, but I was too tired to laugh.
Telling MY ANGELS that "mommy needs to rest" is ill-advised. They would interpret that as the signal from on-high to destroy, destroy, destroy!!! Or worse yet, escape! Dylan pulled off a fantastic escape yesterday. I wasn't even sleeping. He's good. Elizabeth came running in from the front deck (which I THOUGHT was gated off) yelling "Dylan went down the stairs!!!"
I found him about 40 feet away, just wandering around clad in only a diaper, SpongeBob shoes and a guilty face. I have no idea how he ungated the stairs.
Are you reading this Meredith?? :)

Anyway, normal late pregnancy fatigue aside, I've also run out of coffee, which is HORRIBLE! TERRIBLE!!! Truly unthinkable. It's heinous.
This delicious drink was the only thing keeping me awake for the last nine months. I have had zero coffee for the last three days. It's starting to hurt.
Not that I drink SO MUCH coffee, but dang, I need at least one good cup to get going. Maybe two.
Cutting down to zero is not working for me.
I'm not supposed to go into town until tomorrow, but I might have to make the trip today JUST to buy coffee. I can't live like this!
Seriously. I'm about to eat the coffee grounds from three days ago. Or attempt to re-brew them. It's bad. It's real bad.
I have to shake this off. I have things to do and remember and clean and..............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

In other news:
You'd think I'd have have tons of gray hair, with my children conspiring against me constantly, but no. I checked. No gray hair, yet.
I'm sure the TWO boys will get to work on that ASAP, STAT. Check. Done.

I can't keep my eyes open much longer. For real. I'm going to have to tie the children to something and take a nap.

Febrile

Yesterday the family went to a birthday party at the park for my friend's daughter Ani. She turned 3.

During the presentation of the presents, a friend of mine who was a former firefighter/EMT said that she thought Dylan looked like he was having trouble breathing.
I tend to agree with the medical assessments of former EMTs who love my baby, so we took Dylan to the urgent care.

Once there, they quickly triaged him and determined that his temperature was over 105. OVER 105.

He was whisked to an exam room and given Children's Motrin, a breathing treatment and a chest x-ray. His fever started reducing quickly, but his breathing was still fast and junky. His x-ray showed a possible pneumonia developing, so we were OFF to the emergency room.

His fever stayed down in the ER, not WAY DOWN, but not 105.
The nurses wanted to start an IV and push saline in case of dehydration. Dylan's little veins did not cooperate and even with four nurses in on the action, two attempts to start an IV ended in pain and screams from Dylan and no IV.
Terrible.

After another set of chest x-rays, a heaping helping of Pedialyte and one Land Before Time movie Dylan fell asleep laying on me.
He was snorting and snuffling, he'd stop breathing and then snarfle back to breathing. Very scary.
The nurse came in to get his vitals one last time, as they had pumped him full of rocephin and were planning to discharge us from the ER.

HOWEVER.
While sleeping (and snarfling and gasping for air) Dylan's O2 saturations were down at 84 percent. (AKA not good)
When he woke up, they went up to around 91% - still not good.

The ER doc OBVIOUSLY didn't want to keep us overnight, despite the fact that I TOLD THEM I was not happy with those saturations and would probably sleep INSIDE Dylan's crib that night, they told us that 93% (where he eventually got to) was good and that he would be fine.

I wanted to scream at them, but I was so flipping tired.
He's going in to see his doctor today and I am going to raise holy hell for more treatment of his burgeoning pneumonia. 93% is not good!

The friggin idiot nurse was like, it's probably only so low because he is all stuffed up and can't get enough air... uh, ya think?!? That's exactly what I'm worried about!!!!!!!

Anyway...I'm exhausted. Dylan is still sleeping. I did sleep with him on the couch for about two hours before putting him in his crib and then returning myself to the couch where I could listen to him breathe all night.
I'm very very tired.
Coffee's up!