David made it to the finals in the Anchor For Today contest on the Today Show thanks to everyone’s help!
Please help keep him on the show by voting each day, today through Wednesday. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you!
(I’m posting from my phone, so please forgive the brevity of the post and my inability to figure out how to link without the help of my WYSIWYG. I’m pathetic that way.)
Well, Mom managed to stay until around 10 and then she headed home. We didn’t get any snow last night, so she didn’t have to wait for the roads to be ok to leave.
It was a rather uneventful morning. I did manage to get a few things done:
After the kids got up from their naps, the three of us headed out to pick up the missing belt. It was gray and cold, but we managed to get in and out without completely freezing. It was absolutely worth the trip. I got the belt and picked up a few other things for E and me. I got nice t-shirts for $3 people. It doesn’t get better than that.
We did have an interesting encounter while we were shopping. At one point I noticed a saleswoman watching me walk through the accessories as I was trying to find what was actually on sale and what wasn’t. I was craning my neck to see over the tops of the glove displays and that’s when she came over to me. I had a bunch of clothes from the misses section that I was hauling around in my big double stroller, E was asleep and covered with a blanket and L was not enjoying himself. She asked if she could ring me up, but I wasn’t ready, so I told her so and headed over to look at jewelry.
I strolled over, talking with L the entire time, and started to scan the jewelry as quickly as I could so that we could get out of there before L’s head started spinning around with smoke coming out of his ears.
As I walked around the back of one of the jewelry displays, I noticed the saleswoman in my peripheral vision kind of hiding behind one of the displays looking my direction every once-in-a-while. It took me a sec, but then I got it.
SHE TOTALLY THOUGHT I WAS SHOPLIFTING!
She was doing everything that The Limited taught me to do when we were concerned about shoplifters. I was cracking up on the inside. I SO wanted to put a pair of earrings in my purse for two seconds and then take it back out and hang it up again.
But I didn’t.
I did, however, make a point to go back to her station to check out. Once she realized I wasn’t trying to screw Macy’s she was totally my best friend.
I really was done, but as I was walking toward the door I realized I hadn’t looked at the kids stuff. Soooo, I bribed Liam with expensive chocolate and headed up there.
I REALLY had to rush at that point. L was hanging onto sanity by a thread. He had thrown all of his snacks and drink on the floor and as I turned around to see what was going on, he had one leg out of the stroller and was reaching toward a pair of silky pajamas with chocolate on his hand.
We paid for what I was able to find and then we left. L was much happier when we got home and he got to eat.
And amazingly, AJ got out of Chicago on time and made it home in time to take me to drop off the car. I am so glad that he’s home. I needed a break from the crazies. (E is having a rough day because I ate broccoli yesterday. I just needed someone else to take her for a while.)
We finally got the kids in bed and started working to get ready for Fili. The house is still a total mess. Oh well, she’ll deal. I’m sure she’s seen worse.
I a little stressed about tomorrow - not because L is going to school, but the logistics just aren’t working out to my advantage. I do have a plan though. Jeanne is going to bring a car to me at 8.30. She’s going with me to get the paperwork taken care of and then we’ll drop off L. (I hope they’ll let him go!) I’ll take her home and come back here to try to clean enough ahead of Fili that she can actually clean. I’ll go pick up L and return the car.
Be thinking good thoughts for me.
I was starting to get a little jealous of AJ yesterday after L perked up in the afternoon, but he said it’s extremely cold and windy so I’m not missing out on anything. It rained here all day and our backyard is suitable for mud wrestling, but at least it’s not that cold.
Besides, although the shopping probably would have been better, there’s no way mom and I could have shopped there the way we did today. We would have had to stay home with E due to the chilliness.
But since we were home, we somehow managed to get up and around by 9. We were at Macy’s by 9.45! (What an amazing difference it makes when I don’t have either child to tend to while getting ready.)
They were having 50% off of clearance items, and I thought we could get some stuff for the kids at a great price. I wanted to be there early since the sale actually started yesterday. I didn’t want things to get completely picked over before we had a chance to dig through all of it.
And I am glad we made it early. I got some amazing deals - but on clothes for myself, not the kids!
As one who generally dreads shopping, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t all that difficult. L was with grandma and grandpa for the night last night and they kept him this morning as well. And it made it MUCH easier to look through the sale racks because mom walked with Elena when she got grumpy and kept her occupied in the fitting room while I tried things on.
She really is fantastic. She gave me a quick yay or nay as I tried on different items - none of that wishy washy crap - AND she went to get me different sizes when I needed them, along with new stuff to try. As a result, I got clothes I wouldn’t necessarily have picked out for myself.
Seriously, I’d be a fashion failure without my personal shoppers and fashion consultants. Thank you Bill, Ang, and Pat.
Anyway, we shopped until 12.40! I couldn’t believe how well Elena and I BOTH behaved. We were all exhausted afterward, but even though we were cutting it close to the time Liam would be getting home, we made a quick stop at 3WO and picked up a few mini lemon cakes along with a girlfriend-size Italian wedding cake. Mmmmmmmmm.
I wanted to eat dessert first, but there wasn’t time after L got home. We finally managed to scrounge lunch around 2, Mom got L down for nap (he makes you get under the covers with him when he’s going to bed.),
I got E to go to sleep, and then we ate dessert. Lots of dessert.
The mini lemons were a bit disappointing, but fortunately I still had some icing left from my birthday cake.
It solved the problem. But, there wasn’t anything negative to say about the wedding cake. It was amazing. I think I actually prefer it over the lemon.
Once the kids were both asleep, Mom agreed to hang out here so I could go to a different Macy’s to look for a few other items. It was a quick, yet successful trip. It’s surprisingly easy to look through a sale rack when you’ve seen nearly everything and already know what you DON’T want.
I got home just as both kids woke up and Mom headed out to do a little shopping of her own. She found four or five pairs of shoes at DSW. I am so jealous. I guess I’m just going to have to wait until I get my allowance next month. Perhaps I shouldn’t have waited until the point I needed an entirely new wardrobe, ya think?
We decided to have a glass of wine with dinner thinking that there would be plenty of time between E’s feedings, but I misjudged my daughter’s ability to pick the wrong day to have a growth spurt. (How appropriate that it’s her half birthday today.) The kid wanted to eat every two hours.
I totally should have known the way she’s been acting the past few days, but I’m so tired that I just didn’t notice.
Mom managed to keep her calm until the “safe zone” and in the midst of it, E first officially found her thumb
and then sucked on a pacifier for about five minutes or so.
I thought we had a winner one way or another, but it turns out that she was just desperate. Once she determined that the pacifier wasn’t going to actually give her anything, she spit it out and played with it. (At least it kept her busy one way or another for ten minutes or so.) And she still doesn’t view the thumb as something to use for comfort - she always seems kind of surprised that it makes it to her mouth.
So. I finally nursed her and am now in bed. It’s been a long day, but the shopping was definitely worth all of the great deals I got. I can’t believe how much I saved.
But the glass of wine? Not so much worth it. I’m done trying to do that until E’s sleeping situation is a little more stable. (I won’t go so far as sleeping through the night because L didn’t do that until he was 15 months. And I’m certainly not waiting THAT long!)
As I lay in bed this morning nursing Elena, I reached up to scratch my head and a spider landed on the blanket in front of me.
Considering the fact that any spider out of its element is no friend of mine, I was pretty calm. Generally when they surprise me, I scream. Then I grit my teeth, and either start swearing at it or yelling, “DIE DIE DIE!”
This time, I yanked Elena off of me (Which hurt REALLY bad. Always, ALWAYS release the suction before removing a child from your breast.), and attempted to shake the spider onto the floor. Instead I just shook him into the comforter. So, I pulled the comforter off, stood up on the bed, and shook it. Hard.
Said spider scuttled across the carpet, and I jumped out of the bed and went after him with Aaron’s shoe. It was like the scene in you-name-it movie where the lead beats his young lady’s killer to death…and then keeps swinging the bat.
But of course, then I felt guilty. I always feel guilty if I have to kill them.
I left his corpse as a sign to the other spiders that they should steer clear of my bed - and Aaron’s shoe. But I didn’t have time to clean him up anyway; E was wide awake and Mom and L were already downstairs. I didn’t want to miss anything.
We were a little slow getting around, but it was a decent day and evidently tomorrow is supposed to be crappy - there’s some crazy storm coming our way and we’re not supposed to get anything but rain and a dusting of snow, but some areas of KS are supposed to get feet of snow - so I wanted to get a few things done.
Mom generously kept L while E was sleeping and I ran a few errands. It was VERY nice to be out and about by myself - and interestingly enough, I managed to do the work of an entire morning on a normal day in just an hour. Hmmm.
L enjoyed it as well. He was very happy to be spending some QT with Grammy. They talked on the phone and played with the “cats,” among other things.
And L is feeling MUCH better today. I’m keeping him medicated, but he’s feeling well enough that he gets to go stay the night with Grandma and Grandpa, as was the original plan for the entire weekend. Everyone is excited about it.
Only having one child with us meant that Mom and I got to go to dinner and actually TALK. I didn’t realize what a long time it has been since we’ve been able to do that. We nearly didn’t know what to talk about! And E got a bit restless toward the end of our meal, so it didn’t last as long as I would have liked, but at least we got a few minutes!
We had to get home fairly quickly after dinner because Ang came over to do my hair one. last. time before Olivia makes her debut at the end of March.
It was very well organized.
Note the quarter which moved from color to color so that Ang would know what was next.
We sat and chatted with Mom and Ang expertly did her duty.
The fact that she is so meticulous made it rather difficult to enjoy my wine because I couldn’t look up. But like any alcoholic forward thinker, I devised a system that worked quite well.
It worked a little too well, in fact. If I hadn’t employed the straw, it wouldn’t have been a problem when Elena woke up well before my three hours were up. I wouldn’t have had enough for it to matter.
Ang was kind enough to attempt to give her a bottle, but she was not pleased with our attempt to appease her.
Damn no-bottle-drinking child.
Fortunately the two of us were able to stave her off until the appropriate time and as I nursed here I extremely thankful that we weren’t in Chi Town. I’m pretty sure I would have had to cut short most of the activities early in order to keep the child fed - either that or I would have had a miserable child AND a miserable Grammy. Hungry babies who don’t take bottles don’t exactly act nicely to caregivers other than their mothers.
Once E was drunk on milk, it took her a bit to get her calmed down to go to sleep, and it’s taken me a bit of time to get relaxed enough to sleep.
I’m exhausted. But who wouldn’t be after a couple of crazy days and nights with a sick kiddo. Hopefully there will be time to catch up on sleep this weekend.
I’m not a big fan of the numbing drops. Evidently the numbing part doesn’t last very long because last night was the worst we’ve had in quite some time.
L finally went to sleep around 11.30. But E woke up as we were getting him in bed, so I had to nurse her and get her settled in for the night. By that time, it was almost midnight. But everyone was quiet and it was finally peaceful. I crawled in bed and slept.
Until around 2 when L woke up crying.
I got up with him and tried to give him some medicine, but he freaked out. I finally had to take him downstairs and sit him in front of a video to get him calmed down a bit. But, he wigged when I tried to get him to take the meds again.
Eventually he woke AJ up and he came down to help. We tried bribing L with chocolate, bunny grahams, soda, a straw, the measuring spoons, videos, etc. He did not want to take the medicine.
I finally found the medicine dropper and he took it out of there. (I totally would have caved at the chocolate.)
After about 30 minutes he settled down enough to go back upstairs. We both got in my bed and watched Finding Nemo until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. (My eyes were already closed by that time.) It was 4.30 when he finally fell asleep.
And of COURSE E woke up at 4.45. I nursed her and crashed.
My early bird L was up at 6.30 - not in the best mood, naturally.
AJ and I immediately started talking about Chicago. It took us a while to work through all of the scenarios because it took ME a while to admit defeat.
I was REALLY looking forward to this trip.
But in this situation, being a good mom means not leaving L when he feels bad, and incidentally being a good daughter-in-law ALSO means not leaving L when he’s feeling bad.
A’s mom is currently in a cast for a broken thumb and his dad would have had to do everything. I would never forgive myself if they parents had to deal with the shit we dealt with last night. It just wouldn’t be fair to anyone.
So, I’m not going. My mom is not going. Elena is not going. But AJ is going.
Both AJ and I felt like he needed to be there. We’re both rather fond of Barret since he’s the only reason we met, and we were both looking forward to celebrating with Megan and him.
(We also have quite a lot of nonrefundable money invested in the trip. Someone should enjoy it.)
Anyway, it totally sucks being a responsible parent in this situation, but hopefully it will turn out to be a good weekend anyway. Elena won’t have to fight the bottle vs. boob war and my mom is here. AJ’s parents will also be here to help since they have no plans for the weekend now.
I’m really hoping that L will feel good enough tomorrow or Saturday to stay the night over there. He was looking forward to it and so were they. Then Mom and I can have some girl time.
We’ll just have to see what happens tonight. L went down ok this evening, but he’s due for more meds at midnight.
That’ll be the true test. If he sleeps even though the medicine is out of his system I’ll know he’s feeling better.
Until morning then….
Guess who's coming to dinner....
And don't you dare show up without Cheddar Bunnies.
