I can't sleep

Thursday, February 12, 2004          

I woke up this morning really happy that we didn't have to go anywhere until 4pm since I'm really feeling this cold. I decided to take Willow to see my doctor, who is the other kids' pediatrician, for a 2nd opinion about the feeding tube and when to use it (some docs say night, others say day) and for how long. So, other than the doctor appointment the day was pretty open.

It began with Sophie throwing a shrieking fit (just ask D; we were trying to talk on the phone) because I wouldn't let her have an entire bag of veggie soy crumbles. Frozen veggie crumbles. I put a little in a bowl and offered it to her. Of course she screamed and threw the bowl and flipped out because she wanted the bag. Last night she did the same thing because I could not take her to OUTER SPACE. Really. She was screaming and sobbing, "I go owdder pace. Pease. Owdder paaaaaaace!" Yeah.

From there things settled a bit. I let Nate and Soph watch the Power Puff Girls so I could feed Willow and drink my coffee and read the paper in peace. Well, peace except for the sound of the PPGs beating the living shit out of Mojo Jojo and Fuzzy Lumpkins. Eh, well.

I called the mother's milk bank where I was led to believe doctors had sent my breastmilk to be scanned for content and quality control type purposes. Didn't happen. Somebody was trying to shut me up. That would be why they kept telling me the results were, "not important," when I kept asking for them while we were inpatient.

While I was on the phone with the lovely woman from the milk bank (I'm not being sarcastic) Lexy got dropped off. The woman, C, who drove him home handed me one of those dreaded slips of white paper with the checklist of what germs your kid has been exposed to at school this week. You know: strep, tb, chickenpox, and oh please no please don't let it be oh nonononononono oh surely not. . . Yup. Lice. Ahhhhhh. Not this, not now. C said she checked him well and he seemed fine. If you know us in real life, you may have some idea why I live in huge fear of headlice. John and I both have long hair. Mine is shorter than John's and dark; his is blonde and down to his butt. If I can comb Sophie's hair once a day it's amazing and I can't imagine her sitting still for me to do the monkey mom lice picking thing. The boys, well, one boy in particular who is in first grade, would WHINE and WHINE if I tried to keep mayo or olive oil on their heads for hours. We have tons of pillows and blankets on the beds and since we have kids there are stuffed animals in every nook and cranny of this place. Then there are the hats and coats and dress up clothes. Then there are all the people who have been babysitting for us lately.

I did what I always do when I don't know what to do. I called my mom. She said to take them to the barbershop and cut off that scraggly long hair of theirs. So, we did that. And we weren't kicked out of the barbershop by any barber because he spied critters in the boys' hair. So, I'm hoping we're safe. I stripped the bed anyway, but that comes later in the story. Two kids have lice. As fate would have it, one sits right next to Lexy and the other is one of the kids Lexy has been spending lots of time with lately. I'm gonna be sweating it out for a few days. If those boys are at school tomorrow I'm going to call their mothers and do some yelling. I don't care if they have to miss the valentines day party. They won't remember that when they are grown up, but if we get lice I will have to live with hellish memories of it until I die.

Amazingly, Sophie was well behaved at the barbershop. She sat and played with the assortment of broken, hairy happy meal toys and only ran outside one time. She did get a lollipop stuck in her hair, but was not too freaked out by it. After, we went to the ice cream shop next door and then she sat in the stroller with her cone while we walked home. The kids ate their icecream on the front step together. It was a Kodak moment. Then Soph dropped her icecream on the ground (inevitable) and slurped it up off the cement like a dog. The boys washed the porch for me.

I fed Willow and we left for the doctor. We had to wait ages to see him, but I'm glad we went. He basically agreed with all the prescribed treatment. I just wanted to go because he's been my doc for a good ten years and he has always taken care of my kids, too. While there, Sophie got another lollipop stuck in her hair and she kept running away. Nate used the exam table as a springboard. Lexy whined to go home.

We got home ten minutes before John. I had nothing to cook for dinner because we've been to the doctor so much this week and I can't go shopping with all the kids. So John ran to the store for eggs while I put Willow down for a nap. I made pancakes and scrambled eggs and rice and we had egg burritos and pancakes, which is a little weird I guess. Lexy had a plain tortilla with plain rice. He is getting harder to please lately. He eats barely anything. During dinner Sophie made a huge mess with her rice and syrupy pancakes and even the syrup container.

After dinner things got insane. Let's see if I can remember it all. Sophie needed a bath and hair washing, so John put her and Willow into the tub. I washed her hair while she screamed and splashed me. I took Willow out and asked John to watch Soph and the boys, who were now in the tub. After Willow was dry and in jammies and had all her wet face tape replaced, she pooped. I changed her, then took her to John so I could wash the boys' hair. Soph ran around in her robe and got in and out of the water a few times. Then we hooked Willow up to her tube, and everyone got out of the bath and brushed their teeth. I asked Lex to strip the bed and Nate to wipe down the tables while I did dishes and Willow played on the livingroom floor. John was in our room, shaving and washing the maple syrup out of his beard.

Nate tried to move a big ceramic bowl full of nuts from one table to the other and he dropped it. His thumb was bleeding so I told Lex to get John right away to help. John appeared, half his face with shaving cream on it, talking on the phone. I told Lex to sit with Willow and wrapped Nate's thumb in a washcloth. I showed him how to put pressure on it so I could clean up before anyone else got cut. Nate was really crying and I said, "That must really hurt, honey." He said, "No, but last time I broke a bowl I got spanked." (didn't happen here, folks, that's all I'll say) I assured him SEVERAL TIMES that the bowl was unimportant and that I was just worried about him. Then he wanted me to save all the nuts. I kept what I could and apologized to him since I'd asked him to put the nuts on the kids' table to clean the big one. He said it wasn't my fault, and that he'd moved it before without dropping it. "If you wanna blame anybody, blame Santa for bringing too many nuts," he said.

The kitchen clean, we went to the back bathroom for a bandaid. And tape. There was a fair amount of blood. John was washing his face and Sophie appeared holding a little poop ball. Truly one of those "what now?" moments. Finally, somehow, I finished stripping the bed, remade it and got the kids down. Lexy was really mad that he didn't get as much tape on his finger (incredibly small but painful splinter) as Nate did. Nate said, "Lexy. I can't give you my cut." We read a little of Farm Boy. John left for work. Soph and Lex conked out, so Nate and Willow and I went to the bed in the girl's room and cuddled and giggled a while before those two dropped off. I finished the book I was reading.

It's a crazy life, but I would never trade it.  (Nobody in their right mind would trade with me!!)

   

posted by Jenijen | 11:37 PM