Tuesday, February 26, 2013

How Do You Know?

How do you know when it is time to reevaluate and change your career goals?  What does that involve?  Could it not be so simple as a lightning strike or a fortune cookie message to make it clear and obvious?  Does it have to involve 2am soul searching (almost every flipping night???) until you finally break.

I have no answers.  I just know that I wanted something, and now it threatens to overtake me, to run me into the ground with no energy or life left in me.  The difficult part is that I know it is temporary.  But temporary could mean for the next 3 months or more.  Is it worth it?  What I do know is that my health is important.  My family is important.  I cannot give everything I have to a job that right now gives nothing back.  Something's gotta give, and I do not wish it to be me.



Drama Drama Drama  I know!  But it's 4:30am, I've been up and thinking about work since 2am.  I have a 17 hr day in two cities ahead of me, and I just think it is time to reevaluate my life.  If I could win the lottery that would be helpful...(just throwing that out there to the gods of wealth!)

On the plus side - Little Miss is on the mend.  The antibiotics she got helped and she now only has a cough now and then.  And every two minutes tells us "I have a boger" (not a booger, but a boger).  hehehe

Of course DH and I got it.  He's got no voice, but a sporadic squeak - a masculine one of course. ;)  I have bronchitis.  Yup.  I am sure the added stress of late has significantly contributed to my getting sick twice in five weeks.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Sicky Sicky (Yes Again)

My sweet girl is sick again.  The last two winters have been brutal for her.  I am hopeful that this will build her immune system, but fearful that it may be the beginning of many, many more illnesses.  Oh well, what can you do?

Today I am working some (emails etc) and taking a few hours lieu time for any time I don't work.  Thus far I have only put in about an hour of work, spending the rest of the time cuddling my girl.  She was coughing yesterday and had a fever at bedtime.  She then vomited twice in the night, necessitating a full change of her clothes, sheets and pillow.  Strangely, while she had 20 stuffies in bed with her the first time, not one of them took a puke-hit...not even a bit.  We have no clue how they escaped!

She's still not quite old enough to even know what vomit is, let alone know that it is coming or that it might be better off in the toilet or garbage.  When I went in the first time, I couldn't tell that she'd puked, and she denied it when I asked.  The second time she greeted me with "Mommy, I throwed".  Of course I laughed.  We did a load of laundry each time she threw up, mainly because we only have 3 crib sheets, so didn't want to run out if she kept going.  She cried in the night around 1:30am as well but my honey got up with her (she only wanted her babies back in bed with her). 

Today I kept her home and she slept until almost 8am!  She still coughing quite a bit, has chest congestion and a fever and what appears to be a headache that worsens when she coughs.  Poor thing.  We watched "Woozy and Bud" for a little while (Toy Story) and then I popped in her new Lion King movie.




She wasn't too enthralled with it, but at first she was very interested - she asked who the characters were and I told her.  We watched all of the animals converging on Pride Rock.  Then she asked who Scar was.

"Who's dat?"

"Scar, he's a bad guy"

"Score is bad?"

"Yes he's not nice"

*To the tv* "Score you are a bad boy!"

*Laughing* 

"What is Scarf doing?"

"I think he's being mean."

"Stop being mean Scarfy!"


Yep - it's quite fun to watch with her!  She spent the rest of the time only half watching, asking where Pula was (I think she got Nahla and Pumba confused???)

She hasn't eaten much since lunch yesterday and she is definitely miserable.  Today I just spend the day trying to keep her comfy and pain free.  (And vomit free if possible!)

Friday, February 8, 2013

Eviction Notice

I have decided to put out eviction notices.



Yup.  For those of you who have decide to move into my brain and live rent free, forcing me to think of you when I choose not to, or have better things to do (like sleep!), this is your notice.  You are being removed.  Effective immediately.

Whew - that is a good feeling.  It's like giving myself permission to let it all go - at least when I need to. Last night I got about 3 hrs sleep...not nearly enough.  So now, my brain is empty...(insert lame empty head joke here).  It's mental - but lately is likely the most stress I have ever felt on an ongoing basis, and giving myself permission to kick it all out is liberating.  Buh Bye!


Thursday, February 7, 2013

1:30AM Whine

Indulge me just a bit.  I promise to keep it short.  What the H E double hockey sticks was I thinking having another kidlet when my first one was 16???  Of course I really wanted a wee princess to add to our brood, and it really was 'now or never' for us...I mean I was not going to be THAT lady who is on the news because I miraculously gave birth at 73, with my great grand children in the delivery room with me.  *shudder*

But I never imagined how difficult this large gap would be.  At first, it was all sunshine and roses (or more accurately, sleepless nights and spit up), but DS was super helpful and loved his wee sister.  He especially loved her in the first 72 hrs when she slept most of the time.

Way back then, he was still in high school, so he went to be by 10 or 11 every night, and got up early for school every single day.  Fast forward 2.5 years, and he is in university now (Proud mama YAY!!!!).  He sleeps until his first class, which on one day of the week is at 6pm!!!  Other days it varies but is generally around 10am.  What does this mean?  Well, when I get up with Little Miss in the morning around 6am, DS has just gone to bed.  Little Miss is as quiet as a lawn tractor in your auditory canal, and quieting a toddler is like wrestling an alligator in jello...a bit difficult.  So it can be a bit noisy (although we are trying to learn to whisper).

Now DS is feeling like he can't sleep ever, and is talking about changing schools because of it.  This would allow him to move away.  I am all for him expanding his horizons and living the way he wants to live, but moving out so he can sleep a bit more seems silly.  Especially since we leave the house by 7:15am, so he could go back to sleep.

But back to me.

His 'all hours of the night' routine, means that no matter how quiet he thinks he is, my mommy hearing has me on alert and awake at the creak on the stairs, the boom of the Xbox, or the crash of a dish during his late night smorgasbord.

So here I type at almost 2am, wide awake since 11:30pm.  Yep I went to sleep at 11pm and got a solid 30 min.  This is a routine played out several times a week in some form.  I feel like I haven't slept through a full night in 3 years.  Maybe I should start to drink nightly.  Yawn.

That is all.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Random

I had a looong day today. Had to travel for meetings and once home had emails to send. Thus far I only waded through the more pressing ones. Still have about sixty to follow up on tomorrow. Ugh!

Little Miss was wired when I got her at daycare. She was jumping up and down, shrieking and running in circles. I'd like to say she was just happy to see me but I don't get that kind of greeting every day!

Tonight she spent time cooking for me. She made me Cheerio soup (or so she says). It was yummy! Later she found the board game Trouble and we spent time putting the little pegs into her fingertips. I tried to show her how to play, but the fake "nails" were much more fun!!

At bedtime I took a pic of her in her pile of fluffy stuff. And yes this is without the friends I took out last night.

And the last pic is what she asked to sleep with tonight. Yup.





Monday, February 4, 2013

Culling The Herd

I started to cull the herd tonight.  I wish I had a picture, but close your eyes (well not yet...read the rest of this first) and picture it...

Little Miss and her entire 30lbs in her bed (which is just her crib with the side rail removed, so quite small).  Tucked in with not one, not two but three blankets (called Soft Blanket, Big Blanket and Other Blanket).  Joining her nightly are Big Monkey, Mommy Monkey, twin Baby Monkeys, Mini Monkey (creative with names don't ya think??), a panda bear with no name, Baby Cinderella, Little Baby, Other Baby, Baby Shawn, Violet the Dog, Grover (or Grovie as he's sometimes known), and not one but two singing Dora's.  If that sounds, ummm cozy, read on...

Recently she found out how to open her big toy box (which was jammed full of stuffies she's gotten since she was born)  So, to join her herd was Singing Giraffe, Baby Stella, and a couple of other random stuffies who I have forgotten at this moment!  Oh and then she found a monkey that DH gave me when we were dating and a Cabbage Patch doll I got for Christmas this year (a story for another day!)

So needless to say...it's jam packed in her bed.  I decided that something had to change when I went in to check on her one night and found her about two feet off of her mattress, laying on top of the whole pile!  And then I started to find other random things in there.  She has two fuzzy sweaters (really soft!) that don't yet fit her, but she drags them around like blankets.  They made their way into her hoard.  Then the jammies she had worn the night before would find their way into the mountain (maybe Grovie was cold?)  The last straw came when she wanted to start bringing hard toys into bed - pots and pans from her kitchen set, rubber balls, cars, books....Oye!!!  Houston, we have a problem!

I say the last straw, but really we just put the kibosh on the hard toys and clothing items.  Then, for the last several nights, we have woken at various times in the night to hear Violet the Dog singing at the top of her lungs (and she goes on and on!), or Dora expressing her love for Little Miss.

Enough was enough.

So tonight I started - while we do have to get rid of some of her stuffies, I will have to sort them when I have more time.  For tonight, as she got ready for bed and wandered around her room like a wee scavenger looking for new treasure, I told her that we had to take some of her babies out of her bed.  I wasn't sue how the conversation would go, but she was pretty good.

I began to hold up the less treasured babies, and out went the Cabbage Patch doll (whose name escapes me!), Violet the Dog (the serenading sealed his fate), one Dora doll (the other seems to have gone missing already...perhaps she knew what was going to happen!), and of course my monkey (leave my monkey alone kid!)

In the next few days I will pack up a bunch of the babies and put them away - maybe switch them out in a couple of months.  Her bed is still full (the Monkey family is huge) but at least I don't feel like she'll drown in plush and stuffing.  What a kid!