Sunday, February 17, 2013

Just Get the Carpet Cleaner

This week started off way too early with the monkey wrench that derails even the best, most organized moms...a stomach bug.  No matter how well you plan your time and organize your childrens' routines, there is nothing you can do to account for the appearance of this nightmare that frankly sends my world into a tailspin.  And not being anywhere near "routine" and "organized" it wreaks havoc in our family.  We had had a decent weekend with lots of TV, video games, reading, and just general lounging about.  Not much had been accomplished (not unusual) but it was nice to just sit around together.  Everything was fine when we all went to bed Sunday night, then about 2:00 Monday morning, I woke up to Michaela screaming "Mommy!".  Half asleep, I jumped out of bed and nearly broke my neck trying to find out what was the matter, I was wishing we had done less "lounging" and more picking up.  When I got to the kids' bathroom, she was leaning over the toilet holding her hair in a ponytail.  Ok, no explanation needed.  I got her a cup of water to rinse her mouth and rubbed her back for a few minutes before sending her back to bed.  I guess that's the good thing about throwing up, if there is one, that you feel pretty good afterwards and she was able to go right back to sleep.  I laid awake for a while before I could get back to sleep and it seemed like I had jsut closed my eyes when she called for me again.  We repeated the routine around 3 or 4 times so when my alarm went off at 5:30 I was tired, cranky, and not inclined to get up.  But I did.

Obviously Michaela had to stay home from school Monday but I was not so lucky.  I am a math coach at a high school and I had to teach a class for another teacher to observe during first period.  We are on block schedule so first period is from 9:00 to 10:30.  Ed got the honor of staying home with Michaela Monday morning and I would come home for the afternoon.  I went to work, Jake went to school and Ed, Michaela and Joey stayed home.  I was already not 100% because I had been fighting sinus congestion for the last couple of weeks but I took some sinus medicine and some cough drops and pushed through...as many people with responsibilities do.  I taught 1st period a little groggy (there were a couple of times the students had to help remind me that 3 times 5 is 15, not 8) I met with some of my supervisors from the district office to discuss the lesson, and about noon I checked out to go home.  I was SO ready to get home and take a nap.

As I left school, I checked my email and wished I hadn't.  Jake's teacher had sent me a message with the subject, "behavior this morning".  This can't be good.  Can't this child just do what he is supposed to do?  How hard is it really to sit down and do what the teacher tells you!?  Apparently it's incredibly difficult because he had "REFUSED" to write his spelling words and then tore his paper.  When the student intern told him he could still use the paper to write his words, the little turd tore it even more.  I think I would have lost it at that point.  When the teacher got to him and asked him why he wouldn't do his words, all he would say is that he was tired.  I know he doesn't like to do his work.  It takes us an hour to get him to write three homework sentences in the evening.  He cries and screams, "It's too hard!  I don't know how to write a sentence!  I can't spell that word!"  It takes him about 10 minutes to actually do the homework and another 50 minutes to make a Broadway-style production of it.  We are going to have to start stage-lighting the dining room table so he has a proper setting for these little performances.  It makes me cringe to imagine him throwing these fits at school, his teacher must think we are terrible parents.  Or that he deserves an Oscar.  He had to miss his recess to write the words that he said he was too tired to do earlier.  He is already on the last step of the school's discipline management plan and I honestly don't know what happens after that last step but I assume it must be bad.  At the high school level, they get a referral to the principal but Jake has already had to go talk to her a couple of times.  I really hope he doesn't get suspended from Kindergarten.  His tantrums may be stage-worthy but I don't think we are ready for the Hollywood lifestyle if he gets kicked out of school and has to try to make it big in showbiz.  When I got home, I had barely changed my clothes when Jake's school called.  Of course my first thought is that he HAS been suspended and they are calling for me to immediately come and pick him up before he causes any more disruption and disorder in the classroom.  I started thinking about what shows he could audition for.  "This is the nurse at Baker.  Jake came into my office complaining about his stomach and he just threw up a large amount.  His teacher sent him down because he was laying on the floor holding his stomach and crying that his stomach hurt."  Yep, that's usually a pretty good clue that something is wrong.  And then I got caught up in the fact that he threw up a "large amount".  I was on my way at "threw up" but I guess as a school nurse you learn phrases that need to be emphasized to parents to get your point across when mom or dad don't want to hear what you are saying.  It kind of reminds me of the warnings on McDonald's coffee cups, "Caution: Contents may be hot".  Or on the new car ad where the car drives off the cliff and proceeds to fly across the water, "Cars don't really fly".  That's too bad because I was sold!  I wanted that flying car and  I was on my way to the dealership right after I chugged some coffee.  Anyway, I guess some parents don't want to come pick up their kid if they just throw up a little.  Somebody must have said something that made her realize at some point that she needed to tell me he threw up a lot so I would know I needed to come and get him.  I brought him home and he went to bed, obviously sick.  I still wasn't feeling well and it was already almost 2:00 so Ed just stayed home. 

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful until it was almost time to go to bed.  Jake hadn't thrown up anymore so I thought maybe he didn't have it as bad as Michaela did.  She was feeling better, I was getting ready for bed, and Ed was watching TV when Jake woke up feeling sick again.  He was in his bed and I guess he tried to get up to go to the bathroom but he didn't quite make it, not even close actually.  He came running out to the kitchen instead and went to the trashcan.  He threw up a little into the trash and then cried that he had thrown up on his floor.  I took him to the bathroom to clean him up and told him he needed to go straight to the toilet if he needed to throw up.  I don't know why he ran to the kitchen trashcan.  Ed went to check out his floor and found that he had gotten it on his bedding too.  He has a loft bed so when he went to climb down he was on the ladder facing the bed and he started to throw up.  It was all across the foot of his bed and there was a big puddle next to the ladder on the floor.  Ed pulled the bedding off and put it in the washer while I got out the carpet spot-cleaner and cleaned up the floor.  We got a clean comforter, made Jake a bed on the couch, and made sure to put a trash can next to him just in case.  He made it through the night without throwing up again but he peed on the couch instead.  Figures.  Thank goodness the carpet cleaner does upholstery too.

I woke up sick about 2am on Tuesday so all of us stayed home and I slept until the middle of the afternoon.  The stomach bug lowered my resistance enough to let the sinus problem take a good hold and I woke up with a pounding headache and sore throat, my head felt huge.  I had to get up and help with the kids for a while though because Ed was exhausted from taking care of everyone.  He went to get some gatorade and then took a nap.  I laid on the couch.  The kids felt fine and played with thier kindles.  They both have a Kindle Fire with maybe three books between them but TONS of games so they don't read, they play.  Ed got back up in time to feed the baby because I was trying to stay away from him so he wouldn't get sick.  After Joey was done with his bottle Ed asked me for a burp cloth because he thought Joey had spit up or gotten milk on his back, he was wet.  When I looked at him though, the wetness was isolated in the middle of his back which meant it had come out of his diaper, not over his shoulder.  Joey had pooped and it went out the top of his diaper and all up his back inside of his onesie!  Ed tried to change his diaper but it was everywhere.  Ed had to maneuver him out of his clothes carefully so he didn't get poop all over Joey's hair.  The onsie was just about too small anyway so it went in the trash.  The wipes weren't going to cut it and I was tempted to get out the carpet cleaner but we decided on the bath tub.  I think the noise of the carpet cleaner might have scared Joey.

Wednesday was pretty uneventful but then Thursday Jake had a doctor's appointment after school and it was a different story.  Ed couldn't go so I had to leave work early, pick up Joey, go get the big kids, and haul everybody downtown to the doctor's office.  It's at the children's hospital and the campus is huge and all spread out so I got lost.  I parked next to where I thought it was and got all three kids out of the car.  We started walking toward the building but about halfway there, I realized we were in the wrong place so I called the office.  The secretary said we were about three blocks away so I loaded the monsters back in the car and drove to the right parking lot.  We headed up to the office and I walked up to the desk.  There were two secretaries and one smiled and said she'd check us in.  I assumed she was the one we talked to but I told her our name again anyway, just in case.  Then I asked which waiting room to go to and she sent us to the one on the left.  We went and sat, and sat, and sat.  The kids were actually being pretty good at first.  They were taking turns playing on my phone.  But then they started fighting over it.  I had to tell Michaela not to climb over the back of the chairs.  She wanted to sit in the window and draw the "view".  Then it was her turn to play on my phone and Jake started climbing in the window.  There's a reason I call them monkeys.  I have no sense of time but it seemed like we had been there a long time.  Of course it usually seems that way when I have two crazies taking turns standing on chairs, stealing my phone, and yelling "mom, it's MY turn!".  I was able to pry the phone away from the children long enough to check the time and we had been waiting over half an hour.  There's a sign that says to let them know if you are waiting more that 15 minutes so I went to tell them and found out that they had never checked us in in the first place.  AND we were in the wrong waiting room.  The doctor thought we hadn't shown up so he went home.  We had to reschedule (he wasn't available again at that time until March 7th) and we went home.  I don't know if it was the 45 minutes of fighting with the kids, the hour early that I had to leave work when I had a ton of stuff to get done, or the half a tank of gas I wasted driving to Egypt and back but I was mad.  I called Ed and told him the sooner he could get home the better.  Being concerned for the childrens' health, he hurried home and we went to my favorite restaraunt for dinner so I didn't have to cook.  It was Valentine's Day after all.

I had wanted to send Ed some chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine's Day.  I had heard ads on the radio and tv for "Shari's Berries".  I kept meaning to order them but I'm sure you can tell how my days tend to get a little distracting.  I finally snuck my phone into the bedroom Wednesday night to order them but by then it was too late to have them delivered on Thursday so Ed got his strawberries on Friday.  It was better late than never and nothing new in our family.  He would be surprised that he got anything at all, I'm usually really bad about giving gifts.  It's not that I don't want to give him anything, I just don't know what to get and I don't have time to go shopping so it sneaks up on me and I end up without a gift for him.  I was really excited that I had sent him something, even if it was late!  So I had a tracking service send me an email when they were delivered.  I was hoping he would call me when he got them because I was really excited to find out if he liked them or not and if he was surprised.  But he didn't call.  So finally I called him when I picked up the baby from daycare.  Ed had a bad day at work so I guessed maybe that was why he didn't call but he still didn't say anything about the strawberries so I asked if he got a delivery at work.  He said yes but then kept telling me about his day and all the stuff that went wrong.  Are you kidding me?  I get that he had a bad day but he could at least say thank you or that he liked them or that they were terrible, say SOMETHING!  Whatever, I finally just asked what he wanted to do for supper.  He said anything sounded fine because he hadn't eaten and was starving.  I said, "Well, at least you have some strawberries" and he didn't know what I was talking about.  "You said you got the delivery today."  Apparently, he thought it was something he had ordered for work and hadn't bothered to go check the mail room to see what it was.  So much for surprises.  But again, that's typical for us.  Valentine's Day hasn't been our best experience.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my first post, it will give you an idea.  Wouldn't want to break tradition!  I tried the strawberries when he got home and they were great!  I should have ordered myself some.

So to make up for some of the stuff at work this week, Ed is working all weekend again.  I did a bunch of cleaning yesterday morning.  Wouldn't want a repeat of last Sunday night, at least if I go running through the house in the middle of the night I won't fall over all the junk laying around.  Then I took all three kids grocery shopping.  Michaela and Jake only ran out in front of three different customers and a lady on one of those motorized chairs almost backed into Joey.  Her kid kept saying "Mom, be careful, there was a baby in that cart.  You almost hit that cart with a baby in it!" Jake and Michaela had run down the next aisle and I was too busy trying to tell them to get up off the floor to worry about that lady.  We picked up McDonald's on the way home and I told the kids they had to help carry the groceries up before we ate.  Jake started screaming, "But I'm so hungry!  My stomach hurts and it's too hard to carry the groceries!  It hurts my hands!"  I said he could carry them up the stairs and Michaela and I would bring them from the truck to the door.  He just sat on the stairs and cried.  Then he threw himself down on the steps and screamed some more.  And the Oscar goes to...  I have a flashback to homework night.  I finally told him if he didn't help carry the groceries up I was going to throw his McDonald's in the trash so he finally carried some of the bags upstairs.  I almost wished I HAD thrown the McDonald's in the trash though because when he finally opened his happy meal they had given him a girl toy and he started crying again.  I just can't win sometimes. 

So, today we have just been taking it easy, sort of.  Joey had another "explosion" and I had to give him a bath again.  This time the PJs were fairly new so I rinsed them out and threw them in the washer.  Jake and Michaela have been pretty quiet, only screaming at each other or throwing things occasionally.  I had to fuss at Jake for putting his feet on top of my rocking chair because he was doing hand stands.  Michaela was screaming at Jake about getting pee on the bathroom floor by her shirt and he was screaming at her that he didn't do it.  I asked her why her shirt was on the bathroom floor in the first place.  She said she left it on the floor because she had blood on it from a bloody nose this morning.  Oh, of course, I should have known.  Apparently she somehow hit her nose on the ladder of her bed this morning.  Lord knows what she was doing that she managed to hit her nose on her ladder I wasn't going to even ask.  I told Jake if he peed on the bathroom floor, he needed to clean it up not leave it there for someone to step in later.  I bet the carpet cleaner would work on bathroom floors too. 

It occurs to me that all of this might be somewhat alarming to some people.  I wonder sometimes if I'm too complacent as a parent but I think if I worried about all of this stuff everytime it happened, I'd be digging myself an early grave.  Anyway, it's all just typical in our family!  We are definitely not suitable for the faint of heart.  People think I'm kidding when I tell them I go to work to get away...I'm going to start giving them this blog address.

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