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Since we are still felled by the Puking Plague here, I thought I’d share a random funny that happened a couple of weeks ago that I meant to write about at the time.

Scene: Driving along, classic rock radio station is on, because everything else is playing commercials. “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger comes on, which is one of those random guilty pleasure “there’s no reason on earth that I should like this, but I kinda love it” songs.

Catie: Hey, I know who this is singing this!

Me: You do?

Catie: Yeah, it’s the same guy who sings [breaking into song], “You better be hooooome soooooon.”

Me: Uhh. No, sweetie. That song is sung by a guy named Neil…

Catie, interrupting: Hey, there’s a kid named Neil at my school!

Me:… Ok. And this song is by a guy named Bob Seger.

Catie, disappointed: Oh. There’s no Bob Seger at my school.

Right. Well. Thank God for that.

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Catie’s birthday party was on Saturday at a bounce house place called Monkey Joe’s. She’d been to birthday parties there before, and was so excited to have her own party there.

[Note that unlike when she turned two and freaked the hell out at the Chick-Fil-A cow, she is no longer scared of adults in giant mascot costumes.]

This year, Catie asked for a cake “with dinosaurs on it.” I learned from last year’s birthday party that most grocery stores don’t do custom artwork, so rather than stressing about it, I grabbed a bag of little plastic dinosaurs to use as cake toppers, and POOF! Dinosaur birthday cake!

She absolutely loved it.

Lucy had a pretty good time at the party too. She got to ride around on both me and her Pop-Pop…

… and she got to roll around on a floor that was covered in oh my god I don’t even want to know so don’t make me think about it.

(See that spot on my jeans? That’s where Lucy had been chewing on my leg moments earlier. Nice, kid.)

The kids ran around and bounced their little hearts out for a couple of hours, then had pizza and birthday cake. Then there were presents, and that was about it. Pretty basic, but so nice to not have to deal with clean-up and all of that other stuff that usually goes with birthday parties.

The last thing Catie got to do was the prize grab. She had seen her friends do this before, and she was absolutely terrified of it, but I explained that if she didn’t do it, she wouldn’t get a prize.

She was so serious and obviously scared, but so ABSOLUTELY DETERMINED that she was going to get her damn prize, no matter what. So into the giant scary ticket grab booth she went.

She ended up getting enough in tickets for two new dinosaur toys, so you know, WORTH IT. At least in her mind.

Overall, she had a fantastic party.

(The whole set of pics is here.)

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Then, there was the rest of the weekend.

Warning: things go quickly downhill from here.

Saturday night, we were all tired from the party. My brother Chris & my sister Tracy were both staying at my house for the weekend (they drove over from Charlotte for the party). Catie’s birthday present from Tracy had been a couple of new sets of princess pajamas, and Catie wanted to wear her new Little Mermaid PJs. It didn’t even occur to me that I needed to wash them first.

At bedtime, Tracy noticed that Catie was really itchy and scratching herself all over. She called me to check her out. My first thought was dry skin – Catie gets eczema in the winter sometimes. So I took her into the bathroom and slathered her with almond oil, which is mild and odorless and normally makes her skin feel better.

(Here’s a tip in case you hadn’t guessed: that was my major mistake. I basically took whatever was in the pajamas that had irritated her skin, and I sealed it to her. Which made things go way worse.)

The next thing I knew, Catie was screaming her head off that her skin was burning. She started to hyperventilate and have a panic attack. We went into my bathroom because she was freaking out so much I was afraid she was going to make herself vomit. I couldn’t calm her down, and my brain just kept thinking that she was having some kind of major allergic reaction to something, and I was worried about her asthma and breathing, so I yelled for my brother to call 911.

The EMTs got there within minutes, and were absolutely amazing. They checked her oxygen SATs (normal) and her lungs (all clear), and guessed that it was probably contact dermatitis from the pajamas. Since they gave her the all-clear on her breathing, we opted to not take Catie to the hospital, and instead I gave her a bath and tried to wash everything off of her skin, then gave her all new clean clothes to wear. Once I got her back in bed, she was asleep in minutes. The poor kid was exhausted (it was almost 11 p.m. by the time this was all finished).

On the plus side: Lucy slept through all of this. Even Catie’s screaming. So that was nice. But still? Yeah, that sucked.

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Sunday, I sent both girls to hang out with Dave for the day. That seemed pretty uneventful. They had fun, and came home in the evening around dinnertime. We did the bedtime routine, yadda yadda. Normal as usual.

Around 1 a.m., I heard Catie scream, “MOMMY!!!” It was not a normal “I had a bad dream and want to get in your bed” yell, it was… THAT scream. The kind that all parents (or at least all moms) know. The “something really bad is happening” scream. I was out of bed and across the hall before I even opened my eyes all the way.

I ran into Catie’s room just in time to see her vomit all over her bed. Faaaaabulous.

She spent the rest of the night in my bed (she managed to puke into a bowl every other time except once, which required me to change the sheets on my bed at 4 a.m. Let me tell you, I am not a fan of that).

She doesn’t have a fever, so my guess is that it’s some stomach virus she picked up from the germ-factories that are those bounce houses. (She didn’t eat anything unusual, so it’s my best guess. A 24-48 hour incubation period is normal for these things.)

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Both girls are with my parents today. My mom called a little while ago to tell me that Catie is keeping down tiny sips of Sprite, and that Lucy is officially crawling as of this morning. So, there you go. I’m sad I missed that milestone of Lucy’s, but glad that my parents and Catie got to see it.

To sum up: Hooray for birthday parties and baby milestones. However, illnesses and 911 calls and all that nonsense? Can suck it.

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Dear Catie,

Today, you are five years old.

Actually, you informed me this morning that today is not your birthday, because you said that it’s stupid that your party is not on the same day as your actual birthday. I can’t really argue with that logic, but today is your real birthday. Get used to the fact that your birthday will not always fall on a weekend. Just because you were born on a Saturday afternoon doesn’t mean that’s when your birthday will always be.

This was probably the hardest year of your life so far, and my hope is that it’s the hardest one you’ll ever have to face in your life. You became a big sister, your dad and I separated, and we moved to a new house – all in the span of six months. The experience almost broke me, so I cannot imagine how hard it was for you. I am so sorry for that. I don’t even know how I’ll begin to explain it all to you when you’re older and start to ask questions.

Overall, though, I have to say that you’ve handled everything phenomenally well.

Sometimes I worry that I put too much on you. Since it’s just the three of us now, I ask you to help out with a lot of things. Sometimes I’ll catch myself starting to ask you to do something, and I’ll hold back. I don’t want you to grow up feeling like you didn’t get to have a childhood because you had to be Mommy’s Helper all the time. I want you to be a kid.

When you get upset with me, you sometimes yell that you don’t want to be a big sister anymore. My response to that is always the same: “You don’t have to be a big sister. You just have to be Catie.” Because, baby girl? Let me tell you, Catie is freaking awesome.

I have to say that watching your relationship develop with Lucy has been one of the greatest joys of my life. I was worried before she was born, because you were never interested in babies before we had one of our own. But you are so sweet and nurturing with her, it’s amazing to witness.

Look, you even make the same facial expressions. Freaky, right?

And oh, babe, the way your sister loves you. She lights up every time you walk in the room. You are hands-down her favorite person ever.

(I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to get away with calling her “Boopy” forever, though. It’s cute now when she’s a baby, but I’m warning you now, she’s going to get mad about that nickname someday.)

You are an absolute joy, and I cannot begin to tell you how thankful I am that I get to be your mama.

Happy birthday, my sweet Catie-bug. I love you to the moon and back.

Love,
Mommy

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We’re mostly all better here now, thankfully. I still have a little bit of a cough and Lucy still has a chronic case of Drippy Nose, but I think that’s more just because she’s a baby who goes to daycare. Sort of goes with the territory, right?

I don’t know, what do you think? She looks pretty healthy to me.

This week is chaotic in both good and bad ways. The good is that Catie’s birthday is tomorrow, and my big girl is turning FIVE. YEARS. OLD. A fact which she gleefully tells anyone who’ll listen. So we’re having a party at one of those bounce house places, because I really don’t need her entire daycare class plus all of their parents in my house. She is ecstatic.

[Aside: Can I rant about parents who don't RSVP to birthday parties? I have 5 confirmed guests and about 11 others that have been given invitations, but I have no idea if they're coming or not. And the party is Saturday. Rudeness!]

The not-so-good chaos is that Dave is coming for a visit, which means working out details about visitation and dealing with lawyers (because that’s the only way we communicate these days), and all kinds of things that I’d rather not have to worry about.

So, yeah. That stuff. Boo on that.

I also started this new diet thing this week because I decided that my jeans were getting too tight and I’ve had quite enough of that, thankyouverymuch. I don’t really want to talk about it too much because it seems like every time I do, I jinx myself. But that’s another added layer of chaos to my life, just because it’s something new and different, and changes are difficult, yadda yadda.

Lots of ups and downs, clearly. But overall, things are good, I think. Even though I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’m about to be the mother of a five year-old child. How the hell did that happen?

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First, Catie got sick.

Then, on Saturday night, when we had our girls’ night out, some internal instinct told me not to drink anything with alcohol in it. I felt tired, headache-y, and run-down, and I knew that drinking would make me feel a lot worse, so I didn’t. Not a big deal, I figured I was just tired.

Sunday, I woke up full-on sick. (Side note to all of the ladies who were with me on Saturday night: I apologize if you caught my germs!)

This virus has now taken out both me and Lucy. (And let me tell you, taking care of a sick baby when you feel like death yourself? Not fun.) We’re both coughing and congested. Lucy decided to throw in some fever and diarrhea just for good measure, which was enough to get me to haul her off to the pediatrician’s office.

She’s trying her best to still be a sweet and happy baby in spite of it all. “Miserable” is not this child’s baseline personality, to say the least.

Lucy was deemed fine – no ear infection (my main concern), just a really nasty virus.

Today, my dad woke up sick. And my mom said she feels like she’s coming down with something, too. And so it continues.

2012 is not getting off to the best start. I know it’s just winter and the stupid dry air in the furnace and the germs at daycare and all of that. But I will be really happy when The Plague has left our house.

Until then, I need to go buy some more DayQuil. I’m chugging that stuff like there’s no tomorrow.

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Today is my 36th birthday. Which is not much of a milestone, since it isn’t one of those numbers that ends in a 5 or 0. But there you have it.

The good thing about my birthday this year is that Greis was able to come visit for the long weekend, and it’s been a ton of fun having her here. Lucy is still in her all-mommy, all-the-time phase, but Catie only wants Greis to snuggle with her at bedtime, she doesn’t want me at all. Which, you know, is TOTALLY FINE with me. I don’t mind the rejection. Especially when it means I get the chance to do things like, oh, take a shower.

It’s been pretty mellow this weekend. We met up with my cousin Cat and took the kids bowling on Friday night, which was fun. And on Saturday, I got a baby-sitter and had a girls’ night out with Greis, Cat, Trish, Erin, and Amber. It was nice to have a night out with just adults. There were a couple of kids in the restaurant, and every time they acted up, I was just relieved that the shrieking voices didn’t belong to either of my kids, and I didn’t have to react or respond at all.

The one downside of the evening took place as we were leaving. I went to the ladies’ room, and a woman in front of me offered me her stall. I was like, “That’s ok, I’m just… waiting?” She gestured at my stomach and said, “Are you sure?” Realizing what she meant, I said, “Oh, I’m not pregnant.” She looked mortified, so to try to make her feel better (WHY do I feel the need to make HER feel better??), I said, “That’s ok, I just had a baby.” Which, uh, yeah. *cough*7monthsago*cough*

So. Perhaps it’s time to start working out again, methinks?

Anyway, here’s to 36. It’s going to be a year of first-time milestones (e.g., I am now the age I will be when I get divorced), and not all of them are happy ones, but hopefully the positive will far outweigh the negative. Here’s hoping.

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It’s generally a bad idea to talk about a particular parenting style on the Internet, because it always leads to disagreements – breast versus bottle, stay-at-home moms versus working moms, natural childbirth versus medicated… all of those arguments we’ve had a hundred times or more.

Which is why it’s probably a bad idea for me to write about this, but a couple of posts this week got me thinking about it, so here it is.

I’ve started sleep training Lucy.

Let me back up: for the past four months, my mom has been living with me, so the idea of letting Lucy cry it out simply wasn’t an option. My mom is respectful of my parenting decisions, but she’s also a grandma, and it goes against her instincts to let her grandbaby cry. Besides, I never would’ve let Lucy cry it out when she was younger than 6 months old anyway.

But lately, bedtime with her has turned into this ridiculously elaborate dance, and it basically feels like she’s training me, instead of the other way around, and I have to put a stop to it.

Lately, Lucy’s sleep routine has been:
* Bathtime.
* Bottle.
* She starts to fall asleep on the bottle, then wakes up and wants! to! play! (Which, WTF? Wasn’t the whole POINT of the bath to make you sleepy, kid?).
* She rolls around on the floor and plays for at least an hour, sometimes longer.
* She eats some solid food – because I figure what the hell, we’re awake, and maybe having a little extra in her tummy will make her sleep longer. (Tip: it doesn’t.)
* Play some more. I get increasingly desperate for sleep.
* Another bottle. This time, she falls asleep while drinking it.
* Burp.
* Caaaaarefully transfer sleeping baby to crib. If she wakes up, she screams bloody murder, then I have to pick baby up and rock her until she falls asleep again, then repeat transfer process. (This may take up to 5 times or more, before successful crib placement actually occurs.)
* I crawl to bed and collapse, and pray that she sleeps through the night. Which she’s done, like, maybe 4 times in her life. Normally she wakes me up after 3-4 hours.

So. That’s completely ridiculous, right? I mean, I know it is.

The thing is, when I’ve tried to let her cry it out, I end up caving in. She screams and screams, and eventually I just can’t take it anymore, so I go get her. (Of course, the message she receives from this is, “If I scream loud enough, Mommy will come back and get me.” So that’s completely useless.)

Last night, she woke me up at 4 a.m., as per usual. I gave her a bottle, burped her, and put her back in the crib. As soon as I set her down, she woke up and started shrieking. I sat down on the floor next to her crib, reached through the slats, and tried to pat her and comfort her, to get her to go to sleep on her own.

I did that for half an hour. She never stopped screaming.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I could feel myself starting to get angry – which is completely irrational, I know. She’s a baby, she can’t help it. But she had me up past midnight, then woke me up less than 4 hours later, and I was just exhausted and I couldn’t take it anymore. So I left.

I lay down in my bed and I stared at the clock. Lucy screamed for 22 minutes, then she finally fell asleep.

(For the record? Catie slept through the entire thing.)

I don’t feel that guilty about it – I mean, she wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t sick or in pain. She was just pissed off and didn’t want to sleep. Or she didn’t know how to get herself to sleep. Which is mostly my fault, because I haven’t made her figure out how to soothe herself yet.

I don’t know if this is something I’m going to do long-term. All I know is that I’m raising these 2 girls by myself, I don’t have a partner who I can tag-team for nighttime duty. And I have a full-time job, and I am useless during the day if I don’t get enough sleep. So I have to do something.

This is less about a particular parenting philosophy, and more about basic survival.

Besides, based on the smiles and laughs I got this morning when she woke up, I’m pretty sure no major long-term damage has been done. Yet.

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