No Good, Very Bad Weeks

Twenty years from now when I have a savings account and a 10 minute commute, when I'm a regular at the yoga class around the corner and am a magic size 6, when I read 5 books a week and run 4 marathons a year, and when I know both the librarian and the ticket guy at the art house theater by first name, I will think upon these times fondly, with not a little wistfulness, and I will miss my cuddly, sticky-kiss-giving little people.

This very long post exists for sole purpose of reminding my future self to shove all that wistfulness into the diaper genie.

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Monday: Got to to work late, go immediately into a 2 hour meeting, return to my desk to find my phone lit up like a Vegas slot machine.  Have to leave to pick up the girl for Pink Eye, Round II.

But not to worry.  Following the Weekend of 400 Cookies my house is trashed.  You couldn't take more than a step in any direction without jumping over or sliding around something.  Often a sticky something.  Or a toe-stubbing something, hidden under the clean (?) dirty(?) laundry (hard to tell as it swirled together). This is an excellent opportunity to clean.

Also, I chatted with my new boss about my schedule & flex time and she waved me off with an eye roll.  Let her know if I don't plan on showing up so she knows I'm not dead in a ditch but otherwise we're good.  *phew!*

Except my girl & I walk in and eeewwww.  One of the dogs had gotten sick. Naturally on the one tiny bit of carpet downstairs, not the other 90% of floor with easily cleaned wood floors.  I put the girl down for a nap, clean up, and... well, I then clearly deserved a break.

We'd gone to my niece's birthday dinner right after the cookie party and I was too exhausted to talk to anyone so started flipping thru her sister's copy of The Hunger Games and I was hooked.  For the record, I don't usually read Young Adult fiction, but this was sort of Handmaid's Tale + The Lottery + Gladiator.  The lead girl kicked butt and I don't get to read much anymore so... not sure what happened to the rest of Monday.

Though I did put the turkey in.  We had Thanksgiving at Matt's mom's house and while she did send us home with some leftovers, we missed the whole baking-a-turkey/holiday smells/turkey sandwiches, turkey casserole, omg STILL more turkey/gluttony factor.  I think I could totally do this SAHM thing - I read a book AND I made a healthy dinner.  I rock!

Tuesday: The girl's still banned from daycare & Matt's CEO was in town and asked my rockstar husband to fly around Missouri with him.  Matt's CEO trumps my voicemail.  So Day 2, at home.  Not a problem, I still have the second Hunger Games book and I really haven't done much with the house yet...

Except when feeding the girl lunch (turkey! why do you ask?) I turned for a second - IT WAS JUST A SECOND - and the sneaky mutt who I trustingly took into my loving home from the outside-in-the-middle-of-winter shelter grabbed the gallon sized bag of carefully sliced turkey, all 14#, less bones, less one dinner of it, and then that damn dog had the good sense to take it into a different room where I wouldn't notice him eating himself into a night outside in the backyard alone.

Then Tuesday afternoon the fireplace mantel... (is the mantel only the thing above the fireplace?  The ER staff looked confused.  We have brick seat-thingy at shin & toddler-forehead banging height too.)  Oops!  Guess I gave away THAT plot twist already?  Hmm.

Anyway, the brick seat-thingy and my daughter's forehead had an altercation and my daughter lost.  Massive hole in her forehead gushing pints & pints of blood*.  Tuesday was supposed to be PJ today so no shower, no grown up clothes.  I briefly consider it but decide a good mother would NOT stop to take a shower before going to the ER for stitches.  Though I did change into jeans.
*[Pints might be overstating it a tad. It's about a 2cm gash.]

In the car I shift from a zen-like "It's unfortunate my daughter needs stitches but such is childhood", to a high pitched, red-light running (really!), weaving through traffic at 80mph PANIC because she falls asleep in the car, I can't wake her up, and all I can see is her brain swelling up and... well... yeah.

Later I realize I had the heat in the car cranked to full max and she was wearing a winter coat.  If anything, she was at risk for heat stroke.  Nevermind mommy's crazy driving.  That would be diagnosable PTSD right there folks.  Come on up & get a good look.

The ER staff is great, except the insipid med student who is annoying, but I ignore him because I'm busy discussing sedation methods with the ER doctor (Yay, special needs moms rock!... except for the whole 'letting my daughter climb on the fireplace' thing. I suck).  My girl wasn't letting anyone look at her forehead, much less neatly apply tiny, tiny stitches.  I told them she had enough going on, she didn't need a third eye scarred into her face.  They said they weren't comfortable intubating her (WTF?!?!)... I clarify I didn't think she needed to be put UNDER, I was thinking Versed.  I didn't want her remembering scary doctors holding her down since this is neither her first nor last rodeo.  Also to avoid the whole 'panicky thrashing because people are trying to smother you while waving a big needle above your eye' issue.  The ER doctor believes this to be a brilliant and insightful solution and asks why I didn't go to medical school.

I might be exaggerating again.

Naturally, there's another bigger emergency that comes in so the Versed is wearing off by the time they come back around so she ends up panicking and thrashing ANYWAY.  Then, on the last stitch, the ER doctor goes, "Oops".

OOPS?!?!

Doctors are not supposed to say "Oops".  It's a rule.  Like gravity.  By way of explanation she said they nicked a vein and there would be a worse bruise there than otherwise so in the grand scheme of things not a big "oops" but dammit I'm her mother and you are NOT inspiring confidence in me.  I resolve to find a better ER next time.

Because, oh yes, there will assuredly be a next time.

Wednesday:  Good thing I'd already planned to take this day off.  The girl needs some snuggle time and the xxxx dog still has to go out every 5 minutes post-turkey-theft.  I think evil thoughts about leaving chocolate & raisins out for his next foray onto my countertops.  Also, you know what's not fun?  Putting eye drops for the aforementioned Pink Eye, on a girl whose eyes are... extra specially hard to open AND whose forehead is held together by string.

My girl & I later visit her new fancy specialty dentist which is a full hour drive away.  But the staff there was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.  The girl had a cotillion of hygienists trying to make her giggle and say, "Aaahhh".  They were charming and doting and I felt not an iota of pity or weirdness from them.  The dentist confirmed she is trying to grind her teeth down to nubs but doesn't think she needs caps yet and, best of all, finds her teeth to be sparkly clean (Because I am an awesome mom!) so no need to coordinate ENT-DDS sedation.  The best-est part was that he determines all this with the fastest exam in the history of dentistry THEN gives her a stuffed frog and a polaroid of the two of us, "My first visit to the dentist with Mom".  This guy would be well worth a TWO hour drive.  I marvel at our good fortune.  I also congratulate myself for going with Versed last night since she is not overly freaked out by MORE people in white coats poking at her.

We then go to our new SLP whose evaluation states my daughter has Downs' Syndrome.  I am slightly horrified.  But I sit quietly in the lobby for an hour reading trashy gossip magazines while listening to the liveliest most effective speech therapy session in 3 years and am mollified.  Then I'm completely charmed when she says that the girl's attention had started to flag at the end and how would I like to do half hour sessions?  At half the price.  Yes please sir, and I will deliver your halved check with wine and roses and cheesecake.  I again marvel at our good fortune.

Matt left on a trip in the middle of the day and I later remember it's going to freeze that night and Matt hasn't turned off the water for the hose yet.  Despite several requests.  This has nothing to do with traditional gender roles. This has everything to do with the night my parents left me alone with a babysitter who fell asleep on the couch leaving me awake to watch a movie about swarms of tarantulas eating people.  There are some BIG spiders in Missouri, people, and the water pipe lever is in the spider infested, web-festooned rafters in our basement.  I make him stay on the phone with me after he tells me where the levers are just so I can yell at him as the webs wrap around my wrist...

This is, by far, the WORST part of my week.

Thursday: This day may have been worse or completely ordinary but I have no recollection of it.

Friday:  I realize no one has checked with the day care or the school bus to make sure my daughter has someplace to go and some method to arrive there.  (And by "no one" I mean Matt, who is usually off on Fridays but who is still off enjoying seafood & solitude in Boston).  Many frantic phone calls to people who haven't had their morning coffee yet.  They are surprisingly flexible.  I am horrified this didn't occur to me earlier and feel, once again, we are holding this life of ours together with scotch tape and spit.

Saturday: Matt returns. He brings me a cookie. All is forgiven.