Growing a Pumpkin Patch is Hard Work.

...right in the middle of her forehead.

...right in the middle of her forehead.
Originally uploaded by tanulewicz

I really love this photo. I feel like it's a glimpse of what she'll look like when she's grown. I know I'm biased, but she's such a beauty.

Last night, I told a group of colleagues that for the next two weeks, I'd be spread a little thinner than I usually am.  Sylvie is scheduled to have tubes put in her ears on Thursday morning, and tomorrow morning we have the pre-op visit for Adam, who is scheduled for a tonsillectomy next Thursday morning.  In the meantime, Chris is in court for the at least the next week.  So far, it looks like the trial will be done by early next week, at the latest, but there's a reasonable chance that the trial will overlap with Adam's surgery date.

We'd prefer not to reschedule, though - the reason we want to have the surgery on Thursday is because Adam's already missed a lot of school due to strep, and his school doesn't have class on the Thursday and Friday before Easter, or the Monday after Easter.  Plus, it's the county school system's spring break the week after Easter, so soccer's cancelled.  I know it looks like we're overthinking this - I mean, the kid is 5 and this is preschool we're talking about - but Adam really hates missing school and soccer, so timing the surgery and his subsequent recover over the Easter holiday makes a lot of sense, schedule-wise.  

In the meantime, Adam's excited about getting all the ice cream and screen time he wants, and for a kid who is truly needle-phobic, he's doesn't seem at all concerned about the surgical aspect of the tonsillectomy.  He is worried about candy, though - specifically, his Easter candy.  At 5:45 Monday morning, he crawled into bed next to me to ask me if the Easter Bunny would know that he couldn't have regular candy because of how he's, in his words, "having his tonsils pulled out" (I've explained that they won't actually be "pulled" out, but he seems to like the drama of that verb).  Answer: we will leave the Easter Bunny a note asking for pudding packs and jello in lieu of jellybeans and gummy bears.  (And Reece's eggs.  It is simply amazing how the Easter Bunny always knows to leave lots and lots of Reece's eggs, even in Syl's basket...when she was 8 days old.)

The EB has also been stockpiling Elephant & Piggie books and little toys, and this morning, the EB scored a Melissa & Doug U.S. Presidents floor puzzle for $6 at TJ Maxx.  It's even a recent Presidential puzzle, with Obama - it's not some TJ Maxx expired second.  I meant to hide the puzzle in the bowels of the Mazda, but I forgot about it and as soon as Adam hopped in the car after school, he said, "Hey! Is that President puzzle for ME?"

Easter Bunny FAIL.

High/Low

So, if I were to do a high/low for yesterday, it would go as follows:

Low: Adam coming down with a stomach bug - the kind that involves both ends - on top of the strep he's had since Sunday.  Last night, he vomited everywhere in the Jack & Jill bathroom that he and Syl share except the toilet.  He was understandably upset, and when Syl ran in to see what all the fuss was about, she slipped and fell in the vomit, leaving me with two hysterical children, one bathroom full of vomit, and one husband at work.  

I kept myself from freaking out/getting sick, then I assessed and triaged.  I stripped Adam and Syl down, cleaned their feet with baby wipes, and confined them to Sylvie's room so I could clean up the mess.  Adam was actually feeling better at this point - prior to getting sick all over the place, he'd been miserable, so he read stories to Syl and kept her entertained.  I cleaned everything up, put the kids in the bath, and then Chris came home and put them both to bed while I dealt with washing all the bathmats.  And then I drank wine!  Which is kind of a...

High: Yesterday was the long-awaited ENT visit for both kids.  He reviewed my handy chart outlining the THIRTEEN ear infections Syl has had since December, 2008 (she had several prior to December, 2008, but the pediatrician and I just gave him a year's snapshot of the agony) and said that we should definitely get her on the calendar for a set of tubes.  Yay!  The ear infections - her left ear was mildly infected at the appointment yesterday - are a low, but getting a light at the end of the tunnel is certainly a high.

As for Adam, who has had strep twice in five weeks, the ENT said he is definitely a candidate for a tonsillectomy, but that he didn't think it was an absolute necessity.  Then he commented on how clearly awful Adam was feeling - Adam was sprawled out on Chris barely able to keep his eyes open - and asked if he was always this debilitated even after two days on the antibiotics.  We said that this was totally de regueur - when Adam has strep, it always means that he's laid out for at least five days.  The doctor's trepidation about having the surgery was because he didn't want Adam to be laid out for 6-10 days unnecessarily, but when he saw that Adam had been out for at least 10 days this month because of strep, he recommended that we go ahead with the surgery before he starts kindergarten this fall, which is the same thing we were thinking.  So now we just need to determine if we want to do the surgery now, and have him miss another week of school, or wait until the summer, and miss a week of summer camp, the pool, and generally being outside.

...and if there were a gold star award for Most Supportive Trial Attorney's Wife, I would totally get it for yesterday's vomit extravaganza, because as awful as it was, I never called Chris to demand that he get home right that instant.  He's in the middle of trial prep for a huge case that goes to trial in a week, and besides, he wouldn't have gotten home for at least 20 minutes and I would have had it all cleaned up by then, anyway.  Gold star for me!

Oil Change

I am a generous wife and last week I took Chris's SUV to the nasty Chevy dealership for some long-overdue service.  That meant that Syl and I had to hang in the nasty pit of a waiting room at the nasty Chevy dealership.  There is a bright, shiny, happy Chevy dealership, but it's way up in, like, Acworth, about a 40-minute drive from my house.  I opted for the nasty place that's 5 minutes from home.  What can I say?  It was nasty, and Syl kept futzing with the nasty M&M dispenser, and then with the nasty vending machine, and the whole experience was just nasty.  

And then today I had to take my car to the slightly-less-nasty Mazda dealership for an oil change.  It's really not nasty at all - it's just a car dealership that - I am guessing - was designed by men who didn't think that maybe women would be spending time there waiting for their car to be serviced, and maybe those women would be there with a kid or two in tow.  And one of those kids ($1 to whoever guesses which kid it was - hint: the one who's already had a skull fracture) would try to climb up the rail on the balcony that overlooks the showroom, and also try to jam her hand up in the vending machine because her cruel, heartless mother wouldn't spring for any animal crackers.

So you know what I did?  I took both kids down to the showroom, which was empty because no one is out car shopping on a nasty, snowy, cold day.  And I let the kids pile into the back of a Mazda 5.  Then I slid the doors closed and let them play in the car while I leaned on the side of the car and played Bejeweled 2 on my iPhone.  

Yes, I am That Person.  But at least we left the dealership with both kids intact!