Just don't get out of bed

Sometimes we have those days (as I'm sure you do too) where it's apparent that none of us should have gotten out of bed.

C didn't sleep well. He's had a lot of work stress recently and sees a lot of late nights coming up this week.

We've been trying to get A a flu shot. His pediatrician's office isn't giving them until they get their H1N1 vaccine supply, because they want to give both shots at once. They had a shot clinic at the local hospital last weekend, but by the time we got there, they were out of the injectables and only had the flu mist--which is contraindicated for people with asthma like A.

Okay. The nurse says call me Friday, I'll tell you whether we have any injectables coming next week and when you should come.

So I do. And she tells me: 9:15 AM. Don't be there at 9; it'll be too swamped.

Great. We get there at 9:15AM. I realize I forgot A's vaccination record. C drops us off and goes home to get it. I go into the clinic to discover a huge long line.

They only had enough vaccine for the number of people in line when they opened at 9AM. I'm not talking injectable vs. flu mist; I'm talking all the vaccine, period. There's nothing for us. So they completely suck, as far as I'm concerned.

Then we have a bunch of errands that just spiral out of happy land into unhappy land. I try to make an all-butter pie crust while mad and discover it's near impossible. I cannot mail my foot pedal at the automated kiosk at the post office because the box isn't big enough for the automatically-generated postage sticker, so we have to wait in line behind the man who bathed in cheap cologne and Irish Spring soap this morning; the smell makes me want to retch every time I turn his way. We go to the cat food store to get a bag of cat food on special sale and they don't actually stock any that's on special sale in the store. I get a cramp/wave of sickness in Trader Joe's that sends me to the restroom. I get home and the new neighbors across the way have turned their garage into a giant speaker blaring 80s New Wave music right into my bedroom, where I am trying to take a nap until the sick feeling goes away.

I'm trying to adjust my attitude, but some days it's quite difficult, you know? Tomorrow will be another Disneyland trip and hopefully (cross your fingers) that'll be better.

Failing that, cross your fingers that I can get my rock-star mommyness on and get past the receptionist at the pediatrician's office to someone who will let me schedule my high-risk asthmatic germ vector for a seasonal flu shot ASAP.

31 Week Prenatal Visit

Everything's fine. I had blood tests; they actually got the results (I thought the tech was going to lose the vials of my blood) and everything was perfect. Fundal height is 31 cm, which is perfect for 31 weeks, so all the people who keep telling me that I'm not big at all and "that baby doesn't seem to be growing at all" can shove it. My doctor's happy and would like me to stop reading any activist birth literature in favor of positive, warm-fuzzy stuff, but we all know how effective it is to tell me not to read something. I understand what he's worried about.

I stopped by my doctor's new baby store and got a birth/yoga/fitness ball to sit on. It's a cute store, lots of neat stuff. He had suggested papaya extract for my terrible ongoing heartburn, but I didn't see any.

Anyway! A is having a bad day. He's been fighting some cold, so we've got him hopped up on albuterol in addition to his pulmicort. He was cranky with Daddy when he was dropped off at preschool and he was cranky with me afterwards, including having an all-out temper tantrum in the library and the library's parking lot that ended in me bodily carrying him to the car. A little old lady stopped to watch as I strapped him into the car seat while he hit, pinched, and kicked me. (Hello, preschool influences?) I left him in the car to cool down (cloudy day, but I rolled the windows down just in case) while the little old lady took down my license plate number. Now I'm just waiting for Child Protective Services to call me for being a bad mother.

He's sleeping now. I hope he perks up or it'll be a long, long afternoon.

One week of the suck

The boy's breathing, which is good. The daddy is working massive overtime (still not home), which is bad.

I am tired and getting to the end of my patience. We had potty training again today with not enough nap and that was a bad combination. I'm not even sure at this point if the potty training will actually take, but I know leaving him in diapers will not help. I'm sick of doing all the laundry that potty training entails. I'm sick of doing three meals a day plus snacks (usually, Mistah C does breakfast and often dinner) and loading the dishwasher and emptying the dishwasher. I'm sick of feeling like the Feminine Mystique for a new century.

I don't feel like I get a lot of time to myself this week, and not a lot last week, and so now that I've a stretch with pretty much no creative/play/social time for Kim as grownup non-mommy person, I've decided mommies need our grownup time. I get really cranky without it.

Sucktastic

Yup. That's what our lives are doing right about now.

In order of sucktasticness: On Friday morning, A had his second audiology follow-up. He was having some problems breathing but we loaded him up on his inhalers and off he went.

Results: He has good hearing in his right ear but showed a non-moving eardrum in his left ear, which means maybe he's got some hearing loss in his left ear. But he also had the beginnings of a cold and possibly an ear infection, so the audiologist referred him to an ENT (ear, nose, throat) specialist and scheduled him for another follow-up.

Friday he wouldn't take a nap. Wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't. Fought me and cried. And I thought, it's been a hard week for him; maybe he's picked up some new tricks from our young visitor that we'll have to convince him don't work here. But then I remembered that when he's having trouble breathing, he can't sleep. So I looked at his throat and belly, and yes, he's retracting, and I called the pediatrician's office to say that I was bringing him in immediately (because I'm learning and I don't mess around with this shit).

So Friday afternoon, we get a breathing treatment and see our pediatrician who says, "Buddy, you're having issues." Since the nebulizer seems to have a better effect on him than the inhaler, she orders us a home nebulizer, which will be delivered to us this evening at home.

This means my Friday is completely shot and tasks like shopping for the bare essentials our house requires like milk and cereal is bypassed, as well as the fun stuff like the open mic three-minute prose reading I like to go are off the menu.

The nebulizer was delivered by the kind of creepy guy who made me keep my cell phone in hand the entire time he's in my house. He showed up at 7:45pm. (A had fallen asleep on the couch around 7 and I didn't have the energy to move him.) He didn't give his name, didn't have an ID badge or name tag, and didn't have his name on any of the paperwork he gave me. When he said, "So it's just [you and A] here alone?" I wanted to call 911. But I said, "Well, my husband will be home any minute now." And he's big. And scary. And could totally kick your ass.

I seriously wanted to take a picture of him with my phone and send it to everyone I know with a note, "If I'm dead, please look for this guy from Apria Healthcare who probably did it."

My anxiety about this was heightened because my husband was actually not coming home any time soon because he is in a crunch with the eye of the CEO of his company on what he's doing, which is a very bad place to be in. He ended up coming home around midnight. The next morning, he said, "Why were all the lights on?" and I explained about creepy guy. I don't know if lights would keep creepy guy away, but it's better than sitting in the dark.

Saturday from 9am-2pm, I had a board meeting of the writers organization I work with, and that was fine but arduous and not exactly relaxing. Once I got home, C was off to work again and didn't get back until midnight-ish again.

And this morning, after breakfast and (thank you, C) helping me with the shopping, C was off to work again.

A hates the nebulizer and cries every time we get it out. He screams bloody murder and none of the bribes I offer him are lasting.

I'm very, very tired.

And A ate the frosting off the last chocolate cupcake I put out for myself to warm up and eat later while he napped.

But the good news is: A's napping now, and I can go eat veggie chips and ginger ale on the couch like a twelve-year-old whose parents are out of town while I watch me some Ocean's Eleven eye candy.

Cross your fingers for C getting done today, maybe even before midnight.

Bone-freaking-tired

I am tired. Really tired.

We went to bed last night before 10, without any super duper TV viewing.

We got up after 6, which late for me.

And I am still tired enough that I could go to sleep.

But we have company coming--our photographer friend K from Texas with little L is coming and I have to finish moving all of A's bedding from his room to our room to accommodate everyone.

But it's hard to move a bed when I just want to be in a bed.