About that supervirus thing

I'm convinced Someone thinks we're A) not learning some lesson or B) super strong people or C) Unknown, because clearly B isn't the case.

In the last month, slightly less actually, Carter has been to urgent care 3 times. and had 3 different rounds of antibiotics. The poor kid is going to be immune to antibiotics by the time he's two.

This weekend, Carter was not himself. He has his two year molars coming in, some cold with an awful cough and is extremely cranky. Seth referred to him once as a firemonster (affectionately, but I still objected).

I spent a lot of time split between affection and discipline as a result. Sunday night he stood up on the couch and I told him twice to sit down. He finally did listen, but a little too exuberantly. He sat down really hard on the arm of the couch, tipping over the edge, and he proceeded to flip a few times midair, his head barely missing the coffee table, and landing face down on the ground. I watched in horror and immediately scooped him up and held him. He was fine, but pretty shaken up. Well, we both were.

After he calmed down a little, he looked up at me with big teary eyes and informed me "need time out." It's almost like he's catching on and realizing I do actually know what I'm talking about.

Crazy talk?

I put together a meal plan for the MONTH. Technically, 4 weeks, through the first week of February. When I do meal plan, I pick 4 meals and we usually eat leftovers (or occasionally order a pizza/satisfy a craving, remember I'm pregnant) the other nights. 4 meals is usually more than enough, sometimes too much and we like leftovers around here.

Will I stick to it? Who knows. So far, I've stayed true to this week and that's a pretty good start.

Carter, I'm sorry for my genes.

This weekend, we paid another visit to our favorite urgent care. I don't say that sarcastically, our family really does have a favorite urgent care. We've learned that they can do x-rays onsite, run labs, send prescriptions directly to the pharmacy of your choice, and the nurses pretty much know us by name these days.

Carter, my sweet, wild, energetic boy, is less than genetically blessed in a few ways. All of these are my fault. Included on the list of things I passed down are ridiculously sensitive skin, allergies, fair skin bordering on albinism, and sensitivity to medication. That last one has caused his to react to his vaccines EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Not sure if you know this, but small children get a lot of vaccines. 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, 15 months, 18 months...  I'm pro vaccine (and going to cut off that rabbit hole before it sucks me in) but I still can't stand seeing my little baby so miserable. My pediatrician had told me at 15 months that "almost no one" reacts to those shots and she would be even more shocked if he reacted to the set at 18 months. She even deferred one of the 18 month ones to the 2 year appointment just in case. Still, at 15 months, he had the characteristic fever and misery. At 18 months (which had to be rescheduled on account of the pneumonia), he seemed fine for a few hours. He seemed okay the next morning, but I still gave him a little tylenol and sent him off the school. And then I got the call from daycare that he woke up from his nap seeming miserable and a little warm. We took it easy that night and gave him some more tylenol and figured it would pass.

It didn't exactly pass. In fact, his vaccine site became infected to the point where he wouldn't walk on his leg at all, resulting in another trip to urgent care and another round of antibiotics.

That's my boy.

Note to Self

As my son continues to grow taller, his reach also extends. In fact, almost nothing on the kitchen table is safe anymore.

This means he just might swipe his bottle of antibiotics when I'm not looking. This in turn means a good hour plus of searching for those antibiotics, a frantic call to the pharmacy for a refill (which, turns out, isn't yet covered by insurance since it's too soon after the original fulfillment) and freaking out about what's going to happen to his pneumonia if his next dose of z-pak is 12 hours off schedule.

It may also mean that daddy finds said antibiotics tucked away in the Christmas tree box (which daddy has to repack since mama cannot physically fit that dang tree in there).

Grandiose Illusions

I took off a full 10 days from Christmas Eve until this morning. I had visions of magical holidays spent enjoying each others' company, play dates, walks to the park, and much needed cleaning and organizing.

But then reality hit. Carter ended up with pneumonia and an ear infection. Torrential downpours kept us on floodwatch 2010. I got two separate colds within 10 days of each other. And Seth couldn't end up taking off the time he had hoped to. I had to cancel 4 separate doctors appointments, all of which now need to be rescheduled meaning we miss work and daycare.

We did manage one play date after the antibiotics ran its course and my house is much cleaner and more organized. I even organized my spices, which has to be one of the most time consuming and least rewarding chores. The Christmas decorations are back in the attic and my floors were relatively clean for about 2 hours.

For 2011, I wanted to make resolutions to be better about meal planning, cleaning, and spending time with God. After the week we had last week though, I'm going to focus on getting through every day. Having a baby, surviving with a toddler.

I do have a vague meal plan for this week, scribbled on a sheet with a cryptic grocery list, a work message, and random notes from the first call to the doctor's office this morning. I'm going to count that as a small victory.