This Week

I have been finding it difficult to get posts written. Insert all the usual excuses... I'm tired. I'm working a lot. I'm trying to be present with my kids except when they are just whining incessantly and then I hide from them using the excuse of folding or putting away laundry and read other people's blogs on my phone. Just being honest. At any rate, I'm going to write something and then go to bed.

Highlights of this week... (And by highlights, I also mean memorable low points).

Zu got chiggers the day she stomped off the soccer field and ran through unmowed grass in the park. We went home and I put her in a bath right away, but she basically got eaten alive. She still has bites all over her legs and bottom. It looks like measles or something. She hasn't been especially itchy (considering how bad they look) and doesn't complain about it. Still, it looks horrifying. I've been putting neosporin on it after bath (our pediatrician approved when I asked him about it) to try to get the bite/sores to heal faster.

Mornings have been rough. I've accepted that I need to shower at night to save my sanity, but it's still hard to get the three of us out the door with the dog still inside. Just when I think we are ready, I turn around and find Coco has removed her shoes and socks (which she insists on putting on herself, as it's a current focus in the Toddler House) and is wearing Zuzu's flip flops, so we have to start the sock/shoe process all over. Or I lock the door only to realize Coco let Cooper out and he's smiling at me from the yard. The other day Coco spilled a cup of milk as I was trying to clean up breakfast dishes and then pooped her pants as we were walking out to leave. Monday morning she fell down on the way to the car and scraped her knee so it was bleeding and required clean up and a bandaid and lots of TLC. I try to build some cushion into our mornings because I don't want to spend the whole time saying, "Hurry up, girls! We're going to be late!" but some days just go smoother than others, and we had a week full of "others" this week.

I'm still making Zu choose outfits the night before--right now I'm making her wear leggings to cover the horror of her bug bites--and her choices still drive me batshit crazy sometimes (it's not that I don't like the dresses she chooses to wear, it's that I love so many she won't wear, and I've resorted to putting some of her favorites up out of sight so she'll wear a more even rotation).

In other news, I called my mom one evening this week, and as we were talking, I remarked, "I think my couch smells like pee." Then I turned over a pillow and discovered a huge pee stain on it. WTF. I'm blaming Cooper only because I think Coco would have cheerfully announced it to me.

Coco has peed on the potty at home a couple of times this week. When I suggest she pee on the potty at school, she says, "NO! Mommy!" which I guess means she only likes to pee on the potty when I am there to observe. She continues to delight in her self-appointed role as Pee-Pee Concierge, for which she accompanies us to the bathroom, stares intently as we do our business, hands us a handful of toilet paper, congratulated us on a job completed, and then insists on flushing the toilet for us. I can barely remember how to use the bathroom without an assistant.

Zuzu has memorized Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and I love reading it out loud with her reciting along with me. We always sing the alphabet song at the end, and last night she suggested that instead of saying, "Next time won't you sing with me" we sing, "I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree!" So we did. "Wasn't that a good idea?" she said. So proud of herself. Coco is a creature of habit and right now wants the same three books each night: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Baby Listens. Zuzu corrects me when I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar because she insists the plums that he eats on Wednesday are actually blueberries. The picture does kind of look like blueberries, but the book says plums. It's an ongoing dispute.

Coco, according to teachers and her own report at the end of each day, LOVES school. She grins so big when I name her friends and ask if she played with them. She says, "YESSSSSTH" when I ask if she loves her teachers. She tells me every morning she wants to go to school and she affirms that she's going to have a good day. She walks cheerfully to the toddler house, holding my hand. And then suddenly, right on the threshold, she realizes I'm going to say goodbye and she starts clinging to my leg and saying, "Uppa, Mommy! Uppa!" Then when I kneel down to hug her, she starts sobbing into my shoulder. It is the WORST. I believe her teachers when they tell me that it's just that transitional moment and that it's probably harder on me than her, but holy moly. We're in the fourth week here, and I need to be able to walk to the car without my heart bleeding.

Took the girls to the pediatrician on Monday for their well-visits for turning four and turning two (a few months late for Zuzu, but I wanted to take them at the same time, and then when I called at the end of JULY to schedule these for what I assumed would be mid-August, they couldn't get me in until mid-September, so I made appointments for a Friday afternoon at 3:30 and then got rescheduled for a Monday afternoon at 2:30, which meant smack dab in the middle of nap time--much to Zuzu's delight). Coco did better than usual (she typically cries the moment she lays eyes on the poor nurse), but it was the first time I'd taken both girls in at the same time and I found it very difficult because neither of them wanted to stop talking while I was trying to talk to the doctor.

They went ahead and gave them their flu shots, so Coco had to get two vaccinations and Zuzu had to get FOUR! Poor little noodle. She's my brave one with the high pain tolerance, and she only cried a little bit, but she seemed so shocked, "She's poking me!" They were delighted with the smattering of bandaids they received, and when I asked if Zuzu wanted an ice cream treat, she just wanted stickers and to go home and play with the little boy across the street. So that's what we did.

Tuesday seemed to go fine, though she was exhausted after school and later complained her stomach hurt. I thought she was constipated and that seemed to resolve itself Wednesday morning, so off we went to school (that was the spilled milk + poopy diaper morning) but then David called me at lunch to ask me if I'd gotten the voice mail from the girls' school (I'd missed it because I was teaching and then went immediately to a meeting). Zuzu had a fever. I was finished with class for the day, so I canceled my office hours and picked up the girls. Zu was indeed a sad little droopy version of herself, so I spent the afternoon babying her and feeding her popsicles and letting her sleep on my lap on the couch.

Of course I was wondering if this was a virus or if it was a reaction to the vaccinations, and then there was a tiny part of me that was suddenly seized with the fear that she could somehow have contracted polio from the polio vaccination like it was 1950. Fortunately, once I got some Motrin in her and her fever broke, she felt so much better, and since she'd literally napped for about five hours over the course of the day, she was up until 10:00pm. David stayed home with her today, and she was not quite herself in terms of energy levels, but certainly doing much better.

Since Zuzu has been sick and droopy, Coco has been eager for attention, and kept yelling at me tonight to watch her sit on the arm of the sofa and then tip over onto the cushion. Over and over again. "Is dat funny?" she would ask each time. She's also super jealous of a bug bite on Zuzu's inner elbow crease that is gross and requires a bandaid, and so Coco demands a bandaid for the mostly healed scab on her knee.

So that's what's happening around here this week. Thanks for the nice comments on the soccer post. The coach e-mailed me back and was very nice about Zuzu's retirement and said it's better to wait and not force her to play, so we shall see how things go. She's going to start a tumbling class in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to start working out with a student personal trainer again! Should be awkward.

P.S. Looks like a busy September is par for the course around here. Here's what was happening last year around this time.
And this was just two years ago--home on maternity leave with squishy baby Coco and Zuzu the two-year-old--yikes!
Three years ago, I was contemplating a return to Facebook. Still haven't done it!