Not another Manic Monday, please!

Do you ever have those days that you just wish you could press the stop button, rewind and begin anew? This morning was one of those. It didn’t seem like a Tuesday at all, but more like another Manic Monday for sure. And all the cosmos were against me getting to work on time and in one piece.

Makenzie was awake until around 10:30 last night. As soon as I thought I heard the blessed silence, I found her hanging out in her bathroom on the potty (another of her classic stalling techniques when she doesn’t want to go to sleep).

Then she woke up this morning at 5:20 wanting a teething toy since we had no more pacis (see previous post). I lugged her 32 pounds up into our bed thinking she might forget about it and close her pretty little eyes (and mouth) for 1 more precious hour of sleep, but OH NO, I DON’T THINK SO!

Whining ensues and Daddy’s patience was frayed from being woken from his slumber. I suggested that he just dig the requested teething toy out of the mounds of blankets, bears and dolls in her bed and oblige her request, but he had something else in mind. He whisked her away to her bed where the whining ceased and all-out SHREAKING ensued. Did I mention Daddy’s patience was frayed? Well, at this point it was totally unwound. So he chose 5:32am this morning to teach Makenzie that she can’t always get her way. That translates into: NO SLEEP FOR ANYONE WITHIN 10 MILES.

So since the whole household is now up extra early on this beautiful Tuesday morning, Daddy got Makenzie dressed first. Lesson to anyone with a baby approaching toddlerhood: NEVER get a toddler dressed more than 5 minutes before you have to leave the house. Otherwise, you’re asking for a stain, rip or tear.

So I proceed to go to the master bathroom and begin my beautification routine for the morning. While my back is turned, Makenzie plucks a tube of moisturizer from my drawer and proceeds to squeeze a nice golf ball sized glob of it onto her clothes, the floor and her hands. There goes her nice clean clothes. Then she pulls her bow out and hands it to me—there goes the hair do.

I emerge from the bathroom sometime later ready for work and on my way to redo Makenzie’s hair, but with patience hanging by a thread. As I leave the bedroom, I grab Tim’s water cup to take downstairs. I turn the corner into the hall, and Tim bumps right into me. Water spills, I break a nail, and we argue about who ran into who.

We make it out of the house only 6 minutes late and then hit the traffic that is knee-deep at every intersection between our house and the daycare. Some lady honks at me when she thinks I’m about to turn into her lane (which I’m not) and I think to myself “Lady, be glad I’m not a road-rage type. You don’t know the morning I’ve had, and it’s only 7:30!”

We survived another milestone

Let me preface this post by saying that yes, we are “those” parents who let their 2 and a half year old still use a pacifier. Shoot me, but there’s worse things a parent could do right? She only gets it at bedtime and on “sick” days when she needs some extra TLC (oh and on car trips when I need some PAQ—that’s peace and quiet). She doesn’t lug a “blankie” around or suck her thumb or any of those other things that many toddlers do.

We had slowly wittled her supply down to 1 pacifier. She has this habit of gnawing on the pacifiers which causes them to tear, at which point I tell her she’s broken it and toss it in the trash. So….we were down to 1 and determined to not go out and enable her habit with any new pacis when this last one bit the dust.

So there we were last night at 8 o’clock….all comfy and cozy on the couch with blankets and popcorn to watch the 2 hour premiere of Grey’s Anatomy. Makenzie has kindly extended her bedtime these days to AT LEAST 9 pm, so she was watching with us. And then it happened….”Mommy, I broke it.” Gasp…”you did what?!” And she brings it to me—her last paci, with a chunk bitten off of it.

Tim and I lock eyes with panic vibes passing in the air between us. It’s 8pm on a weeknight and we don’t have a paci to get us through the night. God help us, please. Our first instinct is to make a run to the nearby Walgreens, Kroger, Walmart, CVS—anywhere that has pacis—but then we resolve ourselves to muscle through it.

9pm rolls around and Daddy tells Kenzie it’s time to kiss Mommy good night and head for the bed. She lets out the usual protests, but reluctantly kisses me and is carried away to her waiting bed filled with bears and baby dolls. She continues her protests and cries of “Mommy, I need sip of water” for about 30 minutes and then we hear it…..the telltale sign that she’s in dreamland…..silence, blessed silence.

We finished watching Grey’s Anatomy and tiptoe up the stairs where I perform my usual paranoid mommy check of the sleeping kiddo. There she is, sound asleep across her big brown bear’s tummy with no pacifier. And there she stayed all night until 5:20am when she appeared at our door saying “Mommy, can’t find my paci.”

So, we survived our first night paci-free…..my baby girl is growing up!

Out of the mouths of babes....

Makenzie: "Mama, I needa go to Walkmart."
Me: "Why do you need to go to Walmart Makenzie?"
Makenzie (with her hands on her hips as she stands next to her baby stroller): "Baby sick, she need to go to doctor."

I agree, sometimes it seems like we shop for doctors at the local Walmart....


Then after she saw a friend's picture of her chihauhua...."awww, a buppy rabbit."

So Long Ike!

Hurricane Ike has come and gone. He officially rolled into the great state of Texas via Galveston about 2am this morning and quickly made his appearance in Bryan-College Station as a Category 2 hurricane passing to our east about 5:30am. He was kind enough to spare us the brunt of the storm, however we did experience tropical storm strength winds and quite a bit of rain. Please keep the people on the Texas coast in your prayers as they return home to devestation and begin to rebuild.

Makenzie's Many Talents

A mini talent show for your enjoyment....Not sure what the first song is, but also included are Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, counting to ten, and the abc's.

We obviously need to work on her pronunciation and anunciation, but it's not bad for a 2 year old. No one can accuse her of not doing it with gusto though! Oh, and she's better now--can you tell?!

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...

Makenzie has been sick since Tuesday. She got sent home from school with a fever of 101.6 and it gradually crept up to 103.8 in the afternoon. That night, she began vomiting and was absolutely miserable with high fever, chills and vomiting. This continued until I called her pediatrician on Thursday. They told me she probably had a bug and not to bring her in until the next day if she still had a fever. Tim stayed home with her Thursday and I got a call about 4:30 from him saying her temperature was 104.5 under her arm (which is about 1 degree lower than an oral temperature). Yikes! So I rushed home and we took her to Urgent Care. They patted my arm and said "this must be your first child" and "she probably just has a virus"....blah blah blah. I finally convinced the doc to do a UA and it turns out she has a upper UTI. So we are on antibiotics and hopefully she's on the mend. She has had a couple vomiting episodes today and I think she has an aversion to food period right now, because she literally gags at the sight of it. Her fever has stayed low all day until this evening when it began to creep up again.

It was the best of times.....she's been cuddling with me nonstop.

But it was the worst of times....I've never seen her this sick and it is so sad and scary for me.