T.G.I.M.?

Ways in which this past weekend was the opposite of fun, in rough order of occurrence:

1. I discovered what looked like large chunks of greyish meat in my Thai food Friday night. M. swore up and down that he specifically asked for the vegetarian suki stir fry when he placed the order. An angry phone call from M. and delivery of a freshly cooked dish directly to our house yielded... another container of food with large chunks of greyish meat. Turns out the dish had non-advertized "mock duck" as one of its ingredients, a food that is about as appetizing as it sounds. The experience left me with a distinct guilt that we made the restaurant folks come out to our house for no real reason, and validation of my aversion for "mock duck." Yuck.

2. Finn woke up at 5:45 am on Saturday. For the day. He insisted that it was, in fact, at least 6:30 already and clearly time to get up. I sent M. down, and huddled in bed until Lucy woke up at 7:15, convinced that if I went downstairs to deal with Finn, I would end up hurling his useless clock into the woods. Or setting it on fire. I don't deal well with unjustified sleep interruptions.

3. Lucy woke up crabby, crabby, crabby on Saturday. We were weaning her off of her reflux meds, and her crabbiness and refusal to eat breakfast flew us into panicky conversations of "Do you think it's reflux? Should we put her back on the meds? Good lord, WHY ISN'T SHE EATING HER MUFFIN!?!" Ugh. Then she fell asleep on the way to Target, and we realized she was just really tired. I actually carried her around Target (in and out of elevators, as it's a 2-story Target mecca) for over 20-minutes in my arms before she woke up. (BONUS: Bicep/tricep workout? Check.)

4. Post lunch, wandering around a small lake near Target, Lucy leaned over to pick up her precious sippy cup (by the way, precious does not begin to describe the serious feelings of love this girl now has for sippy cups - I'm thinking of throwing her a small wedding so she can marry them), and spit up all over herself. For the first time in about 7 months. M. and I determined that perhaps now is not the time to take Lucy off her reflux meds.

5. Also post lunch and wandering outside, Finn felt the urge to drop the kids off at the pool, if you know what I mean. And M. was forced to violate the typical "bathrooms are for patrons only" rule at a restaurant because when a 3-year-old needs to see a man about a horse, you don't wait. While in the midst of taking care of business, Finn leaned over to check out his progress, just as said progress was being expelled from his body, and... well maybe you can see where I am going with this. Basically, he managed to splash poop on his face. Total unchartered territory right there - public bathroom poop face. I have to hand it to M., he handled it with coolness and aplomb. He's a little more of a germaphobe than I am, so I really give him props on that one.

6. There was whining. And crying. And lots of time outs. To break up the monotony, I decided to turn on the sprinkler in the backyard for the kids to cool off. A pool trip was out of the question since Lucy's Target snooze pushed back her afternoon nap too far to make that practical. The sprinkler was my next best option. Finn enjoyed it, once M. freed the area of a rotting dead bird that had been soiling our patio for a few days (good times). Lucy was less than enthused. She mostly just teetered around, veering wildly for the steep drop off between our backyard and the woods, crying and clutching a soggy rice cake. She made quite the picture, as M. managed to put her swim suit on backwards. She sported a saggy swim diaper drooping out the back, and a baby boob peeking out from the front of her suit (by the way, what's the appropriate term for that? Baby boob sounds a bit lewd, but I didn't really want to throw around the "n" word that rhymes with tipple, you know?). Regardless, M. quickly rescued Lucy from the backyard hell I had arranged, and took her inside just in time to see the U.S. lose their soccer game.

7. M. and I managed to rescue the night once the kids went to bed with a movie, dessert, and some good old-fashioned drinking. But then the cycle began all over again Sunday morning. The day started a bit later (6:15 instead of 5:45), but with no less crabbiness from Lucy. Now officially back on full strength reflux meds, we could only assume that she was simply morphing from a pleasant baby into a dreaded toddler, the cruelest of all monsters. So awful was she, that I decided to throw caution to the wind and put her down for a morning nap. She slept, and we caught up on yard work (yay?). But alas, she woke up from the nap still crabby.

8. M. discovered a wasp nest under our deck.

9. We went grocery shopping, a task I loathe. We all went together, and Finn was waaaaay more than a handful. Lucy did fine once I gave her a snack to munch on (despite the fact that we had JUST eaten lunch).

10. Lucy woke up from her afternoon nap with a 102.5 degree fever. In our third diagnosis of the weekend, we decided that no, really, maybe she's just teething. We looked in her mouth, and lo! There were new teeth. She spent about an hour flopped over on her blankie, lying on the floor, waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in. Then she proceeded to toddle around the living room and whine a lot. Mostly at her brother, but a lot directed at her parents, too.

11. Finn apparently decided he no longer understands tricky things like being nice, or listening to his parents. He pushed his sister around, he raced around the house, he wreaked havoc wherever he went. In the process he scored several time outs. And then, his worst infraction ever - on his way to a time out, he peed in his pants on purpose. Oh, the seething red anger. I am more than OK with accidents - they happen, we clean them up, we move on. For Finn, they basically only happen at night now, and even those are rare. Wetting your pants on purpose - not cool. The little guy earned himself his longest time out yet, mostly because I didn't really want to look at him.

12. After 25 minutes of crying while we cooked dinner, Finn was let out of his room to eat. He fought us all through dinner, begging for a treat and refusing to eat the food in front of him. I decided folding laundry was more fun than dinner, and left the table to do some of THAT, leaving poor M. to police.

13. Long crying jag + dinner + play time on the swing outside = puke. In a last, parting volley of the day, Finn puked all over himself and the playground. Should have seen that one coming. I got to wash not just pee soaked clothes, but puke soaked clothes, too.

14. I hopped on the treadmill for a workout, and discovered that my legs did not work. Just would not run. Why, exactly, am I killing myself with these workouts, when it feels like I'm getting nowhere? I could blame the weeding (I'm still feeling what that did to my hamstrings today), but instead I'll just throw a pity party bemoaning how hard it is for me to workout and get better at something physical, to get in shape and lose weight. It's a constant struggle, and I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere with it.

15. As I tried to finish folding some laundry, Lucy woke up at 9:15, her fever newly spiked. As I fretted about whether she'd be school-worthy the next morning, I gave her some more medicine and rocked her back to sleep. That part, of course, wasn't sucky. A chance to rock my baby that did not include a wee hour of the morning is always inducing of warm fuzzy feelings. But the part where I didn't get to sit down until 9:45 pm, and then had to wait for the dryer to finish before going to bed (because our dryer has a broken switch and won't turn itself off and would just keep going and going and burn the house down and.... Yeah, I know, we should just get that fixed) - well, that part sucked. A sucky cap on a pretty sucky weekend.

On the one hand, I can't help but ask, is it time for vacation yet?

Then the other hand smacks me upside the head and reminds me that we're bringing the kids on this "vacation."

Who, these guys, "difficult"?









The things one finds oneself doing to entertain a child...

I can't explain this, but I swear it was all in good fun



New trick - standing on the couch, launching items up into the ceiling fan. My fear that this will end badly is at odds with his delight in the activity.