Last Wednesday started out as a great day because it was a snow day. I thought that nothing could possibly make snow days better than they are ("Hey, the weather's crap. Don't risk it. Stay home. Yeah, you'll still get paid"). But that was before the local TV station initiated a program where they will text you if the school you register under has a weather-related closing or delay. Remember back when you had to listen to the radio, and they only read it every 15 minutes, and you pretty much invariably missed the part of the alphabet that contained your school? Being able to see it on TV made that so much better, then you could look it up online, and NOW?! You don't even have to wake up! Just listen for the buzz, squint at the phone, and go back to sleep.
Apparently, though, part of the "not-waking-up" thing means you don't wake up enough to tell your spouse that there's a snow day. So he wakes up in a panic attack at 6:30 and asks if there's a snow day or not. Then you have this conversation (although this is heresay, because I don't remember it):
Terry: It's 6:30! Is there school?
Me: Of course there's school!
Terry: There is? Then we have to get up!
Me: No, we don't! There's no school!
He says it's that sort of thing that makes his life challenging.
Regardless of the challenge, he let me sleep late (yay!). When I woke up, the girls and I did a project.
It was supposed to look like this (click the image for the tutorial):
The girls were excited. Elizabeth was very precise; Juliet, not so much.
But they had a lot of fun, and some bonding time. They were very proud of their final products:
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| It was difficult to convince Elizabeth that the puffs shouldn't extend all the way around the plate, a la Amish beard. And Juliet's looks kind of like a creaturefrom Greek mythology with hundreds of eyes. But she's creative. Like Picasso. |
The fun day continued when Elizabeth and I decided to make pizza, complete with homemade dough. All right, it was from a mix. But that's ok.
We make pizza often, but usually use the premade crusts. This time, we went old school.
She liked tossing it. And me singing "It's Amore." But only the verse about the moon hitting your eye like a big pizza pie. I sang just that verse because that's really the only one approriate for making pizza dough. Also, because it's the only one I know.
Then, our happy fun snow day abruptly went south when I took Juliet up for her nap. I was rocking her, thinking that she felt a little warm, when my sweet little baby suddenly morphed into Linda Blair. I don't want to be too graphic, but I was able to immediately tell everything she'd eaten for the last, oh, 1.5 years, because it was decorating my shirt.
We made it to the tub and cleaned up. Elizabeth was helpful big sister in charge, but the downward spiral had begun. By three o'clock it was clear we had a very sick baby. By four o'clock I'd called in sick for Thursday, and made an appointment for the next day with the pediatrician. She had an awful fever most of the night, and spent a good chunk of it with me, expressing her displeasure very clearly.
She wasn't much more pleased the next day when we got to the doctor's. In fact, she expressed her disapproval quite clearly:
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| She was having No. Part. of anyone. |
The appointment was pure hell. I love our doctor, which made it marginally better. But she needed a chest X-ray, which, for someone her size, means being strapped into this plexi-glass Iron Maiden-esque contraption complete with leather straps and permanent emotional trauma. She wailed like she were being killed, and it was tragic for us all. Including the X-ray techs, who apologized profusely for about 15 minutes. They offered her a sticker to try to make amends, but she totally rejected it. Stickers do not make up for the indignity of being strapped into a transparent torture device, apparently.. When we got the confirmation from the X-ray that it was pneumonia, we had to do a breating treatment in the office, then go wait for about 628 years at the pharmacist, and finally fight our way home.
She was the saddest, sickest little bug. She's normally super perky, active and happy, but for about 36 hours, she was this:
However, after three doses of antibiotic, four breathing treatments, and a better (though still not fabulous) night's sleep, she returned to this:
I know there's debate about the over-use of antibiotics, but anything that takes my girl from photo A to photo B in less than 24 hours is a miracle in my book.
Juliet's doing much better, though she sounds awful and is tired easily. She's also learned to say a very clear "No!" in the last week. It's kind of cute, but she she says it a lot. A lot. Also, she hasn't learned "Yes," yet, so she uses "No" in both situations, which causes confusion, to say the least.
So. A few lessons from the last few days:
- Snow days post-kids are VERY different from snow days pre-kids.
- If you're going to use spray-on adhesive on a paper plate project, keep the bag of googly eyes well away from the one-year-old.
- When said one-year-old needs a chest X-ray, the mother should be provided with wine.
- Homemade pizza crust is a pain to roll out and will never be round. But your husband will think that you allowed the four-year-old to make it that shape, and approve of your encouraging, non-perfectionist mothering style. You should go with that.
- Antibiotics are awesome.
- When the throwing-up happens, go right for the Febreeze. Do not wait several hours, thinking that cleaning up the mess will suffice for an air freshening situation. It will not.
- It is terribly sad when little ones are sick, but the cuddles - the cuddles are amazing.
