Allergy accusations

ATM: kids are in the living room and I am in the lower lvl. I can here druid babbling to himself and lock is pretty quiet. I think he is playing with a puzzle or some cars, but at last check he was laying under a blanket on my favorite chair. He is coughing and lethargic.

Hubby finally admitted that the lock gets sick almost every time we go to his parents house. Now we have to decide how to handle it. The problem is more likely the smoke than the dog. The bigger problem is that I don't want to make MIL angry and insult her housekeeping skills. I mean what can she do if her husband won't stop smoking in the house? It's actually pretty heartbreaking that hubby will leave me and the kids at home and go there to bond with his dad and watch foot ball. It goes into my problem of not having much off time most weeks. That's another problem for another entry.

I have had to limit the visits to my parents house because of the dust and general lack of baby proofing. But for me it's harder to tell his family that. At this point I am going to have to put Lock's health first. I don't want him to have to get allergy injections like some kids. He is allergic to dust mites and it would seem cigarette smoke. (mental note to get lock and appointment with allergist**done). I guess I am the only person that takes this seriously. Ok, maybe not, my mom worries more about it than I do. Yet another problem for another entry.

So I need to come up with a way to make myself happy. Here is what I want to accomplish:

Lock needs to avoid things that make him sick (this is my responsibility)

Want kids to know their grandparents and spend time with them

For today I have given him his Allegra and a dose of Motrin. In an hour will check his temp and decide about school. He seems to be perking up and not very drippy but the warmth still persists. And he is ready to go.

toddler psychosis

waking up late messes everyone up. to be honest i miss the days when waking up late just meant being late for work. usually i recovered very quickly by skipping a shower and driving 15 mph over the speed limit. gone are the good old days.
now waking up late means 2 grumpy short people will great me with over wet diapers and ravenous appetites. i generally use the kids as my alarm, but every now and then they play quietly for 20 or 30 minutes. but today i overslept by a whopping 55 minutes? are you kidding me? i over slept by almost an hour. granted we have all been sick for about a week, but i cannot be blamed for them not making enough noise to get me up.
so who can i give the blame stick to? hubby. that man for once got up on time to go to work. yes you heard me right. ON TIME. he was up at 6 15 am. i did not have to kick him or threaten him with the wrath of doom for him setting the clock at some ungodly hour. (ungodly being any time before 6 am.)
lets move on. i get up, and just to save a few minutes skip my shower bringing up memories of having a "real" job and was my face and pits. silence. i fight down first the urge to go back to bed, then the panic of SIDS. donning the game face and voice i knock on the warlock's door, "good morning, BABY." apparently i was not the parent of choice because instantly i hear "DADA!" and the warlock tantrum began. upon lifting the boy up i found he had over wet his pull up and was dripping. the next 15 minutes made my ovaries shrink. i contemplated jumping out of the window 2 times but realized i would only break my legs and have to lay in the yard until some one found me. i got the little man dressed and escaped to let him work it out on his own.
entering the druid's room, i found a happy toddler wearing 1/2 a diaper. (mental note: the kids need size 6 pullups) the warlock decided that a tantrum is pointless with out an audience to torture and came in to share his utter displeasure with the world. the druid was speechless and stood on the dresser with his mouth open. mom guilt set in and i picked the warlock up and tried to soothe him, quickly discovering that he had vomited and was about to do it again. PANIC. it took every bit of will power in me not to push him away. i just grabbed a blanket.
longest 4 seconds of the day...watching him vomit on my shoulder, chest and arm. i thanked all that was good and pure my hair was spared (have you ever tried to get vomit out of pencil sized curls with out washing it?)
the day got better, but i did spend 30 minutes showing the kids pictures of water towers on flickr. now the house is quiet...one is asleep the other at school...and i am thinking of taking a nap, but the fear of oversleeping again is keeping me up.

warlock school

it is done. treb has started school. i survived the first week with out pulling him out and keeping him home. i did not have the normal mom sentiments about it; i am pretty happy to have him out of the house for a few hours. (did i mention the druid is sleeping during school?) i relized that what bothered me was that i was here happy and he was crying about being away from me. BIG TIME GUILT.


the second week--still crying a bit, but the bus seems to be causing most of the anxiety. i talked to the OT and we filled out a sensory profile and i think things came together well. his daily reports tell me he is "HAPPY".
warlock gets speech and occupational therapy at school. he can identify all his letters, most of his colors, and is learning numbers. we are working on those here at home and let school work on the things they think he is behind on. we have been trying to teach him to recognize emotions and be gentle with others. keeping him from running away when we go out is huge on my list right now too.
from here i think we just need to give warlock his time and see where he is in the spring.

the plague is still here

the month from hell may continue into may. we have been sick since the end of march and now going into may we seem to still be struggling. treb has had a ton of ear infections in his short little life. we are adding another one to the tally board. i need to get an official count from the medical chart but it seems like at least ever 3 months he has one.
we went to the doctor to get a referral for an ENT (ear nose throat specialist) and came out with a Rx for antibiotics. when i stopped at the Pharmacy i had to explain that we had a refferal to see the ent before he would fill the rx since treb has been on antibiotics 3 times in the last month.
<<>>
20 minutes later...
we go on may 11. i hope there is no screaming, crying or the like.
for now i continue to declutter the house and try to keep the kitchen neat and not tidy at least keep the cold and flu viruses at bay.
this is getting to the point that i am concerned about bad parenting coming into play. i am in the process of clearingout clutter so that dust and germs can't hang out so much. i think fewer toys out in the play area will be easier to keep clean.
stay well

looking forward...to school

some people wonder how i can even think of sending t1 to preschool. some people (mostly men with no clue) have ideas that if i am a stay at home mom, i have nothing to do but prepare t1 for kindergarten myself (cooking cleaning and taking care of t2 seems to not be part of my day). others think i am horrible for sending a baby who is not talking and not potty trained off with strangers while i am at home (cooking cleaning and taking care of t2).
moms have to do whats right for their family and themselves. right now, preschool is right for us. i am excited! first of all, the school is awesome! they really seem to want kids to catch up with their peers and supply occupational and speech therapy. second, if we don't continue to get him services he will stagnate or, worse, lose skills. we want him to develop normally, not waste the 9 months we had had him work so hard. third, t2 will be getting OT and DT and that is hard with 2 kids at home screaming and hanging off you. finally, if i can keep the schedule we have now, i will have an hour to myself (probably used for heavy cleaning) 2-3 times a week.
the school is called the Early Learning Center and thier male director is really into what he does (a proud papa). we have all of t1's transition things to do in july and he will have about 1-2 weeks of vacation before starting school on august 31.
i wish i could do all this at home and explore his little world with him, but i need help. moms should not feel that they have to do everything and be everything for thier kids. i want him to learn from all kinds of things. if public shools don't work for a mom then they should home school, but if if it works, use it. mamama thinks we should send t1 to a private preschool/daycare. i am sure that this center will be the best thing for him. at the same time that i hope t2 will not need as much help, if he does i am confidient that this choice will be available for us again and he will also benifit from it.

when a good wipe goes...dry

it's was GO time. i had a 2y/o and a 1y/o with poopie-pants. i had a 2t pullup and a size 6 cruiser in one hand and all i needed was a pack of wipes. i spotted the wipes and grabbed the first baby that tried to maneuver past me. the kiddo was in position and i had the 15 second window to get the diaper off, wipe his butt clean and get a fresh diaper installed correctly.
it was all going so well, until i pulled a wipe from the delicate reclosable dispenser. its dry. so i pull another one. WTH??!!?? its dry too. at this point i gently rest my knee on the current victim so i can take a look at the "brick" of wipes.
upon inspection i see that some one had just ripped the back of the wipes open and left them to dry out. are you kidding me? who would have committed such an atrocity in this economy? (no really, between diapers and wipes we are being robbed, ROBBED!) at this point i must allow the baby to go for a few minutes and rewet the wipes before trying again. but the mystery is still nagging at me like i nag hubby on trash day. the only person who could have done it...mamama.
once again, mamama strikes...

really i love my mother, but after having kids there are a few things that really peeve me off. one is incorrectly opend packages. these usually look harmless to the personcommitting the crime, but later someone (usually me) IS INCONVIENCED. now you may ask how dry baby wipes can ruin a week? well, occasionally said wipes are tossed into the diaper bag for an outing. yeah, you got it, its cold, no one is happy, and now, there is a baby with his pants around his ankles waving a poopy bumm in the back of my suv--and i have to use juice or milk to rewet the wipes! i am resourceful. whats a sticky bumm in the grand scheme of things, right? yeah, you got it--diaper rash. so you see how a bit of impatience to correctly open a pack of wipes can ruin a week? right now there are currently about 10 dried out packages of wipes floating around the house. there are 2 correctly closed and moist packages. pray you end up in the rooms with the 2 wet packs!

Just getting started...

i have been thinking a lot about where i want to go with this blog. finally i decided to just get it started. i want people to read this and know about the struggles some people face as new parents. how complicated the emotions we have are. i want everyone to know that i am deeply in love with my husband and i am fiercely and passionately devoted to my babies. i also love my parents and in-laws. with that said, i have become quite impatient since having kids. but no matter what i say about others and how mean i am, i am 500 times harder on myself.
it is truly depressing to be disappointed with yourself on a daily basis. from cleaning to activities with the kids, i never seem to meet my own goals. and truly i don't think the bar is too high. there is a lot going into my ineptitude and complete lack of motivation. i discuss that with my psychologist every 2 weeks.
but for now, know that i appreciate being about to share this adventure with you and i how you don't judge me to harshly.