Ok, let's pick up where I left off last time...
dare I say that out loud???? It's been a crazy week so far but things have greatly improved from where we started on Monday. Before Murray left for work Tuesday morning, his parting words were "you're gonna have a lot of fun with them today." He wasn't kidding.
Now I've sort of forgotten which nights were which but I think it was Sunday night that was rather brutal. Sweetie coughed and coughed and coughed and it was a terrible scratchy hacking cough that sounded like she should be feeling great discomfort if not extreme pain in her throat. I fell asleep for awhile but kept waking up whenever she coughed again, every few minutes it seemed. Around 1:30 I couldn't stand it. I tried laying down with her, rubbing her back, took her to the rocking chair in case sitting up might help keep her from coughing, tried to get her to take some ibuprofen or some cough medicine (nope) until I ran out of ideas & then put her back in her bed. Murray couldn't sleep either so we decided we needed to get some rest, especially if I had to be home with 3 miserable kids all day long by myself! Soooo we closed her door, closed our door & turned on our fan to drown out the racket.
I lasted about half an hour and felt too guilty and got up and decided to try some vaporub stuff on her neck. I knew she wasn't sleeping very well with all that racket she was making. Every time I went in to check on her or try to help, she was instantly alert & speaking clearly, as if we had already been in the middle of a conversation. As soon as I put it on, she said "THAT smells AWFUL!!!!!" and insisted I take it off. I managed to distract her & talk about something else & she quickly fell asleep & didn't stir or cough the rest of the night (although there wasn't much of it left). Unfortunately, I drifted off in there with her & didn't get back to my own bed til 5:30.
When I heard Sweetie asking (at 6:50 no less) if it was morning time yet, I couldn't believe it! I went in and said that it was almost morning but Mummy & Daddy were verrrrrrrry tired from looking after her & helping her all night & we weren't ready to get up yet so if she wanted to get her penny today, she needed to stay in her room and be quiet until we got up. AND SHE DID! In fact, when Lovey woke up a half hour or so later, Murray got up with her as he had to get ready for work and Sweetie came and crawled in with me & we slept til almost 9 & so did Honey. Lovey was a perfect angel! Murray got her her breakfast and then put on the tv for her & she was quiet as a mouse after he left for work at 8:30. Not ideal parenting but one has to manage the best they can. TV first thing in the morning is pretty much a hypnotic magnet that they stay glued to for at least an hour and a half. That extra half hour of sleep probably saved a life that day!
The rest of Monday was a little rough, much misery & suffering (mostly me I think), lots of cranky all round and a pinch or two of exhaustion made things a little tricky. Around mid afternoon Honey started screaming & crying and saying that her ear hurt. She would calm down if I held her or rocked her but seemed to be very uncomfortable. After an hour I phoned Murray & got him to come home early so I could get to the after hours clinic to line up before they opened. I was a half hour early and 24th in line. We had a looooooooooong wait. Honey was quite amused that we had chips & cheesies for supper. I asked her what Daddy would say : "He'd say that was a terrible supper, too much junk food!" and then she giggled madly. It's fun to be bad now & then! After 2 hrs we saw the doctor, not sure who it was because she didn't give me her name & didn't tell me what was wrong specifically but commented that her ears were red inside and wrote a prescription. Strange system but I got what I wanted so I didn't really care who she was & assumed we must be dealing with ear infections. After a trip to the pharmacy, it was after 9pm when we got home & got her to bed.
after a couple days battling over ever single dosage of her antibiotics, Honey is finally taking her medicine willingly! at 3 times a day, it was a lot of effort to get that medicine into her!
Tuesday was a little iffy & Lovey got tired and wanted (never a good sign of things to come when it's their idea!) a nap in the afternoon. I let the other 2 have a long bath (realized afterwards that maybe Honey shouldn't be getting her ears wet...) and they had access to unlimited amounts of movies and tv!
Wednesday I was raring to get out of the house! Playgroup here we come! The kids woke up seeming much better so we were off. They were super helpful getting ready, cleared their dishes from the table, made their beds & all got their boots on themselves so we could get going. They were just as anxious as I was! We didn't actually stay at playgroup long because we decided to go to the movies with Yvonne & her girls (C&J). We grabbed a quick bite at McD's first & then went to see The Bee Movie. Yvonne had a buy one get one coupon for McD's & the theatre had a seat sale ($2 admission) so lunch & movie & popcorn, all together, cost me $22. Quite a bargain, even for Coupon Kelly!
They were good as gold during the show! We got little booster seats, they each had a little snack & their sippy cups with water and they wanted to sit with the girls & so Yvonne & I sat on the end together & the 5 girls were all seated side by side. They were pretty cute all propped up there. Except for Lovey dropping her drink & needing her bow tied, my girls never budged or said boo. They watched the movie, ate their treat & were happy as clams! What big girls we have!
After the movie, we went to Children's Place, Yvonne had spotted a red sale sign! Oh my! Talk about stressful shopping! These girls loooooooooove new clothes!!!! They were picking up everything, wanting to know if they could have this, try this on, take this home, buy those.. "do we need
these Mumma?" and there was some awfully cute stuff in there,
spring dresses,
sparkly sneakers,
pouffy skirts perfect for twirling,
Easter hats,
shiny patent shoes with little cutesy
matching purses.... my heart was racing at all the splendour before me. They loved looking at everything and trying on a few hats and they were a little disappointed when I managed to restrain myself to the $5.99 rack & bought just one skirt! That place is way too exciting for little girls... and me! So Wednesday was a total success & just fun all around.
the girls trying on the new skirt & giving it a whirlToday, things were pretty good again but Sweetie may have overdone it between yesterday & today. Gymnastics was cancelled today so we invited one of their classmates, Tulip, over to play. She, her mom & older sister all came for a few hours. They played dress up, did play doh, had a game of Elefun and got into the Little People too. After lunch we went outside & that's where Sweetie started to fall apart. First, she insisted on wearing a pair of fleece gloves that get wet really fast in the snow but was hellbent on keeping them. She wasn't out long before she started to complain. I offered her the dry mittens I'd brought out but she refused & demanded to go inside. I told her she had to stay out with us. She cried and cried and cried by the door while everyone else ran around, trying to catch Murphy & get his toy, climbed the snowbanks and enjoyed the wonderful weather. After awhile I got tired of listening to her & sent her in to get her stuff off while I gathered up the other 2 (the guests had already gone home). We had another bath & then they watched Aladdin while I got supper ready. When I came down to get them, Sweetie was having trouble keeping her eyes open so I was sure she'd be ready for bed early tonight but she was fine til the regular 7:30 like the rest.
