Called In Sick

I did something that no one else has ever done before yesterday.  I called in sick to a doctor's appointment.

We had a tummy bug - MG had it really badly, Jack had a milder case, BJ was queasy enough to go back to bed for most of the day, I spent most of the afternoon - after BJ recovered - in bed, and Claire came home from school pale and headachey but not vomiting.  When Jack started throwing up and BJ was still comatose, I called the triage nurse and said, "I just don't see how I can leave BJ alone with this mess when he can barely move!"

My appointment was just a med re-check on the Lexapro that I started a month ago (and the answer is that it's brilliant, and I feel very sane and normal, now, yay!).

It's funny how when MG was a baby I would take her to the doctor for every sniffle and sneeze, and now my kids have to be bleeding from their eyes and foaming at the mouth before I take them to see the doctor.  I can't remember the last time Jack went for anything but a well-child visit.  I swear MG and Claire were there every other week when they were his age.

We're all better today.  I had to keep MG home because of the 24 hour rule, but Claire and BJ are back to normal programming.  I cancelled Jack's speech therapy just to be cautious.  The only weirdness is that no one has an appetite - but I'm not pushing anyone to eat.  I figure they'll ask for food when they can handle it.

What Would You Do?

The kids had today off from school for President's Day, and once I gave them a bath and trimmed all their gnarly toenails (motherhood is glamorous), made them clean up the toyroom, and got the kitchen clean, we got in the car and headed out to run some errands.  We drove through Walgreen's, went to Hobby Lobby and got some stuff for Girl Scouts, and then I took them to Chick Fil A for lunch.

Chick Fil A has stopped giving money to hate groups, so it's ok.

We had finished eating and the kids were in the play area, and I was sitting talking to a friend that we had bumped into, when the little girl at the table behind us (she must have been 3 or 4) dropped something glass (no idea what it was - everything there is plastic) and it broke.

The girl was there with her big sister, her mom, and her grandpa.  Mom chose that moment to take the big girl to the bathroom.  So Grandpa was left to deal with the little one and the mess.

In true Chick Fil A style, the young man who worked there came over and started sweeping it up right away.  But the grandpa, he was PISSED.  He yelled, "Way to go, Ace," in this really loud, sarcastic voice.  Then he yelled, "You just sit there.  JUST SIT THERE!" and then he mimed punching the little girl and said, "POW!"  So, naturally, she was scared and she tried to hide under the table - where all the broken glass was.  Of course this made Grandpa even more angry, so he's yelling at her to come out, which makes her want to hide more...  And it was just awkward and BAD.

So, being me, after a minute of this I got up and said, "I think she's trying to hide because she's scared..."  Then I got physically between him and the little girl and said, "Hey, Sis, come up here before you get hurt.  It's ok, it was just an accident.  Whatever broke was just stuff, and stuff can be replaced. The important thing is that you're not hurt, and you need to stay up here on the seat so that you don't get hurt, ok?"  She had been sobbing and screaming, "I wanna go home!" for a while, so I said, "I'm ready to go home too.  It's my little boy's nap time.  Do you still take a nap?  Is it naptime for you too?"  Of course, at this point I was talking to the grandpa, trying to calm him down and make him see the situation from her point of view.  I got her calm, he backed off, mom came back, and they left.

After they left, all the other adults around us thanked me for getting involved.

One of these days I'm probably going to get punched, but it wasn't today.

Spoiled Rotten

Lee and Teetee

Jack, who is this?  (point to Claire)

"Lee!"

Jack, who is this?  (point to Mary Grace)

"Teetee!"

Jack, who is this?  (point to Jack)

"Baby!"

It's kind of funny, because Lee is a family name.  It's BJ's and his dad's middle name, and BJ has a cousin named Leigh.

Other than that, we haven't been hearing a lot of new words.  He does babble a lot more than he did before, but much of it is unintelligible.  "Lee and Teetee" seem to understand him a lot more than I do.

Actually, it should be CDO

Jack's speech therapist is a very nice, very enthusiastic woman who does not share my anxieties.  I learned this today when she brought out a bag of hats to play with.  "Off!"  "On!"  "Hat!" she repeated over and over, and I heard her, but in my head she was saying, "Lice!  Lice!  LICE!"

I don't know why I didn't say, "Woah, woah, I'll go get some of his hats."  Because God knows how many heads those hats have touched, and I internalized the rule about not ever sharing hats or combs with anyone.  Lice love a clean head, you know.  They do.  And my head is clean.  And so is Jack's.  Let us then use our non-licey hats, if you please.

But I didn't have the nerve.  Instead I cringed as she instructed Jack to put a hat on Mama's head.  And I pretended to sneeze it off.  Have mercy.

I've been itching ever since.

Have I ever told you about the night before my wedding?  I worked with kids, then, in a residential facility, and the week before my wedding we had a lice outbreak.  I had the nurse check me several times a day, because I was just SURE that I was going to get it.  Even though she never saw a single nit, I spent the night before our wedding combing Rit through my extremely long, thick hair.  It took me until 2 am.  I was not going to go down as the bride who gave her entire guest list lice.

I never found a single nit, and the next day the hairdresser used enough shellac on my hair to choke a horse, let alone a bug.

I have issues.  Serious issues.

Yay!!

We went to Purdue to get Jack's hearing tested this morning. It is normal!

Sledding

We took the kids sledding for a little while this afternoon.  Jack enjoyed it a lot, and liked the yelling "wheeeeee!" all the way down.  Mary Grace did a great job and probably went down the hill more times than anyone.  Claire, though, was carrying her sled up the hill when the wind caught it and she punched herself in the mouth.  It wouldn't have been so bad if she didn't have a loose front tooth.  As it was, though, it knocked the loose tooth and she bled a lot and cried for a long time.  It took me a good 10 minutes to convince her to let me give her some ibuprofen.  It took BW3's cheesy wedges to convince her that eating wouldn't kill her.

Claire is rooting for the "blue team" in the Superbowl, probably because they're winning right now.  I'm making the kids some cookies.  You know, because we only have about 100 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the house right now - it's a perfect time to bake!  BJ is working and half-watching the game.  I'm rooting for the commercials and Beyonce.  Mary Grace is rooting for changing the channel.  Jack has a full diaper.  Status quo at our house.