Drama this week. Unfortunately.
Eric is on a business trip in Texas all week – he left Sunday and isn’t coming back until Friday. Which is suuuuuper annoying because I was counting on him to bring the kiddos in to work for our Trick or Treat extravaganza on Friday. Now that he works from home, I thought it would be so easy… but no. I work 40 minutes from my house and as you can imagine, no one in my family was jumping at the chance to schlep my kids over to my work at 4pm on a Friday afternoon. Actually, most of them were already busy with their own Halloween activities that day. So boo.
Funny story… my ex-boyfriend’s sister is a SAHM who coincidentally lives less than a mile from where I work. I am still friendly with her (I think she follows my blog maybe? Brittany? Hello?). Anyway, in desperation I messaged her and asked if there was any way she’d want to earn some extra cash watching two little munchkins for a few hours. I think my message said something like, one is super easy and helpful… the other can be a handful but he’s cute so you forgive him for it. Fully prepared for her to think I was a total weirdo, imagine my surprise when she wrote back that not only could she do it, but that people asked her to babysit all the time and she already had a pre-specified rate and backup help (her younger sister, now a teenager, who was literally 2 years old when I met her and that makes me feel hella old). So yay me, at least that mini conundrum was solved.
Sunday afternoon my cousin Kate had her confirmation. I was traveling solo with both kids since Eric had already left (Molly: “Daddy’s up in the air-o-plane! Up in the sky!”). Of course that was the day Liam decided to be a complete terror in church. I made it through about 15 minutes of mass before he started screaming bloody murder. I had to take him outside (not even to the vestibule, but outside outside, that’s how loud he was). I walked with him, I tried food, I tried a bottle, I even strapped him into the car and drove around the block hoping he’d fall asleep – nothing worked. He just screamed at me for the next hour and I have no idea why. We all went back to my aunt’s house afterwards for refreshments and he clung to me the entire time, melting into a puddle of tears every time I left the room. I mean, he’s definitely a mama’s boy, but never that bad…
I noticed when he was open-mouthed and screaming into my face that he has half a molar popped through… so maybe it’s teething? I’m hoping. Thankfully he went down for the night no problem and seemed happy enough in the morning.
But the hits just kept coming. Liam was back to his old self, but when I got Molly out of bed she started crying saying her leg hurt. At first I figured it had just fallen asleep, but every time she walked on it or put weight on it at all she’d scream and cry and say it hurt. Thirty minutes went by and her condition seemed no better. I gave her some Tylenol and tried tapping her leg all over and twisting it this way and that, to make sure it wasn’t seriously hurt. She seemed fine when she was sitting, even when I was messing with it, but when it came to walking she was completely miserable.
The only incident I can think of that might have spurred this was a minor trip and fall on the sidewalk outside my aunt’s house yesterday. She got back up and didn’t even cry, and just had a tiny black and blue mark and a scrape (plus ripped a hole in her tights, which I was not happy about). She’s not normally that dramatic over boo boos, and I could tell she was trying very hard to walk normally and wanted to walk normally, not that she was playing it up for attention or band-aids or whatever. But for now I’m taking the wait and see approach.
My sister says she hasn’t walked all day (refuses) and has her knee wrapped up in an ace bandage (it’s clear that the knee is the problem). If any of you have horror stories about toddlers complaining of knee pain and it turning out to be something really serious, please share them now. I’m probably overreacting but it’s just frustrating and sad and so not what I want to be dealing with on my week of solo parenting.
Oh and let’s not forget the dog! As if on cue, Ryder is once again battling his skin issues, and has been relegated to the cone of shame. I called the vet this morning and thankfully he agreed to prescribe the medication without an office visit, so that’s a small relief. Still didn’t take the sting out of the fact that the prescription costs over $100. That dog…
Guys, all I want to do is go home, have a glass of wine, and watch The Walking Dead (which people have come SO CLOSE to spoiling for me all day!) Instead, I’m going to a late work meeting, running out the door, picking up both kids (literally, because neither can walk at the moment), racing to the vet (so far away and closes at 6pm), getting home, letting the dogs out (not normally my job and I hate it), dragging in the recycling bin, throwing something together for dinner, assessing Molly’s knee situation, and then most likely collapsing into bed.
Is it Friday yet? The husband I love to complain about is actually more helpful than I realized.