Surrender

This is me waving my white flag. I am not even sure what I am surrendering to at this point. I just know that I am exhausted from daily chaos, and I don't know if I can take one more thing at the moment. The kids are in bed, and not without much effort on my part, and Brett has gone off to his latest meeting at church, which if I am being honest, was not where he was most needed tonight, but that is something that I will try not to get into...

I don't even know where to begin, but since I am just venting for self-indulgence, I guess I won't worry too much about the format of my writing. Sunday was kind of exhausting. Logan had a nasty, nasty sounding cough. It caused us to miss church, which always seems to put me in a negative mindset for the week, unfortunately.

The big deal for that day was that Brett went to pick up the "big boy bed" we finally got for Logan on Craigslist. My job was to get Logan's room ready for the transition. I picked up toys and then I spent a fair chunk of time taking apart the crib (and trying not to be sad about what that means). My frustrations included dropping one section on my shin, where I now have a bruise in a lovely shade of purple, and somehow putting a four inch split in one section. I still am having some carpal tunnel type feeling in my right wrist as a result of using that dumb little allen wrench for so long. Then, I vacuumed the room, and let Logan know what was happening.

Me: "Daddy went to buy you a big kid bed!"

Logan: (Excitedly) "With a ladder?!"

Me: "No..."

Logan: "Then how will me climb up?"

Me: "It's not a bunk bed. You don't need a ladder."

Logan: (Clearly disappointed) "But me want to sleep up by the ceiling."

Unfortunately, I had not thought to ask about whether or not the people were smokers, and he came home with a smelly bed that needed a good cleaning. I wiped it down with a damp cloth first, and once that got filthy, I rinsed it and kept going until it got dirty again. I cleaned away what we think was cat hair, although I am hoping we are wrong because I am almost positive that Logan is allergic to cats. So, brilliant me, right? I buy him a bed that smells and is covered with things that he is likely allergic to or at least things we know will exacerbate his already congested condition. Awesome. The good news is that I got rid of most of the smell by rubbing my 50/50 mixture of olive oil and citrus peel-infused vinegar into the the entire bed frame, letting it dry, and then repeating the next day (when Brett went to buy a mattress). This made it look and smell much better, although not as perfect as I would have liked.

Then, I had to cancel our play date we had scheduled for yesterday. It was good that I did, however, because Logan's sickness was worse then. He has this sort of hypersensitive gag reflex, meaning that a runny nose and Logan do not mix well. He tends to gag and then vomit. Plus, if he coughs too hard or just gets upset and cries too hard, that will trigger the gagging, and in turn, the vomiting. Ugh. This happened three times yesterday.

The first time, I think Brett was pretty annoyed because he told me to take him to the bathroom, assuming that I would get him to be sick in the toilet. Instead, I had him sit on my lap in an effort to have him calm himself down by deep breathing. Honestly, I think my method is better because it shows him that he can be in control of this, not just reinforcing his instinct to panic and decide that he must throw up. This is just a snippet of our communication woes, that I swear I am not going to air in public format. (Talking to myself, here.) On the positive side, he did take the day off from work so that I could take Mia to her appointment without dragging Logan along, and this turned out to be good timing since he was too sick to go out anyway.

My poor little man is a total sweetheart. The last time he got sick was all over me (and incidentally, Cheez-it crackers and mucous do not play well together). I was feeling a bit bummed about the state of my new yoga pants and my even newer "go-out-in-public hoodie" (sad, I know, but I just started taking a dance class so I wanted decent looking stuff to wear). However, it was hard to feel upset when I saw how sad Logan felt about this, saying "I'm sorry I throwed up on you."

We had a freak accident on Monday, as well. Brett and I were eating lunch while Logan had decided he really wanted to try out his new bed (even if it wasn't a much-coveted bunk bed). We didn't see what happened, but as far as we can tell, he had tried to drag his crib mattress over to the new-to-him bed frame. In the process, he somehow ended up hitting a nightlight, which must have shattered and "exploded" in a burst of heat or something. Anyway, once I responded to the yelling, I saw the remains of the nightlight and the blackened, charred looking spot on the outlet. He says there was no fire, but who knows? Nothing was blown in the circuit breaker, according to Brett. It was just so, so bizarre, and I was trying to not shake from the realization that we were quite lucky that something really awful did not happen to hurt our little man.

As if that were not enough for one day, I took Mia for her well-check, and I was completely floored to learn that she has a double ear infection since she has had no symptoms except maybe a little bit a tiredness and moodiness that I attributed to mid-winter blahs. Not only are both ears infected, but the left one has so much fluid in it, that she actually failed her hearing test in that ear. I was pretty blown away to learn that. So, she started taking over-the-counter children's antihistamines to hopefully clear things up, and she will go back to have her hearing re-tested in a month.

Monday night did end okay, at least. Brett got the new mattress for the new-to-us bed. He was able to replace the charred outlet. I made the bed up with the Lightning McQueen bedding that we have had put aside since around Christmas. Brett added the bed rail that we used when Mia first transitioned to her big kid bed. The most amazing thing of all, was that he slept in his bed, all night, for the first time in perhaps three months. Not in the hallway, not sneaking into our bed at some point in the middle of the night. In his own bed. All. Night.

He even woke up feeling very much improved. He wasn't really coughing all that much. However, I didn't want to take any chances with that hair trigger gag reflex of his. This meant we couldn't go into Mia's school for the morning to volunteer like we normally do on Mondays. (There was no school yesterday since it was President's Day, so I was planning to go in this morning, instead.) And we couldn't go to story time at the library either.

Mia, who had initially been very excited since it was the 100th Day of School, came home a bit grumpy. She was mad about the outfit I had chosen, which she had approved of in the morning, but now was annoyed by. I think it was because Mrs. Myers took her picture since she was dressed like a little old lady, which was what the classroom newsletter had said to do. Mia had initially told me she didn't want to dress like an old lady, so maybe she felt duped. I selected a denim jumper with coordinating pink turtleneck for her to wear, which really isn't that far-fetched since it was part of her regular wardrobe. We added a chunky hand-knit sweater that she has always refused to wear in the past, some chunky socks (these are what really aggravated her, I think, since they kept falling down, plus she had bare knees and came home sporting a bandage on one knee that she said got a rug burn when she tripped and fell down), and a pearl necklace. She wore her hair in a bun. She didn't really look like a 100 year old but it was the best I could do, channeling my own grandma, although she is not going to be 100 for a few more years yet.

Anyway, Mia was not happy. By the time Brett left to go to his meeting, she was getting a bit ornery. I wanted the kids to pick up their toys so we could read some books before bed, but she got frustrated by Logan not helping and started to throw things. Then, when she ended up in time out, she threw things at me. This meant time out in her room, and she was less than thrilled by that. After she came
stomping back downstairs, uninvited, and things got ugly. I told her she was down to two choices: clean or go to bed. She did not want to do either. Then, she shoved Logan down. I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by this point and carted her up the stairs again, saying, "I'm sorry, but you've lost your chance to choose now. You need to go to bed." It was a struggle, but each step got a bit easier: use the bathroom, put on pajamas, brush teeth, pick out clothes for school, until she was no longer fighting me. I think she had realized that she was exhausted and she was ready to surrender, even if it was 25 minutes before her regularly-scheduled bedtime. She climbed into bed (higher now with a new box spring, courtesy of Daddy) and let me tuck her in and kiss her goodnight without once fighting me. I told her, "This was not a good night, but tomorrow is a new day and new chance to try again. I love you." I tried my best to be the calm, rational adult, and I may have succeeded to some extent. Yet, I am feeling defeated.

This is me waving my white flag. I am not even sure what I am surrendering to at this point. I just know that I am exhausted from daily chaos, and I don't know if I can take one more thing at the moment. The kids are in bed, and not without much effort on my part. I think I will go eat some chocolate and then take myself off to bed. Thank you, God, for giving me the strength to make it this far. And, thanks, too, that I get to have a new chance again tomorrow.