The Week in Review...

It's been a LOOOONG one...

SATURDAY/SUNDAY:  Our week of fun kicked off last Saturday night, when Mark got hit with the stomach flu around 9:30pm. After getting him settled in bed (and cleaning the bathroom), I headed off to the guest bedroom for the night. I was taking no chances on catching another round of that nastiness. (Mark did offer to sleep in the guest room, but I insisted. I knew from just going through this that he wasn't actually going to be doing much sleeping and deserved to have the t.v.)

I tried to keep Lainey out of the house much of Sunday morning, so he could get some rest. We had a pretty good time running some easy errands and playing in the park. Her cold seemed to be a little more pronounced than the day before, but she was in good spirits and active as usual. VERY active, so I was pretty wiped by the end of the day and looking forward to a nice, solid night of sleep...

MONDAY/TUESDAY:  Tired...so, so tired. Elaine woke for the first time at 9:30pm. Then a little after 10pm. By midnight I knew what I was trying to deny...Elaine was battling her umpteenth ear infection (damn cold). I managed to dose her ibuprofen in the near dark, while rocking her in one arm to keep her calm so she didn't wake her sick father. I got a good three hours of sleep out of her, before we were back up again at 3am...and that was the last I saw of my bed.

Mark stayed home Monday to finish his recovery. I started Elaine on her ear drops (we should buy stock in the pharm company that makes Ciprodex) and took her off to daycare. Although not 100% and short on sleep, she was happy and talkative and no worse for the wear  She almost made it through the day before spiking a fever at 4pm. Mark picked her up, and I managed to snag an 8pm appointment at the pediatrician. At this point, we actually don't have to take her in when she gets and infection, we just start the drops, but because of the fever, we were going to need a note for daycare.

Mark stayed home Tuesday morning with her and I took the afternoon shift, because neither one of use could afford to miss a full day. We probably could have gone ahead and sent her into daycare though. You would have no idea anything was wrong with her. She was very full of energy. So full of energy that evidently she didn't need much sleep, because...

WEDNESDAY: Lainey is up and ready to rock at 4am. After trying to calm her back to sleep with no success, Mark rose at around 4:45am and let me go back to bed, since I hadn't had a full night's sleep since Friday. Not that any additional sleeping was had, because Elaine is so talkative and has no volume control, but the gesture was appreciated.

So, you can imagine both of us we're ready for a good night's sleep Wednesday night. And we were getting it. Until we are roused at 2am by our landlord's shouts outside. Mark stumbles out of bed to go to the bathroom and I'm cursing our landlord in my head for being so inconsiderate, until Mark comes running back in and says "Kylie, get up. The garage is on fire." Turns out it was the garage across the alley from ours, but the flames were pretty massive...enough for three fire trucks. We were only up for about 20 minutes before it was clear that we were safe and there was no need to evacuate. But, we couldn't exactly just go back to sleep, because the firefighters were using our backyard to access the alley and fighting a fire isn't a quiet activity.

Elaine slept through it all. Of course she did. The first night she didn't wake at least once since the past Friday.

THURSDAY: But, she did wake promptly at 5am! What is going on?!!! Is she experiencing a daylight savings throwback this week? I let Mark stay in bed this time and attempted to keep Lainey quiet, so he might actually sleep. Now, we generally don't let her watch t.v., but I thought it might keep her peaceful. Wrong. She was giving commentary of everything on the screen..."BALL! BALL! BALL!...BEAR! Hi, bear! Hi, Bear! Bye-bye bear!...Lion! Rrrroar!" And so on and so forth. It was adorable, but could have been so much more so at 6:30am.

FRIDAY:  So, here we are...FRIDAY! Another early morning, another failed attempt at trying to get her back to sleep. But, we made it. Lainey's snug in bed, Mark and I are lounging on the couch, and relaxation is being had. We did have dinner reservations (cancelled because of Lainey's ear infection), but tonight I'm very happy with pizza and pajamas.

I am sooooo looking forward to next week...