What a week...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Before I get into this past week's events, let me start by saying we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was awesome. We drove to Moline Tuesday afternoon, Elaine sleeping peacefully for the entire three hour drive. Fully recovered from her ear infection, she slept soundly through two nights and napped long both Wednesday and Thursday (as did I). The picture above shows our happy, healthy, and rested little family right before we headed to Mark's sister's house to enjoy our delicious Thanksgiving dinner (that I didn't lift a finger to prepare). It was the most relaxed and rested I have been since before Elaine was born. It was bliss.

And as I'm thanking Lonnie and Rebecca for their hard work on the meal and reveling in my state of rest, Mark comes into the kitchen with Lainey and says, "I think she feels warm."  She did feel warm. But, she'd been running around with her cousins and was cutting a molar. Surely, if she did have a mild fever it was just the tooth. Right?

Fast forward to 1:00 AM and an unhappy little girl with a temperature of 101.5 degrees that would continue to climb over the course of the day. Once again, we made a holiday trip to the urgent care center to get her checked out and see if maybe another ear infection has cropped up. The doctor looked at her ears first and said they looked fine. They took strep and flu cultures--both came back negative. I'm thinking, okay, so she has a virus. But, the doctor second-guessed himself and decided to diagnose antibiotics just in case it was her ears. Against my mother's instinct, we went ahead and filled the prescription and started her on the meds. By Sunday morning, when she still had a fever over 102 degrees, we decided to take her to her regular pediatrician who confirmed her ears were fine and she just had a virus. She had us stopped the antibiotics and said these things usually clear in 72 hours (which the fever did almost to the hour).

But, we still had a problem. Lainey couldn't go to daycare until she was fever free for 24 hours. Neither Mark nor I could possibly miss work on Monday. Now on my third day averaging about 4 hours of sleep, I had spent much of the morning crying and stressing over how to get in touch with an emergency nanny, knowing the service provided through our daycare didn't take calls until 9am Monday morning (and also knowing the last time we used this service, we were very unhappy with the woman they sent). Finally, through my sniffles, I asked Mark, "do you think your mom could come for a few days or is that stupid?"  It was not stupid. And, Lonnie, my wonderful mother-in-law got in her car that Sunday afternoon and drove the three hours to Chicago to be our savior. And acted as if we were doing her a favor. Knowing we had Lonnie around to care for Lainey allowed me to unclench a bit and enjoy the four hours of sleep she let me get that night. Lainey had a fun Monday playing with Grandma, and Mark and I went to work without feeling guilty about leaving our sick daughter with a stranger. Thanks again, Lonnie! It really meant the world to us!

So, with our little peewee feeling all better, you'd think she'd hop back on that sleep wagon. Alas, not so much. It has been a very, very long week. Maybe she's just trying to keep me primed for when the new little one arrives. We were all geared up to do a little "crying it out" again tonight (we have to do this after most of her ear infections to get her back on track), until...

...Lainey and I got home and couldn't get into our apartment because the lock was broken. I'm not going to get into the whole background on this situation, but when our landlord still didn't have the door open for us at 6:30pm, I sent a text to Mark at work and told him to take a cab home, because we needed to get Lainey somewhere for dinner. Mark finally arrived at 7:00pm (no cabs to be found downtown) and we rushed off to a nearby restaurant. By the time we had our food it was 7:30pm--Lainey usually eats at 6:00pm and goes to bed by 7:30pm, so I'll let you imagine her temperament at this point. But, I have to hand it to her, she behaved pretty well considering. I don't think I've ever seen her eat so fast in my life though--and my girl knows how to put down her food. She's sleeping peacefully now, and I'm hoping it lasts through the night. But, if not? I'm not letting her "cry it out." She can come sleep in the bed with Mommy and Daddy again tonight. She deserves some extra cuddles.

I'm hoping the weekend looks up from here (even though both Mark and I brought home bags full of work for the weekend, and we have a very long personal "to do" list to accomplish). But, it IS the holiday season, so I'm going to try to keep the bah-humbugs away and put the "want to dos" ahead of my "have to dos." Looks like that laundry may not get folded again this week...