Spring Break 2011

Spring Break baby! It is funny how it has a totally different connotation than it did 10 years ago! Spring break now means sleeping till 6:30 instead of 5:30, drinking coffee and actually getting to watch the ENTIRE Today show! It also means that on days Lucy goes to school, I can stay in my pajamas until I have to go pick her up. However, the best laid plans...

We decided that since it was a week off for me, we'd put Lucy in her "big girl bed" and see what happened. It was more emotional for me than I thought. Once again, I've come a long way in 10 years from beer on the beach to crying over my child's moving into a toddler bed. Anyway, night one went well. Lu slept all night, no issues. We even got a video monitor which is hilarious. We love to watch her now. How did our parents raise us without all this insanely wonderful technology?!?!?!

Night two wasn't so good. We were up from 12 to 2 a.m. Lucy also figured out how to open the door. We had considered ourselves lucky that she hadn't mastered that skill yet, but she got pissed enough to figure it out Monday night. Then there was last night-a.k.a Hell on Earth a.k.a. a MAJOR flashback to EVERY night for the first 5 months of my child's life.

Lucy has had a runny nose. She also started coughing last weekend. We attributed it to allergies, as her ENTIRE life, she's pretty much sneezed and coughed and had a runny nose. Plus, she'd spent a lot of time outside and we figured that had really irritated her poorly genetically designed sinuses. If you don't live in East Tennessee, consider yourself lucky. It is pretty much the worst place on earth to live if you are prone to have ANY allergy issues. Anyway, I digress...If you are a parent you know there is NOTHING to give a kid if they are under 6 to stop a cough. This is totally annoying and re-pisses me off every time Lu starts to cough. So she's been coughing. The one thing that seems to dry her up is Benadryl. It used to make her hyper, we tried it several months ago again, and it mellowed her out. So I've been giving that to her over the past few days. I gave her some at bedtime, and woke up to her hacking her poor head off at 1:30 when it had worn off. She wasn't awake, but coughing literally every 90 seconds (yes, I'm that neurotic that I counted).

So, as I'm lying in bed letting my neuroses get the best of me (you know, picturing her being admitted to Children's for a collapsed lung), I wake Bryan and we debate as to whether or not to give her meds. She'd been sleeping so well, and in her bed by herself!! Did we dare wake the beast? As more time passed and I was sure she was near death, I got the syringe, and gave her the big bad BENADRYL. It of course woke her, and she wanted me to hold her hand. I shhh-ed her and tried to get her to sleep, but to no avail. Finally at 3:45 I made Bryan come take over. She was awfully twitchy and loopy, and still not sleeping! I had just settled back into my cozy bed when he called me to her room and said, "I think she has a fever." Spectacular. Sure enough, low grade fever. We then gave Motrin (a totally amazing drug for our fever prone child), and put her in the bed with me (Bryan thought he was getting a reprieve). I was totally distraught, as we are really trying to focus on her being in her big girl bed ALONE this week, and now here she was in MY bed. At this point it is now 4:30 or so. She is singing, asking to watch Sesame Street, talking non-stop about parties and gymnastics and horses and Disney World (the list goes on and one). I realize Bryan has to do a lot today, including go to class tonight, but dang it! I MUST SLEEP! So, I kicked him off the couch and let him deal with Chatty McChatterson. I slept from 5 until 8, which gave me 8 hours of sleep (not awful, but as my good friend says, 8 hours of broken sleep is NOT the same as 8 solid hours). I called the pediatrician when I got my wits about me, and we were on our way at 8:45.

Needless to say, I did not get my coffee, or breakfast, or see ANY of the Today show. That is being a mom though. It is not always glamorous. It is in fact, very hard, most of the time. You never know if your are making the right decisions about things. You have a new set of worries with each new stage in your child's life. Take potty training...I'm about to LOSE MY MIND over it. Her teacher told me yesterday she needed to wear "big girl panties" to school now. HA! She hasn't peed or pooped in the potty for me in a WEEK! Also, has anyone ever bought a humidifier that doesn't totally suck? I mean, we probably could have bought a diamond encrusted one for the amount of money we've spent on crappy ones. These are the things that occupy my mind when I am awake in the middle of the night with my child who has become nocturnal. I would just love to let some sexually active teen into my brain for about 5 minutes. I guarantee that they'd be rethinking sex. Unless you are ready for all this craziness, you better just lock it all up!

So in case you were wondering, we now have meds for Lucy who has a sinus infection. She is also on Allegra and will be getting allergy tests soon if all this MESS does not clear up. We got the ears cleared up last year, but now we're having frequent sinus issues. The pharmacist at Walgreens knows me well. AND my child can pass ANY Walgreens and will shout, "WALGREENS MOMMY!" Not good. I took a peek at some humidifiers, but guess what? We've tried all the models Walgreens has to offer. No humidifier was purchased, but many drugs were. Here's my helpful hint to all of you who get your prescriptions filled at the trusty old Walgreens...take your screaming kid in with you, tell them you are waiting for the meds, and let your kid have another fit or two about some crap in the kid aisle, and all of a sudden that 15 to 20 minutes wait time becomes 6 minutes. Did I mention I love the terrible twos? AND PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT AND TELL ME THAT THREE IS NOT ANY BETTER. I'm not up for that news today.