Tonight will be better.

Last night was ROUGH.

9:00...on my way to bed....tired...thinking it's going to be a long night because Eva's coughing..always a bad sign.  Then Evita stops by the bathroom hugging a full Tupperware container of orange-ish puke.  Clean her up, clean it up, feed her a bowl of Life cereal (hard to sleep on an empty belly)...brush teeth, off to bed.  

9:30...oh sweet blessed bed.  Alarm rings in six hours, exactly...but that's enough to get me through tomorrow.  Clean, fresh, 400-thread-count cotton sheets....bliss.

9:30-2am...Eva coughs.  And coughs.  And coughs.  Etienne and I don't sleep much...too hard with our sweet little one hacking and hacking and hacking.  Poor kid.

2:15 am...The inevitable happens.  Eva pukes.   All over her bed.   Etienne - bless my beautiful, wonderful husband - gets up with her.  She vomits into her hands and then pushes her hair behind her ears.  I see the bathroom light flick on and hear him calmly talking to her as he puts her in the shower...then I drop back into slumber.

2:30...the %&%*?%!!! neighbour's car alarm goes off.  For one solid minute, outside our window.  BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.   There are not enough swear words in the English language to describe that f**ker so I'll use some French ones.   CALICE DE TABARNAK DE CRISS.  There we are.  That just about does it.

3:00...the %*?&#?@%!! cat decides to yak up a hairball AT THE FOOT OF OUR BED.  I repeat all those French swear words.  If I had some in Spanish or Russian, I'd toss those suckers in, too.   I wipe, disinfect, curse.

3:30...my %?%&$*!!! alarm rings.  And another glorious day begins.

And to make it all better...we kept poor Evita home from school today.  She and I lay down for a nap and she immediately started complaining about her ear.  We wound up sitting 4.5 hours at the hospital, surrounded by coughing, masked people (during a stage 5 almost-pandemic, according to the WHO) waiting for a prescription I could write myself, for an otitis media I could diagnose myself in about 30 seconds.  Poor Eva was so incredibly stoic, quiet, sweet...my hero...even while tipping her head left and right to alleviate the pressure and pain.  So proud of my girlie I could burst.  Four hours is a looooong time to wait to see a doctor...and Eva was absolutely marvellous.

It's been a long day, and my cognac is lovely.

Off to spend a couple of minutes parked beside my hero husband in front of the TV.

Trolls sleeping..........for now.

Tonight will be better.  

Parenting is the greatest job ever. 

And the most exhausting.

Good night.

To catch a thief

Adele and I went to the market yesterday.

I stopped at a nice little vegetable stand to buy some sweet potatoes.

We left...and had gone about 30 feet before I realized that Adele had done a little "shopping" of her own.

The vegetable-seller laughed very hard when we took the cabbage back to apologize.

Now, beat it

1.  The bathtub pooper struck again the other day in spectacular fashion.  And as usual, she chose to lay a log (well, three) when both girls were jammed in with six-thousand toys.  

Poor Eva has been very wary lately.    I'll put both in the bath and every 30 seconds, Eva will whine, "Addie looks like she's about to poo" or "Addie's STRAINING".  

I'm sure Eva's future therapist will trace any self-security issues directly back to the tub.

2.  Adele was shockingly constipated the other day.  Crying in pain.  Awful to watch.  And yeah, I admit, I threw her in the bath.  

But of course, Addie being Addie...NOTHING.

Perhaps I ought to have thrown Eva in, too.

3.  Was ridonkulously grumpy with Eva the other night.  I mean, mouldy green and living in a garbage can on Sesame Street grumpy.  Etienne was out and I was exhausted beyond exhausted.  Apologized to her and told her how tired I was, but I still felt awful.  

Felt even worse yesterday when I picked her up from school and she asked, "are you tired today, Mommy?"   Does Oscar the Grouch feel guilt?  I certainly do.  Sigh.

4.  Spent about a half-hour last night doing some very exciting math problems with Eva.  We did double digit numbers in columns (no carrying over, though) and you'd have thought she was picking winning lottery numbers.   What a NERD.  

I'm actually delighted because she clearly inherited the math gene from her dad, the Economics Major and not from me, the Literature Major.  I can barely count to ten.  On my fingers.  With a calculator.  While cringing because I dislike math so much.  More than that lump of trash Paris Hilton, even.

Anyway

Off to slam the lid on my garbage can.

GO AWAY.  Heh heh heh.

Thank you/ Merci

For some reason, I seem to recall smiling at an American Express ad involving Tina Fey.

She had been asked her biggest accomplishment and she said, "my daughter says please and thank you".

I thought it was rather cute.

And I do - to an extent - agree with her.

Polite kids are a worthy goal.

I love that at Eva's last parent-teacher meeting, the teacher told us that Eva might have trouble keeping her ass in her chair, but she is always polite.

And I loved it last night when Addie - at 21 months - said, "merci de l'eau, mama" when I gave her a sippy cup of water.

They may be a bit loud...a bit rambunctious...their noses may run constantly, and they may fart a lot. We're working on all that.

But dammit, they're polite!

Screw altruism

Etienne: "Hey, Eva, what do you want for your birthday next week? Happiness in the world?"

Eva: "No!"

Etienne: "What about food for all the hungry children?"

Eva: "No!!!"

Etienne "World Peace?"

Eva: "NO WAY!!! I WANT MULAN BARBIE!!!"

So that's how you see me???

Eva draws a picture of her family.

Etienne is rather pirate-ish, with only one eye visible beneath a sort of hat attached to a thought bubble that reads, "E".  He also sports a jaunty E on his belly, which is triangular.  Several dots between his nose and mouth are meant to indicate five-o'clock shadow, I'm guessing.  Either that or ants. 

Adele is also moderately triangular, with a fountain of hair sprouting from her head  She has three thought bubbles:  One reading "PAP", one reading "MAMA" and the other reading "h". Guess it's her kindly way of reminding me to book with the gynecologist.

Eva drew herself tiny, with no legs and EnE on her chest, and a gigantic E sprouting from her head.  

And as for me..well, I have a broad smile, a pointy-looking hat on my head, and the letters "KKK" on my belly.

I know it's all coincidence....

But YIKES.

Better, with bacon

1.  Adele is coming back to life...eating, and allowing more than six seconds to pass without whining or crying. 

SOOO relieved to see my little pooper feeling better.

It's been a stressful, awful five days.

Bring on the next virus...we're ready.

Well, we will be if we can get a decent night's sleep.

zzzzz

2.  Was cooking perogies and talking last night with Evita...explaining how delicious they are with sour cream and a few bits of bacon on top.  

And Eva dropped a bombshell.

Eva: "I don't want bacon.  Because I DON'T WANT A FAT TUMMY"

You know that sound in sitcoms when the main character has been partying with 600 friends in the family's palatial mansion, and they've spilled orange pop on the wall, and next door his best friend is KISSING A GIRL and they're dancing to ROCK MUSIC and they open up a beer to share among ten people sitting on the couch and his parents walk in early because they couldn't get a seat at the restaurant?  

You know that loud record-scratching sound?

Then, me, with an audible snap of my neck: "Who told you that?"

Eva:  "mumble mumble school"

I couldn't believe it.

We NEVER talk about diets or fat or weight or anything that might prompt this child to THINK TWICE about her body.  She doesn't watch TV.  The only movies she sees are Disney and Asterix films.   She plays outside all the time and eats healthy and she IS IN KINDERGARTEN, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

I am not naive.  

I know kids think about this crap, and kids talk.  

But my daughter is not even SIX YEARS OLD.

She is fit and perfect and has no reason to worry about fat.

We had a long discussion about MODERATION and how being active and eating healthy most of the time allows us to have the junky stuff once in a while without worrying about it.

In the end, I didn't make the bacon...not because of Eva's concerns, but rather because I was starving and just wanted to eat without waiting to fry it up.

And I was sooo happy when Eva demanded, "BUT WHERE'S THE BACON???" at the table.

BRING ON THE BACON, BABY!!!

3.  Made bricks - I mean, homemade granola bars.

We will use them to pave the driveway, once it warms up.

(Don't ever make homemade granola bars.  It's dumb)

 

4.  Went to Evita's dance competition at school.  

Her group did an elaborate dance to a tune about a masquerade ball...reminding me once again how folks who work in schools are criminally underappreciated and underpaid.

It also reminded me how much fun it is for kids to get up onstage and show what they can do!

Eva dressed up as a princess and had a blast.

Rock on, my beautiful girlie.

We are so very proud of you.

Like wine

Rough weekend.

Addie has a wierd mouth virus.  It pretty much looks like she licked a cheese grater and then chased it with a cup of battery acid.  Canker sores and wierd flaky spots all over her tongue and cheeks.  As well, her gums are swollen and bright red...bleeding if you touch them.  

No fever, thankfully, but she is ONE MISERABLE LITTLE COOT.

Treatment for this virus is supposedly TIME.  

So all you can do is try to alleviate symptoms...keep the kid hydrated, give them Tylenol, and feed them tasteless food.

(There's a joke about my cooking in there, somewhere)

Now, this is a kid who is on a perpetual hunger strike, particularly when ill.

She gets the sniffles, and refuses to eat for a week.

We've come to accept it as NORMAL.  

But this week, it's worse.

Because she WANTS to eat. 

She's hungry.

But it hurts her little mouth too much...and she gets FURIOUS.

No matter what we give her, she hurls it with enough force to dent our major appliances.

In three days, we've managed to exhaust our supply of tasteless treats - plain pasta...applesauce...plain, dry crepes...plain, dry bread...milk.  

All of it is too much for her sore little mouth to handle.

She just sits there, pitches it away, and sobs.

She has taken a bit of milk here and there...and a couple of times, choked down a few pieces of plain macaroni with unsalted melted butter.  But each time, she winced and cried.

This is supposed to pass within the next day or two.

Argh.

Tomorrow: Vanilla-free tapioca.

2.  Eva was doing homework tonight...she had to choose a country she wants to visit, and tell why.  She said, "OH FRANCE!!!!  Because they have lots of good things in France.  Like WINE!"  Oh, child of my heart.  How I do love thee.

3.  Addie ripped a mighty fart this evening...it sounded like a jumbo jet landed in the yard.  Then she chirped, "MERCI!"  

Yeah?  Well, you're welcome. 

4.  They tag-teamed last night...Adder waking up complaining about teeth, and Eva laughing like a hyena in her sleep. 

Then Adder woke up sobbing at 4a.m.  

I didn't know what to do with her (read: sleep-deprived), so I brought her in with Etienne and me.  

I am so very, very stupid.

She woke up COMPLETELY.

"MAMA!  PAPA!"  (then, clearly delighted to see us): "HEL-LO!!!"

After explaining that Eva's sleeping, Papa's sleeping, the cat is sleeping, the grandparents and assorted aunts, uncles and cousins (by name) are sleeping, the Prime Minister is sleeping, the President is sleeping, and every child on every continent (by name) is sleeping...she finally went back to sleep.

An hour later, Eva rolled into bed with us.  

Nothing like waking up before daylight ON A SUNDAY MORNING and then sharing your already full-enough two-person bed with a drooling, fretfully-sleeping baby and an almost-six year old who kicks and has a mania for scratching other people's backs and arms. 

Rough, rough weekend.

And hey!  Tomorrow's MONDAY.