Mommy By The Book » nasty crap

I think I’ve found a good excuse to never run on the treadmill again

Rachel — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:29:09 +0000

My cute girl with two functioning, non-mangled hands

So, do you want the good news or the bad news first? Bad news? Ok then, glad we agree.

Two weeks ago the husband was running on the treadmill in the basement while our daughter played and watched cartoons in the same room. We’ve had this set-up for a while, we’ve had conversations about never ever ever touching the treadmill while it is on, and all has gone smoothly. You can see where this is going. For some inexplicable reason my little girl decided to wander on over and stick her sweet, soft, innocent little hand under the moving treadmill belt and IT GOT STUCK.

My husband called me at work, in a panic because Claire was completely freaking out and would not stop screaming, even to the point of throwing up. I was trapped, having joined a carpool (which is a post in itself) the week before. From what I could gather there was very little blood, but a lot of skin had been taken off and my poor girl was miserable. There wasn’t anything that looked like it needed to be stitched up, even though her hand was quite mangled, so we didn’t go to the ER. It looked like what it needed was some good old fashioned antibacterial ointment, some time to heal, and some major TLC. That day (and the next few as well) that girl got whatever she wanted in our desperate attempt to bring her any sort of comfort and happiness. Watch movies all day? Sure! You want popsicles for dinner? You got it! Here, have some chocolate too!!

The following days were downright heartbreaking and completely stressful for all of us. Her hand had to be bandaged and protected. The first night I loosely taped some gauze to her hand, slathering it all with antibacterial ointment. The next morning, to my horror, the gauze had dried to her oozing, open wounds. We had to try to force her hand underwater per her doctor’s suggestion (which is painful on such sensitive wounds) and then yank the gauze off. Just typing that sentence makes me ill all over again. I’m sure I don’t even need to describe the howling on my daughter’s part. I raced to the nearest pharmacy in a frenzy, sweeping into my basket non-stick gauze and antibacterial sprays and band-aids with cartoon characters on them and anything else that looked remotely helpful.

In an effort to protect her damaged hand, my girl would keep it in a fist and wouldn’t let anyone or anything near it. While I praised her basic survival instincts and tenacity at keeping us from touching it, that hand absolutely had to be tended to in order to prevent infection and ensure proper healing. Even in her sleep, if I would try to touch her hand to adjust the bandages she would quickly jerk it away. Changing the bandages became a 3-man job that I would dread for over an hour before the appointed time to make it happen with the assistance of one of her grandmothers. Grandma would hold her tightly in her lap, while my husband gingerly pried her shredded fingers open and I sprayed and bandaged and taped as quickly as my inexperienced hands would allow. Claire made sure to fulfill her role in this as well and would scream and thrash as much as she possibly could. Each bandaging session left me feeling guilty for causing her pain, frazzled, and beyond anxious. Luckily, after several days this process was downgraded from a 3-man job to a 2-man operation and now, finally, is one-woman gig. (Lucky me).

Things looked like they were making slow but steady progress on most of her hand, but her 4th finger (the ring finger on her left hand, no less) just is not keeping up. That poor finger got the worst of the damage, it seems, and has had great difficulty healing. For almost a week I couldn’t even get a good look at it because she would not open her hand for anything, and when we’d force her hand open all the thrashing about prevented me from seeing much. A few days ago she FINALLY started opening her hand on command, even patiently allowing me to bandage her up with only minor whimpering, and one part of her finger is still all gooey and oozy and fleshy and mangled and just…awful. On Monday she began acting lethargic and feverish, and I panicked thinking infection had set in at last and called the doctor.

Fortunately, the doctor didn’t seem as panicked as I felt and offered some good advice and prescribed an antibiotic to stave of what looked to be just the beginnings of a bacterial infection. He did say, though, that while it looked like tissue was regenerating in the deepest part of the wound, it appeared there was still dead tissue stuck in there that needed to come out. I’m pretty sure I lost all color at that point, because he quickly assured me I wouldn’t have to scrub it, for heavens sake, but we still would need to care for it. He suggested wrapping it in regular gauze as opposed to the non-stick kind, allowing it to dry and stick to the wound, soaking it in water and then taking it off in an effort to remove the dead tissue with it. My stomach immediately knotted up and I wanted to positively beg him to take my daughter home with him for the next 3 days so he could take care of it, because I was done. I could NOT intentionally cause my daughter any more pain. No no no no no.

The unfortunate thing about being a parent is that you cannot simply drop your child off with someone else when the tough stuff happens. You now must be the hero. I remember reading an article once in my pre-child days where the writer described his young child dealing with some sort of worm/parasite thing? And for weeks when they changed a diaper, they had to search for the appearance of said worm emerging from his child’s bowels, and then pull the worm the rest of the way out. (I really hope you aren’t eating right now.) As the author described it: “it’s a damn horror show.” That’s pretty much what played through my head and provided some tiny bit of comfort as I drove home from the pediatrician. I may have to rip tissue out of my sweet daughter’s hand, but at least I’m not pulling a worm from her butt.

That night, as I placed regular gauze on her hand I couldn’t help but shed a few tears. My dear girl had been so brave, so long-suffering and upbeat through this whole ordeal and still had a ways to go. I was so proud of her. How could I possibly inflict more pain on her?

Happily, this gauze treatment has been relatively smooth sailing. We have to get pretty creative with ways to get her hand wet, since she still doesn’t like doing that, but she has tolerated the bandage changing like a true gem and it looks like we’re making progress. Hopefully a couple more weeks and everything will be back to normal.

So, let’s recap what we’ve learned here:

1. Treadmills and young children do not mix. AT ALL.

2. Don’t put regular gauze on an open and oozing wound immediately after it happening unless you want to make the situation 100 times worse.

3. Dora The Explorer band-aids, in fact, DO make the owie feel a little better. So do popsicles.

4. Being a kid is tough. Being a parent is tough. But we’re all stronger than we think we are.

As for the good news…well, this post is long enough, don’t you think? That will have to wait for another day

It’s all in the wrist

Rachel — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:51:08 +0000

A few months ago I discovered a new workout program that I loved. It was challenging, it was interesting, I could do it at home, and I was seeing results! At last! An exercise routine I loved! Only there was one problem: after a couple of months I started noticing this weird pain in my wrist and hand. The exercises are kind of a bootcamp-style routine, so I was regularly doing push-ups and other weight-bearing exercises on my hands.

I kind of worked through the pain for a bit, thinking I had just tweaked my wrist and that it would heal in a few days. It wasn’t getting better, so I figured I should rest my hand and wrist for a while and start back up in a week or two. Right around that same time, we were running around the house with the toddler, just being silly, and I happened to accidentally run right into my husband with my right hand extended, jamming my wrist. Oh, it was excruciating! The whole next day every single little movement hurt. Typing, writing, eating, driving, dressing, lifting…I couldn’t do any of it. Even without use, the whole area would throb with pain. Being right-handed, this seriously got in the way of things.

I started icing my wrist, hoping that this weird injury would go away. Luckily the pain subsided a bit, but daily activities continued to hurt. I couldn’t put ANY weight on that hand unless I made a fist in order to keep my wrist straight. Little things like chopping vegetables or doing my hair were unpleasant to say the least. (So I just don’t do them! Ha!)

I came to the conclusion that after 10 years of working on the computer I had finally developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Not the end of the world, obviously; there are much worse ailments. But a nuisance. I promised my family that if things didn’t start to feel better by April that I would see a doctor. Naturally, my over-active imagination began to spiral out of control in the following weeks. What if the pain becomes so bad I can’t use my right hand ever again? What if it is arthritis that is slowly spreading through my body, leaving me in a wheelchair by the time I’m 50? What if this is a beginning sign of MS? What if it’s bone cancer? What if…what if….?

Sure enough, over 6 weeks went by and no improvement was made, so I visited a hand and arm specialist. Within a minute of describing my pain and feeling the joints he knew what it was.

“Does this hurt right here?”, he asked, pressing his thumb firmly on the top and center part of my wrist and sending shooting pains through my hand and arm and causing me to momentarily go a bit cross-eyed.

The problem, he said, is not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but a ganglion cyst growing within the joint and putting pressure on the nerves. Nothing dangerous and potentially fixable, but a bit inconvenient.

(FYI- don’t do a Google Image search for ganglion cysts if you are squeamish. Hoo boy! You’re welcome.)

Ganglion cysts are not necessarily uncommon and can present in a variety of ways. You can’t really see mine as mine apparently is smaller and located deeper within the wrist, but those also tend to be more painful.

The doctor injected it with a cortisone shot (ouch!) and told me to give it a month. If it isn’t better in a few weeks, come back for another one. If those don’t work, they can try to aspirate it (drain the fluid) or remove it surgically. However, there is always the risk of the cyst returning later on.

One other method of removal that I read about online is to whack it as hard as you can with a heavy book, rupturing the lining and therefore getting rid of it (until it grows back…). Um, hello? NO.

I also learned that I have what are called “lax joints”, and that my wrists and fingers are hypermobile, or in other words, they have an extended range of motion. The doctor was quite rushed (I waited for an hour in the waiting room) so I wasn’t able to ask him much about it, but he mentioned that things like push-ups are bad for a person with joints like I have. I did some research online and learned about a syndrome called Joint Hypermobility Syndrome that has a crazy array of symptoms, some of them can be very serious (spontaneous rupture of the heart or lungs, anyone?), but it seems like there could be varying degrees of the severity of the symptoms. Anyhoo, if I do indeed have this syndrome, it would explain a LOT over the years. Ever since I was a kid I have seen doctors for ankle, knee, hip, back, fatigue and headache problems and never received any answers. I’ve always felt like I had an “old” body and just dealt with the pain, and often ascribed it to the fact that I danced competitively and was always very active. I’ll have to dive into it all a little more and maybe consult with the doctor again, but it’s almost like a weight off my shoulders to know why. There isn’t much that can be done about it all, but it’s kind of nice to know it isn’t all in my head or that I’m just a big baby, you know?

So. There you have it, whether you wanted to know or not. I’m grateful to have a generally healthy and functional body, and even though this wrist thing isn’t exactly a party, I still consider myself lucky. In the meantime, I have this super-cool accessory to wear:

I have to wear it at night to keep my wrist from being slept-on funny, which kills, and during the day as much as needed to manage pain. You don’t have to tell me, I know it’s way hot. Try not to be jealous

P.S. This is a wretched picture of me that I took a few days ago while chatting with a friend to show her what was up. I feel the need to explain that I had to be at work extra-early that day, hence the hat and bloodshot eyes. But really, let’s face it, it’s not like I really get much fancier for work on days I have more rest.

P.P.S. After sending this pic my friend said of my office ,”It looks like you’re in a closet.” Yes, yes it does.

I’m still here…

Rachel — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 05:01:19 +0000

…just went MIA this last week. Got home from the business trip after a long, loooooonnng day and completely crashed the next day. However, I had to quickly get my act together because my poor little girl, who hadn’t managed to fully recover from her previous illness came down with an even worse virus. By Monday, she was so miserable and coughing so hard that the blood vessels around her eyes had burst and she had little purple splotches covering her eyelids and around her eye sockets. By that night, she was coughing until she would throw up and just the saddest thing you’ve ever seen. I’ll spare you the rest of the heartbreaking details, but before the night was over we were all in tears.

I don’t know how some parents do it. We were crying over seeing our daughter sick with a bad chest cold. How do parents handle having a child with a chronic or serious illness? When I was 10 years old I became seriously ill with a mysterious bacterial infection in my intestines and was hospitalized for a week after being terribly sick for almost a month. My parents cried pretty much that whole week. Now I understand why. There may be nothing more mentally, physically, and emotionally draining as seeing your child suffer and feeling so helpless. I admire so much the families who deal with that kind of stress on a regular basis.

Happily, the little one is on the mend. That awful Monday night she received a priesthood blessing from her father and slept well. The next morning she was still sick, but vastly improved and is almost back to her regular self.

So in short, this week we’ve been in survival mode- trying to find a way to tend to our sick child while still magically fulfilling our obligations at school and work. It’s in these times that I long for the simpler days that will hopefully come in the not-too-distant future. Until then I’ll just appreciate the fact that we are all healthy and whole, and while life is crazy at times, it is still a good one

The dog days of life

Rachel — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:26:12 +0000

The other night I got a text from my sister that read: Hey, we miss Gertie and want to go see her…

This is Gertie:

She was my English bulldog. I say was because she no longer is my dog. Obviously. A year and a half ago we sold dear Gertie to another owner who had a built-in English bulldog buddy named Jada who would become Gertie’s BFF.

She was a cute little doggie, wasn’t she? I mean really, how could you resist a puppy face like that? You can’t, plain and simple. Go ahead and try, I dare you:

Asleep, standing up on the back seat in the car.

In our younger, child-free and reckless days we were possessed with the idea to purchase a puppy. Growing up my family had a German shepherd who was The Best Dog Ever, and over whom my 20-year old self shed bitter, heart-broken tears when she died. Ever since I had wanted a German shepherd of my very own. However, when the husband and I began our puppy-quest a German shepherd was out of the question seeing as we lived in a townhouse with a tiny yard with no room for running. Also out of the question though was a small, quivering dog of the yappy variety, simply because I hate them. A lazy English bulldog seemed like the perfect fit. Plus, they were just too adorable with all those wrinkles and the waddling and what-not.

Finding a bulldog in our area was exceedingly difficult, as it seems 80% of dogs in the state are black labs or yellow labs. After doing loads of research we ended up purchasing a bulldog online and bringing her home with us after our trip to NYC (the plane ride home is a horrific post in itself, which will probably never be posted because I can’t bring myself to revisit that dark place in my mind. Five words for you: dog diarrhea…ON A PLANE. I can’t believe we weren’t placed on the No Fly list after that.)

Gertie was a lover from the get-go and loved nothing more than soaking up attention, eating, and snoring. She was a sweet dog who assumed everyone was her best friend and was obsessed with kids. She often provided plenty of entertainment for us.

Dead asleep…and snoring, of course.

How she usually looked while sleeping (and snoring, as always)

However, in my efforts to be a good dog owner and train her to be a proper if smelly dog, I discovered something: unlike German shepherds who have all manner of smarts about them, this dog had a rock for a brain. No, let me specify- a STUBBORN rock where her brain should be. I suppose she could learn, as was demonstrated whenever I displayed a treat as incentive. She just simply refused to comply any other time. English bulldogs are known for their stubbornness, and hoo-boy, Gertie was stubborn. It was a never-ending battle of wills.

Me? Stubborn? As you can see, I’m a perfect angel…

Most the time I could handle this and chalk it up to a bulldog quirk. However, I could not overlook her refusal to not use the house as her personal patch of grass. She would sit by the back door to be let out when nature called and I would happily let her out to do her business. However, if I wasn’t around to witness this, rather than bark to notify me or heaven-forbid, hold it, she would sniff out a prime piece of carpet and leave a gift for me there. What was even more aggravating is that if I put her outside to do her business and didn’t let her back in right away, she would bark her head off to come back inside but for some reason could not figure out how to bark to go outside. I’ll admit I’m no dog-whisperer, but my best attempts could not train this dog to bark to go outside (or shut up once she was out there).

One day when I was almost 8 months pregnant I came down the stairs to leave for work. When I had gone upstairs earlier to get ready Gertie was dead asleep, as usual, so I had nothing to worry about. When I came downstairs…oh anger and despair and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!! Gertie had evidently felt the need to use the loo, probably sat by the back door for 30 seconds silently, then gave up and deposited her sick stomach/intestinal contents on the carpet, not two inches from the easy-to-clean kitchen floor. However, in what I can only assume was a moment of sheer panic (or utter glee, you be the judge), Gertie decided to step (with all 4 paws, mind you) in the reeking mess and RUN willy-nilly about the living room, leaving a trail behind her.

By some miracle she narrowly missed being driven to the pound right then and there (keep in mind, these sorts of “gifts” were not uncommon. Normally she had the sense to not parade through the mess, but either way my patience with the situation was exhausted.) My combination of a gallon of carpet cleaner and tears could not remove the stains, so I had to call in a professional cleaning service. The dog-lover in me was forever changed that day. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, maybe it was the carnage that was my living room, but a little part of my heart turned cold.

Once the baby was born, life became complicated and Gertie became an afterthought. She was still a lover and wanted to love the new baby to pieces. However, in her attempt to demonstrate her affection for the new family member she would basically try to wiggle her 55 pound body onto the 6 pound baby. Since most of the day was spent caring for baby and not for doggie, and because I couldn’t trust her worth a darn, she would have to be gated into the kitchen where there was no carpet to destroy. Gertie was sad and stressed, which made me sad and stressed, and over time it became evident that maybe a new home would be the best solution for her.

In the end, it was the best thing we could do. She went to a single lady who owned another bulldog and had plenty of love to give. I imagine the two dogs joyously lumbering through fields together, or at least snoring in harmony.

The new owner did say we could visit any time, but we haven’t taken her up on the offer. We don’t want to seem stalkerish or anything, you know? But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to pop by for a little visit (with my entire family in tow…). Would that be weird? I do miss the old gal. What if she doesn’t remember me? (As if she would, she couldn’t seem to remember where to poop and she did that about a hundred times a day.) Either way, I know the husband and I will never forget Gertie. How could you forget a face like that?

Cruise ship adventure- a good reminder for us all

Rachel — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 21:31:46 +0000

The news is abuzz with the story of the disabled Carvinal cruise ship that was brought safely back to port today. Reporters are labeling it a “nightmare”, saying the vacationers’ dreams sunk at sea. If you aren’t familiar with the story, read here for more info. To sum it up, an engine room fire caused the ship to lose all power, resulting in dark cabins, cold meals, and cold water for a few days. Worse, the toilets didn’t work for about 13 hours after the fire. The ship was towed safely back to San Diego today.

Carnival has issued apologies to the travelers, issued refunds including travel costs, and given a free cruise to use in the future. All in all, the cruise line handled the bad situation wonderfully.

Having been on two enjoyable and thankfully uneventful cruises before, I can definitely see how an experience like this would be awful. You’re all hyped up for this great vacation, and bam! No vacation. If you had a cabin without windows that would be pretty sucky. And the non-flushing toilets? Oh yuck, don’t make me think about it too much or I might gag.

But…really? Is it really necessary for the media to hype up this experience so much? Yeah, I get it. It was not remotely fun for the passengers. People had to tolerate some situations they aren’t used to. I know I certainly wouldn’t be happy about it.

But there are people all around the world suffering far worse situations. People who live in huts with dirt floors, who have to walk miles to fetch water every day. People who have never had a toilet in their home. People who have no access to health care or nutritious foods.

There are people living in war zones, with power knocked out for weeks on end and raw sewage running down the streets. People who have to live in fear daily that a missile is going to land on their home or that corrupt soldiers will drag them into the streets and beat them.

That’s a nightmare.

Yeah, the passengers on this ship had to live on less-than-appetizing cold sandwiches for a few days. As one woman in an article griped, “ We have not had a hot cup of coffee in four days.” Excuse me as I take a second to pick up my eyeballs, they rolled so hard they popped right out of my head. I kind of sympathize with the passengers, but they are safe, the ordeal was brief, and they are getting a refund and a free cruise out of it. If you ask me, no real harm done.

I hate how the media sensationalizes these types of things. This was not a disaster. You know reporters are all up in the passengers’ faces. “Tell us your story! Was it awful? How horrific was it?” Meanwhile, the details of families suffering- true suffering- in war-torn countries are censored or ignored completely.

I’m glad the cruise ship passengers made it home safely and quickly. But let’s all try to keep a little bit of perspective in the future.

A rather sad little post. You’ve been warned…

Rachel — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:55:34 +0000

I attempted to sit down on Tuesday and write a post, but I was literally too sleep deprived to even put two coherent words together.

I tried again on Thursday, but I suppose I was still too exhausted and burned out that I could hardly keep myself from banging my head on the keyboard and then falling asleep.

I guess what I’m saying is, it’s been a rough week.

Since the broccoli barf incident, things went steadily downhill until we reached the point where Claire was vomiting 10+ times a day from coughing so hard, lethargic, burning hot, and just the saddest little girl you’ve ever seen. I thought my heart couldn’t break any more, until another puking episode required yet another bath. As I set her down next to the bath to take off her onsie and diaper, her little legs were visibly shaking from being so weak and tears ran down her chubby cheeks. I tried valiantly to fight back the tears myself, but my heart just couldn’t take it anymore. Truly, there is nothing worse than seeing your child in pain or discomfort and not being able to do a single thing about it.

On Sunday we went to the Urgent Care to see if we could get Claire back on the road to recovery, where they took chest x-rays and gave her injections of antibiotics and all sorts of other torturous things, only to discover a couple days later from her regular pediatrician that she was MISDIAGNOSED (AARGH!) and I now have a several hundred dollar medical bill coming my way and my little girl did not get any better.

So in the midst of all the not sleeping and barf cleaning and soothing and fretting and whatnot, Brady’s body decides the sinus/cough thing he had been fighting for a while just wasn’t enough. On Tuesday night he suddenly started experiencing extreme pain in one of his ears, to the point where he was almost in tears. After a few agonizing hours he felt a pop, some relief, and fluid began draining out. I sent him to the doctor the next day and sure enough, he had an ear infection. Later that night, the other ear did the same thing. You should see his pillow after having fluid draining from both ears all night. In fact, I could probably post a picture…what? No? That’s gross? Well, that’s no fun. So anyway, the man can’t hear much but is on the mend at least.

Add to the mix some stressful changes at work, and then summer semester starting for both of us yesterday!

WHEEEE!!!

How’s your week been? Better, I hope!

The fun never stops around here

Rachel — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:14:06 +0000

As the snow started melting a few weeks ago we noticed our tiny backyard looked rather different. We put grass in a couple of years ago, and last fall it looked just fine. Now, it looks like this:

This, my friends, is the work of a vole, a hamster/mouse-like rodent that burrows and eats roots and grass. For a couple of weeks we could not figure out what sort of creature would make runways in the grass. Then one day recently I saw it poking it’s little head out of one of the holes, causing a scramble by my husband to exterminate the rodent. He tried drowning it by sticking the hose down one of the holes, but it soon emerged soaking wet from another hole and began scurrying along it’s little runways, my husband dousing it with water the whole time. The thing suddenly made a dash for the open doorway, where our daughter was sitting in her highchair. With a flying leap Brady jumped onto the patio and sprayed the vole into hiding under our BBQ. When he came down the steps to inspect it, the vole charged him, causing him to let out a scream, leap back onto the patio, and spray it with water more vigorously. The vole then disappeared down another hole and we haven’t seen it since.

Well! Cut to last Saturday. After returning home from the blogger brunch I attended, I was showing my mom (who was kind enough to baby-sit) the damage the vole had done to our backyard. As she was looking out the window she suddenly exclaimed, “Rache! There’s a snake out there!” I dashed to the window, and to my horror there was indeed a snake just chillin’ on the grass. Oddly, the first thing that popped into my mind was well I hope it ate the vole! But then reality hit again: there was a SNAKE six feet away from my house. At least this time it wasn’t IN my house, but if one got in before, this one could too.

My petite, super-brave little mother marched right out there with a rake and told me to get a trash bag. Already shaking, I handed it to her and was about to dash inside, but the wind was blowing and she couldn’t could the bag open and scoop the snake in at the same time and needed help. I tried to pawn it off on Claire, but she turned me down. Slacker! Darn kid needs to start earning her keep around this place.

I hope none of my neighbors were out, because they would’ve overheard this:

mom: Ok, just hold the bag open…come on snake…ooh, yuck…come on…

me: ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!

mom: ok, almost got him! Now, Rache, just hold the bag open-

me: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

mom: Crap! Lost him, ok here we go. Haha! Ok. Rache, hold the bag- yeah, just hold the bag open-

me: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

mom: Rache, come on, just hold the bag open! Just like that! Haha! Ok, I think I’ve got him! Crap, you can’t drop the bag! Just hold it open for a sec…

me: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

As you can tell, I was a huge help.

By some magic we were able to get the horrid thing into a bag and tie it off and throw it in the dumpster down the street. I didn’t know what else to do with it. And it smelled. The snake, that is, not the dumpster. Well actually, yes, the dumpster did too, but you know what I mean. Have you ever heard of a snake smelling bad?

So.Gross.

One step forward, two steps back

Rachel — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:46:23 +0000

Last week I briefly mentioned that in my quest to be more frugal, I was following the advice of the book and tackling my grocery bills. Oh, I so wanted to write a post on the beautiful, organized spreadsheet I had developed in order to compare prices. I wanted to talk about the shock I felt when I realized how much more money I was spending than I should have been. I had big dreams!

But then…we were struck with the thing that can bring a home with children to its knees: illness. With some pretty crappy timing too. Not that any time is particularly convenient to get sick, but still… The husband and I started school again and in an attempt to make our schedules work, coordinated a baby swap a few times a week with a neighbor also trying to finish school. In the midst of the craziness the husband and baby were hit with a doozy of a cold. That’s right, a DOOZY! Poor little Claire especially, and any parent knows that there is little worse than having a sick child.

My schedule for the last week basically looked like this:

4:02 AM- Baby crying, offer comfort.

4:37 AM- More crying, more bleary-eyed comfort offered.

5:15 AM- Baby too congested to sleep. Sit in rocking chair with baby to keep her upright and help her breathe.

6:20 AM- Crawl back into bed.

6:35 AM- Baby cries. Discover diaper leak, urine everywhere. Awesome. Baby in tub.

7:55 AM- Leave for school.

10:00 AM- Baby swap so husband can go to school. Tend to sick child.

10:12 AM- Wipe snot

10:23 AM- Wipe snot

10:37 AM- Restrain child in order to wipe snot

10:42 AM- Give up on keeping snot river under control and accept that everything will be covered in mucous for the next several days.

11:00 AM- Naptime!= homework time for mom

12:45 PM- Baby awake, wipe snot, lunch time, sick and tired husband comes home

1:15 PM- Work, work, work…

8:30 PM- get home, start getting baby ready for bed. Baby’s coughing fit induces BARFING. Baby in tub.

9:15 PM- baby finally asleep. Eat late dinner.

9:35 PM- Lapse into a coma from exhaustion

So! As you can see, there has been no time for organized spreadsheets or meal planning or even checking my email. Besides, had I even printed off one of those lovely spreadsheets I’m pretty sure it would be covered in snot.

Let’s hope this week runs a little more smoothly.

When it rains, it pours…part 2

Rachel — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:26:12 +0000

So as mentioned before, the week (which is now a little ways past…sorry for the delay), continued to be an adventure. Thursday brought more barfing, but Friday and Saturday seemed to promise some much needed normalcy. We were so optimistic that we actually rented a movie, I know, CRAZY right? Somebody stop us, we might go to bed at 10:30! We put the kid down to sleep and went downstairs to our little home theater to enjoy the show.

Not 45 seconds after starting the movie Claire started crying. The hubby ran upstairs to get her, and I decided to follow in order to assist where needed. Now, let me pause a moment to describe our basement. It’s not particularly large, most of it we recently finished. When you come down the stairs you are met by a door to our unfinished laundry/storage room and then there is a short hallway to our entertainment room. As I was running down the hall to the stairs I noticed a grayish rope sticking out under the laundry room door, which I found extremely odd since I didn’t remember us having a gray rope.

I stopped dead in my tracks. We don’t have a gray rope. We especially don’t have a gray rope with scales.

My heart started pounding and I raced up to the baby’s room where the hubby was trying to console her.

With a shaking voice I said, “You need to come downstairs right now…we have a SNAKE in our basement!”

The hubby’s face went white and all three of us raced back downstairs to see that the SNAKE (shudder!) had fully revealed itself and was just chillin’ in our hallway.

We were paralyzed. Never in my entire life have I had any type of reptile in my home. I never really thought I was afraid of snakes, until I saw one in my home. Hubby hates snakes with a passion. Not quite as much as he hates mice and rats, but snakes are right up there for him. We just stood on the steps, mouths agape, and wondered what on earth we were supposed to do next. We couldn’t kill it with a shovel, blood would get all over the carpet. That meant we had to catch it. Ugh!

We took turns watching the snake and running around the house to find something to put it in, however, while it was on my watch it got tired of hanging out in the hallway and quickly slithered back under the laundry room door and into the mess of the storage room, all while I stood there screeching and clutching at the baby.

We couldn’t find it in the storage room. It really seems to have disappeared into some small hiding space, and we’re too afraid to go poking around with much gusto. We created an entire fortress around the base of the door in an attempt to keep it from escaping and prayed that it would go out the way it came in (which is a mystery to us, since we have no idea how it got in). My brave sisters came over the next day and poked around, but we couldn’t find anything.

So now we still have a snake in our basement. It’s been almost 2 weeks. Doing laundry is a two man job as one person has to stand guard as the other throws clothes around as fast as humanly possible. The sucky thing about snakes is there is no real easy way to get rid of them. You have to either catch it or kill it. There’s no such thing as snake traps or snake poison. Yuck yuck yuck! Someone pointed out that at least we won’t have mice in our basement. Yeah, way to see the bright side…we don’t have mice, we just have a 20 inch long SNAKE! No biggie! The person who pointed that out is apparently some sort of snake enthusiast and said that it’s no big deal, we just have to hope that it isn’t a female that is going to give birth to a whole LITTER of snakes IN OUR HOUSE! Yeah, no big deal.

Hang on for a second while I hyperventilate.

So, there you have it. Snake in the house, mystery to where it has gone. Possible infestation of baby snakes on the horizon.

So how are your holidays shaping up?