Thankful Day 25

Today I am thankful for 5 1/2 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
May not seem like much, but it is the most I'd had in longer than I can remember.

Liam and Lexy both currently have double ear infections. This on the coattails of the single ear infections (and prescribed antibiotics) they had last week.

Needless to say, I've spent a lot of the nighttime hours awake, playing the role of comforter and nurse.

Last night, Bill took over with Liam and let me sleep.
It was glorious.

And I feel like a new woman.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

The New 'Do

In case you didn't crack the code of Bill's previous post (which he has now deleted), Lexy and her little scissors decided to cut all of Tori's hair off last Thursday afternoon.

I was tutoring, and the girls were both supposed to be asleep. I had left out Lexy's Arts & Crafts bin on her little table figuring she might wake up sooner and would need something to occupy her. Although she had a episode with a friend's doll's hair last spring, she really hasn't had any issues with the rules for scissors, so I didn't think it would be a problem.

So, apparently neither of them ever went to sleep, and Lexy had invited Tori out into the family room to do Arts and Crafts.... ON HER HAIR.

They both walked up to the table while I was tutoring with huge grins on their faces saying, "Look Mom! Look at Tori's hair!"

I was in total shock, as was the girl I was tutoring. We were speechless. Thankfully, I had just heard a talk that morning at MOPS about how we shouldn't be yelling/screaming at our kids. Since the message was still fresh in my mind, I heeded the advice and chose silence instead of screaming.

I took Tori back to bed. Lexy resumed her arts & crafts (ON PAPER, this time), and I finished tutoring (although my mind was a little preoccupied, as you can imagine!).

When I had finished tutoring, I made a 911 Hair Emergency call to a hair-stylist friend and she said she could try to fix it at her house right then. It was a tough fix, since there wasn't much hair left to work with.

So, here she is in her new 'do. It's cute.... but clearly, not a hair cut I would EVER in a MILLION YEARS give a 2 year old.



Since then, Bill and I have had plenty of discussion with Lexy about WHY she would cut her sister's hair. Bottom line, we think there might have been a touch of jealousy over her curls. Which is even a BIGGER parenting issue to tackle. Ugh.

We don't believe in the concept of karma, but we did end up in at Urgent Care on Friday night for Lexy, who jumped off the couch and hit her forehead on the edge of a chair resulting in a little, but deep, cut that, thankfully, didn't require stitches. She is currently sporting about 8 steristrips (sp?) on her forehead and has been told to keep in dry for 5 days. I guess swimming is out of the question!

The good news in all of this is that Tori seems totally unfazed by the fact that she now looks completely different. In fact, those pictures were taken Friday afternoon when she was looking at herself in our bedroom mirrors, admiring her new look. I think she might even LIKE it.

I just hope it grows a little before we take our family Christmas picture....

The New Mantra

And, no, it has nothing to do with the Dodgers. :)


Lexy's prayers have been answered! :)
(She's been asking God for a boy since she found out I was pregnant.)

"Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him." Psalm 127:3

I'm debating between "I want a Re-do" or just straight and to the point wth "Lipstick"

It's been a day. And it's only 1:15pm.
Oh, there are MANY hours of parenting left today. Pray for me.

Whilst outside cleaning up DOG POOP that mysteriously ended up all over the patio instead of the grass, where it can usually be found, I realized that Tori was being strangely quiet, which is NEVER good thing with her.

I had already de-robed her outside since she has the uncanny INability to avoid dog mess if it's within 200 feet of her. I sent her inside while I tended to the 8 dog paws that needed to be cleaned off in addition to the patio itself, which could still use a good scrub down, but that will have to wait.

So I peak inside and find her sitting at the toy box holding a little tote of cosmetics (lotion, lipstick, chapstick, hand sanitizer, etc.) that I keep in my purse. This particular tote is a favorite of hers, and I've had to rip it from her clutches once or A HUNDRED times before. And just for the record, my purse, from which the tote came, was sitting on top of the kitchen table, in the very middle of the table, unreachable unless a certain little one climbed up ONTO the table.

So.... There she is sitting at the toy box absolutely COVERED in lipstick. It's everywhere. Hands, Face, Shirt, Hair. And remarkably, no where else. I may or may not have screamed at her as she walked toward the bathroom and started to try and touch things with her lipstick-caked hands. She may or may not have burst into tears. I feel/felt horrible, but my walls are still white. My sweatshirt, on the other hand, is now sort of mauvey-rose all over the sleeve.


This child. (shaking my head)
She certainly has a fondness for cosmetics.

And the funniest part about all of this (if you can even find humor in it) is that my FIRST thought was, "Oh my gosh, this is so blog worthy, and darn it, OUR CAMERA IS BROKEN!!"
So you'll have to forgive the grainy quality of the pictures-- they're from my cell phone. And they really don't do all the lipstick justice. Just trust me that is was ALL OVER her. In chunks, really.

But at least the moment was captured for your entertainment.

Tune in next week for 'Fun with Eye Shadow.' (Please God, no.)

Mascara, part Deux

I got quite a lot of in-person response to the original Mascara post, so I thought I'd keep my audience happy and let you know it happened AGAIN.

(I know, I know, I should have learned my lesson and put the make-up bag out of her reach. And I am hear to tell you: IMPOSSIBLE. She will find a way to get to it.)

This time she seems to have figured out that mascara goes on eyes.

And apparently she's taking make-up lessons from Ozzy Osbourne.


Babydoll also got in on the action. As did her cute little NON-REMOVABLE WHITE outfit.

Also lucky enough to be included in this make-up session (although not pictured): Doggie.

She had this big, black smudges up by her eyes, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she must have gotten in to. And then I realized what it was.
That poor dog puts up with a lot.

Mascara

I think I've mentioned once or A MILLION TIMES how Tori likes to get into things.

This is how I discovered her one day last week.
(She was all smiles, strutting around all proud of herself until I got the camera out.)
Apparently she thinks mascara goes on lips.

And this one is just overkill, but I just had to include it because, OH MY GOSH, her eyes look like they're GREEN!!!! Kind of. Hey, they don't look hazel in this one, okay? :)

Thank Goodness They're Cute

We've had one of those mornings today.
Lexy decided to shampoo Tori's hair with Peppermint Oil Foot Cream.
And then a few hours later, Tori decided to pour an entire bottle of baby oil on the carpet.

Hence, the title.

We sure know how to have a good time...

We are really hoping that we are on the tail end of our own Puke Fest 2008, which has been Live! and in Full Effect! here since Wednesday night.

Sweet little Tori was the first victim. Bill and I spent the better part of Wednesday night and wee hours of Thursday morning trying to make her comfortable-- never without a puke pail at arm's length. Watching your 16-month-old throw up has got to be the worst thing ever. She just stared at us with her big .... blue? green? hazel? (we're not sure yet) eyes pleading for us to "Make it stop!" I felt so helpless.

Thursday seemed relatively calm-- I thought maybe we had all dodged a bullet. Tori seemed much better, and of the rest of us appeared healthy. Then Thursday afternoon, Tori began puking again. If there was any humor at all in the situation, it was watching her BEG for food all day long. This is my ferocious eater, after all. And the few saltines I had given her were just not cutting it. Who knows, maybe I should have just let her eat to her heart's content. May have prevented the numerous dry heaves later in the day.

Friday rolled around and shouted "LET THE FESTIVITIES BEGIN!"
At about 11am, I realized that my stomach didn't feel quite right.... I laid down to take a nap at 3:00, and by 4:00 I was puking. Lexy woke up from her nap about that time and went outside with Bill to check on their vegetable garden, and then I heard all this scurrying around by Bill. Lexy was throwing up. Good times, people. Good times.

Thank God Bill was still healthy at this point. I really don't know what I would have done if I would have had to take care of both girls-- one of whom was PUKING-- while I felt so horrible.
I just kept saying, "I'm so sorry!" to him as he rinsed out puke pails and dealt with Lexy.

He had his hands full, to say the least. And poor Tori, who is now seemingly healthy, wasn't making life any easier. She wanted to be right at his side during all the action. And she also wanted to EAT! since it'd had been a while. Again, thank God Bill was healthy, because there was no way I could have made her dinner. He ended up putting her to bed at 6:45pm just so he wouldn't have to keep her hands out of the toilet and such anymore. (She's still asleep at 8:37am as I type. I guess she needed it.)

Of course, you guessed it, Bill started feeling sick around 10pm, and then all bets were off. Misery all around.

I pretty much bed-hopped between the couch, my bed, Lexy's bed, and the blow-up air mattress Bill had set up in the family room all night. And I use the word "night" very liberally considering that I started napping at 3pm, and never really got out of bed from that point on (except to visit the restroom myself, or hold a bucket for Lexy). Longest night of my life, hands down.

My dreams all night, which were frequent, seemed to revolve around liquids. Dehydrated, perhaps? I swear I had visions all night that looked like this:

I had my first sip of water at 4am this morning, and so far, so good.
With the exception of Bill, who is still down for the count, we all seem to be feeling better today. Although I have NO DESIRE to eat anything yet. That's always a good barometer for me.
Now, if I could just get a Haz-Mat team over here to clean up the mess. And a maid to do LOTS of laundry.

Silver linings abound:
Thank God it's the weekend!
Thank God Bill and I rotated shifts of sickness!
Thank God it was JUST the flu!
Thank God we have indoor plumbing!
Thank God we'll all be healthy by Thanksgiving! (our extended family will be especially glad about this one since we gave the gift of flu to everyone two Thanksgivings ago)
And so many more....

Here's hoping that you and your family stay healthy this season!

And then the poop hit the fan.... Literally.

We had quite an interesting morning a couple of days ago-- not for the faint of heart or weak-stomached. You've been warned.

The morning started off like any other... Lexy up around 7:30, off to watch "Monkey" (Curious George), as I trailed behind. Around 8:45, I heard the cries of Tori signaling she was awake. As I neared her door, I could already smell it.

"Oh no! She's got diarrhea," I thought.

I opened the door and turned the light on slowly to find a sight no mother ever wants to see. Although not diarrhea, I think it was worse: Tori, standing diaper-less, COVERED in her own poop. She had it in her hair, she had it mashed on her body, she had it CAKED on her hands (and under her too-long fingernails that were in desperate need of a trim). It was all over her feet, and smeared on every blanket and Teddy bear in her crib. And then there was the actual poop, sitting there innocently in her bed. And the thousand-and-one little crumbles ALL OVER THE SHEETS.

I immediately picked her up and held her at arms distance. She was crying hysterically, and I soon realized why. As she handed me her pacifiers, I noticed that THEY, TOO, were covered in poop. And, (retching as I write this) there seems to be clear evidence that said pacifiers had been in her mouth. GAG. More on that later.

I rushed her to the bathtub and began dousing her with water. Her tears continued streaming down her face and I threw water at every orifice. Poor thing was probably thinking, "What did I do to deserve this?"

All the while, curious Lexy is peeking her head in to see what all the commotion is about. I yelled "DON'T! TOUCH! ANYTHING!, Lexy. There's poop on everything." Words I would come to regret using as I heard them repeated to me ALL DAY LONG. ("I can't pick up my toys, Mom, there's poop on them!")

I got Tori all cleaned up, trimmed her fingernails immediately, dressed her and then decided to tackled the war zone called her bed. EVERYTHING-- despite tags warning otherwise-- became WASHABLE in that moment. And Clorox bleach became my new best friend.

The worst of the worst was discovered several hours later when I went to retrieve the pacifiers soaking in straight bleach. Three out of 4 of them had come clean, but one seemed to still have poop on the nipple part... STRANGE, I thought. And that's when I realized that the poop was INSIDE the nipple.

Yes, it's verified. My daughter ATE HER OWN POOP.
I guess I would be crying hysterically, too.

And thanks to this blog, the only thought running through my head as I meticulously cleaned was, "This is going to make an awesome post."

In the day and a half I've had to process this, I've come up with 100 titles to this post. My initial thought was something along the lines of "Just when you think you've got this motherhood thing figured out..."

or

"And then came the second child..."

Lexy never had any poop escapades. I've heard other friends describe their own horrific encounters with excrement, but I thought I had successfully avoided it with child #1, so child #2 would be a cinch. HA.

And I guess that this all just goes to show me that every kid is different. And that I don't have this motherhood thing all wrapped up yet. And I should NEVER, EVER put Tori to bed with easy access to her diaper. :)