Blog
April 28 Brandon's dad is going out of town for the weekend, also. That means Brandon is going to be extra busy handling Steve's clients if anything comes up. Brandon told me he needed my help arranging care for the girls while I'm gone. That didn't go over too well: I sort of view that as being part of his responsibility for the weekend. But I've called babysitters for him anyway. Part of me thinks I should stay home, that this is just the wrong weekend to go. But I desperately need to get away. I haven't left Brandon and the girls since this same trip last May. I'm at my wit's end with all of it - kids, husband, house, work - and I need a break. I asked Brandon if I should stay home, not sure how I would react if he said yes. Fortunately he said, "God NO! I wouldn't be able to look at you if you stayed home because of me." All the same, I do feel guilty about leaving a sick child behind. Not that Brandon would worry about it at all if the positions were reversed. I'm hoping I'll get over the guilty feeling once I'm sitting on the dock at Heidi's parents' house, margarita in hand.
April 27 At 10:00 last night she came out of her room saying her head hurt - a sure sign that she has a fever. I took one look at her and freaked out. She was bright red, from head to toe. I took her temperature and it was 104.1. We have friends whose three-year-old daughter had seizures when her temperature was over 104. Brandon was at a friend's house watching a movie, and I called him in a panic. He calmed me down enough so that I was able to give Ella advil and wrap her in cool cloths. Within half an hour her fever came down two degrees and she wasn't bright red. I sat up with her for an hour, checking her temperature every half hour until it went down to 101. Then I tucked her back in bed. At some point in the night she climbed into bed with me. Poor Brandon sat up until 2:00 am, forcing himself to stay awake, so he could give her the next dose of advil. Then I woke up a little after 2:00 and gave her another dose, not realizing he had already given her some. I guess the extra didn't hurt her. She still has a fever this morning and is saying that her stomach hurts. I called the doctor's office, and they're having me bring her in for a check. I'll feel better once he takes a look at her. Once she started saying her stomach hurt I was imagining something dire like appendicitis. At any rate, it's going to be a long few days while she gets better. It's hard to have a sick little kid. They don't make good patients.
April 24 I did circuits on Monday with my very pregnant friend Shannon. She's about ready to give up on them, mostly because she can't do push-ups or sit-ups any more and squats and lunges are getting harder and harder. I guess it will be just be me and Cristina. Wednesday we did an easy 4 miles at the lake. It was horribly humid the whole time, which means I had a tough time breathing. Friday I ran at 5:30 with Liz and Shelly - our usual 5-mile loop that's always harder than I think it's going to be. The first half is all down hill, but the second half is all up hill. It's a sneaky up hill, too. You don't realize you're going up until you start wheezing. Liz is a great hill runner, so she always sets the pace on the up hill, and I struggle to keep up. This week she seemed to go exceptionally fast. I managed to run on Saturday for the first time in weeks. I've had a hard time getting motivated to get up and get to the trail to run; I don't know why. I was afraid yesterday that I'd be running by myself, but Cristina, Moya and Phil showed up at the last minute. Moya was still recovering from the Boston Marathon, so Cristina, Phil and I ran an easy three with her. Then Cristina and I headed out onto the streets for another loop. We chose to do part of the Windsor loop, and unfortunately it was the hilly part. But we finished strong, and I felt pretty good about myself. Maybe this is the beginning of my comeback!
April 20 Ella is used to being the biggest and oldest when she plays. She's the oldest of the kids here in the neighborhood by a few months, and she's one of the oldest in her class at school. When she plays with others, she's usually in charge of what goes on. But not yesterday. She climbed the tree, and Mattias climbed up after her. She climbed down, and he followed her. Then he chased her around a bit. When he caught her, he flipped her up in the air and carried her around. Her eyes were HUGE the whole time. I told her she could tell Mattias to stop if he got too rough, and she did once. Mattias stopped chasing her, but a few minutes later she sidled up next to him and egged him into chasing her again. By the time Brian and Mattias left, Ella was worn out. She sagged on to the sofa with a huge sigh. Brandon asked if Mattias had played a little too roughly with her, and she said yes. I think it was a good experience for her, though. It showed her that she can't always be the boss when playing. Lily, on the other hand, loved Mattias. She followed him around saying, "Tias! Tias!" He was very sweet to her and played with her on the trampoline. Brian and Mattias are supposed to come over for dinner tomorrow night, and it will be interesting to see how Ella reacts to Mattias on the second visit.
April 13 I've been very frustrated with my running lately. I took pretty much all of February off - one week of planned rest, two weeks of illness - and I don't feel like I've ever come back from it. I'm lucky right now if I get in three runs a week. And when I do manage to run, I struggle to make it through what should be fairly easy courses. I've gotten to the point where I don't want to run with anyone because I'm so slow and sluggish. At least that's what I feel like. The only thing that's been keeping me going lately is our Monday morning circuits. We warm up on the trail and then head to the track for some strength work. We run a 400 and then do sets of step-ups, squats, lunges, crunches and push-ups. It's a hard work out and a nice break from the same old Town Lake Trail. This week's set of four circuits nearly killed me, which is a bad sign. I had felt like I was getting stronger. It seems like things keep getting in the way of my running - sick kids, traveling husband, work, lack of sleep, asthma. They're all conflicts that I can't really do anything about, but they still frustrate me. I have one friend who is obsessive about her running - if she misses one day, she's out there the next come hell or high water - and I'm starting to understand that obsession. I'm about ready to do the same. If I can't make a regularly scheduled run, I'll have to figure out a way to run another day. Otherwise I might just go crazy.
April 12 I got frustrated with Will in the World. So little is known about Shakespeare that the author speculates a lot, which annoys me. Don't tell me what Shakespeare MIGHT have done, tell me what he did do. However, the book contains a lot of interesting information about Elizabethan life, especially what it was like to live in London at the time. I don't know if it's Roberts' writing style or the subject manner, but I'm having trouble staying engaged in Founding Mothers, which is a shame. The women she writes about did pretty incredible things given the times they lived in. Many of the wives of the founding fathers of our country kept the family home, farm and business going, all while having babies every two years and occassionally having to escape from invading British soldiers. They were strong, independent women. I just can't get through the book. Maybe it's just meant to be read a little bit at a time. I'm really enjoying the biography of Queen Victoria. I picked it up at Half Price Books the other night. It's part of the reason I've set aside the other books. I don't know much about her, other than she had a lot of children and reigned for a long time. She's just ascended the throne, and I can't wait to read what happens next. I'm not very far into the biography of Louis XIV. I started reading it in the car the other day while I was waiting for Ella after school. I'll get back to it once I finish with Victoria. I also picked up The Great Gatsby and Room with a View at Half Price Books. I haven't read Gatsby since college, and I want to see what I think of it now. My mom loves the book, but I remember not being that impressed with it and hating to have to write so many papers on it. Room with a View was my absolute favorite book and movie for a long, long time. But I haven't read it in ages. I wonder what I'll think of it now that I'm an old married lady with kids.
April 10 I had so much fun watching and listening to Ella and Lily play together. When the get along with each other, it's wonderful. They spent most of their time in their sandbox making birthday cakes for each other. Mostly, this involved filling buckets with sand and jamming little twigs into the top for candles. Then they would sing Happy Birthday together at the top of their lungs. I ignored the fact that Lily was dumping sand in her hair and in her shorts and in her shirt and that Ella was helping and just let them play. Of course, today is a completely different story. Lily has been in tears more times than I can count because of something Ella has done. And Ella is sending Lily on errands that she knows Lily will get in trouble for - like getting a pillow from our bed to use in their "Little House," which is disgustingly dirty. Lily had a tantrum because I told her that she couldn't take a pillow out there. She cried and said, "Ella told me to get pillow." She hasn't figured out yet that Brandon and I outrank Ella around here. Following Ella's directions can only lead to trouble sometimes. She'll have to figure out the pecking order through trial and error I suppose.
April 6 Ella, who has always been strong willed, seems to be especially so these days. Before Spring Break and her surgery we were doing really well together. We were going on little "mama-Ella" adventures, just the two of us, and she was such a charming child to spend time with. But lately, she's been anything but. I hear several times a day that she doesn't want to see me ever again. When she's particularly mad, she tries to hit, kick and spit at me. She's spending a lot of her afternoons in time-out. We went through a spell like this a few months ago, and I bought a slew of parenting books - How to Raise the Happiest Toddler on the Block, How to Raise a Spirited Child and the like. I started reading some, but grew frustrated with them because they were too new-agey for me. But I did take bits and pieces of their advice and put them to use, with some results. Given Ella's behavior these past few weeks, I'm going to have to go back to the books because doing things like talking softly so she has to quiet down to hear me, getting down on her level to talk to her, and taking her aside in public situations to discuss her behavior isn't working. I need some new tips. To top it all off, Lily - the "Angel Baby" - is hitting the Terrible Twos. I thought maybe I had escaped the worst of it because she's been so easy going so far, but she's changing. She actually throws herself on the floor and screams when I tell her no. And many days, when I ask her something, the first word out of her mouth is no, even if she means yes. It's actually quite funny at times: "Lily, do you want a cookie?" "NO!" pause "YES!" It's like she can't help but say no to everything. She's also started crying when she's frustrated or mad or when I don't understand immediately what she wants. So it seems like she spends most of the day crying while I follow her saying "I can't understand what you want when you cry." And when she's not crying, she wants me to carry her around with me. It's incredibly hard to clean the house and put away dishes and fold laundry with a velcro toddler stuck to my hip. Even offering to sit on the floor and play doesn't work. She wants to be in my lap the whole time; it's incredibly difficult to set up Thomas train tracks with her in my lap. While I'm loathe to admit this to Brandon, who would claim victory, the situation is hard enough right now that I'm rethinking my desire to have a third child. If I had a third in the house now, I'd be an even bigger wreck than I already am.
April 5 I hate to admit it, but I think I've taken on too much right now. I have three projects with Holt going, plus the girls' school carnival this weekend, for which I'm organizing two booths, and a 20-item to-do list for Danskin. Eek. I always hate to say no to project from Holt because I never know when the next one is going to come along. It seems to always be feast or famine with them. Actually, if all I had to work on right now was Holt stuff, I'd be in good shape. One project isn't taking me as much time as the editor thought it would. So I'm getting paid an obscene amount of money for not much work. I feel like I'm missing something because it's so easy and taking so little time. Part of me wants to tell him how little time it's taking me, but every freelancer I know says not to. One of the other projects won't get rolling until late next week. But I have to figure out how to do PowerPoint before then. I said I could work it based on my father telling me it was a piece of cake. I hope he's right. Once the school carnival is over, I'll be much happier. I think I'm worried because we've done so little preparation so far. It's completely against my nature to leave things like this until the last minute, but that's what we're doing. So between now and Saturday I have to cut out about 20 fish for the fishing pond and nail golf tees into a block of styrofoam for the spray away game. I think I can handle that. The Danskin stuff is what has me most worried. I'd been fretting because I haven't really done anything for it yet, but Marion e-mailed me a huge list today of things she wants knocked out this week. It mostly means a lot of time on the phone, but I hate talking on the phone. If I could conduct all of the business via e-mail, I'd be so happy. In the meantime, I'm worn to a frazzle and not feeling like I'm being a very good wife, mother or me. But I'll keep plugging along, one day, one project, at a time.
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