The Kidlet Chronicles

Miss Crankypants

Good grief.  The kidlet was in an ultra-whiney mood all evening, starting about 5, that was reminiscent of those days pre-speech.  "I'm tiiiiyyyeerrred", she repeated over and over at dinner while holding her head up over her bowl of pasta.  She hardly ate a thing.  Then she started whining about her toe and how it was 'bleeeeeeding evvwwywhere' where, upon closer inspection, it was not.  Soon after, it was her knee that was hurting, apparently so much that it was near-broken and she couldn't walk.  That was, until one of the cats appeared and she chased after it.  I asked what happened to the owie knee and right on cue, she started limping again.

I finally gave up trying to force feed her dinner and decided that since she was so tiiiiiyyyyyered, that I would get her ready for bed earlier than usual because oh lordy, I couldn't handle the moaning and groaning much longer.  She was quieter than usual while I read her stories and after a few minutes yappity yapping, she was out by 8 - a whole half hour earlier than usual.  Yippee!!  Sweet sweet silence!

A couple odd things before I forget:

Every night for the past few nights, right before she goes to sleep, she holds Blue out to me butt-first and asks 'Mama, is this Blue's tag on his bum?'.  I say yes.  She says 'okay', rolls over and goes to sleep.  Oookaayyy...

Also - the kidlet hasn't had a nightmare for the longest time (at least, not one where she's woken up) but sometimes the next morning she'll tell me about a dream she had that SOUNDS like a nightmare to me.  One such dream that she's mentioned a couple times involved a girl who opened her mouth wide, really really wide, and swallowed the kidlet whole, then closed her mouth and the kidlet was stuck in her tummy.

Creepy!

The second one freaked me out - it was this morning, in fact.  Apparently, last night she had dreamed about two men on fire and told me about how they had turned black.

WTH?

She doesn't seem overly freaked out about these dreams and tells me about them matter-of-factly, almost like she's telling me what she did at school that day, but aren't those dreams a little freaky for a 3.5 year old?  I mean, where did she get the whole burning and charring thing?  I don't watch scary TV in front of her (in fact, I rarely watch TV in the daytime and if I do, I'm surely not watching people getting burnt to death if she's around) and I'm thinking she probably didn't learn it from Treehouse.  So what gives?  There's a slight (very slight) chance she may have caught a glimpse of something while we've channel surfing, or caught a few minutes of something before we had a chance to change it, but I highly doubt it, since as soon as violence appears, the channel is changed.  If someone is on FIRE, we don't wait until they're CHARRED and DEAD before changing it.

Have any of your kids told you about freaky, out of the ordinary dreams?  Is it just their overactive imaginations?  I had frequent nasty nightmares as a kid (and some wicked ones as an adult, though MUCH less frequently and not nearly as scary).  I really hope the kidlet doesn't suffer the same!  I eventually (after many sleepless nights throughout my childhood) learned how to shut them off, but it only worked for the recurring ones, as I could recognize the beginning of them and just 'change the scenery'.  Obviously something I can't teach a 3 year old.  But where is she getting this stuff from?

Big girl bed

Dear cold, you can go away ANY DAY NOW.  Please.  I'm no longer requiring cold medication 24/7 but I still feel lethargic and snuffly and have this nasty little tickly cough that refuses to desist and loves to act up in the middle of the freaking night when I'm TRYING TO SLEEP.  It's been over a week now.  I'm done.  'kay?  Thanks.

In other news, the kidlet has a new 'big girl bed'.  She has been complaining about her toddler bed for some time now, saying it was uncomfortable, and she's been spending at least half of every night in our bed, so it was time.  Mom and Dad helped me pick it up on Sunday (it wouldn't have fit in the truck) and between the three of us (but mostly Dad), it only took a couple hours to put together (whatever happened to furniture that came already assembled?  Oh yeah, you have to pay more for that...).  I had also picked her up new bedding and a new, fluffy pillow.  Her room looks great.  Now if I could just do something with ours....

Yes, it takes up the entire length of her room.  Her room is teeny (8x9, I think) but there's still room for her easel (you can see a part of it on the right) and a bookshelf to hold her eleventy million books and floor space to chuck toys on.  We had to ditch the dresser (actually, it's in our room now because we desperately needed it) which is why I got her a mate's bed with the drawers beneath for all her clothes (which she can now grab herself instead of standing on a chair trying to reach into her dresser drawers.  Maybe one day she'll learn to dress herself, too).  Hopefully by the time she's in high school and in need of more space (and like, a desk or something), we'll have torn this wee little house down and built a much bigger one.  One can dream, right?

The first night was a bit rocky - she got up three times for various reasons (had to pee, got her blankets all tangled up, lost one of her stuffies) but after that, she's been sleeping in her own bed through the night (other than getting up to use the washroom at 5:30am - ugh - can she not just wait until 7 rolls around?) for three nights in a row!  Success!

We've planned a wee (very wee - one night (and what is it with me and the word 'wee' tonight?)) trip to Victoria this weekend and I'm totally looking forward to it.  The kidlet hasn't been on a ferry  since our last Victoria trip at 18 months old, so she'll be stoked and therefore, I will be stoked too.  Now I'm just crossing my fingers for no rain but we all know how THAT works out.

As an aside, this premiere week is killing me.  I rarely, if ever, watch TV other than House, MD religiously and Heroes on occasion.  But when I'm sick?  I'm a television junkie.  Television is cold meds, a heated blanket and a warm cup of NeoCitran all rolled up into one.  And I've been staying up way past my bedtime watching it (after 11pm, people - late for me!) which is why I'm not necessarily completely blaming this stupid cold for my fatigue this week.  Monday night was Heroes (awesome) and... oh yeah, Journeyman (which I only watched 'cause it was right after Heroes - it was good, but I'll need a few more episodes before I decide if it's a must-see or not, especially considering it's on at 10 and that is SO LATE).  Last night was House (awesome - House & Wilson, how I missed thees) and Californication (I love me some Duchovny.  Hey - that rhymes!).  Tonight, I decided to check out the Bionic Woman, having been a fan when I was younger.  Not quite sure if I liked it or not.  The acting - meh.  The storyline - meh.  The lead actress has gorgeous blue eyes but did they really need to focus on them for 95% of the show?  I always like the female butt-kicking roles (Buffy, Alias, Dark Angel), but this one didn't really do it for me.  Right after that was (is, as I left during a commercial and haven't gone back) 'Life' and I like the quirky lead guy but really, just another detective show and again, on too late.  And I can't stop thinking about the lead guy as Jonesie from Dreamcatcher.  So I think I shall go to bed and read and try to wean myself off of television again.  At least until tomorrow night...

 

Ah, sweet misery

Since the kidlet started preschool two weeks ago, it was only a matter of time until she got infected with some kind of virus and only a matter of time until she passed it on to me.  I was feeling quite crappy on Monday, worse on Tuesday morning, and after a full 11 hours at the golf course, 7 of which were spent in either the rain or freezing cold wind (how did it get so freaking cold all of a sudden?), by Wednesday, I was done for. 

As I've worked a bazillion overtime hours these past few weeks, I decided that I was owed a sick day, so I spent the entire day yesterday on the couch feeling oh so crappy.  My sinuses threatened to burst.  My head, explode.  My stomach churned and caused a disgusting taste to linger in my mouth.  I was alternately hot, then cold.  I just wanted to sleep.  All day long.

HA!  But I have a 3.5 year old that demands attention.  That wants to climb all over me while I'm moaning on the couch.  That needs to go pee as soon as I drift off to sleep.  That wants to be fed or wants juice or wants a different movie or wants me to play with her.  I took Advil Cold & Sinus and it didn't really help much.  Maybe eased a bit of the pressure, but I was still majorly hurting in the sinus area.

I seriously COULD have slept all day if I actually COULD have.  I even got desperate enough to call my mother and beg her to come take care of me, but she has succumbed to the evil that is working full-time and therefore has no time for such nonsense.

Just kidding Mom.  (sniff cough hack sputter moan  WWAAAHHH)

So I grudgingly made as little effort as possible in keeping the kidlet placated.  She watched a lot of movies yesterday and ate a lot of convenience foods.  I didn't even sit at the computer (okay, maybe for five minutes but that was all I could do).  That's when you know I'm REALLY sick.

Today didn't start off so well either.  We slept in until 8 - I know! - then it was a mad panic getting the kidlet ready for school and breakfasted by 8:40.  I managed to put my contacts in and change out of my jammies, but I went make-up less and bedheaded - also a sure sign of how sick I am.

I pretty much hung out on the couch while she was at school but I did have some work to do, so I got up every so often to sit at the computer, until my head threatened to fall off my shoulders, upon which I would lie back down again.  I tell you, the half-block walk to pick her up from school (and take her to school for that matter) was excruciating.

I did happen to find some Sinutab in the cupboard and they helped a little more but made me sick to my stomach.  Probably because I hardly ate a thing all day.  Around 2, I started getting hungry, a sign I was on the mend.  Hungry for Burger King, something I rarely eat.  And as we have absolutely no food here whatsoever, I had to do a quick grocery shop.

So I packed the kidlet up, still hadn't showered, still went makeup-less, still had bedhead, and headed for the grocery store, the one next to the Drive-Thru.  I swear it was the quickest grocery shop I've ever done, mostly because the entire time I felt like I was going to heave.  Didn't help much when the kidlet kept pushing me in the stomach.  Oooomph.

I made it through in record time without spewing, then headed to BK to grab a chicken burger, fries and a pop for me, and a nugget meal for the kidlet (yes, I, who swore she would never feed her kid fast-food, have done so several times now, usually out of desperation like today).  After I ate, I felt 50% better.  I even cleaned up the kitchen, only because there was no counter space left.  Then I laid back down again to recuperate from the huge effort.

Then I played hide and seek with the kidlet for a half hour or so, gave her a bath, and now I'm starting to feel queasy again.  Thank goodness it's close to bedtime.  I just want to lie down.  I have a big day tomorrow, consisting of taking the kidlet to the dentist, to gymnastics right after, working right after that, then a girl's dinner out after that.  So I'm crossing my fingers that another 10 hour sleep or so will nip this dastardly cold in the bud.

I hate being sick.  I have no time for it.  The kidlet won't allow it.  I even tried to sneak away to my bedroom to nap this afternoon but she found me in about two minutes flat and continued to climb all over me.   Sigh....

The hostess with SO not the mostest

I had my parents over for dinner last night, and as I wasn't feeling so hot, decided that instead of making a 'home-cooked' meal or going out to a restaurant, neither of which enthused me, I stopped by the handy dandy M&M Meat Shop to pick up a prefab dinner.  I grabbed a Shepherd's Pie.  There were two sizes, a smaller one and one twice as big.  I went for the smaller one as there was only going to be three adults and the kidlet, who doesn't eat all that much at a sitting anyway.

It wasn't until I took it out of the oven (I was a bit slow yesterday - have a head cold right now) that I suddenly realized that there wasn't all that much to it.  I looked on the box - surely shepherd's pie would be packed with calories and therefore require less on the plate.  Nope.  200 calories per serving.  4 servings in the container.  I looked at the tray warily and hungrily, and thought I could easily eat half of it myself.

Crap.

Of course, I admitted my faux pas, threw together a pot of mixed vegetables (also lacking in the calories but at least they would fill up the plates a little better than a scoop of the pie), and we sat down to eat.  Five minutes later, we were all done.  I was still hungry; they had to be as well although they continually told me not to worry about it, it was fine, etc.  I offered up a bun - I knew I had one in the cupboard.  Dad accepted, so I raced to the kitchen, opened the bread cupboard, pulled out the paper bag with the lone bun in it.  As I grabbed the bun, it felt a little crusty.  But maybe it was a crusty roll?  I couldn't remember.  So I squeezed it a little.  Nope.  Rock solid.  Mom suggested throwing it into the microwave to soften it up.  It softened up enough to cut it, so I gave Dad half and he gave the kidlet the other half.  As he bit into it, it sounded like he was chewing on styrofoam.  Really really HARD styrofoam.  He broke off a piece (not an easy task, it was that hard) for me to try.  Yeah, it was a wee bit STALE.  A lot bit stale.  I couldn't even eat it.  Of course, he continued to crunch and munch, I'm sure just to embarrass me even more because hey, that's what parents are for.  Besides, he was probably starving.

I did, however, make a great angel food cake for dessert.  I've been waiting to make it and thought it was as good a time as any.  I had whipping cream in the fridge already and some frozen fruit in the freezer that I could thaw out.  I took the fruit out and let it thaw at room temperature.

The cake turned out awesome and MOST of the fruit had thawed by the time dessert rolled around, although the larger strawberries?  Gave us all brain freeze.  More jokes ensued.  I was on a roll!

Thank God it was them though and not important company.  Wait - that didn't come out right.  You know what I mean - best to screw up with people who don't care!  We all had a good laugh and many digs were made at the hostess who took it all in stride (hey, if you can't laugh at yourself...).

Next time, I'll get the BIG one.  Leftovers are okay!  Better to have too much than too little!  And maybe I'll invest in some fresh buns  And some fresh fruit.

Who am I kidding?  Next time, it's Applebee's!

Will you be mad?

As I'm sitting here, trying to wake up after going to bed too late, the kidlet comes up to me, carrying the fleece blanket that we keep folded on the edge of the couch.

"Here, Mama.  Here's a blanket to protect you."
"Protect me?  From what?" I ask.  I start to hang it over my legs.
"No no, Mama.  Over your head.  So you can't see the blinds."

I turn and look at the blinds behind the couch.  The kidlet likes to lie on the back cushions and sometimes in doing so, she bumps into the blinds.  This time, she had somehow twisted one strip so that it showed a gap.  No biggie, but she was pretty concerned about it.

"No no no, don't look!" she says.  "Will you be mad if I broke the blinds?"
"No, I'm not mad.  How about we just fix it?" I say.  I get up and twist it back into place and the kidlet runs up and gives me a huge grin and a hug, obviously relieved.

This whole 'will you be mad' thing has been occurring quite frequently over the last few weeks.  I rarely get mad at her and even when I do get upset, I don't raise my voice or yell.  I tell her firmly to be more careful, or if she's being a turd, I'll give her a time out, but that's about it.

The other day she was drinking chocolate milk from her 'big girl' cup.  I told her to sit still and drink it carefully.  She was sitting on the living room floor, back to the couch.

"Mama!  Will you be mad if I spilled?" she said soon after.  I came back into the room.
"Why, did you spill?"
"Noooo.  But I need a cloth."
"Keira, did you spill?" I say again, dreading the chocolate stain in our beige carpet.  I walked up to her, picked up her foot that was hiding it (and making a nice chocolatey footprint in the process) and gasped.  Yup.  Somewhat of a big spill too.

The kidlet was nearly in tears.  "Don't be mad, Mama!  I'll clean it up.  I'll get a cloth!"  She gets so upset that it's impossible to get mad at her.  And I'm always thankful that she TELLS me instead of hiding things from me so at least I have the opportunity to clean it up while it's fresh.  But she's three - she's going to make a mess sometimes.  I've accepted that, so there's no point blowing a gasket over any of the things she's so worried about.

Pretty much every time she spills something, she asks if I'll get mad.  She was playing with her moon sand the other day and I fully expected her to have it all over the kitchen floor by the time she was done (it started on the table), so when she asked if I'd be mad if she spilled on the floor, I told her no but to try and keep it on the table.  She happily made a huger mess.  But that's what brooms and vacuums are for.

At least now whenever she's drinking water and spills, she no longer asks.  Instead, she'll say "You won't be mad, Mama.  It's just a little bit of water.  Right?".

(Of course, when it comes to cleaning up her toys in the living room or her room, it's a different story.  She's in no rush to clean that stuff up.  "I'm too little.  There's too many.  You have to pick them up."  I usually manage to get her to do it by helping her but she's not as keen to clean as she is when she spills something.)

She's starting to give me a complex here, like I'm some big ogre who's mad at her all the time and I'm SO not.  Sure, she gets frustrating at times and I'm never pleased when she stains something but I don't freak out about it.  I never tell her I'm mad at her, so I'm not quite sure where this is coming from.

But the smart kid she is, when I DO get upset from time to time (usually work-related but sometimes just dealing with a cantankerous three-year old day in and day out), she'll come up to me and say 'Here Mama!  I know what will make you happy!' and she'll do a stork stand or a knee scale in perfect form and it always makes me smile and clap.

So now, writing all that out, it IS giving me a complex, like I'm some mean Mommie Dearest or something.  But we played with her chalk on the driveway for an hour two nights in a row!  We play games and puzzles and read stories and talk and sing and dance and... why is she so worried about upsetting me? 

Summer days

The company golf tournament on Friday went off pretty much without a hitch, for the first time in the eight years that I've been doing it.  Sure, there was stress leading up to it and a wee bit of panic first thing that morning, but everything fell into place.  I didn't play so well - way more bad shots than good - but I had a great team and we had a lot of fun.  Afterwards, I had to scramble with a few last-minute things before dinner, but then I got to enjoy my dinner at a leisurely pace before getting up to the podium to talk and call out prizes for the next hour and a half.  I took home a gift basket (each of the 200 people there took home something, prizes that we scrambled to organize the day before), but didn't win of the major draw prizes (how I wanted the $500 spa resort gift certificate or the huge Weber BBQ).

I had arrived with my colleague at the course at 10am and we were finished by 9:30pm.  I got home about 10:30 and chatted with Mom for a bit (she was spending the night), then about 11:15, Keira woke up crying and had a bit of a poop mess to clean up.  Running on nothing but fumes by that point, I quickly bathed her, cleaned her up, put fresh clothes on her and.... it happened again.  And again.  One more time for good measure.  I gave her a banana and some bread and thankfully, by just after midnight, it had ceased (thank GOD).  So all in all, a Very Long Day.

Saturday morning, we all got up after sleeping in until 8:30 (I know!  Amazing!), then headed off to help my brother move.  It was oh so hot, and near the end, I nearly passed out in the back of the moving truck (working hard in the heat and all, along with NO air movement in the back of the truck whatsoever).  Luckily, I felt it coming and was able to sit down in time, but we were pretty much done by then anyways.  Six hours from when we started, we were back home.  In a zombie-like state, I fed the kidlet, played with her, got her ready for bed, read some stories, put her to sleep, then spent the rest of the evening flipping to movie after movie after movie before falling asleep on the couch.

So today was going to be Lazy Sunday.  Unfortunately, there were groceries to be bought and lawns to be mowed and dishes and laundry to be done, so it wasn't so lazy after all.  I did hang out with the kidlet in the back yard for a while (have I mentioned how much I love having a yard?  I have?  Oh); watched her play with the sprinkler and took some pictures, all the while enjoying the cool breeze on my sweaty-after-mowing face.  I made myself some tea (needed CAFFEINE) and sat out on a comfy patio chair and finally relaxed enough to enjoy the moment.  Time seemed to stand still for a while there and it was lovely - it was the first time I had slowed down all week.  I watched as she drank from the 'fountain', raced around the yard pretending to be various forest animals, leapt over the sprinkler and told stories.  Then I finished my tea and joined her. 

Back to school!

The kidlet started preschool again yesterday and was totally stoked.  All summer long, whenever we went out, she wanted me to drive by 'her school'.  This year, she's in the morning class so poor Mom can actually sleep in the day she comes to watch her.  I will drop her off and head to work, Mom will pick her up.  Boss Man already gave me the a-ok to change my hours to start a little later (9:30).  Should be interesting trying to get us BOTH ready to go in the morning.

One thing I have noticed about the morning class - more of the parents live closer to us and there are more parents - it's a full 20-kid class, whereas her afternoon class last year was only about 14 kids. 

Anyways, yesterday and today were only 2 hour days; the regular 3-hour ones start next week.  She ran in no problem and came out with a grin on her face.  I love that she loves school - I always did.

First day of preschool (not the clearest, but she was so wired, it was hard to get a clear shot).

Our company golf tournament is tomorrow (yes, the one I organize every year and yet it doesn't seem to get any easier) so this week has consisted of organizing 144 people into teams, only to have a cancellation, then another, then another.  Each cancellation requires reshuffling of the teams and pulling players from the reserve list and so on.  I've worked 8 hours days all week while I also tried to placate the kidlet who was getting rightly annoyed that I was ignoring her.  Then there were the 250 prizes to go through, which I did today.  I picked the kidlet up from preschool at 10:45 then we drove right to the office (Mom had to work so was unable to look after the kidlet, and I have yet to find any drop-in daycares close by), where it took me twenty minutes to find parking (only because I thought $20 for about 5 hours was pricey, then I remembered I was expensing it anyways).  I grabbed us some sandwiches for lunch and in we went.  We finally left at 6:15 - a long day for both the kidlet and I, but she did extremely well, aside from a couple episodes of singing loudly (happily) down the halls.  I was preoccupied a lot of the time, so she'd just wander about, say hi to people in their offices, interrupt meetings (not hugely important ones, thank goodness) and eat all the candy that everyone gave her.  The majority of the time she was with us as we scrambled to organize the donated prizes into 200 door prizes (one for everyone attending) and the rest as draw prizes (the expensive gifts - hope I win one this year!).  Of course, she had to play right smack dab in the middle of where we were trying to put the gifts, but we managed to work around her.

Finally got home just after 7pm after a quick stop at McDonalds to feed our growling tummies (quick and easy to eat while driving).  I never did get around to buying contact lens solution so I'll have to sleep in mine tonight, nor was I able to get cat food so I fed them some canned crab meat that I had in the cupboard.  One of them snarfed it down, the others looked at me as if to say 'what the hell is this??'.  They'll survive.  They've got enough fat on them to probably last at least a week or two.

The kidlet was down and out about 40 minutes earlier than usual and I'm about ready to hit the sack myself.  I'm getting picked up tomorrow at 8:30 to head straight for the golf course to get everything organized.  People start showing up at 11:30 to register, then 1:00pm, I put on my golf gear and away I go to play like everyone else for oh, 5.5 hours.  After dinner, I emcee for a couple hours then finally FINALLY, my day and my week will be done.  And oh, how I will sleeeep.

Only to wake up Saturday morning and help my brother move.  He's helped us three times so I could hardly refuse.  So Sunday will be the day to relax.  Ah, sweet Sunday.