Indigo Girl

Broken

Things that broke today, in order of importance:

C's arm, in two places

The washing machine

My car

My phone

Then I got my period. Okay, that's not technically breaking anything, but it's one. more. thing.

I realized last night that E and L need to bring birthday treats this week and since we have no school on Friday, our time was rapidly running out. A left early for work and E chose orange push-ups, so I got everyone ready, dropped them off, ran to the store to buy orange push-ups, and went back to school to drop them off. 

(This is where my check engine light came on. I have not yet attended to that.)

I went home and started baking brownies for L's birthday treat and waited for the washing machine repair man. It took him about ten minutes to tell me that it wasn't worth fixing our 12 year old washing machine. I gave him a check for $67 and he went on his way.

I was getting ready to go for a run when the school called me and said that C had fallen on the playground and was unusually inconsolable and complaining of arm pain. She dislocated her elbow a few years ago, so I thought maybe that was it.

(This is where I clumsily dropped my phone and cracked the screen.)

I went back to school and found C sitting, pale and tear stained, in a chair with an ice pack on her elbow. I hugged her, dosed her with Motrin, and called our pediatrician to see if we should come in or go to urgent care. They sent us to urgent care where it took four x-rays to diagnose her with two fractures around her elbow.

She was incredibly brave. She watched Looney Toons and Scooby Doo and let me clutch her in thankfulness when the doctor said reassuringly, "These kinds of fractures rarely need surgery," because surgery had NOT EVEN OCCURRED TO ME. After she got her splint placed, I told her she could pick anyplace for lunch and she chirped brightly, "This is my lucky day!" She's got a splint till next Tuesday and by then the swelling will be down (the doctor: "There's a lot of blood in there! She'll be quite bruised!") and she can get a cast. Twitter informed me about the miraculous invention of waterproof casts, so I'm hoping she qualifies for one of those. I've looked into those waterproof cast covers, too.

I think it's a little ironic that less than an hour before the school called, I was circling swimming lesson times that would work for us in the Y program catalog. The urgent care doctor thinks she'll be in a cast for 3-4 weeks, so we'll hopefully only lose the first part of summer swimming.

I bought her all the food at McDonald's and we were home for a little bit before heading back to pick up E and L. I talked to her teacher who felt understandably bad - not that it was her fault and the break totally fits the story. She'll need more help for a bit with things like opening containers and carrying her lunch tray. I think I can put her in mostly dresses so she doesn't need to wrestle with buttons/snaps and can still be independent in the bathroom. She broke her left arm, so she'll still be able to write. I gave her her first Don't-Get-Your-Arm-Wet bath with a bread bag and a rubber band and boy howdy is that a PIA.

I'm thankful she did this on a day when I wasn't working because I don't think I would have left work for "Your kid hurt her arm." I would have asked my FIL to pick her up and he would have given her Motrin and let her watch TV on the couch for the rest of the day. It's awful to try to triage a potentially sick kid through the school secretary. They were spot on today, though, and I'm so glad I didn't have to make a kid versus work decision.

Girls on the Run

Saturday morning A and I ran the Girls on the Run 5K with E and L. It was a great race - beautiful weather and a positive vibe. We got there early so E and L could get pink headbands and pink and purple sprayed into their hair. Lots of teams dressed up their uniforms with fun knee socks, hair accessories, or tutus. I was assigned L and another girl. We jogged (s l o w l y o m g)/walked the entire way. E was with A (his other assigned girl left them both in the dust almost immediately - next year I want to run with her) and she alternated between sprinting and trudging. We need to work a bit more on pacing, I think.

The whole deal with GotR is "Everyone's a winner!" which I can get behind to some extent, but I did have a pre-race conversation with my kids where I told them, essentially, "This is a race. You've been training and we're going to work hard. If it's easy, we're not pushing ourselves to do our best. It's going to be hard and you're going to hurt. That's how we know we're working hard." They were exhausted when we were done, so I think they did do their best.

It wasn't supposed to be timed, but I clicked my watch when we crossed the start and L and I crossed the finish line at 46 minutes. E and A were a minute or two ahead of us. I'm cutting us a little slack because we ran over a lot of fields and that's always harder than streets/sidewalks. Still, we've got a time to beat for next year! 

My two favorite parts were when their coach asked me conversationally, "Do you and your husband run?" I answered yes and she exclaimed, "ON PURPOSE?" Hee. Then I got to listen to the music teacher and the librarian (both coaches) talk about how great my kids are. Who doesn't like that?

E and L had a slumber party to attend that night and I knew the parents only generally, so when I dropped them off, I had the awkward conversation about guns in the house and the bonfire planned for later. My friend asked what I'd do if there were guns and I said I'd have verified that they were unloaded and secure (um, I'd have to take their word about the unloaded part) and if I couldn't verify that or if I got any weird attitude from the parents, I'd have stayed through the evening and not let them spend the night. Re: the bonfire. I'm not as nervous as A is when our kids are around an open flame, but I do acknowledge that they fall down regularly and without apparent cause, so letting them be all free range around a bonfire is risky. I can easily see someone tumbling into the fire. 

They were whole and undamaged except for mosquito bites and fatigue when I picked them up the next morning. In the meantime, A had taken C out for a movie date and I had made four loaves of Swedish cardamom bread for the school's World Party this week. We took advantage of only one kid (N-2=easy peasy lemon squeezy where N=total number of kids in a family) and ordered sushi for dinner. This is getting to be an expensive taste and we need to curb it a bit, I think.

Sunday afternoon we attended A's grandpa's 93rd birthday (saddest party ever, I'm afraid) and A spent the usual amount of time reassuring a few older, extended family members that even though we live in the city, we do not dodge bullets walking from our car to our house and our children are not going to school in the middle of gang territory. 

Later that day, we planted flowers. The girls had picked out the flowers and we decided to plant them haphazardly this year instead of in a pattern like last year. C ran through the sprinkler and eventually the other two joined her.

Weekends, man. I'm still not used to having them off. I'm treasuring them.

Butt: Kicked

I know I only went from working 24 hours/week to 30 hours/week, but I added some call time and the occasional late night AND regular sleep. So really, I probably added an extra 6-10 hours/week of work-related time. As a consequence, I am more behind on everything and this is increasing rapidly at an alarming rate. I had today off and I knew I needed to buckle down and get stuff done and I'm much more motivated with a list. Here's what I accomplished:

• 3.5 mile run
• 20 minutes of weights and watching Louie C.K. It was a good idea in theory, but I kept laughing and losing my form.
• I washed all of the children's laundry, all of our laundry, and put away everything PLUS the last three weeks of the adult laundry. 
  
  
  It's okay. I had some help. Then the help got a bit lazy.
  Why do I have such a mental block against putting away the adult laundry? I put away the children's laundry religiously. 
• I brought the Christmas dishes (!) downstairs and brought up our regular plates and cups. (During winter, we have snowflake places and snowman glasses.) I ran the regular dishes through the dishwasher and put them away. 
  
• I brought up the new dog food and mixed it with the old dog food. I changed the 2 gallon water station we use for the pets.
• I cleaned the fish tank.
• I washed all the bathroom towels and put them away.
• I reserved the new David Sedaris book from the library.
• I emailed a few times with a speaker I'm trying to coordinate for E and L's class.
• I brushed the dog and got enough hair to make another dog.
• I wrote a check and mailed a card to my nephew who is graduating from high school. I resisted the urge to shriek, "I USED TO CHANGE YOUR DIAPERS!" He is such a nice kid and restores my faith in teenagers.
• I chose the purse that I wanted from Etsy. I have a dark brown cross body purse and I feel like I need something lighter for spring/summer. I also chose a necklace that I hope will move a black summer dress from "bathing suit cover-up" to "actual dress."
• I cleaned out my car. I gave a coworker a ride to the far away parking lot after work last night and all the crap I had to move off the passenger seat shamed me into it. We use A's car if our family is going somewhere together, so no one ever uses my passenger seat.
• I pick up our race packets for the Girls on the Run 5K we're running with E and L tomorrow. I washed and dried our t-shirts.
• I bought a Target gift card for the slumber party E and L are attending tomorrow night. We tried to find a gift for the birthday girl, but they were so wishy-washy about what she'd like that I ended up with a gift card.
• I instructed E and L to make birthday cards.
• I went over a recipe for Swedish cardamom bread that I'm making for their school's World Party. I need to buy yeast and flour tomorrow.
• On the way home from school, I stopped by the neighborhood store and bought dairy products (they get them from a local farm) and let the girls pick out all the flowers they'd like to plant. I'm a wee bit proud they knew the names of some of the things we've planted in the past (snapdragons, petunias). 
  
• I helped C work on her animal project that's due next week. She cut out pictures of birds (her animal of choice) and pasted them onto construction paper. We'll glue them onto poster board and add her five facts later this weekend. 
  
• I made a carbohydrate loading dinner of grilled chicken and goat cheese pasta with tomatoes and spinach.

Auditions

Last year E and L made up a "dance" for the school talent show and didn't pass the audition process. I don't blame the judges - it was a performance only a mother could love and I . . . did not love it. This year, they created a skit with some friends. It is mildly clever, I suppose, and they have organized and rehearsed it all during recess. I was at school today volunteering and I witnessed their last rehearsal before the official auditions. Unsurprisingly, L called them all together by clapping her hands and shouting, "Okay! Let's get started!" 

I've spent the last few weeks listening (patiently, mostly) to her go over every aspect of the skit and her nervousness regarding the auditions. Then I spent this afternoon listening to her process the auditions and her nerves/excitement at being in front of a crowd and having them laugh and now the wait to see if she makes it and how long it's going to be and how nervous/excited she still is. Honestly, I hope that she continues to process everything externally with me because it will keep me in the loop, but at the same time I want to tell her to SHUT IT.

She was going over everything again at dinner and suddenly turned to E, "E! What are we going to do NEXT year for the talent show?" I burst out laughing and she continued, "We have to get started earlier next time. We'll need to get everyone together in April so we have more time to write our skit and practice." She gave me a knowing look as I continued to giggle and added pointedly, "I'm planning ahead, Mom." If this were Twitter, I would add the hashtag MiniMe. Bless her heart; I love her.

At the same time, E said once - directly before the auditions - that she was nervous and gave me a worried but excited thumbs up when I wished her luck. She told me a bit about the skit beforehand and . . . that's it. I think this is one of the most fun parts of having multiple kids. Number one for me is watching them interact with each other and A, but number two is seeing how they're alike and different in ways that are out of my control.

Oh, so C had a moment of sadness this afternoon of "I don't know who to play with!" tears and as I was hugging her, L said, "You could have another baby so she has a friend!" I laughed and said, gently, "OH HELL NO," but she persisted, "I would be nine when she was born! I hope it's a girl. I'll help you take care of her. What should we name her? Another sister would be so much fun! We have all the clothes we need!" 

We wrapped up the last Harry Potter book yesterday and after I finished weeping (I have wept every single night for the past few weeks - so much emotion at the end!), E and L both were a little lost and asking, "Wait. What happened next?" It is so hard to finish a book where you love the characters, isn't it? It's like a relationship break up or maybe a death. You are both going your separate ways. L is determined to read them all over again - she pulled out The Sorcerer's Stone this afternoon - and work her way through Harry Potter wikipedia. E started reading that cat warriors series that is apparently all the rage and I pulled out the second Penderwicks novel tonight for our family reading. 

Handprints

C brought home a laminated copy of the following (cheesy) poem, complete with her handprints on either side: 

My little handprints on the walls 
On the mirrors and in the halls 
I'll be grown some day 
And all those tiny handprints 
Will surely fade away 
So here's a special gift 
Just so you can recall 
Exactly how my hands looked 
When I was very small

E read it out loud and then for the rest of the weekend, whenever I would correct/chastise/reprimand her, she would give me puppy dog eyes and recite pointedly, "And all those tiny fingerprints will surely fade away."

I love that little smartass.

Pixie

C's force field of cheerfulness wore off last night and we woke up at midnight to E saying, "C is throwing up!" Nice big sister that she is, she got C to the bathroom and then came to wake us up. Unfortunately, there wasn't much she could do for the stream of puke coming down from the upper bunk onto the ladder, L's pillow and sheets, the lamp, the cords, and a pillow pet. E and L are old enough that they stoically accept the puking, but C still sobs and pukes at the same time. It's very sad. 

She was fine within twelve hours - eating crackers and drinking lemonade by lunchtime today. I got out of work early and we took a nice nap on the couch together. The virus has worked its way through all of us and hopefully we're done for a bit.

For the last six months, C has been asking to get her hair chopped off into a pixie cut. Six months doesn't seem like a long time, but she's 5.5 years old. If you assume she became sentient around age 3, she's wanted a pixie for 20% of her life. She says she doesn't like brushing it or having tangles and she won't mind if I can't put it in a ponytail or braids or pigtails. So I picked out a bunch of cute pixies for her to peruse and she chose this one:

I planned to have my stylist cut her hair and made an appointment for when she (my stylist) was back from maternity leave. Then I realized on Monday that no one had called to confirm my appointment and called to confirm it myself. It's a good thing I did because I wrote down May 6 instead of June 6. C had already been counting down the days for WEEKS so I asked if there was an experienced stylist who could cut a 5yo's hair into a pixie. I felt like I was just ASKING for a crappy cut, but the receptionist asked around and found someone who said, "Oh, I love cutting pixies!" I asked her, "Did she really say that or did you make that up?" and she insisted that the conversation had happened.

So we went and met Brittany and I explained what C wanted and showed her the picture. Then I told her what I wanted: for my little girl to still look like a little girl. I struggled with that a little bit because I don't think it should matter if my kid conforms to society's rules about gender and sex. I think because of all the "Three girls?! How horrible for you!" comments that I get, though, I don't want people to think "Oh, she's trying to make that last one a boy." I am overprotective of C's sex because I love that she's a girl - I love having three girls - and I don't want anyone to think otherwise. 

Obviously, this is more my issue than hers. She just didn't want to tangles anymore.

Unsurprisingly, she looks adorable. Here is the back view. The front flopped in her eyes a bit too much for me ("Get your hair out of your face!") and I took her back to have the bangs trimmed a bit. I think that made it look a little more boyish, but it'll grow and she doesn't mind, I don't think. She says she likes it even though a boy in her class told her that she has boy hair. I have taken to calling her a pixie (cute nickname alert!) and with her elfin eyes, the style definitely suits her.

Chicago, then Vomit

We spent the past weekend on a whirlwind tour of Chicago with Karen and her family. It was really fun and I have the pictures to prove it, but most of them violate my rule of No Kid Faces On The Blog. If we are FB friends, have at it. I put a bunch up there.

We left early Saturday morning and spent most of the first day at Lincoln Park Zoo. Zoos generally make me sad, but this one was better than our local zoo. We ate a picnic in the middle of the day and I think the kids enjoyed the aggressive seagulls more than any other animal.

By the late afternoon, we were exhausted. After not being able to find the restaurant the hotel guy told us about, we settled for Five Guys' excellent burgers. I think we were all asleep by 9:30. 

The next day we ate all the free breakfast the hotel offered and then walked all over Chicago. Karen's 9yo got sick early in the day and she spent the day alternating puking and sleeping all over Chicago - poor kid. We went to see sculptures by Alexander Caulder and Picasso. My children enjoyed chasing pigeons and the revolving door at Walgreens.

Our city is moderately large, but many times in the weekend I felt like my kids should be wearing t-shirts that said "Country Mouse." Chicago is a great city, though, and I - with my love of cities - could live there happily.

I was about to say "We wandered over to Millennium Park . . ." but really, we didn't wander anywhere. I am a planner, but Karen is an uber-planner and had our route mapped out. So we marched in formation to Millennium Park and enjoyed playing around the bean and the spitting fountains. 

At some point in time, Karen took this picture and I love it. I'm a sucker for walking away pictures.

We wended our way through the streets and visited Navy Pier, The American Girl Doll store and The Lego Store, Gino's East for an awesome pizza lunch, and finally on to what L had been dying for: the subway. I only knew the El as being an above ground train, so I emailed A's cousin who lives in Chicago and asked if any part went underground. We were in luck - the stop nearest The American Girl Doll store was underground. L was psyched.

In all the face pictures she's wearing a huge shit-eating grin (country mouse!). I thought this would be one of those things where the experience didn't live up to the hype, but now she's planning to move to Chicago so she can be a regular subway rider. I am allowed to visit, she agrees.

Unsurprisingly, our tour of the city with a puking kid meant that I was getting ready to show A that "Ship My Pants" commercial Monday night when E burst through the door at the bottom of the stairs, made an awful wreching sound, and spewed vomit everywhere. I yelled, "Bathroom! BATHROOM!" and she left a trail through the kitchen to the bathroom. L was in the same situation a few hours later. I slept downstairs with them and was up every 30-60 minutes through the night to puke. It was not fun. Everyone is now on the mend and C never got sick (knock on wood). We think her cheerfulness may be some sort of immune system force field.

Allergy Free Since 1976

This weekend was beautiful and I opened all the windows in our house on Saturday afternoon. We got new windows on the main floor last year and I opened all thirteen of them. Within a few hours, the sore throat I had been enduring all week spread into sinus pain, sneezing, itchy eyes, and a runny nose. "NO EFFING WAY," I said and A suggested, "Take one of my Zyrtec." "NO," I replied. "I AM SICK. I DO NOT HAVE ALLERGIES. THE ONLY THING I'M ALLERGIC TO IS SULFA." 

A few hours later, I succumbed and took a Zyrtec. It helped. DAMMIT. I walked around in a snot-free zombie-like daze for the rest of the day and bought some Claritin the next morning. I spent the day feeling like I was drunk in public, but trying to act normal so people wouldn't know, like "Can they smell my breath? Do they suspect anything?" I was on call this weekend and had to go in twice to put in emergency pacemakers, but I could pull myself together and focus for those. Really, I just wanted to go to sleep. 

I feel hungover this morning even though I got a solid nine hours of sleep. This is awful. I'm going on a drug holiday. I'll see if my allergy symptoms come back and if they do, I'll try half of a pill. I cannot spend weeks feeling stoned every spring. I'm too old for this.

Speaking of old, I went to the dentist on Friday and when the hygienist asked, "Any problems?" I said, "Yes. A few months ago I was not eating, but suddenly had pieces of rocks in my mouth. I think I may have broken a tooth." Five points to Gryffindor! I was right. I haven't been wearing my bite splint at night because I hate the feeling of something in my mouth. I keep waking up enough to be aware of it and end up feeling exhausted in the morning. But my bad habit of stress jaw clenching led to a cracked tooth which led to a broken tooth which is leading to a $400 crown next month. Getting old is bullshit.

Sunday

A took this picture of me last week and it is such a perfect representation of my life right now. I can't even take a nap on the couch without people and animals all over me. I love it. (Usually.)

Yesterday my in-laws took the girls to see the musical (?) Anne of Green Gables at a local theatre. We haven't read the book together yet because we're seeing Harry Potter through to the end and because Karen warned me, "You've probably forgotten how much description is in that book!" They all loved the story, so we might move it up on our mile long list of books-to-be-read.

A and I used the time to have a late lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. It involved the cheese plate, pad thai, and wine in the middle of the day. So indulgent!

Today we went to the early church service and then took advantage of Free Museum Day in our city. We parked at the Y and first went to see how the river looked with all the rain and flooding. 

You can see the street lamps out in the water. There's a walkway near those and the river is usually farther away and down the side of the bank.

Here you can see a railing leading to death. The stairs that are normally a safe walkway along the water are submerged. That's an overhead street light almost touching the water.

We ogled the water for a while (L: "What does ogle mean?" Me: [hesitating while I think of the right definition] Her: "Gawk?" She doesn't even need me anymore! Sniff) and then moved on to the art museum. My children showed great maturity as they immediately honed in on the most complex works:

We rode the trolley around town for a bit. A and I high-fived our foresight in choosing the art museum when we saw the ridiculous line to just GET INTO the children's museum. It must have been insane inside. 

I snapped a picture of the girls in front of the trolley when we got off. C is hilariously downcast and shook her head sadly at me when I said, "Can you smile for the picture?" For the record, she had just tried to snatch A's phone out of his hands and had been gently reminded that she cannot grab something she wants. 

On My Own

A was supposed to get home from Palm Springs at 11:30 Wednesday night, but due to thunderstorms and the current situation of the airline industry (unhelpful), he didn't get home until late Thursday afternoon. We did fine on our own - although I never sleep as well when he's gone - until Tuesday at 5 pm when I got home from picking up everyone from school. We walked in the door, congratulating ourselves on just missing the rain, and were taking off our coats when the light flickered and went out. Then they came back on! Then they went out again and stayed out. 

I had to work the next three days and had a million things to do to prep for those days, so I was quite put out by this situation. And I was hungry because I was supposed to be making dinner and being hungry AND frustrated together never helps anything. I tried to spin the situation as a "fun adventure!" instead of blowing a blood vessel, but it was hard. We piled back in the car and went for pizza. When we came home at 6:30, the electric company said the power would be back on at 7:30. I put everyone through the showers (in the dark - who knows what got washed) and we sat down to read bedtime stories by lantern light. I was honestly TWITCHING at this time, thinking of all the stuff I wasn't getting done and wouldn't be able to get done if the power didn't come back on.

At 7, the electric company had pushed their time estimate back to 9:30, so I packed up everything that the girls would need for bedtime and school plus everything I would need for work, and we went to crash at my in-laws'. I kept telling myself that this was slightly more convenient since the original plan called for me to bring the girls over there at the buttcrack of dawn so that my FIL could feed them and take them to school. I slept poorly on my air mattress and finally gave up at 4:45. I got up and ready for work and came home to let the dog outside, make dinner for that night, run the dishwasher, and do a bunch of other stuff now that the power was back on. I kept saying, "A will be home tonight!"

When I went to bed that night, he was still in Phoenix. When I got up in the morning, he was in Chicago, but I still had to wake the girls up super early and bring them to my in-laws' house before I went to work. Seriously, I would never have been able to leave my weekend night shift job without my FIL retiring. He's a godsend. A wasn't able to catch a plane until 9 that night, so he waited hours to rent a car and drove home. He got home almost 24 hours after he was supposed to have arrived in the first place. Poor guy. (Except for the Palm Springs part.)

On Friday morning, we watched E get her math medallion at school. Saturday, she and I went out on a date. She chose to see Escape From Planet Earth (better than I thought it would be, but I expected it to be terrible) and get ice cream afterward. I spent most of the time listening to her describe Minecraft to me.