Hand Foot Mouth?

... more like Arm Leg Mouth for Nev
... ... and Mons Butt between-Toes for Nova

yup, that's right, the stupid coxsackie virus has struck this household again.

Mommy hasn't had a day off to herself for 12 days and counting since one got hit, then the other, and while the pediatrician's stand is they aren't contagious once the fever is gone for 24 hours, daycare insists they do not return until all blisters are at least scabbed over. So once Nev was daycarable, Nova wasn't.

Wheee!

(attached pic: Nev looking so miserable last week)

not jobless, but it didn't last

I have been meaning to update this blog's tagline for a while now, because, hey! I wasn't jobless anymore! I landed a part time massage therapist job in June, started for real in September (you know, after Nev) ...

Massage photo source: sxc

... and within 4 months that position has been eliminated.

Yup. Guess who got served a 30-day notice this week?

I was assured it's a "purely financial decision", I was last in and therefore first out, blah blah blah.

Ugh.

I won't go into details about it, but let's just say that many balls were dropped, and it's really frustrating that I was finally just about to start pushing for making my presence known within the organization, and that's when they cut me loose.

Sigh.

Whatev.

Now to start the job hunt all over again.

At least this time all I need to do to my resume is add a new entry in the "Previous Experience" section. Still gotta cast a wide net, compose cover letters, make some calls, attend some interviews, and land something else within those 30days, otherwise the kids get pulled out of daycare and I will then go nuts.

Wheeee!!!!

In the meantime... Here's Nev wishing you a happy 2013!!

A short tale

Once upon a time, Nev was dressed up like her daddy

... but daddy doesn't use a binky, so it was taken away

... Nev got mad, and flailed and kicked and whined

... and was mighty proud with herself, for kicking a bootie off her foot and onto the floor.

The end.

(Yeah, needs a little more work, LoL!)

Open mouth, insert foot. And hand, apparently.

So last Thursday, Nova was his usual chipper self, trying at times but in general, you know, chipper. Like this:

"Mommy! I LOVE this! More onion bagel please!! Why have you NEVER fed me this before??!?"

... then came Friday, which happened to be one of his daycare days, and it's always a challenge to get him fed and into bed without a meltdown, because he's just SO TIRED after a day at daycare. This kid's ideal bedtime is 6pm!

But wow... he was particularly angsty that day:

"How dare you give me something that's not yogurt! Now I don't even WANT yogurt!"

Really really angsty.

Refusing pretty much all food. Except yogurt (which I'd coincidentally/intuitively stocked up on a few days prior. Love it when the Universe does that!!).

And over the weekend he drooled and drooled and drooled, and whined and whined and whined, and ran a slightly elevated temperature, and chomped on his hands & fingers a lot ...

Oh. Teething, huh?

Then some blisters appeared at the corners of his mouth.

FML. It was HFMD.

So that was how we spent our Labor Day weekend: taking care of a kid who was really badly-hit by Hand Foot & Mouth Disease, without knowing it was HFMD until maybe 3 days into its emergence. Nova's timing was perfect, as painful as it all was, better "waste" the long weekend than have to juggle sick kid *and* work! Poor Kosh though, he got no rest at all. None of us did.

Oh, and "waterboarding" your kid in order to get liquids in him? so NOT what I'd ever thought I'd have to do, ever! [Okay, not really waterboarding, but it certainly felt like we were torturing him with water/pedialyte. Nova was refusing food and drink, and we had to keep him hydrated, so finally we held him down and squirted Pedialyte into his mouth with a 10cc oral syringe. Took many rounds to get even 4oz in him. Ugh! We need a larger syringe!!]

Let's just hope Nev didn't get hit with it too. The pediatrician's office said kids that young rarely get it because their immune systems are usually really robust. Let it be so, Nev, let it be so ...

Nova's on the mend, but daycare won't take him in until his blisters start to dry up. Damnit! I *so* need a break!!

Especially when I have to subvert the ring sling being lent to me to strap him to the high chair, otherwise I wouldn't be able to feed him mush or yogurt, nor would I be able to waterboard him solo.

Ugh.

15 months!

Hey so remember a while back, when I took a few pix of Nova in his monkey swing?



This is him now:

I think he's grown a bit, eh? ;)

Happy 15 months, boyo!

One week already?!

Just a quick picture post. Nev at one week.

PROM, the second time around ...

So some of my dear readers may recall that about thirteen months ago, I woke up at 2:45 in the morning to go to the bathroom, only to find myself lying in a pool of liquid. I woke up the hubby, who told me it probably wasn't what I thought it was, and to go pee lah. As I walked down the hallway to the bathroom, liquid totally dribbled down my legs ... called out to hubby about it, who responded by saying I needed to pee, right? So go pee. Just ... don't "push", ok?

And that was how my first P.R.O.M. started. Premature Rupture of the Membrane, more commonly understood as "my water broke!".

But wait, you say. Your FIRST P.R.O.M.?

Yup.

Guess who's here, 5 weeks early?


For Nev, it was different, yet similar. This time, it was 2am, and I felt three good gushes into the pad I was wearing (ah, the joys of a weak pelvic floor as a result of having already pushed a kid out of my nethers!) as I walked down that same hallway. Smelled the pad: did not smell of amniotic fluid to me, but it was saturated. Changed it, went back to bed and woke the hubby with the news that we might be having a repeat event. This time it was me who downplayed it, because I really really really didn't want to face this all over again. We had a toddler to deal with now, for goodness' sake! I'd only officially asked one person if she'd be on our 3am baby call list for when Nev was to arrive, and I had only planned tapping her in July. This was early/mid June. Very big difference!! The hubs and I kinda talked through what we thought about all of this for a while. Then I had a bout of coughing that send a huge gush of stuff out of me. That settled it - no more putting it off. I wasn't feeling any contractions, but I definitely had a PROM again. Time to get moving. We decided to not call anyone, and for Kosh to take the day off from work.

So at 2:45 am, I took a shower.

Then tidied myself up a little.

Added to my "to go bag" (hey, I learned something from last year!)

Packed Nova's diaper bag.

Kosh packed his own bag o' stuff, then woke the kid, changed his diaper, and got him ready for some hospital time.

... ... ... NEXT: the initial hospital experience, the second time around ... stay tuned!