What a week!

Last week was...rough. It started innocently enough. My heart rate monitor (HRM) was out for repairs (it was burning through batteries faster than it should). A minor annoyance. Nora hit a growth spurt and that phase where she doesn't want to sleep because the world is too interesting to sleep and miss ANY of it. So she would stay up late and either wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning to eat (growth spurts mean extra feedings). I want to note a couple of things: 1. Steve is great about taking his turn getting up with the girls. But during the week, it falls on me. He has to leave by 6:30 to get to work in Tecumseh at 7:30. Most of the time, it's not an issue. I stay up an hour later to feed Nora one more time and then she sleeps until 8:30 or 9:00. Not last week. 2. Lack of sleep due to kids (whether for infants, sickness, or whatever) is completely different from pulling all-nighters in college. An all-nighter is a choice. And odds are you can just sleep whenever during the day to catch up on sleep. With kids, if they're up, you need to be up too. They completely dictate your sleep schedule and you don't get a choice. And unless you nap when they do, you don't get to catch up on missed sleep during the day. But at the same time, you don't want to waste the couple hours a day you get to yourself on sleep. I spend mine working out, to lose the baby weight. It's rough. As someone who requires a lot of sleep to not be a total bear, it's really rough. At best, I'm short on patience. At worst, I'm a growling, bipolar mess whose tantrums rival those of the crankiest two year old. In other words, the lack of sleep and missing HRM was enough to make it a rough week.

The beginning of the week, it was just those things and the occasional whining. Thursday morning hit and we had MOPS. I really like MOPS and so do the girls. But I was exhausted and MOPS starts about the time we normally get up. (I know, I'm spoiled by the amount of sleep the girls (usually) let me get. But, trust me on this, they get a much better mom by letting me sleep that much.) I decided the plus of adult time and Tim Horton's coffee outweighed the minus of getting up. Now, getting to and from MOPS is the headache part. Being there is great. But it's a mad rush to get all three girls freshly diapered and clothed and buckled in and to MOPS on time. And I swear they walk in slow-motion when they know we're running late. But MOPS was good, a highlight of the week, even. But then on the way home, I got pulled over. I was confused because I knew the plates were current, I wasn't speeding, I used my blinker, etc. It was a fix-it ticket. The right brake light was out. I had no way of knowing and the cop was really nice about the whole thing. But it was another thing not going my way. That afternoon I realized that the phone was out. We were switching from Comcast to Vonage that day and I could make phone calls but not receive them. I found that out when I received an email rather than a phone call about my HRM. It was dead. No fixing it. They could offer me 30% off a new one though. Sigh.

Now, I need to say that there were high points throughout the week. Wednesday night, we had Reid over for a birthday dinner. Leslie and Paul came later for brownies and ice cream. I love my family so it was great to have the majority of my siblings over (Tracy and Donovan, we missed you). MOPS was a nice break from kids and I like the other women in my group. Thursday night and Friday morning, my parents came over. I love it when they're here. Adult interaction, more people to entertain the girls, and I just like my parents. I also got to order my new HRM Friday morning, which was exciting. I wasn't thrilled to spend that extra money, but new fitness stuff is always exciting to me. And it came Saturday! Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near the end of the badness that was last week.

Back to Thursday night. Mia was whiny and had no appetite. The whining is normal, not eating is not. She was also especially cuddly, which usually means she's not feeling good. The girls napped late too, another sign they're not up to par. They played with Mom and Dad and went to bed without a problem. 10:30pm Mia woke up crying. She was really hot so I took her temperature. 102. I gave her ibuprofen and she went to sleep. But she woke up a lot that night, either too hot or cold because she'd kicked her blankets off. Luckily Nora slept better that night. Friday during the day was okay. It was obvious Mia wasn't feeling great, but she was doing okay.

Friday night was a different story. I was looking forward to it, because Steve would be home for the weekend and able to help with the not-sleeping girls. Well, Mia kept waking up crying, even before 10pm. Steve brought her back downstairs and held her for a while. He tried to take her back upstairs later but she started crying again, so he decided to bring her back down for a while. At that point, I was in the room below the stairs and heard a huge crash. Too big to be any of the girls. I ran to the bottom of the stairs and saw Steve kneeling on the landing. I walked up to see Mia sitting on one of the five steps above the landing. Mia looked fine but Steve was obviously in pain. Apparently he was walking back downstairs when his dress sock slipped on a stair and he skidded on his butt down to the landing. He instinctively pulled Mia into his chest and she was okay. But he had a nasty goose egg on his hip. It immediately swelled and was hot to the touch. Later it bruised. Once downstairs he paced for a while and said he felt like he might throw up. He said it felt like his leg jammed up into his hip. Ugh. Eventually his nausea passed and we were able to lay Mia down. I went to bed and Steve stayed up for a while with Nora. That night was LONG. Mia kept waking up, crying. Steve couldn't get comfortable in bed and ended up only sleeping 4 hours and spending the rest of the night in the recliner. Nora woke up early because she was hungry. Once up for the day, the girls were whiny. Ella looked funny, kinda glazed. When I took her temperature, it was 103. Mia's was about 99 at that point. Nora's was 100. We gave the older girls ibuprofen and Nora Tylenol. Steve bought some ibuprofen for himself and said that was helping him (we didn't have any in the house because I'm allergic to it. I'm fine having it in the house, but normally Steve takes Tylenol out of convenience if he needs anything. But Tylenol doesn't help with inflammation, which is why I can take it.). We cancelled our plans for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday night was slightly better than Friday. Mia was mostly better by then and the other girls just had the low-grade temps. But I still had to get up multiple times with Mia. On Sunday, I was an exhausted, cranky mess. I had that feeling that "this is my life now, and it will be this way forever." Endless cycles of diapers, feeding, wiping noses, sleepless nights. I know it's not always like that, but after a week of too little sleep, it *felt* that way. I spent a good chunk of Sunday crying. Last night, Steve gave me some time for myself. I shaved my legs and trimmed my nails and started feeling more human again. I stayed up with Nora until about 11:30 (so early!) and had to get up with Mia about midnight because she was scared of the thunder (really? A thunderstorm at the end of October?!). But they slept through the night and didn't wake me up until 9:30 this morning! I feel like a new person. This week will be good, much better than last week. All of us girls have rattly coughs but no fevers. Mia and Ella have runny noses too, but overall, they're okay. The whining is much less. Steve fixed the brake light on the van. We still have to have a cop sign off on it, but it's fixed. My new HRM is here and I like it. Steve has a nasty bruise and is still a bit sore, but he's moving easier. The scale is up a little, but not as much as I expected after having Chinese last night. I feel a million times better after a full night's sleep. Steve and I have a party to go to on Friday night, without kids! Saturday night is Trunk or Treat with Leslie. I think I'm going to get my hair cut this weekend too, which should help me feel better about myself (more like me and less like a frumpy mom, which is how I've been feeling). Becky is scheduled for her big ultrasound this week. Liz and James got to bring tiny little Annika home last week. People have been noticing that I'm thinner. I do have to take all three girls to an appointment on Thursday, but thanks to MOPS, taking all of them someplace on my own is less daunting. It feels like all is right with the world again. Thank God for a new week! :)