Well, Carolyn woke up this morning with a temperature of 103.4, so I bit the bullet and brought her in to get her ears checked. She still has an ear infection, and the good news with that is maybe I'm getting better at diagnosing my kids and pretty soon I'll never have to go to the doctor again (ha, ha, ha). I got a prescription for a different antibiotic but the doctor was fine with me waiting to see how she does for a couple more days before I use it. She was upset for the bulk of the day today, but tonight she was her happy all-smiles self for a couple of hours before bed. That was a nice treat.
Marty was still nice and sick today, he was so miserable. This is a man that either goes 100 miles an hour, or zero, and today he was stuck going about ten. I'm not sure if the physical or mental anguish of being sick is harder on him. I'm just grateful that he didn't get hit until the kids and I were out of the thick of it. It's been easier to be compassionate this time too. I'm so bad at that, even when the kids are sick, but Marty took such good care of us when I was sick that I feel pretty heavily indebted to him right now.
When everyone was sick, we were in survival mode around here, and I was especially accommodating to the wants and needs of the kids. I've generally had to be careful with Peter, he is the "if you give him an inch he'll take a mile" child, but I threw most of that out the window to take care of him while he was sick. It was such a struggle to get him to eat and drink that I was constantly offering him things and letting him eat or drink in places I wouldn't otherwise. I was also much more permissive with the fighting of naps and bedtime. Now that he's feeling healthy again and his voracious appetite has returned, I'm having to lay down the law around here again. He was eating his second meal of the day at about 10 this morning, and he decided he didn't like it and spit it out all over his high chair. I took him out and when he asked to eat again (every five minutes) I reminded him that he spit out his food from before and told him that he had to wait until lunchtime for more food. He was NOT happy about that, but by the time lunchtime rolled around, he gobbled up everything I gave him and ate a huge meal. I'm counting that as a win.
I have also had to hit the "reset" button on Peter's sleeping. I've talked before about how I would let Peter cry when I was sleep training him, and getting him to bed for the last few nights has been a royal battle, and it used to be easy-peasy. So finally for bed time last night, and nap time and bed time today, tough mom was back, and I let him cry. He hollered for a long time last night and for nap time, but for bedtime tonight he only cried for about two minutes. I think in another day or so he should be happily heading to bed again. It is a weird feeling to be re-doing everything I worked so hard to get in place initially. It's almost hard to remember what I was doing before that was working so well.
*Exasperated sigh* It's hard enough learning all the mom lessons, much less having to learn them all over again. At least the little jolts of success are coming more quickly and easily the second time around!
Labels: Motherhood, Parenting