I don’t know what to do with Sam. It’s 10:01 p.m. and he is not asleep. In fact, he’s making some sort of ruckus in his room, one I’m sure does not in any way involve his bed, but that he is even in his room at all is an improvement over where we’ve been for the last hour.
Scratch that, he’s right here in front of me.
I’m losing patience, Andy’s losing patience, this is a recipe for disaster.
He used to be such a good sleeper! I’d read him a book, sing him a song, lay him in his bed and he’d be out. Now? Not so much.
I suppose the trouble started when he moved into a real bed instead of his crib. I hated to move him, but for the love he was three and a half and way too big – he couldn’t turn over! Now it’s like someone slipped him an espresso 15 minutes before bedtime. He instantly has all the energy in the world and bounces off the walls. It’s so hard to settle him down.
This evening, at about 7:30 when we were finally sitting down to supper, he said he was tired and looked like he could hardly keep his eyes open. I knew I should just put him to bed, but I wanted him to eat something. Of course, he found his second wind and now it’s off to the races.
I honestly think the solution is to get him to bed earlier, but when we don’t darken the door until 6:00, it’s really hard to have any kind of semblance of family or relaxation time (or even dinner and a bath) and have him in bed by 7:30.
Now he’s in bed, but repeating “I can’t go to sleep in my bed” over and over.
Remember the other day when I wrote about trying to keep the fam healthy for the holidays? Yeah, well. For some reason I was thinking coughs, colds, strep throat, oh my! I was not thinking about vomit. It hadn’t occurred to me that we might be swimming in it sometime during this cold & flu/holiday season.
So of course that’s what came to visit us, because I was not expecting it at all. It started last Tuesday night when Joshua was complaining of a headache. I took his temperature and lo and behold, it was 101.4! So I declared that he was not going to school the next day and put him to bed. When he woke up still feverish the next morning and puked a couple times, I was pretty nervous. But throughout the day, he actually improved. His fever responded to ibuprofen, and he didn’t vomit anymore. He was still peaked, but he ate a couple popsicles. When Sophie got home from school, they played really nicely together. She was rather happy to have her big brother home. Then he started feeling bad again, as it got later, and I wasn’t sure whether he’d be well enough to go to school Thursday or not. We put both big kids to bed in the hopes that he would wake up all better.
And THEN Sophie woke up and vomited alllll over her bedroom at about 11:15. I got her undressed and threw her in the bathtub while Bobby went to work on her bedroom. Let me tell you that one of the pleasures of having a daughter with long, glorious hair is scrubbing puke out of it in the middle of the night. Oh, did I say pleasures? Because I meant HORRORS!! Ick. Poor Soph had a rough night and also a rough early morning. She was quite a bit sicker than Joshua had been. He still had a fever in the morning, though, so I kept them both home. At about 3:30 in the afternoon, an exhausted and sick Sophie girl fell asleep on the couch. She slept for almost three hours!
Pathetic!
Joshua was doing ok, but he started feeling bad again as night fell and his fever went back up to 101.4. So, I kept him home Friday too. Friday – day 3 with two sick big kids! But Friday wasn’t too bad – they were definitely recovering. Less TV and more playing, and they both ate peanut butter toast instead of just popsicles. By Saturday morning, they were both back to normal. Joshua’s energy was through the ROOF! You could tell he hadn’t been out in a few days.
So, Saturday was good. Saturday we were all gloriously healthy. All seemed right again.
Until I woke up at 3:30 Sunday morning to feed the baby, and had to throw, I mean, quickly place him back in his crib to avoid throwing up all over him.
Oh, I was sick. SO, SO sick. I can’t remember the last time I was that sick! I threw up a million more times that the kids did combined. All day Sunday, I laid in bed because I couldn’t sit up with having to throw up. It. Was. Baaaad. Bobby took care of the kids, took them to a birthday party, brought me whatever I needed – he was great. I couldn’t even sit up to nurse Jonah, I had to nurse him lying down. I don’t know what I would have done had this occurred on a week day!
So – we’ve had our holiday sickness! Please germs and cooties, stay away from us at least until after Christmas, we’ve paid our dues and sacrificed to the porcelain god.
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P.S. I totally stole the term “Apukealypse” from my pal Dawn.
Lately I’ve been making a concerted effort to eat more regularly throughout the day. Prior to the last couple of weeks, I rarely ate breakfast. Well, unless you consider black coffee and Diet Coke breakfast, in which case I had it every day! So, I’ve been taking peanut butter toast and a banana with me in the car in the morning, which is working out well.
However, there’s another big food question mark in the middle of my day – lunch. I rarely plan ahead for lunch, which means I either grab something quick (and expensive and not so healthy), or I scavenge something to eat out of my desk drawer, and then find myself ravenous when I get home. I think that’s a common problem for working moms and stay-at-home moms alike. Jenny has posted before about how her lunch sometimes consists of Mountain Dew and a hunk of cheese. I guess it’s another symptom of putting ourselves last! But it’s time for a change.
I thought I’d brainstorm and see what ideas I could come up with for easy, quick, yet affordable and nutritious lunches. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
— Leftovers – provided a) I cook the night before, b) there’s anything left, and c) I can remember to take it with me in the morning.
— Soup – there’s nothing appealing to me about breaking out a can of soup at lunch time, but there have been times that I’ve had my act together and have frozen portions of homemade soup (made by my grandma, not so much by me) to take with me. That actually works out pretty well. I also saw a thing on pinterest that suggested freezing soup in muffin tins, so you essentially have a soup ice cube.
— Frozen meals – honestly, having a stash of microwavable meals at work is probably the only way for me to make sure I stay out of the it’s-noon-and-I-need-food-but-I-don’t-have-any frenzy. However, I used to try to stay away from them because I don’t like the idea of fake food and preservative (unless those things are in Oreo form. Then I’m totally behind them).
Enter: the answer to this quandary – Healthy Choice Top Chef Inspired Cafe Steamers. TheMotherhood.com asked me to try them out and write a post about them, but truth be told, I had already discovered them. Basically, the meals come with the sauce separate from the meat and vegetables, and they steam to cook. They come in eight different varieties, including Barbeque Seasoned Steak with Red Potatoes, Chicken Fresca with Chardonnay, and Chicken Linguini with Red Pepper Alfredo. They are also budget-friendly – they cost between $2.75 and $3.50.
I’m going to keep a few of these in the freezer at work, and on days when I don’t have it together enough to have packed something, I’ll have them ready as an alternative to fast food.
Do you struggle with feeding yourself during the day? What are some strategies you’ve found to fit eating into your schedule?
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This post was sponsored by Healthy Choice through The Motherhood. For more info, check out their website, facebook page or follow them on .
