No More Vitamin I

Alice can’t have ibuprofen anymore until after her tubes surgery, which has been scheduled for next Wednesday morning, April 6.

I think that we will soon enjoy much more nights through which Alice sleeps. Ahhhh… And the ENT says that we will likely notice a change in Alice’s responses to sounds, because her hearing is somewhat muffled right now.

Hopefully all will go well and she’ll start being more comfortable. If she starts sleeping, I know that WE will be more comfortable!

And the Verdict Is…

Alice needs tubes to help prevent ear infections, since she’s had four (or maybe five) since the middle of November. We have a consult with an ENT doctor tomorrow.

This morning, Alice woke me up at 12:30am with a blazing hot fever. I gave her Tylenol and she went back to sleep — but on ME. She was not satisfied to be in her crib; she was very clingy. At 6:45 she was hot again, so I gave her Tylenol again and she was her usual self (although less energetic — if we put her on her tummy she’d just put her her head down, instead of crawling to the nearest forbidden object). We took her temperature at 7ish, and it was 101F, so I called the doctor and they asked us to come in. The doctor’s appointment was at 10:30 this morning, and the diagnosis was another ear infection. Came home and gave her ibuprofen to bring down the fever again, and she’ll be on a course of Augmentin for 10 days. Poor little monkey.

At least this explains why she hasn’t slept through the night for the past 10 nights. Ah, blessed antibiotics. Jerry and I are looking forward to a full night’s sleep tonight. Woowoo!

Sleep? Whazzat?

Alice apparently no longer believes in sleep. At least, not when it’s dark out. Part of this was not her fault, however. I’ll relate (briefly) the day’s events that led up to her first awakening.

Yesterday, I was changing all of the beds and I got interrupted, leaving our bedroom door open. I MUST NOT LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN, because this causes The Horrible Mixing Of The Cats, and the consequences are dire. Yesterday was no exception.

While I was gone, dropping off our tax forms at the CPA’s office, The Cats Mixed. There was a fracas in, apparently, Alice’s crib. When there is a fracas, Abbey and/or Tango almost always piss everywhere. This fracas was, again, no exception.

Ordinarily I (aka SuperNose) would have noticed this immediately upon reentering the room when I found the door open and did a quick once-around to make sure the appropriate cats were on appropriate sides of the door. Alas, it’s allergy season, which means spring break for my olfactory sense. So I smelled nothing.

Alice, however, got a faceful of it at 9:15pm, and the blissful silence of sleeping children was shattered by the sound of a screeching infant. I got her all cleaned up, got her crib all cleaned up, washed off the mattress, flipped it, changed the mattress pad and sheets, and nursed her back to sleep.

Then at 10:30, she was awake again. Rocked her to sleep this time and put her back in the crib.

Then at 3:30am, again. Jerry tried to get her to go to sleep on his chest, but since that was only about a foot away from the snack machine (that would be ME) she was ENRAGED.

At 4:30am she decided she was done sleeping for the night and started to happily jabber. Cute? Yes. Annoying as hell? Yes. I flipped her over on her tummy and rubbed her back until she passed out again.

Ah, blessed sleep. Right? Wrong. I was tortured with a dream that I had crashed a party with snobby society girls and that I couldn’t just leave because I couldn’t find my purse.

And then at 6:45 or so a chipper pants-around-the-ankles Helen shuffled into our room asking if I could clean her up. Logic, sensing an opportunity, beelined for Helen’s discarded diaper and consumed the contents.

Never a dull moment, huh?

I’ll get sleep again in… what…? 2022? Right?

Cackling

Watching Helen hunt for Easter Eggs yesterday was hilarious. She would cackle like the little maniac she is every time she saw one. At one point, Jerry looked over at me with sheer joy in his eyes and said, “This is better than Christmas!” We all had a wonderful time hunting the eggs that the super-sneaky Easter Bunny had left, even though Mommy and Daddy were both sick with the Spring Allergy Crud, or SAC.

The funniest part about the Easter Eggs was that Helen quickly discovered that some contained chocolate and some contained jelly beans. So she’d pick up an egg, shake it, and then sort it according to contents. By 4pm she had eaten all of the chocolate, and out of desperation to maintain that elusive sugar high, was starting on the jelly beans. As of breakfast this morning I don’t think there was any candy left.

Amazingly enough, I think she had a decent lunch AND dinner yesterday, in spite of it all. But I just let her snort down all the candy she wanted — it’s not like we do that very often.