Sorry for anyone with delicate sensibilities... I had a colleague once give me disgusted looks any time I dropped an F bomb (of course nowhere near children) because it wasn't 'ladylike'. Guy, wearing pants isn't technically ladylike, but here we are.
Anyway, I imagine this is what Delilah and Madeline say every morning when they wake up, because things have just been chaos. I had the GIF queued up not this past Thursday, but the Thursday before, in preparation for last Monday, and then last week happened and we lost it... It was going to be a busy week anyway, but Delilah came down with her first fever Sunday night and was clingy and cranky for the rest of the week. The fever lasted probably until we woke up on Wednesday, but we had PT Monday, early intervention on Wednesday, and standard baby bloodwork Thursday morning. Delilah had developed a rash Thursday so we made an appt to see the pediatrician - she most likely had roseola
Roseola is a contagious viral illness. It causes a high fever and then a rash that develops as the fever goes away. The disease is also called roseola infantum or sixth disease.
It may take 5 to 15 days for a child to have symptoms of roseola after being exposed to the virus. A high fever may start suddenly and may reach 105°F. A child is most contagious during the high fever, before the rash occurs. The fever lasts 3 to 5 days and then suddenly goes away.
As the fever goes away, a pink rash develops. The rash is either flat or raised lesions on the abdomen. It then spreads to the face, arms, and legs.
Interesting.
Anyway, so the chaos. The girls have been obsessed lately with the diaper pail and the power strip above it in their room. If the diaper pail isn't full, it's more likely to tip over, and if it is full, they can sometimes figure out the lock and get it open. The power strip was drilled into the dresser by my lovely husband, a lovely idea at the time, but now I spend any time in the girls' room going back and forth dragging each baby away from it. We also like to pull our dirty clothes out of the hamper and either play with it or just drag it around the room, and we like to do whatever mischievous thing we've got in mind while mommy is changing our sister's diaper and can't get to us immediately.
Diaper changes is its own nightmare. I'd say a diaper + outfit change can take as long as 10 mins for one baby. It begins by just flailing around so you can't even put the baby on the changing pad, going really stiff, going really limp, or doing the crocodile spin so we're on our belly. Ok, you manage to pin the baby down, now you need to occupy their hands, otherwise they'll be inspecting whatever is in their diaper/grabbing at their lil lady bits. Whatever it is needs to be a bit novel, otherwise they'll get bored and throw it immediately. But not too interesting, because they might flail it around and shove it between their legs, or maybe just go nuts with it that they want to twist around now that their diaper is open. Grab wipes to be at the ready, based on the smell (1 wipe for a pee diap, 3 for a poop diap). Now, with your left hand, decide if you're going to hold the wandering hands out of the way, or lift the legs up - can you lift the legs up AND keep the hands out? Maybe you can use your arm somehow.. Hmm, but lifting their legs is some how like a signal that now is a good time to try to spin away, and now you're left holding your baby upside down by the ankles. The same way they seem to know there is poop in their diaper and they MUST get their hands in it, they also seem to know the exact moment you've got desitin on your hand, because that is also the exact moment they're going to kick you so you some how smear that desitin anywhere other than their butt. Maybe they'll try to sneak their hands back in there while you're trying to smear vaseline on their butt - a third arm would be handy right now. What seems like ages at this point, you've finally finished the diaper, only now to remember you need to get this baby dressed. For this reason, I no longer love onesies. If we're wearing a shirt and shorts, I can pull the baby off the changing pad (which they've been doing a good job trying to fling themselves off of), hold them in my lap as they squirm, and wrestle them into their clothes. The thing about onesies is, it requires a bit of precision, on a moving target. Your baby is probably screaming at this point, and unless you've put her sister in time out in her crib, she's flicking the switch to the amazon echo on and off while saying 'no no no!' When you finally dump the first baby down to the floor, you get to do it all again. This time, maybe the now-dressed baby will open and slam her fingers in a drawer because the drawers are too thick for baby locks, or we'll try to climb up the bookshelf, or we'll scream bloody murder because our rocking bear can't be pushed through a pile of blankets.
I was already tired when I sat down to write this, but I'm exhausted now relieving it. I think that's what's been so hard about trying to keep up with this as well as my own paper journal - it's hard enough the first time around, recalling the chaos isn't something you want to do at the end of a long day.
But I'm already here, so let's keep going! The screaming bloody murder thing - that's been Delilah's new favorite hobby. When she's frustrated, she screams. It happens a lot when the little walker car she's using gets stuck on something (the corner of a wall, a chair leg, a book)... I also can't feed them fast enough. I'll pop them in their high chairs, and if they're not being fed IMMEDIATELY, you're gonna hear about it until you get food in their gob. I had intended to leave them roaming freely while I made them lunch so I didn't have to be screamed at, but we can push the high-top chairs we have in our kitchen, and I worry that they'll tip them over. The regular dining room chairs are more sturdy, so while I used to get mad when they'd push them around, at least they weren't going to tip over and hurt someone. The high-top chairs are also pressed against a baby gate which is blocking our kitchen cart. If they push the chairs out of the way, they can pull the gate down. So besides the lunchtime/highchair/screaming issue, we have a cycle between- I sit on the two chairs so they're too heavy for the babies to pull, they get bored and go back to the family room, they are some how immediately drawn to pixel and feel they MUST poke and prod him, which he doesn't like and growls at them, I get up to intervene, this is no fun for babies, who wander away, most likely back to the high-top chairs, where I go and sit on them again.
We still have baby jail, so that can contain them, but they've had a taste for freedom, if you put them back in their for too long, they'll scream. I have a hard time being productive when there is screaming in the background, so like, chopping veggies for lunch or dinner, I might chop my fingers off after listening to 20 mins of screaming already.
Not this Saturday, but the following Saturday, Grant will officially be done with his MBA and I will no longer feel like I'm a single mom 😭
Here are some cute baby videos!
Comments
Post a Comment