Week 115: Whack-a-mole

It seems like child care problems are cropping up as fast as we can solve them these days.  So, let's focus first on what went right this week.  Our new Tuesday/Thursday babysitter started with Lime.  That worked out really well.  She showed up on time, played with him until he was worn out, and read a book while he was asleep.  Lemon is also really interested in her, and we're hoping she'll come one more afternoon per week when both kids are around, so that Lemon can play with her too.  Lemon continues to love his preschool, and we got his first school pictures this week.

On the less positive side, our morning nanny had a little health crisis on Tuesday morning while she was here with the kids.  Some combination of still recovering from the pneumonia plus probably a bit of hyperglycemia from diabetes that became hard to control while she was fighting pneumonia left her pretty unwell, so she had to bail in the middle of the morning on Tuesday morning.  Fortunately she was able to rest on Tuesday afternoon and get herself back together by Wednesday, but it gave us all quite a scare.  Wednesday should have been a normal day, except that Nona had a migraine couldn't watch the kids that afternoon.  And Friday she was out of town for a wedding.  So, we effectively had about 70% coverage for the week, and were scrambling once again.  Somehow we made it through but we were pretty wiped out going into the weekend.

With all the upheaval during the week, we didn't quite manage a Halloween costume for anyone. 

Fortunately, our kids are too young to know that they have the lamest parents ever.  We went to our neighborhood Halloween parade anyhow, and luckily no one mocked us for showing up in street clothes.  Lemon wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he was intrigued by all the people in funny outfits.  We tried to walk in the parade, but Lemon made us pull over so he could watch it instead.  Then, at the end, he sat down at a picnic bench and ate two entire pieces of pizza as though it was no big deal, even though we've been struggling to get any solid food at all into him this week.  The late night (extended by a two hour refusal to go to sleep once we got home) certainly "eased" the transition with the clocks falling back.

Our sleep issues continued into Sunday, when Lemon refused to nap until we got in the car to go to the park, at which point he promptly passed out and slept for an hour in the parking lot.  Luckily I'd learned from past experience and had brought both Papa Bear and the stroller, so Lime and I took a nice walk around the neighborhood while Lemon and Papa napped in the car.  Once he woke up, Lemon had a great time at the playground.

Our food struggles have continued as well, with one notable exception--on Sunday morning in desperation I bought a small bottle of ranch dressing, thinking Lemon might like things better with "dip."  He fell in love with the bottle as  soon as I took it off the shelf at the store, carried it by hand for the rest of our shopping trip, wept bitterly when I pried it out of his hand to pay for it, and showed it proudly to the firemen that we met in the store parking lot on our way out.  He has decided that this marvelous substance should not be relegated to the role of "dip," but should have a starring role in the meal, and be consumed with implements reflective of its status as a main course.  To quote another CF mama on the subject, "You take what you can get."





Oh, and Lemon has another cough, so we're up to 3x/day vest treatments until further notice.  Someday I have to imagine we will get to the point of solving problems faster than they crop up, or possibly even have a multi-day stretch in which no new problems emerge.  I'll be sure to let you know when that happens!