To The Gods Above and Below: Uncle!

This week has been challenging and it's only Tuesday.

Yesterday, we started the day by taking Liam to his very first swim lesson.  He was very excited to start learning to swim so he was chattering about it all morning before we left.  Jamie, who had been fighting a cold for a few days, hung out with me while we waited for Liam to have his lesson.  It all went rather swimmingly, actually.  (ba-dum bum.  Thank you, I'll be here all week.)

We headed home and had lunch and then it was time for Jamie to take a nap.  By this point I was knackered.  I've also been fighting whatever nasty cold virus Jamie brought home from daycare and I had felt like crap on a cracker when I woke up that morning.  So, while Jamie was napping, I popped in a movie for Liam and took a snooze on the couch.  Then it was up and at 'em.  Playing outside, paying bills, calling karate dojos...

Oh yes, Liam wants to start karate and I've been looking for dojos.  I found one and when I called they said "White belt class?  We have one tonight!  Come on down!  7:00 pm!"  Ok, that's kind of a full day for the kiddo but he wanted to do it so I made arrangements for Scot to take baby duty and I'd take Liam to the dojo.

Jamie had other plans.

We were sitting in the living room after coming in from outside and Jamie climbed up in my lap and proceeded to start spiking a fever complete with shivers/chills and his nails turning blue.  Because he's also teething and so uncomfortable he already had all the pain reliever/fever reducer on board that he was allowed.  And yet here he was spiking.  I temped  him:  102.2.  Frak.  I wrapped him up in a blanket to try and get him to stop shivering and called the nurses line.

When they *finally* got back to me they told me he needed to be seen so off we headed to the emergency room.  I called the dojo to say we weren't coming and Scot called his Mom to come look after Liam.

After the shortest ER visit ever (thank goodness!) it was clear that Jamie had a raging ear infection.  By the time they temped him in the ER he had gone up to 103.6.  They sent us home with antibiotics for the infection.  We've been through this too many times to count with Liam so I was just relieved it was nothing more serious.

His fever finally broke around 9:30 that night and while he's still on the mend, we know he'll be OK.  I flopped into bed and tried to get some sleep so I could stop feeling so run down.

This morning it was back to swim lessons!  Jamie was left home with Grandma to try and get a decent nap as he had a doctor's appointment later in the day during his usual afternoon nap time.  (Convenient that his 15 month well child checkup happened to fall the day after an ER visit, no?)  Liam was quite proud that on lesson #2 he could float on his back all by himself.  He was a veritable popsicle when he got out of the pool but he had fun.

We got home to find out that Jamie woke up pretty much as soon as we left so that whole nap thing didn't really work out.  I fixed lunch, bathed Jamie (because he didn't get one the previous night), and then packed everyone up and off to the doctor we went.

Aside from the ear infection, Jamie is healthy as a horse and something of that approximate size.  At 15 months he's 26 lbs, 11 oz. and 31 inches tall.  Liam barely made it to 30 lbs by three years of age.  Jamie's likely going to do it long before he's two.  Yowsa.

So then we trooped back home again, poured Jamie into bed for a nap and I tried to catch my breath.  After dinner and once the kids were in bed for the night, I headed off to the grocery store to do the shopping because my regular weekly trip is pretty screwed with the fact that Jamie isn't going to daycare this week and we've got other obligations.  I came out of the grocery store to discover a huge scrape on the front bumper of my car.  When I got home I realized that I myself must have done it when pulling into the garage at some point.  YEESH.

I'm still fighting this silly cold and I feel like I've packed a week's worth of activities into just two days.  We have swimming the rest of this week and all next week plus Liam is going to go to karate tomorrow night for the first time.  It's like life just suddenly went into overdrive and I totally wasn't prepared for it.

I would like a time out.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?