Charlotte got her flu shot today; pray for us.  Last year she was sick for a week after it.  This year she was sick going into it, but I called the nurse yesterday and asked if we should reschedule.  The nurse said that as long as she isn't running a fever, she can still get it.  When Matt brought her in today, he told them about her reaction last time (fever, puking, sick for a week) and they gave her the shot rather than the nasal spray.  Charlotte had to get a combo with the H1N1, though, since she never got the second dose of the H1N1 last year.  They actually ran out of it when I had called them to schedule her second dose; they also hadn't told me at the appointment or in the literature that she needed a second dose, that was another thing I figured out from the news/internet.  Sigh.  What a rigmarole that all was.

Charlotte slept through the night last night; we've had 3 days of that in the last 2 and a half weeks, and it's starting to really take a toll.  I'm grateful that she slept last night, though, because I suspect that tonight is not going to be great.  If she reacts to this flu shot at all, it's gonna be a problem on top of her current cold (well into day 10 at this point).  My goal is to get my work done for the day and get into bed as close to midnight as possible, and hope like hell Charlotte sleeps until 4 am at last.  Matt talked to the receptionist at the pediatricians' office about maybe trying to make an appointment to talk about this sleep thing, but she wasn't sure how to schedule that kind of consultation, and she was gonna get back to us.  I'll call tomorrow and see if I can sort it out.  I also have an idea that I need to implement this week, but it involves tweaking my schedule, which I am not so great at.  This is big though, the sleep thing impacts us all pretty dramatically.

Go Ask Alice.

Despite the evidence to the contrary, Charlotte is not going to be Alice in Wonderland for Halloween.  She still wants to be a witch.  Though last night she said she was going to be Cinderella.  But we're right back at witch this morning.  Thank goodness, because we already have a witch costume.  And an awesome broom.  I figure if she starts to waver towards Cinderella, we can pull the broom out and remind her of how cool it is and that Cinderella doesn't carry a broom (actually, that's patently untrue, but I'm not sure that she'd remember that in time to make a convincing argument).

In other news, Charlotte is recovering from a cold and being a huge pain in the neck.  Here are some facebook status updates from yesterday:

11:48 am -

You know your kid is three when you specifically tell them that you are happy that the crayons didn't roll into the baseboard, because the heater is on and that would make a mess.....and five minutes later, she's put all the crayons in the baseboard. Groan.

2:15 ish pm - 

In the ongoing saga of I-need-a-vacation, Charlotte just came out of her room during "nap" with a mouthful of toy food saying, "I need to throw up," and spitting out her fake food. I did not laugh, but it is pretty freaking funny. This is my punishment for laughing at a puke joke 2 weeks ago.

10:55 pm - 

I know today has been rather Charlotte-heavy, but I'd like you all to know that the hilarious child is STILL AWAKE. Luckily, I'm still up and working and just monitoring from the living room, but seriously? Really?

11:16 pm - 

...and she's finally asleep. Phew.

The Summer Sick

Warning - if you don't feel like reading potty training/diaper issues, you might just want to skip this whole entry.

Oh man, this happened last year, and now it's happening again...Charlotte had a day of an upset stomach, and now she has the diaper rash from hell.  Last summer she had off and on diarrhea and a red, raised, raw diaper rash for almost 4 whole weeks.  What a bummer.  (ha! no pun intended.)  Today has been a miserable diaper day, and now she has a rash that caused her to cry and leap off the changing table at least once today.  I feel so awful for her, it's gotta suck.  And it's come at such a horrible time, potty training-wise.

Charlotte has made AMAZING strides with the potty training.  I will have to take a picture of her chart to show you.  We went out this weekend, and she sat on the toilet in a few different places, and even peed on the toilet at the library!  Which is awesome.  We're using the portable potty seat thing that we ordered from One Step Ahead, and it's made little toddler on big toilets so much easier to deal with.  Charlotte and I have also had a lot of talks about how bathrooms have a lot of germs, and we need to wash our hands a lot when we are using bathrooms.  This is going great.  I just wish more public bathrooms had footstools to stand on.  It's hard to prop up Charlotte AND help her wash her hands AND hang on to the diaper bag AND try and keep her from not getting soaked by all the puddles that seem to be all over every public restroom counter.

This diarrhea/diaper rash combo is horrible, though.  Charlotte still won't poop on the potty (typical but frustrating) and now she's nervous about sitting on the potty because her bum is so sore, and she can't really interpret her body's signals, so she's never sure when she should sit.  I hope the diarrhea is over soon, and we can just go to all naked time, and hopefully that will heal the rash and help her get back on track.

Still Sick

We're on day...I don't even know...of this particular illness, and Charlotte and I are still coughing.  No one has puked in a few days, so that's something.  The last few days have been full of willpower battles - Charlotte really wants to get into her humidifier (damn us for picking the cute froggie one! too tempting!) and she has been sent to time out approximately 8 times in 48 hrs for being unable to stop messing with it.  We are limited by the very small number of flat surfaces in her room.  There is really only one place for it to go, and it turns out that she can reach it there.  We spent a little while running in there every few minutes to catch her touching it and then make her stop, and then put her in time out, then jury-rigged a stable platform out of her reach.  Funny thing that's come out of it is hearing Charlotte say, "humidifier froggie."

Have gotten slack in creative meals lately - there has been a little too much reliance on peanut butter & jelly and grilled cheese sandwiches.  Part of the problem is that I'm sick too, which I keep forgetting to use as an excuse to cut myself some slack.  I'm hacking up a lung here, I can't be expected to come up with fun & nutritious snacks, dammit.  It's also the time of year where finding organic fruit is harder - and Charlotte gets tired of frozen berries...and I get tired of cleaning them up.

I've also been casting around for some new projects/independent play stuff to do with Charlotte.  I have a project or two up my sleeve for tomorrow - I got some tube pasta from the store, and cut some old (very stained) onesies into fabric strips, and I'm got to see if she can thread them.  I have a big bag of pom poms, and a muffin tin, and I'll let her sort them out.  I have white glue and paint brushes and paper grass...there should be something I can do with that.  Unfortunately, a lot of this is supervised stuff, but maybe after we make some macaroni necklaces I can direct her to the dress-up box.  Maybe I can put some different stuff in there...hmm.  I seriously wish that my whole job was doing projects with Charlotte all day.  She even knows the word project, it's awesome.  As soon as she sees me gather up stuff and bring it to the kitchen table, she asks, "Dat a project, Mama?  Dat you project?"  If I tell her that I have a project for both of us, she gets even more excited.  "Oh boy, a project, yay!"  Girl after my own heart.

Sick Monkey

Urgh, we're sick.  On Sunday Matt had a GI issue, then on Monday Charlotte was sluggish and whiny & then puked fantastically after dinner.  Yesterday Charlotte was coughing, sad and pukey, and I was sad and pukey.  Charlotte woke up at 5 am this morning, crying because her throat was hurting so bad.  We snuggled out on the couch, and I dosed her with Tylenol.  What a day.  Matt's taking her to the doctor this afternoon.  I feel so bad for her.  I really hope she doesn't have an infection or something.  I used to get bronchitis and strep throat a lot, so that's my concern.

I was changing Charlotte's diaper and getting her ready to go, and she was cheerful enough to carry on this conversation:

C: And gonna see a fishing tank, and there are cwabs.  Hermit cwabs inna shells.  Say "fishes."  [pause] Say "FISHES."  [looking at me expectantly]

Me:  Oh.  Oh!  "Fishes."

C:  Good job, Mama.  You say "fishes."  Good job.

Knock on Wood

So far, so good, on the hamthrax watch. Knock on wood, of course. Charlotte is having some side effect/cold action going on. Massively runny nose, lack of appetite, mood swings. But no cough or fever which are the big signs of H1N1. Or fever and vomiting, which marked her bout with the flu last time.

Which doesn't mean we have it easy here in the Casa De Sick. Charlotte is a little wild, not napping and not eating. She told me this morning that she is "vewwy hungwee", but she won't actually eat anything except juice and veggie sushi. Yesterday she completely rejected two whole meals...she ate a hot dog bun and a slice of cheese when she was out with my sister, mom, aunt, grandmother, (and of course, baby G), but at home all she ate was juice and veggie sushi.

Yesterday was really fun, though, otherwise. My mom is having a hard time living in a different state than her two grandchildren, and often comes out for a one-day visit (3+ hour drive each way!!) to see us. Since she works in the higher ed system, she had Veteran's Day off, so she coordinated a visit with my sister, her sister, and her mom. They made their almost-annual pilgrimage to the Yankee Candle flagship store, not three miles from my apartment. Nana (Charlotte's name for my mom) couldn't bear the thought of being so close and not seeing us, so she asked if she could stop by (briefly, because I was working). Matt jokingly suggested that she take Charlotte with her, since Charlotte loves Yankee Candle. Mom was thrilled, and agreed to pick her up.

Charlotte really does love Yankee Candle - part of it is the actual candles, she really likes smelling them - the flagship store is this Christmas-year-round kind of place that sells candles, ornaments, seasonal decorations. It has several theme rooms, including a woodsy-Christmas tree forest that has fake snow come down every 6 minutes, and a toy train track suspended from the ceiling in several sections of the store. Charlotte loves to go and smell candles, see trees, see snow, and see the train. Eating a snack in the cafe and occasionally getting a toy are just bonuses that she hasn't caught on to yet.

Mom and Nicole took Charlotte over with the rest of the visiting family, and were gone for almost 3 hours...3 hours which I didn't have to do anything but just work. Since I can't just work, no matter what, I also ripped several CDs to my iTunes, ate a snack, and finished casting on for a new sweater...but I did also get tons of work done. It was very bizarre to be done with work at 9:15 last night, instead of working up until midnight and still having some left over. I'm not sure what to do with this information now that I have it; there is still no extra $ to get Charlotte into a day care program so that I could have time to work during the day, but it is good to know that I can be so productive when I have time to myself. I kind of thought that I had lost the knack.

Matt wants to banish Charlotte's nap, since she sleeps so well at night when she doesn't sleep during the day....but I really need this time to regroup and prepare for the afternoon steady decline into madness. I think our schedule needs to be tweaked somehow, but I'm not yet sure how to do it. And I need to remember that a week when Charlotte isn't feeling well isn't the time to implement any major changes, anyway.

Alright, off to work while Charlotte is having some quiet time.

House of Germs!

Phew, the last three weeks have been crazy, and the last 10 days Charlotte has been sick. Not serious, but not fun for anyone either. A couple days after her birthday, Charlotte had her 2 year-old immunizations and the FluMist flu "shot." She had a fever, malaise, and one incident of vomiting. Poor kid. After she threw up and while Matt was cleaning her room and I was cleaning her, Charlotte said, "I spitting. I spitting, Mama."

"It's okay," I said. "You weren't spitting" - spitting is Not Allowed - "you threw up. It's okay, you were sick and you threw up."

"I spitting," she repeated. Clearly, she didn't really get what was going on. Luckily, we have a friend with a carpet cleaner, so it wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it was fairly traumatic all around.

Charlotte recovered from that in time to catch a totally DIFFERENT cold that I had, that involved a sore throat, stuffy head, and losing my voice. Now Charlotte is bossing me around in a nasal voice, and coughing when she should be napping. How is it that we have TWO erectile dysfunction pills clogging up my TV air waves, but no one has yet developed a safe and effective toddler decongestant? Priorities, people.

Lots of crazy developmental stuff right now. Charlotte's current obsessions include the new PBS show Dinosaur Train. There is nothing sly or jokey about this show - it is quite literally about a train for dinosaurs. It is like toddler crack. You know how Elmo is crack for one year olds? This is like that - but even more unexpected. After a couple episodes, Charlotte says to me, "That a brachiosaurus," and "Triceratops eat plants!" She found this little train that was attached to a play table, and the only train she has, and she brought it to me saying, "That Dinosaur Train. Dinosaur Train!" Charlotte got some dinosaurs for her birthday, and she was showing them to her baby doll, Judah (named by Charlotte!!). "That stegosaurus. Here triceratops. Triceratops eat plants. Plants inna garden!"

Negotiation has kicked in...she's been doing this for a while. "How 'bout Play-Doh, Mumma? How 'bout more book, Daddy?"

I'd love to post more, and I'm working to get back in the habit, but I gotta get some work done before midnight.