On the twelfth straight day of solo parenting, I’m feeling like I have used up just about all of my patience and good cheer. I’m a bitter, withered, underslept shell of a human being and I’ve still got four more nights to go. Tonight, in a effort to avoid washing dishes, I drove the kids to a restaurant despite their behavior indicating that it was going to be anything but a pleasant dining experience. When I opened up the van and started getting them out, Anna started spitting on her shirt. I snapped. I buckled Tara back into her seat and drove back home despite Anna’s wailing. I just could not stomach trying to manage their behavior any longer. In retrospect I know Anna’s nose has been bothering her today and agitating her; tomorrow I’ll be more liberal with the Benadryl and hope for the best.

Wednesday night was absolutely awful. Tara was up once or twice per hour until about 1am, at which point Anna woke up and was up for about an hour and a half. I was seriously considering hauling everyone into the car to go to urgent care, because nobody was sleeping anyway and Tara’s lungs were so congested that she was coughing nearly to the point of vomiting. Everybody slept between 2:30-5:30am. I was in a desperate situation by the time the nanny showed up. I was fairly relieved to go to work for a while, but I returned to take Tara to the doctor. Of course, by the time we got into the doctor, Tara was significantly improved, and I left with little hope for the next night. I again put Tara to bed an hour early, and Anna down half an hour early. I was so wiped that I fell asleep at 8:15, then was awakened at 9:30 by Anna, who had a nightmare and crawled into bed with me for the second night in a row. Amazingly, I was the first one up at 5:30am, and Tara slept until 6:30–that’s 12 1/2 hours straight. I was in an absolute state of bliss from the time I woke until Anna woke up, whining that she had a sore throat–a sure sign that I was in for several more days of cranky child hell. Later in the morning, after some Tylenol and breakfast, Anna was feeling much better. I’m not sure if she actually has a sore throat at this point or if she is just milking the situation for extra attention. At this point, everyone is still in their own bed, and not a peep out of either one since bedtime. There, I jinxed it.

Tara’s cold/cough/fever has taken a turn for the worse. She was up several times last night coughing and crying, and this morning woke the whole house up at 5am, absolutely miserable. She refused to eat anything, and wouldn’t drink anything but juice. Anna was cranky at having been awakened early, and jealous of the attention Tara was receiving. By 7am I was just about at my wits’ end. I realized early on that Anna did not have school today, so at least the pressure was off to get her going and out of the house (in her mood, even 2 1/2 hours would have been a challenge). I was exhausted solo and had two tired and cranky children. By 8am things were looking a little better; after Tara had some Tylenol and Anna had a video and the nanny showed up, I called the pediatrician’s office, and the nurse basically told me to give Tara some cough syrup and soldier on, because the cough going around can last for weeks.

I felt I could safely depart for work. I again manage to make some headway on my to-do list until 2:30, when the nanny called to say that Tara was very fussy and refused to eat or sleep. I came home early from work to find Tara tired and cranky and coughing, Anna still in her pajamas and refusing to go to gymnastics, and the nanny looking somewhat frazzled. I had her take Anna to class while I tried to get Tara to sleep, then called back the pediatric nurse; this time the same nurse said I should take her to urgent care, and it was too bad I hadn’t called earlier. I decided it wouldn’t be very productive to unload on her at this point. It was really too late in the day to try to take both girls to urgent care and get them fed and in bed, so I loaded Tara up with cough suppressant (which the pharamcist tried to talk me out of, but that’s another story) and Motrin and put her to bed an hour early, and I’ve got Anna (who didn’t nap) going to bed half an hour early.

Wish me luck, there’s still a week to go.

It was a really good thing to be able to fall back into the regular work week today. The nanny got her car problems straightened out, and I was able to get into the office and start getting caught up on what I was already behind on before I had to unexpectedly take a day off from work. Tara is feeling better today; her fever is gone and she’s not coughing as much as the last couple days, but still has a hoarse voice. She has been so cute lately that I captured some lousy video on my phone just to get something to post, so please enjoy.

Update: somehow I had borked the audio on the movie, but it’s fixed up now.

The day started well enough; I awoke to the sounds of Anna fixing her own breakfast downstairs at 6:30. Tara was still asleep. Anna did a terrific job of getting herself ready, and I had the foresight to put Tara down to sleep in the next day’s clothes, so we were all ready to head out the door well ahead of schedule for once. It was then that I got a call from the nanny that her car had broken down on the freeway and she narrowly avoided an accident. Things sort of spiraled from there into an ugly situation involving an asinine police officer and her ailing father. An hour later she informed me that the car was taken care of, but she wanted to look after her father, so I ended up staying home with the girls, unplanned.

Throughout the day, Tara seemed to be coming down with something. She’d been occasionally cranky since yesterday and was sounding congested. By 10am I was feeling pretty wiped out; having had a few nights in a row of inadequate sleep. After picking up Anna and having lunch at home I was hoping for a little downtime with Tara napping and Anna having quiet time. No such luck as the yard guys paid a visit and woke up Tara with the mowing and blowing. It was 1pm, both girls were up, and I was realy for a nap. I decided we needed to get out and do something, so I took the girls to SeaWorld for the second time in three days. We buzzed in just in time to catch the 2pm pet show, then hit the 3pm dolphin show. By then, Tara was looking really wiped out; even in the middle of the dolphin show she was asking to go night-night.

I picked up dinner on the way home, fed the girls, put Tara in the shower, helped Anna with her homework, and got some of the dishes done. At this point, with Anna falling asleep as I type this, my responsibilities are nearly done for the day. I’m hoping Tara sleeps through the night, but I’m going go to do bed as soon as Anna knocks out, just in case someone is up tonight.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

I’m tired. It’s been a long weekend; Saturday morning, we went to SeaWorld long enough to watch the dolphin show and have lunch. By noon both kids were wiped from walking, and I was wiped from carrying them after they couldn’t walk anymore. As we left, and both kids were complaining loudly I realized this would probably be the worst possible time to have paid absolutely no need as to where I parked the car. I had absolutely no idea, and neither of the kids were in the mood for looking around. I stopped a passing security golf cart if I could get a little help; they suggested that I go back to the entrance while they call a security car to drive us around. We walked back (with me carrying 75 pounds of children). After waiting for 60 seconds of whining I was inspired to remember approximately where the car was, and I hustled off carrying both kids and ended up making a beeline for the car. Anna passed out on the ride home, and Tara conveniently stayed away until we got home. The evening was fairly uneventful, but both kids will still fairly tired in the evening and each had a good night of sleep.

Sunday morning we went out for breakfast to Pancake House, and upon arriving home, we got a call from our friends M. and K., wondering if Anna wanted coming over for a playdate. Of course, everybody was fully in support of the idea. Anna ended up spending most of the day with them, while Tara and I hung out and cleaned up the house. Our dining room, which has been the “art room” for the last several months is again capable of seating six for dinner again. We’ll see how long it lasts. I also managed to do what little laundry was left after the nanny’s efforts and clean up in a few different spots around the house. Later this week I’m hoping to tackle the breakfast bar (again). Maybe this time I’ll put that spiky wire stuff they use to keep birds from roosting over outdoor eateries. We seem to have a problem in which any flat surface eventually becomes covered with clutter. I swear I’ll see an end to it eventually. The nanny has really helped Anna to clean up more regularly; if everyone makes a habit of it, we’ll really have something.

I have to confess that the first few days of this solo stint have gone quite well. Our nanny has been an absolute rock star, and Anna has been a lot of help in the evenings.

On Thursday, I got out of work fairly late and realized just as I walked in the door at home that I had approximately 30 minutes to feed the children and get them over to kindergarten to an afterschool event. Kid cuisine for Anna, leftovers for Tara, nothing for me. Anna probably spends 90 minutes on dinner more often than not. Amazingly, we made it on time to the event. However, this was a parent-kindergartener event, and we were a parent-kindergartener-toddler contingent, which makes for a really difficult situation when kindergartener attention is required, as Tara was mostly interested in running around and Anna was mostly interested in running after her. Who can blame them? We bailed about 15 minutes after we arrived, then went home and played on the swings. I have to give myself props for even attempting to attend, as the event was scheduled to end at Anna’s bedtime and 1/2 hr after Tara normally goes to sleep. And by “give myself props” I mean “think I might be prematurely senile.”

Tara continues to love reading, particularly when there are items in the book she can name. Since lots of kids books have animals, she is almost constantly commenting as I read: “Duck. Wack wack. Puppy. Woof woof. Meow. Mou (mouse).” I really need to get some video, but Jennifer’s camera is in Germany with Jennifer.

I would like to say first that I will be writing, or rather, transcripting a longer post about Friday. Friday was one of those Murphy’s Law sort of days in which everything went wrong and by the weekend things had degenerated to the point that I was blogging on paper. Really, it was that bad.

In any case, Friday started with the news that Jennifer was to go to Germany for two weeks on short notice; that is, she left this morning about ten minutes ago, after I woke her up half an hour ago because she was so tired from packing until three hours ago.

So, I have two weeks of single parenting ahead of me, but unlike her trip to Singapore, we have the nanny to help with a lot of the chores that made the last trip so tiring. Also, I am looking forward to the fact that a month from now I’ll be eating paella in beautiful Barcelona. Until then I have a lot of work to do and until Jennifer returns I can remember her by this cold she left me.

Today, I got home to a house that was cleaner than when I left. The kids were happy and clean, the lawn was mowed, the laundry was done. I sifted through the mail and perused bills from the accountant and the pest control service. I pieced together dinner from frozen prepared vegetable medley, frozen precooked chicken strips (which were delivered to my door by a service), and potato flakes. It seems like little by little I’m outsourcing so many different things I used to do. The upside is that got to spend more of my evening with the kids; though it’s not all sunshine and roses what with Anna being very defiant these days, we had an overall satisfying evening. The girls, when they were not antagonizing each other, alternated between Anna giving Tara horsie rides and both of them playing “let’s spin around until we get dizzy and fall down.” At one point, Anna completed 142 turns before Jennifer got tired of counting. Tara, who was playing while holding a sippy cup of milk, did a no-hands face-plant onto the carpet then just giggled and got up and started spinning again. I think we’ve captured some video at some point, which I’ll have to post soon.

The bike engine should arrive tomorrow; I’m really looking forward to getting it installed and giving it a spin, but realistically it may end up waiting until the weekend.

Since the nanny started with us, I’ve been thinking it’s time to start riding my bicycle to work again. I haven’t been able to ride so much since having kids because I always need to drop off or pick up one of the girls. Now, relieved of the dropping off and picking up for most days, I have been meaning to get back in the saddle, but the sad truth about riding to work is that it’s inconvenient and it takes a fairly long time. It’s a hilly 7 miles, but I have to shower at the end of the trip both ways, and I can’t shower right away after riding because the shower won’t “take” if I’m still sweating. It’s good exercise, though, and I’ve thought that the ideal situation would be to drive to work and to ride back. Finally, I’ve found a solution with an assist engine from Golden Eagle Bike Engines. I just placed an order for the 35cc Robin/Subaru 4-stroke engine, which should propel me along at up to 30 MPH (I imagine less what with the hills), for what should be a 20 minute ride to work, not much longer than the commute in the car (and burning 1/10th the gas).

Supposedly, the engine installs in about an hour. The only problem I forsee is that apparently 32-spoke wheels like mine are often not strong enough for the amount of torque the engine puts out and start popping spokes. Then again, most people are installing these engines on cheap, department-store bikes. My bike, though 10 years old, was somewhat higher end, and I selected it for its sturdiness rather than for low weight. We’ll see how the wheels hold up. I really hope it works out well to buzz in and pedal back; also it seems like most people enjoy riding around with the engine assist so much that they end up doing a lot more saddle time as a result. I could use that.