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.