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.

Jennifer and I were not planning on Tara staying home sick this week, but she made new plans for us anyway. She started out on Monday with a fever, followed by a cough, followed by a running nose, and a couple rounds of vomit. I suspect there’s going to be some diarrhea involved in the finale, but don’t let me spoil the ending for you. It could be anything.

Jennifer stayed home with her on Monday, her usual day off, and we split Tuesday through Thursday, trading off at lunch each day. Today was also supposed to be a split as well, but Jennifer decided to cheat by not eating lunch and thus spending the whole day at work while I busied myself with cleaning blort off the crib sheet, the baby, and myself. Combine that with some night waking and it’s business as usual here at We’re So Tired. I guess I don’t have to worry about changing the name of the blog any time soon.

Tomorrow, we’ll be meeting another nanny; I think this is the seventh prospective nanny, but who’s counting. She looks great on paper, sounds great on the phone, and hopefully will be equally great in person. It would only figure that we find a good nanny now that Anna is all accustomed to going to ESS. This morning there was some bargaining, but no actual tears shed at drop-off time. She was cheery as could be when I picked her up, and she seems to be very attached to the “teacher” there with the piercings and the big tattoo on her chest. One of them anyways.

I’m glad we don’t have a whole lot going on this weekend; after this week of being housebound, and with my trip to D.C. coming up, the last thing we need is to be scurrying around from place to place with a sick baby.

Anna is four. To anyone who has had a four-year-old of their own, I need not say that she is fussy and temperamental on occasion. On this weekend, she was especially fussy and temperamental, and on Saturday afternoon her fussiness crested and gave way to a mix of drama and trauma, so that it seemed she was coming down with something. At the point when Jennifer got out the thermometer and checked, Anna’s temperature was 106.6 degrees¹. We would not be surprised if the thermometer is broken, although it does read correctly for Jennifer and I. A couple hours (and some Motrin) later, Anna was still over 104 degrees and complained that everything hurt, particularly her head and neck; Jennifer took her in to urgent care. Our local urgent care has adopted a restaurant-style pager system that allowed Jennifer and Anna to wait in the car; Anna napped for the hour wait to get in to see someone. Finally, she was seen by a physician’s assistant who asserted that she did not have meningitis, and after a chest x-ray, she probably didn’t have pneumonia either. Upon coming home, Anna had some more Motrin, some dinner, and went off to bed.

This morning, Anna’s temperature was down to normal, and her mood was much improved (that is, back to normal four-year-old standards). The day has gone by without any new aches, pains, or fever. Hopefully that will be the end of mystery illness #732. Tara continues to be healthy; we’ve gone almost two months without a serious cold or ear infection, so we’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

¹ Note to U.K. readers: in centigrade, 106.6 degrees fahrenheit is.. er.. bloody hot.

Tonight was to be an extra-special date night in which Anna & Tara were going over to some friends’ house for a sleepover. However, one of the kids at Tara’s daycare came down with hand-foot-and-mouth disease, which is pretty ugly, so in the event that Tara was incubating these nasty germs, we canceled. That kind of misery definitely does NOT love company.

Anna was super-stoked to be going over to her friends house, and as I picked her up from preschool, she and her friend could talk about nothing but the impending sleepover. I realized that if I broke the news before getting her into the car, there would be a scene of epic proportions. I waited until we were packed into the car and buckled into our respective seats. Note to self: move Anna’s booster seat to the passenger side of the car.

As a means of softening the blow, we went out to dinner at a restaurant, which is one of Anna’s favorite things to do. As the chef in our home, I don’t take this personally, because Anna is just as finicky at a restaurant as she is at home. We decided on Outback Steakhouse, which is not at all crowded when you arrive at 4:35pm.

Anna and I sat and ordered and played Tic-Tac-Toe on the kids’ menu, while Jennifer picked up Anna and brought her some twenty minutes later. Tara could hardly decide whether to eat or flirt with passersby. Eventually she came down on the side of flirting, while I popped food into her mouth. She ate mostly macaroni; occasionally I would sneak in a vegetable or some other food that didn’t agree with her and most of the time she would make sour face and begin rolling her tongue around her open mouth until the offending food was rejected. Tara did enjoy the music, occasionally wiggling back and forth or drumming on the table. Eventually our food and Anna’s patience ran out, and Tara and I went home for bed while Anna and Jen went out for ice cream.

Parenthood, like life, is a continuum of making choices of varying difficulty. At this moment, Jennifer and I are struggling with the problem of Tara’s ear infections. Tara has gone through something like eight rounds of antibiotics for cold-related infections, and although the ear tubes are done something like two million times each year, we can’t help but want to get at the source of the problem. Tara was treated for her first ear infection two weeks after going into day care. We really like our day care, but the fact is that it is full of other germ-laden children. Tara, more so than most children, puts everything in her mouth, which makes her the ultimate germ magnet.

We have considered putting Tara in a situation with less children, but finding a nanny is difficult, expensive, and scary. Also, we’d really hate leaving our current day care because we like our provider and her family a lot; Anna spent three years there. Further, it’s tough to expend the effort and taking the risk of changing things without actually being able to spend more time with Tara. I’ve resisted Jennifer’s notions of nannies and au pairs primarily for this reason, but I’m getting to the point now that I’ve got to entertain the idea because we absolutely have to do something to get Tara more healthy.

We’re investigating a couple more options lately in earnest, and I really hope that a good solution presents itself.

Tara, who was already taking Omnicef, got something like her seventh ear infection. This one is pretty bad now, and she’s pretty miserable, with a 102+ degree fever. We’ve upgraded to the next level antibiotic and hopefully we’ll see some results soon.

Update: She’s been pretty miserable all day long, with her fever spiking up near 104 at various times of the day, but when she has our attention she seems to do much better. Go figure.

Update again: Sunday morning Jennifer ended up taking Tara to urgent care because it seemed that her eardrum had ruptured. Turns out that it hadn’t, thankfully. Today Tara has been much more happy, so it seems that the Augmentin is working. It’s been a heck of a weekend. I’m looking forward to leaving the house tomorrow.

Tara gets closer every day to walking. For a couple of months, she has greatly enjoyed walking around while holding on to mom or dad’s hands. A month or so ago, she started pulling up on her crib bars, toy bins, and now walls. Lately, she is showing improved balance, and can even stand for short periods before plopping down on her bottom or on her hands and knees. Still, her favorite activity is still to take our hands and stagger around like Ted Kennedy on St. Patrick’s Day.

In other news, Anna’s fever subsided and she actually went to school two days this week. In a related story, Tara now has a fever. Be sure to tune in next week when mom or dad will undoubtedly be sick. Ah, parenthood.

The last month or so has seemed terribly busy for me, and I can’t really say why. What I do know is that I have felt completely out of it; like I have been tremendously occupied with this routine of moving kids from place to place and going to work and coming home and making mediocre, last-minute dinners, and fulfilling obligations.

Tonight, Anna (who is still sick) was cleaning up the dining room (”spring cleaning,” as she called it) while I sat at the table processing a stack of outgoing Christmas cards nearly a foot high. When I realized that it was getting late and that I should start getting Anna ready for bed, I told her so. “I’m busy, Dad. Let me finish cleaning up first,” was her reply. I managed to pick my jaw up off the floor before she swept up with her broom, and return to the Christmas cards for a few minutes. “Anna, it’s time to go up,” I said. Without looking up she ran out to the laundry room and came back with the dustpan, “I’m almost done, I’ll be ready in just another minute.”

It has always been entertaining to see Anna imitating us, using the same facial expressions, phrases, and physical gestures, and she was brushing me off using the same language I’ve used with her. To be sure, this is not nearly the first time she’s been “too busy” to go to bed, but this time it struck me a little differently, to realize that her interest in Mom and Dad is on the decline. It made me uneasy for a moment, and I paused, staring at the stacks of photos and envelopes and stamps and labels in front of me. “Anna,” I said, “you’ve done a wonderful job cleaning up the dining room. Let’s go upstairs and read a story.”