The Good, The Bad, and The Crazy

THE GOOD:

My younger daughter seems to be progressing even more in overcoming her shyness. At school drop-offs she is actually going off to find a friend to play with instead of needing teacher interference. She still doesn't give an official "good-bye" when she wanders away, but I'll take her content enough to separate without crying or whining anyday.

She is also now fully participating in her gymnastics class. She has been going to the same place for 2 years now, and to date she had never really actively joined in the warm up time. Since this part of the class begins with circle time and talking, you can see why it never appealed to her. And even when they would get up and run around, she'd just sit and watch all by herself until it was time to start the gymnastics portion of the class. Then she was full tilt, showing her athleticism with pride. But as of the last two sessions, she is now rocking and rolling from the get-go, participating in circle time and warm up activities.

Then, just to prove that miracles really do happen, she started playing with a little girl she had never met before. This is absolutely unheard of in her four year old life to date. We were at her big sister's gymnastics class and this other little sister was lurking around, looking for a playmate to pass the time. While my daughter did not step right up and introduce herself (I had to do that part for her) she did participate as soon as this other outgoing little girl initiated some play time. I sat there and watched in amazement as the two of them played, giggled, and even talked with each other.

THE BAD:

This same daughter of mine had a bad spell with nighttime potty accidents during the holidays. After four nights in a row (you'd think we might have learned our lesson after two or three) we went back to taking her to the bathroom after she's gone to sleep, around 10pm. My theory was that she was just so tired from all the family in town and craziness of the holidays that she was sleeping deep enough not to wake up when the urge struck. We thought we had the problem kicked and stopped taking her at night about a week ago. Then she fell off the wagon again last night. To share the blame, we did not remember to take her to the bathroom when she went to bed, so that could have helped. And we should have because she had a lot to drink with dinner. Nonetheless, it made for another tiring episode sheet changing and pajama swapping during the night.

The kicker is she wasn't the one to wake me up in the first place. The other bad going on in our family right now is that my other two kids are sick. They have horrible coughs and my oldest has had a fever (just once a day) every day for the past several days. Her coughing was making such a hacking sound that I got up to check on her last night, and before I could reach her I ran into my little wet one.

Then I spent the next hour and a half thinking all kinds of thoughts instead of sleeping. Like, should I take them to the doctor? What will the doctor say? Is our doctor back from her leave yet? Wasn't I supposed to take the girls for their wellness checks soon? Why haven't they called me for a reminder appointment? I can't forget to call and tell the school that she is staying home again tomorrow. And call our carpool friend too. Why did (the other) she have another accident? Has she not been sleeping enough? Why has she been sooooooo whiny lately?

You can see how much fun that was. Almost as much fun as listening to my younger daughter re-exercise her inner whiny self lately. I thought we kicked that habit too, but it is rearing it's ugly head again. Whine, whine, whine. Cry, cry, cry. Fuss, fuss, fuss. That's how her day goes. Throw in a good jab or two at her sister, some wrestling with her brother, and a few bumps and bruises and you've about covered it.

Which brings me to the last topic.

THE CRAZY

That'd be me. Home for two days on my own with my kids, barely even seeing the beautiful sunshine we are having these days, let alone feeling it. Listening to the baby cry (he now has fevers) and my other two whine. With the occasional bout of calm throughout the house, since the one side benefit is that my son naps a lot when he's sick. And our unwritten rule is that if anyone stays home from school they get to watch about as much television as they can stand.

So now it's my turn.

Whine, whine, whine. Cry, cry, cry. Tears dropping right into my wine glass.