This week in words

At the beginning of the week both girls slept through the night and both girls stayed dry and I thought to myself, “This is going to be a great week!”

Hardy-har-har.

The very next night Rachel was still up at 1:00 AM when we informed her that we absolutely were going to bed and she could suffer in the dark for all we cared. At 4:00 AM she started calling out for me so I went into her room and she said, “I still can’t sleep and I’m just so lonely from being in the dark.”

And that’s pretty much how our nights have gone since that one blissful night when both girls managed to sleep through the night uninterrupted.

So I didn’t blog a lot last week because I was mostly sleeping whenever I could. Nacia came over to play with the girls on Thursday, which was so nice of her! I visited with her, too, of course, but when Rachel commandeered her attention I took the opportunity to clean the house up a bit.

I did a load of laundry, swept and mopped the floors, tidied everything up and had the house looking pretty okay.

On Friday evening I looked around and everything that I had done was undone. Rachel had thrown up on the floor—not because she was sick but because she was throwing a fit. She can’t get too emotional or she loses her stomach—laughing or crying. Toys were scattered all over the house. Books and paper and crayons were everywhere. It looked like the house hadn’t been cleaned in days and Rachel was still sniffling and whining in her bed about the inhumanity of being sent to bed…at 9:30 PM.

Right, because that’s so early to be put to bed. Her life is so hard.

“I had this house spotless on Thursday,” I lamented to Andrew.

“Yeah, that was yesterday.”

That only made me feel worse. My house can go from clean to messier than messy in just a few short hours. It was clean when we left for church on Friday morning and we had dinner at the Bartons after church so we didn’t even get home until after four o’clock. That means our house was disasterified in about five hours. Pathetic.

I suppose the week was alright, though, even though our house is still a mess. Don’t worry…I cleaned up the throw up.

Here are some snippets from the past few days:

While reading Snow White…

me: And when the prince saw her he instantly fell in...
Rachel: ...to a hole?
me: No. In love.
Rachel: That doesn't make sense. How can you fall in love? It's better if he falls into a hole.

After Rachel asked me for the umpteenth time if she could do something I had already told her she couldn’t do…

me: Rachel, you’re skating on thin ice!
Rachel: Actually, I’m not skating, alright?

While making dinner one night…

Rachel: I have my blankey, my baby doll, my backpack, and a pencil. I'm ready to go to school.
Me: Alright, go to school then. Have a good day.
Rachel: I can't. I'm not five so I'll just wait right here until I am.

*sits down in middle of the floor*

While urging Rachel to eat faster so that we could leave for church…

Me: Rachel, will you just finish your breakfast?!
Rachel: Mommy, will you just finish yelling at me?!

After Andrew carried the stroller upstairs, with Rachel in it, Rachel hopped out and ran to the door…

Andrew: Was she buckled in?
Me: No.
Andrew: Wow! I didn’t know she could undo the buckle.
Me: She can’t. She wasn’t buckled in.
Andrew: Oh. I heard your no and understood it as a yes.
Me: That explains a lot.

While walking home the other day:

Rachel: Awww, Miriam! You’re so smart!
Andrew: Are you smart, Rachel?
Rachel: No. I’m not smart. I’m just cute.

And some random Rachel-isms:

“Mommy, I worried about you when I was a baby.”

“Can you make my underwear be inside? I can’t put it on when it’s inside-out.”

On Friday Andrew had to play the piano at church, so he went early with Miriam and I stayed behind to finish getting Rachel ready. She was an absolute slug that morning. Andrew gave Miriam to the Lawrences while he played the prelude music and when I came in Cloe said that she’d like to keep her for a while. So Rachel and I found some seats a few rows ahead of them and sat down. Later, Miriam started fussing and I remembered that I hadn’t fed her yet that morning. Cloe’s mom had taken Miriam into the foyer. I followed her out, leaving Rachel with Cloe.

When I came back in, Rachel was sitting on Cloe’s lap, drawing on some paper, so I left her with the Lawrence.

Later, in the middle of Mirza’s testimony, Rachel decided she wanted to sit with us, so the Lawrences sent her up to us. She walked right past us and up to the front of the chapel where she stood, frozen with fear. She’d lost her family.

We were only a few rows back and I thought for a minute that I had made eye-contact with her, so I waved. But she didn’t see me. People were pointing at us and trying to get Rachel attention.

Finally I had to just walk up there and grab her.

It reminded me of this.

And now for Miriam:

I finally took her to the doctor on Monday for her four month check-up. We totally missed her three month check-up. Going to the doctor every month is hard.

She’s doing well. Her growth has slowed a bit.

She’s 6850 grams now (about 15 lbs). That’s only up 1.5 lbs from two months ago, which is good because gained 3 lbs between her one month and two month check ups. I don’t think my back could handle that rate of growth anymore.

She’s 60.5 cm, almost two feet, tall.

She got some shots (Hep B, DTP, Hib) and some polio drops. She reacted pretty poorly to the Hib shot last time so we expected her to react again this time, and she did. She spiked a fever and was absolutely miserable for a few days, screaming whenever she wasn’t asleep. One night when she was screaming in her bed because I couldn’t do anything for her, I was *this* close to screaming into my pillow, myself. Andrew intervened, saying,

“Why don’t you hand me polio-girl, over there?”

He took a turn with her, which was wonderful. As miserable as vaccinations are, I can’t even imagine how my life would be if Miriam ever contracted one of these diseases. I mean, if she’s that miserable over an Hib vaccination just think of how miserable she’d be if she actually got sick.

Luckily she’s almost back to her happy little self. She was still screaming all day on Friday, but yesterday she was pretty much happy the whole day, although being out for that long made her rather tired. She checked out at 4:00 yesterday afternoon and I had no other choice but to put her to bed. She was not waking up for anything…until around 1:30 AM. She had already slept for nine hours and was ready to play! I spent the next four hours trying to get her to go back to sleep, which she finally did.

Andrew, my hero, decided to take the afternoon bus to campus and worked from home this morning so that I could sleep in. He took care of both the girls, did the dishes, and, hopefully, got some work done. I just slept. It was so nice!