I turned 28 this past week. I got wonderful well wishes from facebook friends, family members and real life friends. Trent and I got to go out to a nice dinner, Home Depot and Pep Boys. But overall my birthday got a little buried in other priorities this week, namely our kids puking and making diapers that occasionally required me to fetch the rubber kitchen gloves to remedy.
Our kids went to a total of 45 minutes of daycare this week. We sent them Monday morning only to get two separate, subsequent phone calls shortly thereafter saying they had reached their legal limit of diarrhea diapers for the day already and needed to be sent home. Cue craziness for the rest of the week. Any other week and Trent and I could have sufficiently tag teamed staying home with the kids, but I had two days of new hire training to lead, a two day seminar I couldn't miss and Trent began classes for this semester. We also were supposed to have a court hearing, but it was postponed. The kids continued to be ill with enough frequency that they clearly could not go to daycare the next day...and the next day...and the next day... To quote my mother, "This is a job for OmieJean" but alas, she is far away and a busy bee herself.
Our solution was some tag teaming, some classes missed, and our one available, CPS approved, rockstar babysitter who saved our booty. (P.S. If you do not pay big bucks to a babysitter for a) short notice, b) risk of getting sick herself, and c) mopping up your kids' puke, then you are a scrooge, a scrooge I tell ya.) Meanwhile we fielded texts, phone calls and emails Friday for a last minute flurry of activity with CPS related to our Mediated Settlement Agreement for post-adoption contact.
We survived. The kids appear to be better now.
I did a lot of reflection, comparing and pouting this week.
A lot of comparing our current poopy week to our life a year ago when we didn't have kids yet. Man, that was easy back then. And so far away now. And that's ok. I think parents need to be given permission to occasionally miss their pre-children life, a time when you could come and go as you please, no missing work for sickees at home, you could be outside of the four walls of your house after 7:30 pm without arranging for someone to be inside those four walls, the only poo and puke you had to worry about was your own. Good times. Gone times. Gotta get over it and do our best in the now, but I think a little reminiscence here and there is a-ok..
A lot of comparing to a few months ahead of us when CPS babysitter rules and last minute approval of court documents won't cramp our style anymore. Turns out our case will be wrapped up sooner than we thought, which is great. Once adoption is final, CPS rules for babysitter approval will go out the window and we could have grabbed any available, brave soul to help us this week on the days our babysitter couldn't. We also won't have frantic correspondence with CPS on their routinely last minute time frame about important documents related to our future. We can just be "normal parents", whatever that means.
A lot of worrying about being a bad employee. "I have to bug out of new hire training for a bit next week for our court hearing.....oh just kidding, it's postponed to next week so I'll have to be absent for it later, but I still have to leave training to Kristin for a bit until our babysitter gets out of her 8 am class...I have to be home with sick kids tomorrow but will be in at 2:30 when Trent gets out of class...just kidding, we're taking them both to the doctor so I won't be in at all actually...uh...I'm asking for a friend........what is the policy on missing part of a CPE seminar that is already registered and paid for?.........." I am beyond thankful that the responses to our CPS related stuff are generally "This is important for your family. Do what you need to do" and the responses to our week-o-sick-kids were generally "There is no easy answer when it comes to sick kids" and "Been there" and "Do what you need to do...but please try not to skip the seminar." (Trent skipped class so I did not skip any of the seminar.) I think the one particular boss who fields most of these family related notifications from me is probably sick of hearing them, but the good news is soon at least the CPS related stuff won't be a part of it anymore. Sick kids? No tellin' on that one.
A lot of just not really wanting to deal with diarrhea diapers on my flippin birthday. I mean, ok, right? Who's with me? A lot of people on facebook said "I hope you have a great day!" and I thought "Well, Trent is the one at home with day #4 of puking children, not me, so that's a pretty good day." Oh life. How you change.
Big shout out to my husband for handling the bulk of the time at home this week and Carlie for risking her own health to come over and nonchalantly clean up grossness with a chill response to my apologies of "It's ok, it happens!" Yes indeed. Puke happens. Life happens. Just gotta roll with it.