The Queen's Rambles

I was looking forward to our playdate with Bethany and her girls today, but life threw us another curve ball.

Elsa started fussing and wiggling around midnight. Eventually she worked up to full scale crying and had a fever. Finally, around 4 am, she settled down for a couple of hours. Right around them my digestive system decided to do an auto-clean and I spent the next three hours in the bathroom. Every time I’d try to go back to bed, my colon would make it clear that the auto-clean feature wasn’t done working. Fantastic.

Thankfully my colon seems to be doing ok, now. It’s just my eyes and the rest of my body that need something (like 8 solid hours of sleep).

Elsa is not so fortunate. She is laying around, crying, wriggling, not looking at all happy. I need to find a local source for cherry flavored infant pain drops, or maybe just order some online. She’ll take them and they help, but it is clear something is wrong.

A few weeks ago I noticed she had a reddish scab thing on her collar-bone. She pinches herself all the time so I didn’t think anything of it. Later, Mike pointed out that it looked like a tick, but it never looked like a tick to me. It started to look like there was a big, black mole hanging off the middle of the scab. It was strange and I was going to take her to the doctor for it, but it disappeared before I had the chance.

That was over a week ago and the redness in the area is growing instead of decreasing. It is not a typical Lyme disease bull’s eye, but I looked at some pictures on google and there was one on a lady’s collar bone that looks almost exactly like what Elsa has.

I posted about it on FB and the response was overwhelming. I guess I needed that encouragement because I hate the doctor to think I’m an over-reacting idiot. As soon as I saw everyone telling me to get her checked out I called and made an appointment. I guess I’ll find out more tonight. Thankfully it is with the doctor I really like so maybe I won’t be so nervous. Why do I get so nervous around doctors?

Elsa has been in to the doctor for sick visits at least double the times Erik has been in for sick visits and he’s almost six years old. My poor baby girl.

In better news, Erik and I are getting along much better. I think transitioning to four hours at camp was tough for him. I also think my rage was fueled by strong emotions over Father’s Day. Even though my dad and I weren’t close, Father’s Day and all the millions of commercials leading up to the day were pretty hard to get through. I just kept thinking about my dad and how he should be sitting in his chair. I also keep picturing him in the hospital and wishing I would have done more and said more, though I don’t know what else I could have done or said. He would get really agitated when we tried to tell him we loved him because he knew he was dying and he didn’t want to die.

Updates on things no one cares about:

1) My dishwasher is fixed! I didn’t even know it was broken. It’s been filling up with mold for months, now. We would bleach it out, wash it, and so forth. I just thought I was a failure as a housewife, which makes no sense because what would I be able to do to make my dishwasher not be moldy? It is not exactly rocket science.

I googled and tried a bunch of home fixes, but nothing was ever working. Mike suggested we get a new dishwasher, but before we went that far I had him check our home warranty. Surprisingly, dishwashers were covered so we got a guy out here. I was shocked to discover I’m not a poor housekeeper. The heating element was out. That also explains why it took several hours to do a load of dishes. It is much faster now and there is no sign of mold. I wish I would have been smart enough to know that mold in the dishwasher is not normal a few months ago.

2) My baby no longer has constant diaper rash. I am no longer using cloth wipes so I suspect the wipes solution I was using had something that irritated her. Also, we are only cloth diapering part time these days. I am sick and tired of leaks when we go out, plus a lot of her summer clothes are woven instead of knit, so the pants don’t fit over her diaper butt. We’re using the disposables when we go out and for night time and cloth when we are home. It’s working out very well and I am a lot less frustrated.

Also, I am using some real detergent in the prewash and using cold water instead of hot to soak them in. It is making a huge difference. They are actually getting clean and don’t smell nearly as bad. Yay for solutions!