A Case of the Blahs

Well, I jumped the gun on the birthday post since we never got to celebrate. Thursday evening, Eleanor threw up (twice), and then Will came down with a bit of a bug that night. He ended up staying home on Friday and we cancelled his party for fear others would get sick. He was better on his actual birthday .but still being very cautious about food, so I think he ate chicken soup for dinner that night. Poor guy. To make matters worse, my big surprise gift - tickets to Seinfeld this Friday - ended up being a bust. Will has a concert his students are putting on to raise money for Doctors Without Borders that night. He never mentioned this event, and I got the tickets without asking if he had anything, assuming he wouldn't have anything on a Friday night that I didn't know about. He is not able to cancel, so we ended up selling the tickets to my physical therapist. I think I'm more sad than he is. I was really looking forward to it and thought he would really love it. Before we had the kids, we would always watch Seinfeld together, and we know about every episode. Needless to say, it's been kind of a rough week.

I really don't do well with GI illness. It's not even the vomit, it's the unpredictability of it. You just don't know when things are coming. Eleanor seemed fine the next day and the next few days and then she threw up again after dinner on Monday night. I nursed her before bed, 40 minutes later, and she was fine and slept all night. She's been okay the last two days now. But every time she's fussy, I wonder if something is coming. I just hate it. I keep telling myself that it's not a big deal, and logically I know that, but I feel like I've been living with butterflies in my stomach the past week or so. Sick kids are just the worst.

These are the times that I honestly feel like it would be easier to be working. The winter has only just begun and I'm already feeling very trapped. Ethan requested a picnic yesterday, and it made me so sad. We picnicked so much this fall, and it was sad to have to explain that it would be quite a while before we could have a picnic again. The evenings are the worst, really, because it gets dark so early but you still have hours before bedtime. Ugh. I know it will pass, though, and I'm very lucky to have a hubby who is able to be home relatively early most days.

Today, Will had a field trip in the city, so he's still not home at 8:15pm. The day was pretty smooth, though, I have to say. It's fine as long as I know he's going to be gone. The house is actually cleaner tonight than on days when Will is around. And I got a lot of cleaning done today, too, which made me feel better. I turned all my negative stress energy into cleaning today. And that made me feel better because we're having Will's birthday party - take two - this Saturday now, and I got a few of the bigger cleaning projects done.

In more exciting news, Eleanor finally got a tooth. I noticed it this morning and used a metal spoon to confirm. Sure enough, there is a tiny tooth poking out. What's encouraging about this is that her nights have been fine lately, so I'm hoping that teething for her won't be too bad. She's been fussier during the day lately, but I've just chalked that up to her GI bug. Maybe it was actually teething. Who knows? Also, I think she may be starting to crawl forward. It's really very entertaining to watch her get around these days. But I think even she is getting frustrated with not going forward. Today, she seemed to be moving a bit in the right direction, if you will.

Ethan has been keeping us entertained lately with his obsession with watching and singing along to Defying Gravity from Wicked. It started from listening to his "pump song," which is Glee's version of "Don't Stop Believing." He requests it EVERY time we are in the car, and then wants to listen to it all the time. He knows the words by heart, or at least what he thinks are the words, and it's really hilarious to listen to him sing. Anyway, in an effort to get him to listen to other songs on the soundtrack, I told him about the song from Wicked. He was hooked by the story of the witches, and know he needs to listen to his "witch pump song." Then we made the mistake of showing him the YouTube video of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenowith singing "Defying Gravity." He is obsessed with it! He watches it and has it memorized and even says the lines along with it. And he grabs his broomstick (a tiny broom that comes with a dust pan) and lifts it in the air at the appropriate times. I got some secret video of him today but it's too long for the blog. Anyway, it's just too cute. Yesterday in the car, I asked him, "Ethan, do you want to be a singer when you grow up?: His reply? "No, Mommy. I want to be a singer when I'm little." Too funny.