Doctor office wisdom

What a day! I woke up at 2:00am this morning and was never able to get back to sleep. After spending the day in meetings that told me everything except what I needed to know, I picked up Ellie at daycare and took her to the doctor. I know from the vast amount of time I have spent in the pediatrician's office that afternoon appointments are a guaranteed minimum one hour wait. I was not disappointed. I arrived at 3:55 for my 4:10 appointment and the doctor saw us at 5:30. I cannot even begin to describe how difficult it was to contain Ellie in the waiting room. She naturally preferred the Well-Child area so she would bolt for that area every chance she got. Then the parents would spot her runny nose and mysterious red spots and glare at me for contaminating their children. And considering that I had been up since 2am and had only gotten 3 hours of sleep, not to mention that I am sick myself, I think I handled Ellie pretty well. And by handled, I mean I let her climb up on every surface in the sick child area. She rolled around on the filthy floor, tried to climb into a trashcan, and fell off a chair, somehow managing to get a huge red welt that the doctor immediately noticed (an hour later). But, the trip was worth it because my baby has a double ear infection and possibly strep throat.

I am an old pro at this, y'all. I made the appointment last Friday. The trick is to call the doctor within the first 24-48 hours of cold symptoms, but make sure to schedule the appointment for 3-5 days later. This way, you give the ear infection a chance to develop. If you take your child in too soon, they will send you away with nothing to show except a lighter pocketbook and empty promises of colds running their course in 7-10 days. Silly doctors.

House of snot

This is coming at you from the house of snot. Seriously. Ellie has been sliming everything and everyone in sight for the past few days. And the whining...don't even get me started on the whining. I, of course, caught it today just in time for my new job. So I am feeling low energy, high stress right about now (See? I caught the whining, too).

As you can see, Ellie has moved on from her closet to mine. Please excuse the crazy hair and lack of clothes.

Cute little girls

The past two days have been full of new teacher training. I am getting more excited and nervous about teaching with each passing day. I am really excited about my Reading classes. The majority of the students I will be teaching will have never read a whole book by themselves. Can you believe that? I can't imagine a life without books, without reading.

Last night, Tom, Ellie, and I headed over to Mark's house for grilled hamburgers and hotdogs. It was great hanging out with the family after two long days of training. Sweet, baby Olivia was even wearing the dress that Ellie wore a little over a year ago for Tom's birthday. Isn't she adorable?
Ellie was so happy to see her Aunt Sabrina. She really misses Sabrina and Kolby a lot. Sabrina and Rosie were like second moms to Ellie last year. I feel really fortunate that I had my sister-in-laws around to help watch Ellie when she was so little. And I love seeing the bond she has with her aunts as a result!

The things they don't tell you

When I was pregnant with Ellie, everyone kept telling me how wonderful motherhood is, how rewarding, how utterly delightful. Oh they would laughingly tell me that I had better sleep now because I would never sleep again. But it was a small, small price to pay for the great blessing of having a precious, newborn baby in your life.

And they were right. But I sometimes wonder if it would have been helpful to know all those other things, too. Like how downright traumatizing the first 6 weeks are. How you are more tired than you have ever been in your life. How nursing is so painful the first two weeks that you will sometimes look down to see your blood in your daughter's mouth. How the tears will come and go for almost no reason at all. How you are afraid to leave your house because as soon as you step foot in Target, your child will start screaming like she is being pricked by a million needles. How you will obsess constantly over things like West Nile or the shape of your baby's head. How you will have this tiny, fragile infant totally dependant on you for survival and you feel so weak and helpless. How your marriage will change and you will find yourself fighting with your spouse over the most trivial things. You will start playing this weird scorekeeping game...it's your turn to change the diaper, I changed the last three diapers. How you will keep expecting your marriage to go back to normal once the baby gets older and you start actually getting a full night's sleep, only to wake up one day and realize that you are still bickering, still scorekeeping.

Maybe they don't tell you all that because it pales in comparison to the happiness you feel when you child smiles for the first time or wraps her chubby arms around your neck and pats your back. And maybe your marriage has changed, but not necessarily for the worse. Because you and your husband share a new bond forged by this powerful love you both have for your child. A love so powerful that you will never be able to think of words to describe it. A love that you secretly think must be stronger than the love other parents have for their children because surely this love is just too big to be duplicated.

So, yeah, maybe it's best to just not mention those other things.

What? Are we STILL talking about daycare?

Ok, so I know y'all are so sick of me talking about daycare, but I am like obsessed about it lately. I dropped Ellie off this morning and she cried, but it wasn't too bad. However, I was not too thrilled with what I saw when I walked in there. Some kids were just sitting on the floor staring into space, others were wailing, and a few were playing with toys (covered in germs, no doubt). The two teachers were busy decorating their bulletin boards. One of the turned to me and said, "Sorry the class in such chaos today. Corporate is coming this week and we have to get the classroom in order." Um, hello? I have to decorate my classroom, too, but you can bet I am not going to do it during class time. At least wait til the little buggers are down for a nap. I miss my old daycare (despite all the cooties).

Ok, enough about daycare (for today). My time here at the library is rapidly coming to a close. Yesterday, my coworkers threw Sheryl and I a Goodbye and Good Luck party. They ordered a cake that was half my school's colors and half Sheryl's colors. Even better, my side was chocolate. Mmmmm. I am really going to miss all my friends here at the library. I am going to miss working surrounded by books. I will miss the privacy of my office and the picture of Hilary Duff right above my computer, placed there by my YA assistant. I may even miss Grumpy Old Porn Man.