Chaneling Cousin Aaron

 

This'll teach me for laughing at my nephew's latest climbing stunts.

 

It's been another sucky week.

 

I've been sick, Micah just got sick, and Natalie may be sick (it's hard to tell- she always acts fussy). She's still got all 4 molars poking through around the edges, but still covered in gum mostly. They seem stuck there.

 

It's the worst thing ever to have to take care of someone when you feel horrible and need to be taken care of yourself. I blame my lack of rest for the fact that I am not over this after 4 days. I'm starting to believe that I'm just going to feel like crap for the rest of my life because I will never get a decent break to be able to recuperate. I've got crazy congestion and sore throat, fever, headache and soreness all over. Every time I have to pick up Natalie, I just want to crumple in a pile of mommy and die.

 

Natalie's been watching a lot of TV. And unfortunately, she's liked it a lot. Yesterday and this morning I've tried to leave the TV off for as long as possible, but she just kept standing in front of it, pointing to the screen and babbling indiscernibley. She's been making a lot more messes because I just don't have the energy to divert her to a more constructive activity.

 

Fortunately, she has a couple of new books that have kept her attention. So there's at least 90 seconds of the day taken care of...

 

She's digressed in her food-dropping. I don't know what to do. We've tried a harsh "no", we've tried swatting her hand, we've tried completely ignoring it. She won't stop. She will drop everything on her tray, then cry and whine for more. Then, 5 minutes after getting down, she's back at the chair, pointing and asking for "more" because she's hungry since she doesn't eat her food. Sammy likes it, though being the official food-picker-upper sometimes has it's drawbacks. Here, he sports a dropped pea.

 

Natalie now refuses to take a second nap. So I am trying to get her to take a longer nap because one 30-45 minute nap a day is just not enough for her or me. So I leave her in her crib for a minimum of an hour and a half. Yesterday and the 2 days before that, she woke up after 45 minutes as usual, then gave up crying after 10 minutes or so and went back to sleep. Today, she woke up and has been crying in her bed for 30 minutes now. The dogs are barking and howling and I am going crazy. She wakes up earlier and earlier- this morning Micah finally got her out of bed around 6. I though Daylight Savings was supposed to help us in that department? A normal child her age should sleep14 hours a day and she rarely sleeps 11. Don't know what I'm gonna do with her.

 

EDIT: I went to get her out of her crib and she had red bite marks all over her hands and arms and 2 big bruises on her forehead. This kid is crazy!