Daddy's Home!

And not a moment too soon! Remember how I was saying how wonderful Court was being and it seemed too good to be true! Well, the other shoe officially dropped not too long after I made that statement. I knew I should have knocked on some wood!

Last Saturday, she was unbelievably cranky. All week long, the babysitter said she was sleeping 2-3 hours for her nap, but for me, it was like 45 minutes tops! So, she was cranky after her nap probably because she was still tired, and I wanted to take her over to my parents to visit. She gets sick of just hanging out with me. But she was being awful! She wouldn’t “let” me take a shower, which means she screamed the whole time and I had to shower with the door wide open, freezing to death. She didn’t want to get dressed, so I just tossed her in the car in her pj’s, preparing for my mom’s comments about how she looks like a ragamuffin. All this after a night, where she woke up 3 times and I had to sit by her bed for an hour rubbing her back, listening to her going on about pizza and Sissy and Frederick and chips and the Wiggles. It was the first time since Casey’s absence that I felt close to a breakdown, so I called him to hear his voice and to get a little reassurance. He didn’t pick up his cell phone and then called me back a while later and apologized. He didn’t hear the phone because he was at a parade in Tampa. Are you freakin’ kidding me? I’m here on the verge of a total meltdown, exhausted, impatient, lonely, and he’s at a freakin’ parade. I just couldn’t believe it. At that moment, everything wrong in the free world was his fault! And I unfairly let him have it, poor guy.

She was difficult the rest of the evening, so went down early. Then, she was an angel the next day and the rest of the following week. She continued to wake up once a night…a new habit apparently. This habit MUST be broken, but I didn’t have the energy to do it alone. The week was flying by...we were in the home stretch and then Thursday…BAM! High fever! 101.5 degrees. No other symptoms. It was still there the following morning, so I took her to my mom’s and went to work. Here, it was the day Casey was coming home and she was miserable. It appeared as if she had a sore throat because she was struggling to swallow. Her fever came back every 4 hours, as soon as the Tylenol wore off. I was holding off on taking her to the dr, despite my mother’s panicked pleas, because the guidelines from the pediatrician’s office says to take her in if the fever is over 103 for 2 days.

Casey came home at midnight that night and she woke up…happy to see him, but really feverish again. It spiked to 103.5 the following afternoon, still with no other symptoms that I could see, so I called the advice nurse who advised me to bring her in the next morning. Turns out she had a nasty double ear infection and a throat infection. I had no idea! She not once grabbed her ears or anything. I feel awful. Of course, the doctor had to tell me that her laying down with a bottle makes it more likely for her to get an ear infection. Give me a break! It’s her first ear infection. But I hear him loud and clear…I’m just in denial.

Three days with antibiotics later, my little girl appears to be acting normal finally. She’s been an absolute bear for so long, I’ve almost forgotten how wonderful she could be! So, it’s a good thing I kept a written list of the cute things she’s done recently, or else I would neglect to include anything positive in this blog entry!

Latest cuteisms:
She continues to love the Gwen Stefani song “Hollaback Girl”. Only now, when we’re in the car listening to it after her “back geerl” request, she sings all of the words, even the bad ones…her fave line is “It’s my sh**, It’s my sh**!” We laugh when she does it, so she keeps saying it because she’s a ham.

One day last week, she was helping me get ready in the morning. The babysitter was already there, but Court kept coming back to visit me. I open one of the cabinets that has safe stuff for her to play with and she proceeded to pull out my box of tampons…every single one of the tampons and ran down the hall to show the babysitter her “tacos”. I’m not sure why she called them that. But she sure was having a good time with them. I’m just glad she didn’t try to eat them!

The kid loves to sing and dance. She doesn’t know all the words, but that doesn’t stop her from pretending. She’ll dance to any music, even from commercials, but now she grabs my hand and tells me to say “Go, Courtney! Go, Courtney!”. She digs the encouragement and LOVES the attention. I definitely have one serious drama queen on my hands!