Category: whine whine whine

I took E to Whole Foods this morning to get some specialty baking ingredients so I can bake him some milk-free, egg-free goodies. He had a cold over the weekend but seemed pretty much better today. But while he was sitting in the cart he started coughing really hard and then threw up his breakfast all over his clothes, his shoes, the floor, my shoes, and (by an impressive feat of agility) my hair. It was gross.

I was pretty stunned but then quickly started stripping E out of his wet clothes. The lady who worked in the section we were in (an older, grandmotherly type) was nice and brought a bunch of clean rags and stuff so I could clean E up. But then after I got E cleaned up the lady brought me more rags and plastic bags and a pair of plastic gloves. She was friendly about it but I distinctly caught the drift that she expected me to clean up the puke myself. I think the situation was that if I didn’t do it then she would have to do it herself.

And because I’m not good with confrontation I wrangled a shirtless pathetic-looking E with one hand while sopping up the puke with the rags. I kept expecting her to tell me not to worry about it, that she would go get a mop or something but she just watched me clean it up. Customers kept almost walking into the puddle and I had to stop them myself. I was so embarrassed! I just wanted to get out of there and get E home. I know no one likes to clean up a mess and it was my child who had made the mess, but it would have been really helpful if she had went and got a mop so I could focus on taking care of E.

When we got to the car I put his spare jacket on him and he seemed to be feeling better. But then he threw up again all over himself and his carseat. I didn’t have any more extra clothes so I just mopped it up the best I could and then kept driving. Once we got on the freeway he felt asleep, wet with puke and clutching a toy in his hand. Sad stuff.

He’s doing better now and napping, but I’m still a little peeved over the whole thing. We have a health food store fairly close to my house but I had wanted to go to Whole Foods to browse because it’s a lot bigger. But I don’t see myself making that drive again anytime soon. Bleh.

***Update 9/16/09***
I emailed the store and got a nice response from the manager. Details here.

Mondays–Bleh! (Am I right, Garfield, or AM I RIGHT?)

E woke up with a leaky diaper sometime after 6 am this morning. I was hoping to put him back down but after I changed him out of his wet clothes he was wide awake and raring to go. So I took him downstairs and turned the tv to Sprout and crashed on the couch for while.

E’s still not drinking soy milk but I’m making a concerted effort this week to get him back on it. Part of my plan is to take away apple juice so he’s only drinking water and then consistently offer him soy milk. There’s no way he’d choose milk over juice but he might prefer milk to just drinking water, or so my thinking goes.

So this morning was the first major tantrum about not getting any juice. I tried to show E that there wasn’t any juice in the fridge and I let him examine the empty jug but he was still really, really mad. He was so mad that he didn’t want to eat his breakfast of a vegan (no milk, no eggs) waffle and syrup which he normally loves and the only thing to do was cry and shriek and storm around the kitchen. He cheered up for a bit when he came up with the idea of drinking syrup straight from the bottle but it was only a split second before I quashed that idea and we were back to tears.

After breakfast the only thing E wanted to do was watch Pororo videos on the computer, over and over again. (This one about colors is a current favorite.) In fact, he’s squirming around on my lap as I attempt to type this now. He’s not content to just sit on my lap; he wants to jump up and down on it. Jumping up and down on the floor is apparently worse than death and only my lap has the right squishy surface for jumping at the moment.

Speaking of squishy, I was planning on going to the gym this morning but now I feel sucked dry of all get-up-and-go and any ambition I had to Get Things Done today. Sorry this post is so whiny; our weekend was actually quite lovely and E was charming and funny and cute much more often than he was a pill. It’s just that today started out lamely. So I’m going to put E down for a nap and take one myself and hopefully when we get back up Monday, Take Two will go better.

***Update***
E slept from 11:30am to 2pm and consequently so did I. It was awesome! The rest of the day was great and now I’m filled with optimism that the juice debacle will go better tomorrow.

Sadly, the dine-and-dash incident from last week did not have a satisfying conclusion. I showed up at the office armed with baked treats and cash to give the person who picked up my bill. But the friend I talked to said that it would be hard to pay back because everyone just passed cash to one person to settle the bill and when the person announced that they were a bit short everyone contributed a little more to make up the difference. There were over 20 people there and so everyone ended up chipping in 40 cents or so to cover my bill. My friend said that no one had realized what was going on and that it wasn’t a big deal.

Going cube-to-cube and explaining the whole thing and then giving everyone 40 cents wasn’t really a feasible option; I didn’t have enough change, I didn’t have time before my meeting, and it would have been extremely awkward for everyone. But I still felt sick with embarrassment over the whole thing. So instead I handed out cookies to everyone I saw that had been there and vowed to chip in extra the next time. *Sigh* The whole thing was pretty lame.

I gave E a bath yesterday morning. He’s still crazy about baths and usually cries when it’s time to get out. It’s hard to dry him off and get him dressed if we’re still in the bathroom because he wiggles out of my hands and tries to climb back into the sink (yep, he still fits in our huge laundry sink). So yesterday I wrapped my shrieking child in a towel and went into the family room. I set him down and picked up a diaper. He abruptly stopped crying and a split second later the silence was broken by the sound of a stream of fluid hitting something. It turned out to be my couch.

At first I thought he did it because he was mad about the bath ending but now I think it was actually just a reflex from the change in temperature between the rooms. Spiteful toddler mastermind or innocent victim of biology? I guess we’ll never know.

The other incident yesterday was entirely my fault. I took E to a farewell lunch my office was having for a coworker a local Chinese restaurant. It was during E’s normal nap time but he held himself together admirably. When it was time to leave I headed to the front counter to pay for our lunches but on the way there some people at the table pulled us aside to say hi and dote on E. My former boss wanted to chat about something so she said she would walk us to our car. We started chatting and walked outside and I got in my car and drove away–without paying for lunch.

Yep, I pulled a dine-and-dash.

I didn’t realize anything until I was emptying my pockets before bed last night and found the cash I was going to use for lunch. I am SO embarrassed. There were about twenty people in our party and so I think that someone probably ended up picking up our tab. I’m going into the office later today for a meeting and I’m going to ask around and see if who picked it up. On the way in I’m going to stop by a bakery and buy a cupcake to give them along with the cash I owe. They probably thought I was super rude for blithely leaving with picking up the tab for myself AND E. I’m so embarrassed.

Anyway, I hope you have a nice weekend. And if you go out to eat remember to pay your bill!

Um, yeah…those things I said yesterday about spring in Utah being lovely and magical? I totally take them back. Three inches of snow? In mid-April? –Crazy!

I haven’t written about it lately, but I’ve been really stressed out the past few weeks. Work has been exceptionally demanding, we’re refinancing our house, and doing our taxes was kind of complicated since I’m technically self-employed. N’s been supportive but after two weeks of me being grumpy and irritable I could tell he was getting tired of it.

Now that work and taxes are taken care of, I’m planning on taking the day off (except for, you know, feeding E and keeping him alive and stuff). E and I are going to go to the gym and then maybe go shopping for some somewhat needed housewares this afternoon. Or maybe when E takes his nap I’ll just crawl into bed and read and take my own nap. I need to recharge.