Various and Sundry on an Early Afternoon

The Middlest caught a cold from his cousin over Thanksgiving – a rattly little cough, irritating but not too chesty.  He suffered through it like a trooper, though a high fever took him down for the count one day (I took him to the office that day and he was quiet as a mouse, sleeping on two chairs pushed together in my office while I worked).  Over Monday night this devolved into a really painful ear infection which had him sweating, pacing, and by turns screaming from the pain.  This kid doesn’t really mention ear infections until they’re full swing – he has a high tolerance for pain and discomfort, and usually that works in our favor but sometimes I wish he’d notice these things earlier so both he and I don’t have to spend the hours from 4am to 10am in the nerve shredding experience of having him wide eyed, pale, and screaming from pain.  I found the only urgent care in town that opens before 9am and drove past about ten of them to get to it, only to be very first in the door and still wait over an hour to be seen and over an hour thereafter to get our prescriptions.  (I also had to listen to the urgent care doc lecture me about how Hillary personally targeted him for this-and-that based on his testimony in some case in 1984, blah blah blah just give me my scripts, dude).

I finally got Liam situated, dosed up, and comfortable, just in time to take a conference call with a client that lasted two hours.  Then I had lunch, handed off to the Prof, and headed into work for half a day.  So one day with sick kid at work, half day home with sick kid . . . and, you guessed it, today was another interrupted day when the Biggest went down mid-day with this same thing.  The Biggest is a hypochondriac, the opposite of his bro, and he had worked himself up into an anxious frenzy over coughing, panicking because he claims he can’t breathe when he coughs.  His teacher brought him to me, and I could sense a seriously thin patience emanating from her normally loving personage.  I told her we were sorry and then brought my over dramatic nutcase child to the car and tried to talk him down as he worked himself up into hysterics over a little rattly cough (he doesn’t even have congestion – it is a very irritating, dry cough but that’s it).  I picked up the other boys as well, since school was almost out, and that was another only-half-day billing.  Gawd.

I gave him a “spa afternoon” in my tub with bubbles, essential oils, a candle, and spa music, and that calmed him down.  TOTALLY JELLY ABOUT THE SPA DAY, BTW – I need one of those, even in my own tub.  Then I made a couple different dinners while waiting for the Prof to finish up class and come home.  I’m going to have to work late into the night to make up for it, but I suppose I’m grateful for the flexibility of a job where I can leave and get them without having to even tell anyone, but also somewhat exhausted by a job where I can never miss an hour without having to make it up.  Ahh, the law firm work life tango.

He will probably have to stay home tomorrow, and I just can’t even with this mess.  Meanwhile, dosing the baby up with vitamin C, etc.  Please no.  No more sickies.

I’ve been watching the Gilmore Girls re-runs on my phone in bed when I wake up with insomnia at 3am.  Last night I dreamed a tsunami was coming to our house – only it wasn’t our house, I was an adult with children living in one of my many childhood homes (Narbonne Court, for any family reading along).  I woke as the waves carried us away, and then watched “Spring” of the Gilmore Girls revival.  I liked Winter better.  I read someone’s critique that basically described the experience of watching it as a bath – comforting, warm, and though the water cools too quick and your book gets wet and you can’t reach your wine and you get a crick in your neck from sitting on the hard ceramic, nevertheless it is comforting and relaxing to immerse yourself in it.  Gilmore Girls was always a bit too twee for me, Lorelai Gilmore irritatingly precious, and yet I love it.  It really has moments, even if the revival definitely has way too much Kirk and way too little Sookie St. James.  Anyhow.  Two more 1.5 hour “seasons” to go in this revival.  I’m slowly savoring.

Off to fetch my simmering dishes from the stove!