Dark and Jolly: The Sniffling

Ho ho hoooo boy, is it the holiday season already??

 Looks like it just might be. 

Dark and rainy/snowy: check

Darker than dark in the afternoons: check

Daylight savings is oh so done. Time to get wildly profligate with your daylight!!! Which makes little sense, considering how little of it there suddenly is. Ah well. Party time!!!!

To celebrate the impending "Fall back" Allan sprang forward... covered in blood and yelling "MOMMY!!!!!" at 5 a.m. Satuday morning! Nothing like being wrenched from a pleasant soupy mush of a dream to run in a pure fit of adrenaline and find your kid writhing int he middle of their room looking like the prom scene from Carrie! Wheeeeee!

Apparently she'd gotten a bloody nose in her sleep and managed to rub the contents of her gushing schnozz all over her face, pillow and blankets before realizing what the heck was going on.

 After a mini sponge bath and a full bed change, somebody just didn't feel very tired anymore! (hint, I was *not* somebody). It was early. I needed rest. Allan was ready to play. We compromised on watching Minions shorts while I nodded off on the couch. 

I will say the actual time change was quite easy after that. I went to bed at my regular DST time and woke up at my regular Standard Time and felt like that about made up for the previous day. Of course it was depressing as heck for midnight to come at roughly 4 p.m., but that seems inevitable this part of the year anyways. 

Dark, yes. Cold, yes. After our interminable summer, it's kind of skipped from fall to winter. With a short segue of windstorms. 

We lost power briefly once. Allan's school was without power for about half a day another time. And now it's alternating surprisingly sunny, clear and cold with the usual mushy rainy. Plenty of talk of snow. Andrew is polishing off his skis! 

We celebrated the new dark with a few doctors appointments, including Allan's annual checkup. Which was great because it simultaneously innoculated and exposed her to the flu and possibly covid all at once. We were seen about 45 minutes late because there's an influx in flu cases and... well... more on that later. 

 We had a school checkup in which the school nurse called slightly concerned because Allan hasn't gained any weight since May. But her official pediatrician seems to think she's fine so... whew.

Sidenote, Allan doesn't really do meals. Like we make them. She's particular about what is made for mealtime. Occasionally she eats a bit of a meal at mealtime. But mostly mealtime is just a time to do art or play at the table instead of elsewhere before enouogh time has passed to demand dessert. 

I don't know how she does it! I pack her a fairly broad ranging lunch every day, and every day she eats none of it. No that's fair. She has maybe a piece of the lowest calorie food included and then leaves the bag open so the rest gets all over the lunch bag. Don't even want to tell you how that turned out when I included her theoretically second favorite drink - oj and milk in her lunch bag. 

So yeah mealtimes are the glue that holds a family together and sets a child on the righteous path of healthy eating yadda yadd yadda, but Allan is who she is. It's not that the food isn't to her liking per se. It's just that she doesn't care that much. Most of the time, she doesn't even go crazy over candy and cookies and when she does, she hits her satiety point and gives the rest away. Food just isn't that motivating for her. 

 MOVING ALL THE FUCKING TIME deifnitely does interest her. So we at least have calories available. I put out veggies, nuts and fruit for grabbing. And she has a cupboard (her height) full of relatively acceptable snack foods that she can draw from. 

She made a sign so you know which one is hers. 

In other November news... 

Allan got a new kitty

It's not real, don't worry, Froggy. Tone down that look of betrayal already. 

I guess she saw another kid with one of these in one of her classes this summer. The kitty sleeps, it purrs and its belly rises and falls like it's breathing. Allan has been doing extra chores and saving up for it for months and finally just hit enough money. It was not cheap. 

She's crazy about  Tabby. She grooms her far more dilligently than she's ever groomed herself! Tabby goes most places with her in the house and she was in tears a few weeks back about the prospect of having to go to school when she didn't think it would be safe to bring her. 

I brought Tabby to help pick her up and it was basically best day ever! 

So it's been a good November overall, but not without a little more "fun" 

Remember all those sick kids at the doctors office? They were at her school too. And everywhere else. 

So we all had a fun weekend leading into the ultimate school week of November and then...

I sheeplishly kept Miss Thing home from school for a moderate cough and a sniffly nose. All day I felt like the most overprotective parent in history, as she was completely peppy and energetic all day long.

We did crafts. We told stories. We went out and played outside. Very involved.

And then at about 4 p.m. that evening she crashed hard. Dizzy, hacking up a lung, sore throat, flushed, feeling generally just junkie. And that icky mix of exhausted but unable to sleep. 

The next day was a rough one. I managed to get her downstairs after several hours of reading to her in the morning, and she finally fell asleep. I swear, you gotta be propped up when you got a cough like that, but that's just me. She didn't even try to watch tv despite my proclamation that she has unlimited screen access for the duration.

Poor thing was saint like. She just slept. Then stared quietly at a toy she was holding. Asked to be read to. Slept some more. 

Restlessly. Usually with company.

She did manage to eat a little, though her interest in it was pretty nil. An ice cream bar and a strawberry fruit popsicle. So clearly all the best recovery food. But I'll take what we can get. She was too dizzy to sit up most of the day so I kind of hand fed her orange and apple juice and carried her around when she needed the bathroom etc. 

Then we got another 24 hours where she was in good spirits, but mostly had the energy to hang out on the couch with me and watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. This was a pretty good 24 hours in my book. 

We did laps around the kitchen island in between episodes, but she fell apart when we tried to go for a short walk outside. Just to give a read on energy levels here.

 This was kind of the sweet spot day, since by then I was starting to come down with her lovely lurgy. Also comind down with the expected exhaustion of having woken up at 3 a.m. by a sick child who had decided she was done with her 24 hour sleep binge! Ufff that was a little brutal.Andrew of course was at work until dinner, so didn't get much chance at a nap exactly. So sitting on the couch together was merciful. By that evening she was getting a ton more energy back. 

This involved climbing all over everybody, turning the couch into an obstacle course, going to the playground and doing crafts yet again. We also managed to vaccuum (super necessary but no-go for sick sick kiddo) and get a bath in

Needless to say, I soldiered on, but dang I felt junky. 

Probably not covid junky though. I tested myself a handful of times, and Allan. They were negative. I'm curious about the flu in hindsight but it wasn't worth going to a doctor for a test so... shrug. 

Anyways, we were supposed to have a little pre Thanksgiving get together with my mom and David, but... Allan and i were still sick and David was sick and... we did have cupcakes. I wore a mask. We mostly stayed outside. I felt sheepish about that too, which annoys me because seriously nobody wants to catch whatever we had.

Still a successful evening though. 

Cupcakes and sparkling cider for the win!

And hey, I was still sick, but Allan actually was helping out a bit. That was cool. This is our new arrangement for her tendency to make a huge mess when she does bring her snacks to the couch. The vacuum cleaner/dirt devil is way too loud in her book. But these noise dampening unicorns do the magic trick. 

The week culiminated in Allan and Andrew heading to a grand fete in San Francisco while I sat my ass on the couch and convalesced properly. FINALLY! Being sick and momming is not for the faint of heart. Andrew rarely gets sick and he's a little proud of that. And true. When he does get sick he disappears for a day or two and sleeps, but it is pretty rare. So true. 

And also... I was with Allan A TON including times I should have been sleeping, carried her around, read to her for hours in her room, and kept up with cleaning and cooking and all that stuff except for a couple of (very appreciated but very short) hourish breaks. Andrew looked out for our sick kid, def, and also he put on his 3 snooze alarms. Took naps. Went to the office. Had some runs and went climbing. In no way was he shirking his parenting duties, but he was mostly living pretty healthy and not burning the fuse at both ends and I was the one on the frontlines. A lot. 

And then of course... Funny thing about MCAS. Technically I'm not immune compromised at all. I'm immune turbo charged. So the viruses going around aren't gonna kill me BUT that's saying nothing about my hyperactive immune system itself.Oh no, tiny threat! Time to totally degranulate for a month at least.

 So yeah this seasson has been "fun" and i"m sure picking up my family from travels that invovle rubbing noses with TONS and TONS of other people won't be a problem at all... sigh. Probably better than sending Allan to school, honestly. That place is a petri dish without masks and covid measures.

But it's been amazing here. Since I'm ill, I'm not allowed to do all the decorating and cleaning that I would otherwise be focusing on. So I've just been sitting my ass on the couch and watching the World Cup with the occasional walk! Damn is this what it's like to be single and childless?  I must really love my family because this is fucking heaven I'm giving up here... 

But I'm looking forward to getting my little germbag back! I'm sure the adventures are just beginning! 

Happy Holidaze!!!!