All over the place

OK, hang on for a second so I can go back and look at the last blog entries I made when she was making us completely nuts...ah yes, it was sinus infection plus early teething of her bottom canines. Actually it was the onset of all 4 canines but as it turns out, the top ones slooowwwweeeddd down and are just now making their way through the gums.

Now this time around, we have teething plus disgusting diapers. Why not just pile it all on at once? The thing that sucks so bad is that she's normally a pretty good toddler as far as toddlers go. She can push my buttons and test my limits but nothing that makes me constantly run around the house after her or pray she doesn't burn the house down or break her neck (or basically what horror a real toddler is depicted as in my inexperienced mind). She's pretty cool when she's not on a cranky streak, which is usually induced by illness or teething. So what sucks about this is that when she does hit that cranky streak that will last for about a week, my brain can't reconcile that this is my daughter and I tend to fight it rather than accept it, which shortens my patience. And makes me use the F word awhole lot. It's very unbecoming.

Like this morning.

5:45AM Anna wake up came way too soon (she usually sleeps till 7am). This is another symptom of her typical teething bouts. Please oh please let this be the case. This early waking crap has gone on for about a week and I am starting to fear it's a new habit. But I have to have faith in her. She's done this before and it stopped when the teething did. This morning I left her to cry in her crib when she woke that early. She screamed. And proceeded to attempt to climb out of her crib. That got me up there to her liking, but not to mine.

Paul is soooo getting up with her tomorrow morning. I have to run anyway.

It started my own day off cranky and PO'd but I sucked it up, went to work, then went back to watch her Christmas chapel (ah-ha, this is why she's been singing Happy Birthday to Jesus at home!) and have pizza and cookies with her fellow crazies in her classroom. And crazy they were. Holy cow, even my own child was acting so silly and not paying attention while the poor teachers were trying to do color flash cards. In their defense, the teachers swore it wasn't always this crazy. Today was an "off" day for their screwed up schedule. It was a side of Anna that was obviously initiated by her peers and fueled by the fact that she'd been up for 6 hours straight by then and super sleepy.

Waiting for chapel (notice no pigtails due to cranky Anna)

Home for a nap that was much too short, then off to the public library for rolling around in toddler books to her heart's content, and as an obvious effort to keep her public so I didn't internalize her bad attitude. She made a friend in a 4 year old there, whose mom works at Carters. Mmmm...CARTERS. Needless to say I did recognize her. It was a fun few hours and slowly I think I saw my old Anna come back.

A recap for you all. Even up till this morning for the past week Anna's been so clingy and cranky, waking early, crying in her sleep, refusing to brush her hair and her teeth, refusing her baths, requiring the strength of two adults to get her into her car seat, dramatizing the day care drop-offs again, screaming on all car rides, and melting into a puddle of tears on the floor with every simple "no" (this also may explain the horribly bad reaction she gave us when we introduced her to pop rock candy. Hey, don't blame us for not realizing someone could actually hate it!). It's been MMMOOOMMMEEEEE upon wake up at 5:30AM, and sobbing after me from room to room when I simply try to get dressed in the morning (thank GOD Paul's been home this week in the mornings to help me get us out the door). MMMOOOMMMEEEE even as she sits in Paul's lap. And she wants "up!" to be held. And constantly asking for her paci, and not just in the car and for sleep...even though she's still never asked for one in her new classroom.

(as for the stupid paci...Paul and I cut holes in two so we are down to 3. Because of her sucky attitude this week I decided to suck it up and buy new ones to replinish our supply and just deal with it. Same paci's, different colors bc they didn't have her exact same colors. The joke's on me: this child looks at the new paci's, puts it in her mouth, GAGS, and refuses them. She refuses the $8 worth of paci's that I had to talk myself into walking down the baby aisle to get in the first place (I shouldn't be in the baby aisle!). She refuses them like the ones that we cut holes in. Which would be great except this week she's been asking for them frequently. So we shot ourselves in the foot with that one a little too soon (I should have stuck with my original game plan for the paci: after the teething and after the holidays...just what posessed me to suddenly cut the things up?)...

This is a bad week for me to have attended two baby showers in which everyone feels the need to ask when we ever plan to have another. Hardee-har-har, people.

But as of yesterday, her diapers look normal again, so thank GOD we paid that co-pay. As you know, the second you pay the $20 co-pay and take sick leave to go to the doc, all illness magically clears up. I guess I should have done it sooner, huh? At least we didn't have to attempt that stool sample. Ah, perspective!

The ride home from the library was fun and she sang along to Jewel with no screaming. She sang Jewel with me while she ate dinner, and enjoyed her bubble bath (which she fought a few nights ago). She ran around the house with Paul, then me, and rode around on her little firetruck, even allowing me to go to another room without chasing me, sobbing.

This is an improvement, but as I watch her sleep, she's a little restless still. The other night she was running in her sleep yelling, "no!no!no!" If she sleeps in tomorrow, I will be hopeful that we are on our way to getting over this crappy week. Please, please, please!