Hola

I am still here, although a cranky baby and toddler take up a vast majority of my time.  You see, a toddler goes to bed at 7-730pm.  A baby? 10ish.  And then wakes up a lot at night, which makes you sleepy by day.  But you can't nap because you have a toddler.  So until H is old enough to sleep train (4-5 months according to her doc), my evening blogging time isn't so regular.  FYI: Sleep training is basically letting a baby cry it out- putting the baby down after a bottle/bath/whatever and then the baby screams and cries because it doesn't want to go to bed and then it falls asleep.  Rinse and repeat until the baby gets the point: 7:30 = bedtime for baby.  We waited to do this with Monk until she was 7-8 months and we waited way too long.  Listening to her screams and pleas for 45 minutes was absolute h*ll.  Keep in mind too, she was our only baby, so it was extra hard.  With this one, I feel like it will be a bit easier as we are more seasoned.  For starters, everyone is happier when baby sleeps well at night- especially, I can imagine, when there are more than 1 babes.  But, for real, the real reason it was so hard with Monk was because I didn't pick her up from daycare til 515, so for her to go to sleep a mere 2 hours later made me feel like a piece of trash mom who never sees her baby and I missed her so much that I would just stare at her as she slept wanting to give her a million kisses.  WOE IS ME, folks.  Same old song, I know, I know.

Anyway, the H-ster is happier when out and about.  So this morning we ventured to Target, did some grocery shopping and I picked up a Xmas gift for Monk: a magnadoodle.  Member those?

I happily must report that MIL has been much better lately.  She called me on Friday and said, 'Can I watch the girls for a bit so you can go out and do something for yourself?'  OMG.  I generally have trouble accepting help from people (which is dumb) so I almost said, 'No, I'm fine!' but then I was like, 'Dude, you b*tch behind her back about her being a bad gma and then when she offers help you say no? You suck.'  so I said, 'Sure!'  My first urge was to catch up on something like laundry or grocery shopping, but then I realized that's no fun and you will get to that stuff anyway so instead I went and got a pedicure and buried myself deep into the land of US Weekly's.  It was divine.  I stared at people who didn't have infants at home: a very stylish girl wearing navy blue vans who looked like Pipp*a Middle*ton (am I the only one wondering what the big deal is about her? Kate is WAAAAY hotter.  Like, way hotter.  So why is Pips in the news all the time?) was there to be waxed.  I wondered what kind of wax it was.  Then there was a 45 year old woman and her 10 year old daughter- the daughter was playing on an iphone or something during her pedicure.  I didn't go to the fancy salon, just one of those asian nail places.  And then I grabbed myself Subway on the way out and returned home to find that MIL was alive and so were my children- I should've popped some nerve meds before the pedi because I definitely sat there texting Jim things like, 'You don't think Monkey will fall down the stairs, do you?  Do you think she can handle both of them? Do you think she'll trip on a dog bone?'  This put a damper on my 2 hour break, but whatever.

Oh, did I mention that we had to return to the ER and stay for 2 days bc H started to run a fever? It wasn't a very high fever but bc she was so young, better safe than sorry. H & I slept in the ER the first night- in a private room.  Uncomfortable.  About a million doctors came in to us during the night to get the whole story from me (again) and check her out.  The next day they moved us to a room.  J stayed with her all day while I went home (my mom came up to watch Monkey) to rest and hang with Monkey.  I returned that night.  My mom kept me company for awhile at the hospital but then she left and then H started crying inconsolably.  I was texting J that I was losing my mind, what was wrong? He responded, "Just feed her a lot.  She might throw up but who cares- its just throw up and then she will fall asleep."  My savior!  I did just this and she didn't throw up but she did fall asleep.  She was just hungry.  I was so tired that it did not occur to me that her tears were HUNGER.  What an a$$hole, right?  Anyway, we went to bed.  At 330AM they brought our roommate- a baby with ACID REFLUX.  Dude... this baby effing screamed her head off for HOURS.  I kid you not.  I literally said a prayer that went something like, 'Thank you, God, for not giving me a baby with acid reflux. Amen.'  The mother of that baby straight up left her baby in the hospital room and went to sleep somewhere else.  She was so tired that she didn't care.  And boy did that baby scream and it was really awkward of me to pretend that, like, I didn't hear it and not go pick it up, ya know? But that's what I did because I'm pretty sure I would be arrested or something for picking up someone else's baby.  Anyway, they let us go early because H was doing so well.  They ultimately just wanted to be sure she didn't have bacterial meningitis.  Up until 8 weeks, they treat every baby with a fever as if they have bacterial meningitis because if they wait until they have a positive diagnosis to administer antibiotics, it is oftentimes too late and the baby will die.  Happy times, right?

Okay, I recognize this is a baby heavy post but that is because I still haven't slept over 4 hours since Aug 27 (which is a huge step up from 3, I might add) and my mind isn't feeling particularly creative right now.