8 Days Left

I haven't had much time to update because of the insanity of the last few weeks. Scott has been in Baton Rouge and then Brazil for work (I'm not allowed to say what he's working on; I actually posted an update about him on Facebook last night and it got him in trouble, so let's just say he's working on a certain franchise that involves pale, angsty teenagers) and so I've been pulling single parent duty with Sadie.

Since then, we've been engaging in a giant one-upping contest every time we talk to see who's life has been more difficult. In his corner: crazy odd hours, time changes, jungle locales, no internet, slippery moss-covered rocks. In my corner: tantrums, a re-fi that refuses to go through, a course that needs to be written with no time to write it, and in the middle of it all, a pinched nerve in my back.

The back was the worst -- the timing really blew. And how did it happen, you say? Well, the version I've been telling people is that I twisted wrong putting Sadie into her carseat. And that is what first caused the pain, but in reality it probably had to do with the fact that the Sunday previous, Halloween, I lost my keys in the sand at the playground while we were at the park. I had no way to drive home, so I walked the whole mile and a half with Sadie in my arms. This after I'd called a cabbie, who took one look at my kid and told me firmly that he was not driving us anywhere without a carseat, which, DUH, but through my sorry tears it did not occur to me that I was going to have to transport not just myself, but her too. Then I called AAA, who came and jimmied my car door open, causing the alarm to shriek and everyone on the playground to wonder why I was trying to steal a 2008 Mazda, but still no keys and no way to start the car. So, we walked home, met the locksmith, paid him a fucking fortune to open the door, only to have me dump out the diaper bag and find my keys buried in a pocket which they had not been in the first 20 times I thought to look. Oh yeah, and then we had to walk back to the park to pick up the car. So, yeah. Back problems. Not a surprise.

Fortunately, Scott's mom and my mom were total champions, coming out and bringing me Icy Hot and helping to bathe Sadie for the three nights that it took me not to cry in pain every time I tried to pick her up. That's only been the beginning of our adventures these past two weeks -- another big one was the trauma of Daylight Savings Time ending which -- would you think that would be a big issue for a 13 month old kid? Because I didn't think it would be, but I was very, very, very wrong.

The first night, she thought 5:30pm was 6:30pm and by 6:30 she'd passed her normal bedtime by an hour and was completely freaking out. She woke up all night and at 5am the next morning. The next night it was hourly wake-ups, then rise and shine at 4:45. I thought my body was going to give out. Finally when she woke up the next morning at 5, I changed her diaper, gave her a bottle and put her back into bed -- and blessedly, she slept for another 2 hours. Now she finally seems to be back on schedule, although she's still waking up  multiple times in the night. I think she misses her dad just like I do.

In other news, she's pointing at everything these days. Just randomly pointing, because she likes to do it. She'll point at the ceiling but look straight at me, like, "Hey, look up there!" and then when I do, she'll stab me in the nose with her finger and laugh. Little bastard. She points at the dogs and yells at them in Baby Babble, and she's figured out that a doggie says Woof, or rather, "Wowowowowow." There's been a lot of "wowowowow" in our house recently. Oh, that reminds me -- Pepper has regressed to puppyhood for no particular reason and for the past two weeks has been crapping on the floor. Yeah. It's been that kind of a November.

I haven't had a moment to breathe and watch bad TV for days, so excuse me now while I go do that for awhile.