Countdown to Crazy

Having a two-year-old has really changed my standards; somehow, being at home all day with a newborn is pretty much like being at home alone. It must be all that sleeping. And the lack of tantrums, movie requests, snack spills, and refusals to put on one's shoes.

My "alone" days are coming to an end, however -- next week is Soren's last week of daycare. Originally, I was actually working while he was in school three days a week, and then it was really handy to have a familiar place for him to go while everyone else was busy being hospitalized, but now the funding and excuses have dried up, so he'll be back with boring old mom full-time. I want to make sure I don't completely give up on giving him structure (i.e. bossing him around and making him do activities) during the day, since I think his time at school has really given him better listening and social skills, but I'm not totally sure how to do that at home; maybe I should set up a "school" area somewhere in the house. Or maybe I'm overthinking this.

I also figure the recipe for stay-at-home-mom success is not to do too much staying at home; we'll be going to lots of play groups (I'm a member of three local Meetups... and haven't done anything with any of them for three months, but I have great excuses) and will spend lots of time wandering around our fabulous neighborhood, with its kick-ass new and improved playground. I have really high hopes for that playground. I think it'll be a good place to pick up chicks.

It sounds like I'm totally dreading this transition, which isn't really true. First of all, Soren is a complete laugh riot/sweetheart/amazing supergenius, and I love hanging out with him 97% of the time. The other 3% tends to use up 99% of my patience, of course, but I'm working on that. I'm looking forward to taking him out and being more social with other moms and kids, and if I can get my act together, I think we'll have a good time doing school-type stuff together (lest you get the wrong impression, let me assure you that he'll be slumming it with all the other public-school kids as soon as he turns 5... I wouldn't want to disappoint you, Amber).

Look how cute he is!



As for the other child -- the one who sleeps so much she still barely counts as company -- she's doing quite well, and has completely recovered from RSV and bronchiolitis. She does have two major periods of wakefulness during the day (morning and evening... such a reasonable schedule) and tends to be really jolly during both. I still haven't managed to get a good picture of her insanely cute open-mouth grin, though. It's hard to look away long enough to go get the camera when she's feeling super happy. This is the closest I've gotten:



Which is a big improvement over this:



Chris is back to teaching again, which fills him with joy, because he lives for nothing more than watching the spark of knowledge ignite in an undergrad's eyes. Right, dear?

As for me, I'm doing only kind of OK health-wise, and have found myself in the weird position of being glad to find out that I've had C. diff for the past three weeks. The first C. diff test, a couple weeks ago, was negative, which meant that I was having symptoms of an ulcerative colitis flare that weren't being helped at all by crazy doses of steroids and mesalamine (have you ever taken 7.6 GRAMS per day of any particular drug?). I didn't really like that concept, because there's really not a lot more they can do to control a flare. So when I was retested for C. diff and it finally came back positive, I was bizarrely relieved, since I can take antibiotics for that and it will go away. And probably come back again later. But whatever.

Ooh, and I have a colonoscopy coming up on Monday! Because I am now old and have old person health problems! Prep involves drinking a gallon of salt water in the span of about an hour. But the salt water comes with flavor packets! Cherry, orange, pineapple, or lemon-lime! Thrilling. Maybe I'll mix them all together to make fruit punch. It couldn't possibly be more disgusting than one of the flavors alone.

On the bright side, being sick for so long has gotten me back into my pre-pregnancy jeans faster than I ever thought possible. Hooray for being thin at any cost! I have my priorities straight!