Someday soon I'll start posting positive things again, but not today. Today was rotten. Well, the morning was pretty calm. But then Olive started panicking from the pain her ears were giving her, and if you know Olive then you know she's kind of a tough cookie and doesn't really cry unless she's really hurt. So we hurried to the doctor without feeding anyone lunch. Olive was flinching and sobbing the whole way there, it was like I could see how sharp the pain was hitting her. When we pulled in, she peed her pants. That hasn't happened in forever, but I did have backups. She refused to put the clean jeans on though, so we walked into the waiting room with her sobbing and in just her panties. The wait was forever, even though we had an appointment, and during that time Olive couldn't be soothed. She'd lie in my arms for a moment - I had to let Georgey crawl all over the floor of the waiting room so I could be free to hold her - and then she'd want to lie on the floor with her face pressed against the tile, and then she'd want to just stand or sit. Finally one of the office staff looked at me and said, "Is it her ears?" I was almost crying myself at that point, and I said yes. And they finally brought us back. With a lot of physical restraint, they gave Olive steroid drops in her ears to help soothe them. She was hysterical. And George was really fussy because he was hungry. Both of them wanted to hold me, and neither wanted to share my lap with the other one. Luckily, Lucy was pretty happy the whole time. The doctor actually gasped when she looked at Olive's ears, and sure enough she has a wicked ear infection in both ears. We also determined that she has a UTI - I'll leave those details out, but it does involve more accidents and some pain. So we got prescriptions and lollipops, and were sent on our way. When we were done I had to carry Olive and George out to the car, which is so against doctor's orders for me right now, and nudge slowpoke Lucy along too. I didn't want to put Olive back into her messy carseat, but I didn't have much of a choice so back in she went. We went straight to the pharmacy drive-thru and they said they needed 45 minutes. So I went and grabbed some nasty fast food to feed the hungry kids, and we killed time. By the time we got back to the pharmacy, all 3 kids were maxed out, crying and tired, but the prescription hadn't been filled yet and we waited forever. You can imagine the strongly worded lecture I gave the pharmacist, and he finally got to it. I thought the kids would fall asleep on the way home, but George cried the whole way and Olive and Lucy took turns pulling hair and screaming at each other, and crying. Olive was in another mess when we got home, and Lucy had diarrhea on the potty as soon as we got there. So I threw everyone into the bath. That was a calm few minutes until Olive slipped and hit her face on the side of the tub (now she's got a big bruise on her cheek). Lucy has since had diarrhea about every half hour, Olive is lethargic and hard to console, and George is fussy. To top it all off, Chris has been gone since 6 am - first to work in Havasu, and then to Goodyear, AZ to pick up my mother-in-law and niece. And the real icing on the cake for me is that they're on their way here, and my house is an absolute mess. I am a person who really likes things in order, especially when we're having house guests, and it's hard for me to swallow that things just won't be that way this time. Here's hoping tomorrow's a happier day.
