TIIIIIIIIRRRREEEEDDDD

I'm tired. I haven't slept well this past week, thanks to my two lovely daughters. I also have posted several times in my head, but haven't actually sat down to write anything. I've missed it.

Allie and I went on a "date" on Wednesday night. Jeff and I decided we would spend some "one on one" time with our kids once a month. In January, Jeff took Damon to Chuck E Cheese and then they brought ice cream home to share with us. So, Allie decided she would do exactly the same thing on her date, only with me. I snapped a pic as she was getting out of the van with her cup of tokens (left over from Damon's date, or night out as Jeff would call it), but didn't take any more once we were inside. Allie is still a little too young to actually play the games, and would lose interest after a few seconds. I didn't want to waste the coins, so I would try to quickly finish the game after she ran away. I actually lost her twice, and once found her riding the big horse with another little girl. Embarrassing, yes. After that I blew most of the tokens playing Wheel of Fortune so we could spend the tickets on a Lik Em Stick and go home. I think she had fun, though, so it was worth it.

Wednesday night was a rough night for Kyla (Monday and Tuesday hadn't been great, either). She had been coughing like a seal for a few days, but developed a fever Wednesday. After I got home from my date with Allie, I woke her up to feed her before going to bed. She threw up on me, and acted plain miserable.

Neither of us slept much that night. She was breathing so fast, really laboring, and couldn't seem to get comfortable. I thought it might be easier for her to breathe if I was holding her upright, so I spent a lot of the night in the recliner trying to make her comfortable. Nothing worked, and I couldn't sleep with her breathing so loudly on me, so I ended up back in my bed listening to her restless sleep. Thursday I took her in to the doctor and he decided it was probably something viral (croup usually is, and since that is what I thought she had anyway, I wasn't surprised). her fever had gone down and she was actually acted much happier, but because of her rapid breathing he decided to start her on some breathing treatments. We give them to her every 4-6 hours and she seems to be doing much better. She is coughing a lot more (a good sign, if you ask me) and hasn't had a fever in days. Damon even likes helping out if she'll let him.

So, we thought we were doing better and I slept pretty good Friday and Saturday (although Ky Ky was waking up more often than usual, one night even messing her diaper at around 3:00 am). But last night was horrible, and it was due to daughter #1. She woke up at about 3:30 crying about a scary dream she was having. I tried many things over the next couple of hours, but she couldn't seem to get control of herself enough to fall asleep. She wanted to get in bed with us, but that wasn't going to happen. Jeff and I decided when we got married that our kids would never sleep with us. There were a few reasons, such as no one really sleeps when a child is thrashing around, but we never have let our kids sleep with us. I gave Allie four options: she could sleep in her bed, she could get in bed with Damon (who was awake and begging her to stop crying), she could sleep on the couch, or she could lay on our floor. There was something wrong with all options, according to her, and she drifted from one to the other without making a decision. It must have been 5:00 (and after many tears) that she finally went back to her bed and went to sleep. At 6:00, Kyla woke up hungry and I practically slept walked into her room. She went back to sleep, though, thankfully. Needless to say, it was a bad night for everyone. And today hasn't been a picnic either, with a sleep deprived Allie to deal with. Cross your fingers for a better night tonight and a more patient mommy to deal with her the rest of today.

Here are a couple more shots of her shiner, which is pretty much gone now. Although I may have been tempted to give her another one last night when she wouldn't stop crying, she made it through without any bodily harm (not even a thump on the head from Jeff).

We've decided that we're not going to make her take naps anymore. She is trying to make the transition, but hasn't quite got there yet. On days she does take a nap, she doesn't fall asleep until 9:30 or 10:00, yet she seems to still need a nap most days (she'll often fall asleep in the car around 5:00 if she hasn't had a nap). I'm trying to compromise by letting her take a "rest," or stay in her room for an hour reading books and listening to music so I can have some peace and quiet myself. We'll see how this goes...

As a side note, Allie asked if we could take her hair elastics out while we were waiting to see the doctor with Kyla. I asked her why. "I want Dr Joyner to see my long hair," she said. What kind of child do I have on my hands?

Okay. I know I got "bag tagged" a while back, but have been avoiding posting because mine is ever so boring. If you haven't seen this going around, someone tags you to take a picture of the contents of your purse and post it on your blog. Here's mine:

1. My $3 planner from Costco
2. My wallet
3. My cell phone
4. My mp3 player
5. A tiny notepad
6. Flavored lip gloss from Bath and Body (an item Allie covets)
7. gum
8. 2 mustard packets (not sure why those were there)
9. baggie with cheerios
10. empty baggie
11. 2 diapers
12. wipes
13. medicine dropper

Told you it was boring. I tag anyone who hasn't done this and has any interest at all in cleaning out a purse (how about you, Lindsay?). Okay, my hour of "me time" is passing quickly, so I am off. I just finished A Thousand Splendid Suns if you're interested in reading my take on it. I'm probably not going to post when I have written a book review, so if you care about reading reviews, I hope you have added my book blog to your google reader (and if you don't use google reader, which tells you when blogs have been updated, you should!).