Heading out with Sean to make a grocery run.
Apparently Sean makes ("lets," he says) Josephine lug the purple cart.
Ah, the purple cart. That thing has been heavily abused over the last several months. Every time we go on our our little grocery store crawl (like a pub crawl-- but domesticated, boring, dry, essential, and frequent) it gets totally maxed out. Additionally, it has hauled countless loads of laundry, many gallons of sparkling water (until we acknowledged our dependency and just brought our carbonator up here last summer), the resulting plastic jugs back to the recycling machine, pounds of library books, and at one point, even had a new AC unit bungeed onto it. Hands down, our rugged little cart wins the title of Single Most Important Piece of Urban Equipment Especially If You Are Pregnant Or Have Children Strapped To You Or By The Hand And Really, Even If You Don't.
It's a coveted award. If you haven't heard of it, you are very uninformed.
The purple garland was a decoration they added for Christmas.
Josephine HIGHLY approved.
Speaking of the library, Sean took some pictures at the local branch when they went together after Christmas. I'm glad he thinks to take photos of ordinary activities. I should be mindful over our last month here to try to document these parts. It won't be long until we look back and a common activity like this will feel far removed. I'll want to remember the details, and a zombie's memory isn't much good for that. Photos much better.
Josephine got sick shortly after we returned from our Christmas trip to Texas. Thankfully the stomach bug was short-lived. Little ones are sooo sad when they're sick to their stomach. It just breaks my heart. She's tormented and sobbing, I'm holding back her hair and crying too, (in part because I realize she'll always blame the innocent black olives), and then I have to be the cruel messenger informing her that even though she feels better momentarily, it isn't over... just wait fifteen minutes. Not to mention the torture of telling your parched child she can't have a whole cup of water, only this teasing sip. That look that says "Why would you be so mean?? Can't you see how broken I am???" -- that's a tough look to field.
Further complicating matters is the fact that it's impossible to convince her that even though she hates throwing up, she can't STOP it, just because she doesn't want to. She cannot simply lie in bed and hope it goes away. Or start walking out of the bathroom because she doesn't want to lean over the toilet anymore. Left to her own devices, the entire apartment would have needed disinfecting. So yes, I found it a bit exhausting to stay on top of her every little gag... attempting to balance pity, gentleness, encouragement, and a somewhat militant insistence that she snap out of her denial and address the situation at hand.
a little Veggie Tales goes a long way
A few weeks later, she came down with a cold, and while there's a lot less cleaning involved, it is a similar story when it comes to coughing. She doesn't LIKE coughing. "Well, of course not. But you have to get the stuff out. Your body's going to make you cough." We talked about lungs, drainage, used human body images as props, I tried to cheer her on, etc. But there is simply no convincing a three year old that she needs to embrace the cough, make it a GOOD cough... not when she's decided to resist the discomfort with all her might. We had nights of wailing over each coughing fit. Which naturally woke Clement, who already sleeps fitfully, and whose crying in turn seemed to intensify hers-- much the way howling dogs seem to egg each other on... I'm sure our neighbors were loooooving us that week.
One redeeming factor: children's medicine has come a long way in the last couple decades! Kind of like the multi-vitamins that you can now get in gum drop form, (which had my daughter believing all her Halloween candies were also vitamins), Josephine was totally spared the horrid cough syrup. I found out Mucinex makes these little mini-melt granule packets that taste a whole lot like crushed up orange Tic Tacs. So that part was easy peasy. (Someone needs to revise the Mary Poppins' ditty now that medicine IS a spoonful of sugar.)
Another redeeming factor, according to Josephine, is that she couldn't get the flu shot I had scheduled for her that week because she had a scratchy throat. She declared herself a "very lucky girl." (And honestly, I'm getting so fed up with aspects of this pediatric practice that I might hold off taking either of them in for anything else until we're back in Austin. Especially because there's simply no avoiding a gazillion other germs the minute you step into the closet-sized waiting room. I wouldn't be surprised at all if that's how a minor scratchy throat morphed into a full-blown nasty cough in the first place; it had not seemed like it was going to intensify.)
On a HAPPIER note: MYCHEL CAME TO VISIT! Best thing ever! She tolerated all the messiness of a post-Christmas toddler, poorly-sleeping infant, and their tired parents. It was such a delight to have a friend over, and taking her to Gregory's marked the first time I've gone out in NY without kids in tow! Huge treat.
Josephine and HER friend who came to visit HER.
(Sometimes Josephine and I have a hard time sharing. Just trying to prep her for siblinghood.)
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