You are cordially invited to my pity party

Last Friday I was looking upon the holiday weekend with hope.  I had a long “to-do” list and thought I could perhaps accomplish most everything on it during my three days off work.

Saturday morning rolled around and I felt miserable.  I had a sinus headache, my nose was running and the Claritin wasn’t working.  Autumn also had the most disgustingly snotty nose and I was constantly wiping her face off with a cloth diaper.  Her breathing was labored and I wondered if she was reacting to the teeth popping through her top gums or if she had inherited my hay fever.

Saturday also brought forth the destruction of my dryer.  Maybe I’m being a little melodramatic here.  It’s not really destroyed.  I didn’t take a sledgehammer to it or anything but the thing has stopped doing what it was built to do, that being dry clothes.  We put a load in before we set out to run errands.  I know you’re not supposed to have the dryer running while no one is home, but we’re busy people who like to feel that something in our house is getting done even when we’re not there.  We do the same thing with the dishwasher.

When we got home about two hours later the dryer was still running.  I thought that odd because the dryer automatically turns off once it senses the clothes are dry.  It’s smart like that.  Saturday afternoon the dryer’s IQ dropped dramatically because not only were the clothes not dry, they were not hot.  The dryer was not producing any heat.

Nathan took the back off the dryer and we both looked into it to see if maybe the lint gnomes would have mercy on us and point out the faulty connection or the bad part so we could save the bucks on a service call.  We also consutled the internet but eventually gave up trying to puzzle out the problem ourselves.  We called a repairman who should be at our house with Nathan right now.  Cha ching!  That’s the sound of more of our money going buh bye.

By Monday evening (after the weekend was nearly over) I was feeling much better.  Autumn, on the other hand, was still suffering from a faucet-like runny nose.  Tuesday morning she was uncharacteristically ornery  and was pulling on her ears so I called in to work and made an appointment with her pediatrician.  It turns out she has two infected ears and is now on amoxicillin.

Oh, and then there’s the eye doctor appointment.  I had the pediatrician refer us to an eye doctor to check out Autum’s eyes.  I noticed they haven’t exactly been in sync lately and I was concerned.  I thought the appointment was yesterday morning and was greeted with puzzled looks from the staff when I gave them Autumn’s name.  I showed them the card I was mailed and they said, “Oh! This is for tomorrow.” 

Well shit.  I could have sworn when I made the appointment over the phone they told me Tuesday.  Maybe my eyes should get checked because the card very obviously did not say Tuesday.  So I missed an entire day of work yesterday and then had to leave today for that appointment.  I turns out Autumn’s eyes are fine.  She hated the exam though since it interrupted her nap time and included eye drops to dilate her pupils.  They had to put the drops in twice since her pupils hadn’t dilated all the way.  By that time anyone who stuck a hand within five inches of her face was greeted with a slap and a scream.  It took two of us to hold her down while the eye doctor examined her.  It was worse than shots and I just about broke down crying.

I guess that’s why they call the holiday “labor” day.