Weekend Crabbies

It's one of those days when every word out of my mouth sounds full of clipped annoyance with LG. I hate this kind of day, and I'm not sure where it comes from, beyond LG having a bad day and me not having the emotional reserves to deal with her. If I were a different mother, I'd put her in front of the TV all day just so I didn't need to listen to her. Yeah, today was that bad.

To be fair, a lot of what we needed to do today was not fun. It was a lot of running errands for her party next weekend, some of which I would have had us do yesterday, but we spent yesterday doing children's activities (a concert, her basketball class) and visiting urgent care, because I got tired of listening to her whine about her various ailments, most of which could be attributed to the fact that she does not drink. As it turns out, her tonsils are huge, though she's not positive for strep, so there's nothing to do about it except give her Tylenol and listen to her whine. Of course, the minute we got home from Urgent Care she was quite chipper, dancing around to 80s pop tunes. Sigh.

So today involved a lot of errand-running and a lot of whining/crying. The fact that it is physically impossible to put a ponytail on the side of her head sent her into a fit that lasted a good ten minutes. That's just one example. And then there's the singing and talking that literally goes on all day long, except when she is watching TV. And moving at glacially slow speed--like, every time we got in and out of the car it took her a good five minutes to put on her coat. I'm not kidding. I'm hiding at the moment, because I need to read her a bedtime story, and I don't want to do it until I've calmed down.

And then I think, how would today have been different if we had Baby #2?

I need vodka. Lots and lots of vodka.

Update: Thankfully, she went to bed. I read for work. I cleaned the kitchen. Now I am, indeed, drinking vodka (diluted with a berry juice box) before heading off to the shower and more reading. Leaving LG's sore throat/illness aside, I think what happened this weekend was trying to cram way too much in, at a time when both of us would have been better off just hanging out, drawing pictures, and watching a movie. It does not work to take LG on errands. I know this. She gets whiny and asks for stuff I will never buy her. I get annoyed. She putzes and takes too long to get out of the house, so then I rush her to get things done. She gets whiny. I get annoyed. Repeat ad infinitum. I have dealt with this by, as much as possible, cutting into my own work days to get stuff done. But I can't always afford to do so. The semester is getting busier. And I feel the crushing weight of the next few weeks. Her birthday party this week, my conference next week, starting a Femara cycle the following week. All incredibly stressful independently, much less combined. And then, somewhere in there, I start work on two (or three?) new committees. Next year, maybe we will just go to Burger King. Of course, I'd still need to make 4 dozen dairy-free cupcakes.

The vodka isn't working. Argh.