WTG?!

In grad school I spent two years working for the Willa Cather Archive and the UNL Digital Archives. While that means I was once fluent in XML, it also means that I worked with a guy (who was already married with children) who used the phrase, "What the Grunt?!" to express concern, disdain, frustration, etc. in a PG manner. As it turns out, this phrase is one that keeps coming back to me this week as we seem to be stuck in a bit of an illness/oddity wheel.

Last week it was a coughing Harrison who missed two days of school but waited until 3:30 on Friday to spike a fever. A (not-so-quick, but bless-their-sweet-souls) trip to Convenient Care revealed that he had bronchitis. There went all of our plans for the weekend in one quick WTG (whoops - just typed WTF instead) moment.

This week, like so many others this Fall, has been filled with long days. It seems like my dear husband is gone at least twice (and sometimes thrice) a week in the afternoons or evenings due to meetings, committees, etc. which leaves me with very long days with very small children. And since the icky-sickies have started, we are stuck for these very long days in our house. We love our house but it's only 3/4 of the way through November and I'm already getting cabin fever. Not good, eh?

HD is back to school this week and I thought we were in the clear, so we did get out for Toddler Art on Tuesday. Well then Tuesday (damn you, Tuesday!) night came and Lincoln woke up mid-night with an awful, barky cough and a low-grade fever. Welcome WTG illness No.2 - the start of croup! Thankfully we got to the dr. quickly Wednesday morning and he's doing much better, but still, no getting out of the house or social time for me/us for a few days. And again - it's only November. If we're getting blasted like this now, what does the rest of the winter hold for us healthwise?!

Not to be left out, Little Miss has been adding to the WTGs, too. The self-potty training sort of continues with her going accident-free some days and others not-so-much. I suppose if I had a day or two to really devote my attention to it/her, we might be in business, but yeah right. With sick brothers and naps and nursing and whatnot, my attention is clearly divided. Speaking of nursing, check out her WTG play session that took place while I was with Lincoln in the living room this morning. Apparently she is thinking all things diapers and potties and babies, because this is what she found to entertain herself:

And did I mention that she chose last night to start getting out of her crib?! This is perhaps the biggest WTG of them all right now. I cannot stand the idea of losing the containment the crib offers and if she really is done, this will make it even earlier and worse than when Harrison gave it up at 2 yrs., 3ish mos. But the toddler bed is probably coming soon because this morning she flipped out of her crib and (naturally) landed on a basket that holds blankets, etc. on the floor and did this to her eye: 

She is fine, but in hopes of avoiding any (more) serious injuries, we don't want the little monkey to keep experimenting with escaping. Because, you know, with the potty training and the sick brothers and all the whatnot, I clearly have lots of time for teaching her to stay in a toddler bed, too! Sheesh, child. Could you slow down a bit on the growing up/demanding independence?! Just a little for your poor Mama?!

In other random news, I tried to go old-school with Harrison and get him some books on tape from the library (to avoid messing with potentially scratched or scratch-able CDs) to entertain him during these long house-bound days. It took him two seconds to do this to the first one (after asking "What's this, Mama?!" in his own WTG voice): 

The brilliant-albeit-still-a-stinker also told me yesterday, when playing CandyLand, that he hid the cupcake card because he didn't want to land on it (it's the first one, in case you aren't as familiar as I am these days, so if you're almost to the end and draw it, it is apparently a BIG bummer/WTG in the eyes of a 4-yr-old). Today I found it behind the pillow of my rocking chair: 

And last, but not least in this random collection of WTGs, I bring you sweet baby Lincoln's hair. Not that he has much of it, but he does have one strand that is really giving its all. Yes, one strand. While the rest of his head is covered in the sweetest little fuzz, there is one strand on top of his head (of course) that is a solid 1.5-2 inches long. Why? How? No one knows. But here you have it:

My apologies if this is the strangest post you've ever read from me. I'm solo parenting for 13 hours today, so I'm a little loopy.