I’m having a hard time managing life and all it throws at me right now. There are five big things going on that are all big enough all by themselves, some good, some bad.
1. Robo’s allergies. He is confirmed to be allergic to wheat, dairy, peanuts, eggs, almonds, and some other tree nuts. Because I am breastfeeding him, that means I don’t eat these things either. And that means my diet is very, very restricted, and meal planning is a nightmare. You know all those easy foods you reach for when you want breakfast, or a snack, or a quick dinner? Yeah, I can’t have any of those anymore. And dessert? It’s a pleasant memory.
2. My health issues. I haven’t talked about this much with anyone, but I have been having pretty serious digestive issues every few days since January. They go away while I am taking antibiotics, but they return soon after finishing the prescription. I still don’t know what is causing it, but it makes at least one day a week a complete waste, where I can’t really do anything but sit on the couch. I am losing weight at kind of a scary pace, and when people tell me I look great I wince inside. My goal weight post-pregnancy was 10 pounds over where I am now. I am finally starting to get taken seriously by doctors lately, though, and some more testing is being done. I had a priesthood blessing last night, so I really hope we get this figured out and kicked to the curb ASAP.
3. We are buying a house, which means we need to look at listings often because things are moving FAST, and our dream house could sell in a day or two if we don’t notice it and go see it quickly enough. We have seen 7 homes so far in the last two weeks, and we’re going to see two more tonight. And not one of them made me feel anything better than “meh.”
4. We are showing the house we are living in because our landlords are selling it. This means we need to keep it in 30-minutes-from-clean-enough-to-show condition at all times. I told the selling agent that I teach piano, so we absolutely cannot show the house during lessons. I told him when those were. But yesterday two of my students weren’t able to come, so we rescheduled for today, since I don’t usually teach on Tuesdays. Well, I got the call at 3:15 today that someone wanted to see the house between 4:30 and 5:30. Usually that would have been plenty of time to do the dishes, make the beds, tidy up a bit, sweep the floor, etc., but I was teaching from 3:30 to 4:30. And I had a van full of groceries I had to put away, which took 15 minutes. Luckily, the potential buyers showed up at 4:45, so I did have 15 minutes to do minimal tidying, and I paid Lego $3 to load the dishwasher all by himself. But I didn’t even go upstairs before they came, and the pots weren’t washed, and the beds weren’t made, and there were toys out. And I had to just drive away and let them walk through my lived-in house and hope they didn’t think less of me for it.
5. El Guapo is potty training and having a little bit of a rough time of it. He does pretty well with pee, but pretty terrible with poop. We actually just put him back in pull-ups after getting fed up with it. I worry, though, that this will just set him back even more if he thinks he can just go in the pull-up with no consequences.
6. We just found out that Lego needs to do about half the requirements for get his Wolf badge in cub scouts. I should have been keeping better track of things, I guess, but I didn’t know anything about cub scouting, and I didn’t. So he’s trying to do a few requirements each night before the next pack meeting, after which it will be too late.
7. Because of Robo’s allergies, I am supposed to put his ointments and lotions on twice a day, bathe him at least once a day, sometimes with bleach, and keep all potential allergens away from him. The last one is the hardest because he has three big brothers who eat cookies and leave crumbs on the kitchen floor, where he finds them, or leave their Easter baskets where he can find them and eat their Butterfingers. The rest is just time consuming, and time seems to be the one thing I never have anywhere near enough of. Despite my best efforts, he’s got bad eczema 98% of the time, which causes him to be irritable and to sleep poorly.
So. Life is crazy, hard, exciting, frustrating, confusing, and exhausting lately. What else is new?
Oh my, Ruth. How I wish I could come over and help you out! I can only imagine how overwhelming life is at the moment. I have a friend who has several kids with varying levels of food allergies, many of which sound similar to Robo’s. Would you like me to get you in contact with her for food ideas/suggestions and maybe some moral support? I’m sure she’d be more than happy to see if she could help. And please give me a call if you ever need to talk.