Three Things Thursday

Thing One: Noodle is 5 months old!
This girl has my heart, y'all. She's smiley, sensitive, content, and squealy.  She's rolling over and has started solids this week, pounding down food like it ain't no thang. Here she is with her lovey, Hops:

Thing Two: I'm just plain old!
Last night I went to a play at my alma mater, and for the first time really felt the time warp my mom always talked about: how you feel like you lived there yesterday and an eternity ago all at the same time.  Like I belonged and I really, really didn't.

Exhibit A:
I belonged: the play was in a building where I had lots of classes, so I knew my way around.
I really didn't belong: the play started at 9:00 p.m. (my current bedtime).

But it was pretty great to be out past my bedtime, to throw caution (and sleep) to the wind and do something for myself with friends without kids. I drove home at 11:00 p.m. and actually thought about going to do something else...because I could. Two hours on a college campus and I was already thinking I could just go do something at 11:00 p.m. Ha. But I didn't. I drove home and went to bed because my little alarm clocks like to rise and shine before the sun. Totally worth it, though.

Thing Three: This recipe is new! And yummy!

Rachel Ray's Chicken-and-Spinach Tortilla Bake. This is my new add-it-to-the-regular-rotation recipe. It's easy. It's quick. It's healthy (mostly). It's delicious. And it's easy to double and freeze half for a busy night in the future. Win-win-win-win-win. I've had the recipe for years, but I came across it the other week and realized I'd never made it; we've eaten it twice since. My tweaks:

• I used shredded cheddar or monterey jack cheese because I didn't have pepper jack 
• I used an 8X8 pan, so I could only fit two layers of ingredients instead of three
• To make the recipe even simpler, I either boiled chicken breasts or used rotisserie chicken 
• For kid-friendly veggies, I chopped the spinach instead of leaving the leaves whole

Thing bonus: Stomach bug update

Despite our best efforts, the stomach bug did find Phil and me. So glad that week of my life is over. Whew.

Holy Sickness, Batman! A Tale of Sickness, Survival, and Complete Exhaustion

photo credit

What's that you say? You haven't heard from me in a while? Yeah. About that.

But first, a pressing question: why oh why does the stomach bug always seem to hit in the middle of the night? Not cool.

Monday night's episode I wasn't expecting. After two late, fairly sleepless nights over the weekend (for good reasons like out-of-town company and a nice dinner out with family) and losing an hour of sleep because of the time change, I was ready to get in bed early and sleep my dark circles away. But at one in the morning, Noodle started with the stomach bug. Infant stomach bugs are much cleaner than toddler ones, but they're scarier too. Like I had to give the girl Pedialyte every five minutes for two hours and if she didn't pee I was going to have to take her to the ER. That kind of scary. That was a fun two hours, let me tell you. And did I mention Phil was on call that day? Good times. But that sweet girl was as good-natured as ever:

I should have known last night's episode was coming. After all, Moo did put Noodle's Pedialyte syringe in his mouth right after I told him not to touch it. Awesome sauce. To my credit, it was during that two hours of Pedialyte...every five minutes...with a toddler running around. We were outside, Noodle on a blanket in the grass, and I'd just put her syringe down after giving her a dose when Mr. You-Can't-Tell-Me-What-To-Do shows up and pops that sucker right in his mouth to pretend he's drinking medicine too. I can't totally blame him. Enter some serious denial on my part: Maybe her bug isn't contagious. Maybe she's over it already. Maybe he's immune to this. Maybe those sick germs didn't just pass from one mouth to another even though I just saw it with my own eyes. Fingers, toes, and hair crossed.

Ha.

11:45 last night: Moo gets it. We rock and read and sing and pray and sort of sleep in the chair in his room while taking breaks to hug the trashcan. Over two hours pass. And maybe--maybe--we think, he's done. And he is. We all sleep. It's after 2:00 a.m., but at 3:45 I'm up with Noodle because after two days of not eating much, she's finally hungry. Understandable, but I'm feeling like a zombie in some sort of evil alternate universe where time and sleep don't exist. She goes back to sleep, but at 6:45, she's up for the day because she's slept a good 12 hours and is ready to squeal and play. What I would give to be an infant again, I think.

This morning, I felt sick and couldn't tell if it was just the five nights in a row of almost no sleep or if I was getting what they had. I didn't even have the brain power to pray. The bags under my eyes were, as my cousin says, so big they could hold my keys. (Side note: I'm a total sucker for southern sayings like that.)

It's a good thing I married the man I did. That man was up in the night washing sheets and sitting with us when he could have been sleeping. He sent me back to bed once Noodle went down for her morning nap and I slept for THREE HOURS while he took care of Moo, who was acting mostly like himself and keeping down liquids like a champ.

So far, Phil and I have been spared. It would be some sort of miracle if I didn't get this thing, but I'm thinking lots of irrational positive thoughts like: I'm an adult, so maybe it'll affect me differently or not at all. If I haven't gotten it by now, I probably won't get it. And my favorite: I've had the stomach bug less than ten times in my life; I pretty much have a belly of steel. We shall see. I'll spare you the details of the blocked milk duct and sinus infection I've been battling this week.

There are some silver linings in these dark clouds. After all, my New Year's Word is HOPE. Phil is on "vacation" Wednesday through Friday this week to study for his boards. Poor guy won't get much studying done today, but it sure is nice to have his schedule flexible right now. I was going to take the kids to Chattanooga this week so we'd be out of his hair, but I'm glad we didn't or we'd be spreading sickness there. I also have some rockstar friends who brought me caffeine and Pedialyte when Phil was on call (thank you Jessica and Kara) and the BEST pediatrician on the planet; I'll probably never be able to move away from this city because she's so great.

So here I am blogging during nap time so I can feel like I'm doing something a little bit normal.

I'm waving the white flag.
Spring, come on already.
Sickness, leave us alone, pretty please.
And disinfectant, laundry detergent, and modern medicine, thank you.
What did people do back in the day? I think about that a lot.