Happily waving February good-bye

I don't think that I am the only person to be saying 'good riddance' to the month of February. It was rough, and I even managed to squeeze in a vacation. Well, two, if you count flying to the States for a funeral (although I think we can all agree that it doesn't really count, even if I did get to eat pizza from Drag's.) The weather was tough. I had to frantically dash from one major project to another. I gave myself whiplash (I don't think that I mentioned this. I fell down badly on the last day of skiing and the next day? I had to actually use my hands to turn my head from side to side. A week later and I am mostly better although I still creak when I get out of bed in the morning. Way to celebrate another birthday is coming up, body!) We were all sick- and some of us, more than once. Its Lent and I gave up alcohol so I couldn't even reward myself at the end of a hard day of cupcake baking and baby wrangling with a nice glass of wine. Oh, and my appointment to my lovely new hair salon was marred by the MOST EXPENSIVE BLOWOUT and/or MANICURE ever. When I told B how much it had cost, he was actually going to call them up and yell at them because he thought that they had taken advantage of me or cheated me or something. I had to admit that it was just a ridiculously expensive salon and now he may explode when I mention that I still need to go back this week to get my hair cut. Life was hard in February.

Forgive me for taking off an entire week from blogging but I am EXHAUSTED. The minute that we got back from vacation, I was ready to start burning through my prep list for the big birthday party for Georgia, but Monday morning I got a text from the sitter/cleaner to tell me that she was ill and she didn't know if she would make it to work all week. I couldn't have gotten any worse news. First of all, since we had all had The Gastro that Never Ended, I suspected that she wouldn't be back to work any time soon. And Secondly, Ella was on school holidays and was quite frankly, being a PITA. After spending a week alone with B and I, it seemed like she was determined to make it her full time job to have my full attention at all times. OMG, the endless questions! The constant harrassment to play games. The insistence that she was incapable of doing the smallest task without constant supervision. Plus the fact that I also had to entertain Georgia- who was being extra clingy due to our little vacation. I was at my wits end. By noon on Monday.

Luckily, Ella's school has a great centre de loisirs during the holidays and it turned out that there were a few kids from her class who would be there. She didn't want to go, we literally dragged her out of the house on Tuesday morning. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, I came to pick her up and she sent me home! She wanted to keep playing so I made dinner and then went to fetch her at 6 pm. Its funny but I would swear that the people who organise this put in more time and effort than her regular teacher. The schedule for the week is just a list of amazingly fun stuff for kids. Granted, there are only 30 kids and something like 6 animateurs/-trices, but still. I am more and more happy with my decision to pull Ella out of this school and send her to a private school next year. Not only does her teacher this year seem to have been slacking off in the extreme but she only worked about 9 days since January. She'll work a day or two and then be on sick leave for two weeks. And this is despite the fact that she only works part-time the way it is. Since I go to school to do the english class with teh kids, I am always shocked to hear that she has been put on arret maladie, when the day before, when I was in class, she was perfectly well and chatting to me about her plans for the evening. Hmm, a cynical person might think that she was abusing the system. Of course, she might very well be dying of cancer, but I highly doubt it.

So Ella was happy to dance out the door every day at 8:30 but that still left me with the Littlest Dictator. Good lord, this kid is a handful. She started walking really well while staying with her grandparents so she's become quiet brave, only the smallest things can send her crashing to the floor. Things like the edge of a rug. A piece of paper on the floor. A bit of light flashing in her eye. Its getting to where she is so covered in bruises that I am horrified to send her to daycare. They must think that I am either the most incompetent parent alive or that I am using her in cage fighting. I honestly don't remember Ella being such a klutz. I also don't remember Ella being so difficult and disagreeable. Ella used to be happy to sit by herself and play. Georgia is almost never happy to sit and play by herself and even when you play with her, she'll suddenly get a bug up her ass about something and starting crying and throwing things. I really really hope that its all due to her teeth but I'm beginning to fear that she is just a Difficult Child.

Georgia has started sleeping well, some nights, but then like last night, will give a good yell every 10 minutes for 2 hours. She isn't entirely awake but she isn't entirely asleep either. That means that you have to listen closely for the tipping point from Sleeptalking to Hysterics. Especially since she learned to scream. Oh that adds a whole new level of fun to the 4 am sleep-training that we are trying to do. And since she learned to shake her head 'no', she won't eat anything either. The first three bites go down just fine. Then its a big, full-body waggle indicating 'No!' So I try to alternate with bites of a dessert compote. That will work for a few bites. Then, another big 'no'. Generally at this point, she starts pointing at stuff around the room that she wants to eat instead. My tea. Ella's sandwich. A candle. Mainly stuff that she can't eat, but try to convince her of this. Meals have gone from being the easiest part of the day to a slow torturous death slog.

Oh, I know, I know. She's just a baby and she is just doing what babies do. But, gosh, sometimes parenting is a thankless job. I think that part of it is that I am sort of ready to move on to the next thing. When B came home from work the night before Georgia's birthday party, I asked him what he though of all the decorating and baking and projects I had done with Ella. He answered, 'i think you need a job'. Yeah, maybe I do.