When it rains, it pours

It's been one of those weeks. Last week Tweetie got another cold which quickly escalated into fever and another ear infection, peaking out at the start of this week with a bout of pinkeye.
The intermittent suspicious noise in the car we'd been trying tp isolate became suddenly persistent and obvious, and the mechanic confirmed Friday the turbo was gone and we'd be without a car this week.
Monday, the Bear heard back from a previously promising job prospect that he was suddenly overqualified. And my cold, a kind gift from Tweetie, evolved into a nasty cough.
Tuesday was merely a little chaotic as we got a call from our mortgage broker that an assessor would be by in the evening, so we were scrambling through the day (between tending to our ailing little one) to sort the chaos out so we'd have half a chance of getting the number we needed for refinancing.
Wednesday I went back to work for half a day - split shift with the Bear on Tweetie care - and left my bag on the bus on the way home. Tweetie slept a LOT that day, and I was hopeful she was almost done with the battle.
Thursday, another half-day at work, but Tweetie's fever was spiking again. And they were still working on the car, but we needed one for Friday, so we arranged a loaner and had to zip down to pick it up.
Friday. The lovely finish on this fine week. Tweetie was still coughing and running a fever on and off. The Bear had an appointment to get the brakes fixed on the truck, so we got Tweetie out of bed instead of letting her sleep as we'd done all week. I followed the truck in the loaner car and then the Bear dropped me off at work and continued. The Bear went home to feed Tweetie, who was now fighting some rather explosive diarrhea. He cleaned her up and put her on the pottie, and then headed out with her to finish up some errands. He came home awhile later to find a waterfall in the kitchen. I got the call at work, and all I knew was there was 'water everywhere'. A colleague gave me a ride home and I ran in to see what I could do.
Park T in her chair and grab a mop. Eventually we got upstairs to actually figure out what happened. Tweetie had flushed the upstairs toilet after pottie, just before they left. The toilet had backed up, but the tank apparently kept flowing. And flowing. Through the bathroom floor and all over the kitchen. Filling the drawers and flowing across the kitchen floor before dripping through to spray all over the stuff in the basement.
The Bear's favourite question to throw at unsuspecting folks yesterday afternoon was, "Is it supposed to rain inside the house?" At some point this morning, I had considered changing the title of this post to, "My bowl runneth over," but I thought that might be in poor taste. So I buried it in the middle of the post for a little levity ;)
Our insurance folks were quite responsive, and we had a team there soon to look things over and start the cleanup. Somewhere in that we got a call that the car was ready, so once things were started and Tweetie down for a nap, he went off to pick up the car. I got another call awhile later - the car was still making noise, so they wanted the Bear to stick around while they looked into it. When he eventually got home later, he was back in the loaner. Apparently the new turbo lasted about a block before it blew up, too.
And the truck? They found a blown oil seal and won't have parts 'til next week. Not that we'd have had time to pick it up. When the crew was gone and we'd finished eating take-out off those dishes that had remained clean, and I'd given T another steam bath to calm her cough, I needed to get to the drugstore before they closed for some cough medicine for myself. I'd cleared it with the doc by phone in the afternoon. Packed Tweetie up, except for missing shoes, and walked out to the loaner to discover another little hitch. When he went to pick up our car earlier, the Bear had transferred everything back to our car from the loaner, but in the rush to get back home after the car repairs went sideways, he didn't transfer them back. No car seat. Also no blanket (borrowed from the crib in the morning when T was still mostly asleep), or diaper bag, as I later figured out. So back into the house, I dropped T in her crib and zipped off to Shopper's to grab the meds and an cold patch for my shoulder just as they were closing.
A little more cleaning, and off to bed.

It's Saturday now, and T's back in bed, and we're waiting around for the plumber who's supposed to come by and have an initial look at what needs doing to fix things properly. Once he's been by, we'll likely be heading out to look at some new fixtures for upstairs. There's a considerable hole cut out of our kitchen ceiling where the water was coming through, and we've got big industrial dehumidifiers running on all three affected areas. (Just as my doc was recommending running a humidifier in my room to help with the cough ;)

For the determined optimists, here are a few rays of sunshine. It is indeed sunny outside today, and I sat for a bit on the deck with Tweetie this morning. The flood disaster came after we had the appraisal done, so we didn't have to explain away the hole in the ceiling. Tweetie was perky and smiling for a bit this morning before she went back for her nap, and the pedialyte and milk she had have stayed down. Hooray! (You gotta put little pudgy hands in the air when you say that - just like she does) With the ceiling pulled back anyways, it looks like that much-needed upstairs bathroom reno that was postponed indefinitely due to budget constraints might happen after all, and the replacement vanity we bought on sale awhile back might come out of the basement. Maybe I'll get a tub I actually fit in :) And the plumbing related oddities may well get fixed right. And the basement floor hasn't been that clean for I don't know how long! Oh, yeah. And the Bear got a lead out of the blue (standing in line at the electronics parts store) on some possible work that could have him within walking distance (a definite improvement over a day's travel) through Sylvester's first few months.

I Remember This

Sigh.
Our little Tweetie's been sick the last few days. Nothing terribly serious, just the way an average cold can knock a little one down to a place where all they want is to be held. The Bear was in Vancouver, so I've been off work the last couple of days looking after her. She's been fighting a fever, so the nights have been long, with regular checks on temperature and comfort sessions to soothe her until the meds kick in and she's able to go back to bed.
Thursday evening, she spat up a bit of bottle after a coughing fit. Just enough to slime both my hoodie and the shirt underneath through the open zip neck. I remember that smell. Yesterday, her first bottle went down slow, and shortly thereafter came back fast, with a full payload of mucous. A change of clothes for her was followed by a couple of rounds of mild diarrhea. Mild as in not shooting out of every crevice, but still messy enough on the one to make it simpler to just take her to the bath tub to peel off the layers and clean her up. Whereupon she backed her not yet hosed off backside into my pants. A change of clothes for both of us. This, too, seems familiar.
Last night, the fever was a little less persistent - she resisted taking any meds - but the coughing had kicked in full force. Which meant I saw every hour of the night until two, then four and six. And cleaned the floor up twice along the way.
She's slumped over my shoulder as I write this, mostly asleep with occasional quiver, squirm or cry. As her Mama, I'm happy to do whatever I can to comfort her, help her to rest and get over this bug. Happier still that just my presence is comfort to her. And my mind goes back to a little over a year ago when all of these 'challenges' were just a regular part of daily life caring for my very dependent little baby girl.
And then, of course, it goes forward a few months, when once again my life will revolve almost completely around the care of a little newborn. I remember this, and it doesn't scare me so much this time. I also remember the joys of first smiles and other little contacts. I look at how much has changed with Tweetie since those early days. And I hope, and pray, that I've learned a thing or two that will help a few things go smoother this time.
I'm also conscious of God's grace right now. I've been able to sleep a bit with her during the day, and my lower back, which has been very touch the last couple of weeks, has given me very little grief since Wednesday when I picked up Tweetie (it was particularly bad for most of that day at work). Grace, too, I remember, and I know it will be there, too.
It's all good.