The Black Hole

Apparently my house has a sippy-eating black hole somewhere. Each day the kids get a sippy that they use throughout the day unless something happens. At the end of the day, I retrieve said sippys from their final resting place and into the sink they go. Yesterday, Jadzia asked for more drink so, as always, I told her to bring me her sippy. A few minutes later she returns with no sippy. Now Jadzia is not particularly skilled or devoted to truly looking for things and tends to walk around looking at things mostly eye level. She doesn't often look toward the ground, let alone under furniture or toys. So the fact that she returned without her prize was hardly surprising. So we began to search. My neighbor and her son were over hanging out with us for the day and neither of us could find the lost cup. Now normally, I would search until I could search no more because normally the sippys are filled with milk. Milk, as you know, does not last long before it begins to develop a funk and is just plain nasty. As such, I don't like to leave milk sippys unfound. The last time I did, when it was finally found (in the microwave of the toy kitchen; 2 weeks later) I didn't even open it and immediately threw it out. Yesterday, as luck would have it, we were out of milk so the sippy had juice in it. So with a screaming infant in the swing, a cranky toddler on the stairs and a thirsty preschooler at my heels - I gave up the search vowing to find it later. I gave her a new cup and restored everything to right.

The sippy has not been found.

Today, as I'm making up lunch for the kids, Inara comes asking for more milk (saved by my neighbor on the milk front). I tell her to go find her sippy. She understands this sentence and yet her favorite word as of late is "no". So she said no and started to whine for milk. Anya, in true Anya fashion, is cranky at this most convenient time and Jadzia is sick. And the phone rings. Did I mention I was making lunch at this point? Yeah I'm putting in an order for a 3rd arm tomorrow. When I don't immediately produce a new sippy filled with fresh milk from thin air, Inara walks off pouting and I continue stirring and bouncing the baby. She returns a few minutes later and repeats "Milk" and this time attempts to open the fridge. At not quite 2, she isn't able to perform such a feat thankfully. And again, she has no sippy so I ask her again to get her sippy cup. More "no"s, whining and pouting. She storms off again. I put Anya in the swing to finish the food which triggers her to start crying. I plate up the food, get them all seated, retrieve Anya and we eat. Halfway through, more pleas for milk, more requests for the cup, more no's and so on and so forth. When we're almost done eating, Jadzia starts crying and complaining of a sore throat. She, who never naps, wants to take a nap so Anya still in one arm, I take Jadzia upstairs and tuck her in. When I get downstairs again, what do I hear but "milk!" No, there is still no sippy. I am about to concede defeat and get a new sippy when the phone rings distracting me from my concession. I begin to thoroughly hunt for the sippy while bouncing the baby, tripping over Inara and talking to my dad on the phone. Eventually, I have to put Anya down to look under furniture *cue baby crying*. In the very last place I intended to look before declaring the sippy MIA, I found it. With fresh milk in hand, order was restored to the universe. (It was in the play oven in case you're curious).

In all of my hunting for Inara's wayward sippy I still didn't find Jadzia's from yesterday. I suspect thieves came in the night to steal it but I can't be certain.

As I mentioned before, Jadzia is sick. She woke up four or five times last night crying and feverish. At the time she couldn't explain exactly why she was crying except that she was sick and didn't feel better. After some Tylenol she slept a little better until around 6AM. After a morning dose of Motrin, she declared herself better and claimed she wasn't sick anymore - after I had decided we wouldn't go to the store today after all due to the sick child. Of course when the Motrin wore off, she was sick again. After I asked her if anything hurt she said her mouth hurt, which I was further able to figure out that she actually meant her throat hurt. Now even when she is sick, Jadzia rarely takes a nap. Once in awhile if she's really sick she may dose off unintentionally while laying on the couch but she doesn't voluntarily put herself in such a position. Today, however, she said she wanted to take a nap so I put her down. Which is why I have had the last 30 minutes in complete silence as all three kids are currently sleeping. If I weren't worried about her peeing in her sleep and how to get her out of her and Inara's room when she does get up without Inara having an aborted nap, I'd be thrilled.

Despite her illness, Jadzia has new skills. We keep a gate at the bottom of the stairs to keep Inara from going up them all day and to keep Bluto downstairs. Jadzia has learned how to go over the gate! Normally this could be a bad thing but Jadzia is a pretty good kid and has, so far, only used her new powers for good instead of evil. I can send her upstairs to retrieve forgotten things or a new outfit for one of the kids if they get messy or whatever else might be needed. She ended up going over the gate 3 times today for various items! What a helper - now hopefully Inara doesn't learn from observation too soon.

Update: Jadzia woke up roughly an hour after I'd put Inara down for a nap. She didn't pee in her bed, in fact she woke up because she needed to potty. She did, however, abort Inara's nap. Inara is now awake and also has a fever. And Anya, who went down about fifteen minutes after Inara is also awake now. There is some sort of unfairness there but such it is.