Smile yourself happy

I've finally bitten the bullet and plunked down a lot of cash to book a house for a 'vacation' with the triplets. I picked a lovely 5 bedroom house on the Russian River, which is only about an hour and a half from here. It's also only 30 min north of the grandparent's house in Petaluma, so I'm not stretching too much. All hell breaks loose and we can come scurrying home with our tail between our legs. Being only 30 from the in-laws also means if we forget things we are easily in reach of it or a walmart at any time. And if they fall and crack their fool heads, we are 15-30 from the nearest big town with a hospital.

Now where the nearest mental ward is I am not sure.

Triplets preparing their lounge chair act

In any case, I am trying to put a positive attitude on for this, since it scares me silly to be 10 days without a nanny to help out. I am contemplating ways to have help come but other than conscripting friends, I'm not sure. But I'm certain I have to be the positive one or it will go to heck for sure. If momma ain't happy....you know? So I'm going to try an experiment. This might shock some of you who know me well, but I'm going to try not to think of everything that could go wrong and I'm going to put a smile on and arrive like we're going to have the best time ever.

Think it'll work, this brain transplant idea? Because I never think of my worst case scenario thinking as a truly bad thing. Just know I'm always prepared for the worst and if the best happens, how great. Is it really worse to think the worst and then truly enjoy when you're wrong or than to think the best will happen and sometimes be disappointed? I don't know. In high school I was voted most pessimistic. So I believed I was. But in recent years I figured out it's not actually true. I am quite the optimist in most situations. What people misunderstand about me is that my sarcasm and dry sense of humor picks out the terrible things, the possible nightmares, the dark stuff, and uses that as fodder. So my jokes are negative, dark or possibly pessimistic. I'm not.

There are a few people in my life who have just not gotten this. They are not my friends ever if for long. If you think I'm just a complainer and griper, why would you want to be my friend? But is it their lack of sense of humor that is the problem or am I sometimes too much to take? Hard to say. Sure it annoys me when someone tells me I'm too negative or to lighten up. But I usually am just shocked. I'm sitting there at a wedding saying I hope the bride doesn't notice that the waiters just screwed up and someone thinks I'm being negative. Um, I'm empathizing with the bride? Or possibly I'm having a little fun making fun of the waiter? Or possibly I'm just making conversation? Or, heck, maybe I'm being a little snarky, but that's not a crime.

But I digress. I am a positive person or I would not be surviving triplets. I am a positive person or my mom would have me in the psych ward right along side her sometimes. I am a positive person because despite my misgivings, in three weeks I am packing up my entire house into a minivan and heading north for a week. Wish me luck.

Too sick or not sick enough?

Trying to decide whether your kid is sick enough to go to the doctor or not is frustrating. On the one hand, who cares if you go too often if you never miss a bad illness because of it. On the other hand, if you have to wake them up, stress them out, expose them to the germs at the pediatrician's office, and the doctor stops thinking you are usually correct when you call about a sick child, is that worth it?

I am stuck today with a doctor appointment I made this morning based on the night and the morning behaviors. I am taking two of three to the doctor because I was certain this morning they had bronchitis and were getting worse. Strangely, as the day wears on, they seem to be getting better. Naturally, I know that everyone feels better mid day than they do in the evenings and early morning but do you base your decision on the worst time of day or the best? Because B didn't eat breakfast. That never happens. When B and J cough they are so full of phlegm I wonder how they are breathing. They are, in fact, sicker than I have ever seen them. But what does that mean without a fever? Not much. How do you know when you cross the line to needing medical help?

And why do I care what the doctor thinks? Because I have this drive to be respected by all doctors for some reason. Veterinarians included. I do not want to be the over hyper mom who calls all the time, I want to be the mom who, when she calls, the dr thinks to himself, this must be important because she is usually right on the mark about her kids. I don't know where this strange phenomenon came from, me needing them to respect me and think I'm a smart diagnostician. Who the heck cares? Isn't it better to go when you don't need to go than not go when you should have? Of course.

So how do I stop sitting here stressing about going in there with two probably healthy boys who may become scared or screamy just because I'm taking them there? And when I know I'm already on the brink of full on faint exhaustion levels I'm adding to my load by carrying, loading, unloading, entertaining and holding down two wiggly toddlers. What do I do?

I guess I just stinking go.