Where's My Village?

They say it takes a village to raise a child. And I believe it. And I'm wondering where I can buy one, because I could really use some backup right now.

It was a long weekend of fevers and fussiness and screaming in the middle of the night like I've never heard. Well, we have a diagnosis. After Friday's doctor check revealed clear ears, today's recheck showed one "beautiful" ear and one "horrible" ear (doctor's own words). Alas, my poor baby is experiencing her first ear infection and I'm very bummed, because I'm imagining that this is only the first in what will be an ongoing battle. Matt had tubes in his ears when he was young, and since everyone knows Violet takes after her Daddy, well...

So we've had another long day of fevers and fussiness. We're administering antibiotics, fever reducers, and breathing treatments via an inhaler. Violet is refusing to drink from her bottle, meaning I'm trying left and right to get any amount of food in her. She has her good moments, namely when the medicine has kicked in, and more not-so-good moments. And once again, we're looking at another day where we can't take her to daycare.

Enter my village. It sucks being a teacher because taking time off isn't as easy as not showing up, get your work done later. There are eight teachers, 200 kids, a lunch room, a bus line, and three groups of my students who all depend on me to show up. I hate not being able to do my job. I'm one of those people who pride myself on being dependable and always showing up ready to go. So calling in to work is very against my nature. Now, of course Violet comes first. I would never hesitate to stay home if she needed me. But I only get so many days off a year, and this isn't going to be the last time she gets sick. So what do we do? I can't really miss more work. I can't take her to daycare. Matt already took today off to deal with our little indoor bee infestation (more on that later). The couple of friends I would turn to up here all happen to be teachers, so they're in the same boat I am. My mom is a teacher and doesn't get much more time off than I do. Matt's mom is out of town for the week with some friends. We don't have any other relatives around. It boils down to the fact that I'm short one village, and I don't know how to go about getting one. If anyone has a few tribe members they wouldn't mind sparing, send them my way.

So it looks like Matt and I will each take a half day tomorrow. Hopefully Violet won't have a fever tomorrow so she'll be clear to go back to school on Wednesday, because if we have to keep her home one more day, I might as well quit my job. (Okay, I'm being a bit overdramatic here, but it's been that kind of day.)

And as to that kind of day... for the past month or so, we've been finding a bee here or there in our kitchen. Sometimes they're dead, sometimes Matt takes a fly-swatter to them, but no big deal. For the past month or so, I've also been saying how we need to call sometime to take care of the bees, but you know how that goes. Well, when about 30 of them swarmed us this morning, I was extra thankful Matt had decided to stay home. He did the fly-swatter dance, killing as many as he could find (and killing a light bulb in the process), while I speed-dialed pest control. We secured an afternoon appointment and the terminator just left, promising us to be bug free (and promising to report back on the double should anything else crawl, creep, fly or buzz its way in).

Anyway, keep sending those prayers. God's in our tribe, so there's that!