This Mama needs a vacation!

It's been a rough go of it since Saturday evening when Justin left for Australia for the week. Just the organization and planning that goes into managing both girls at dinner and bedtime is enough stress to frazzle me. It feels like I ran a marathon when they've both been bathed and are asleep. Monday was a sad day because my helper, Cora's, sister passed away from a head trauma from an accident that had occurred a week ago. She headed back to her Provence for two weeks. She left me with a friend of hers to help with the cleaning. Man, I didn't know how good I have it with Cora. Before Cora left I bought a serious amount of frozen crap food to feed myself this week since I knew I would have little time for cooking. I can't believe I'm eating chicken nuggets. (actually, as I type this I am eating two mini cheese (cheese food product) burgers and a big fat brownie). We all came down with a cold. The girls now are the two with stuffy noses. Poor Bella has it the worst. She can't sleep and is just plain miserable. We were experiencing some successes with Ferberizing her for naps and bedtime (she almost wanted me to just put her down and cry it out). Now with a cold I don't have the heart to let her cry. We'll start over after she's better. Lucy has ear mites, the kitchen sink backed up, my driver's about to go on paternity leave, Bella won't tolerate the stand-in yaya (even for a few seconds), Addie's being TWO, I've given up dairy to help eliminate the old-man style farts Bella produces. Just a ton of issues to deal with this week.

A good example of how our days are going is the following: Bella wakes up 25 minutes after falling asleep for a nap. It was just enough time for me to think I was going to get to snooze a bit, only to be disappointed. I hear something in Addie's room and assume she's waking up from her nap too. I open the door to find Addie without her diaper on, rubbing a bar of soap on the hard wood floors. She tore off her wall decals and put them all over her bed. When she saw the look on my face she dropped the bar of soap and ran. She now is grounded from TV. (which I swear is the source of all her evil and she's come to love it WAY too much)

Good news is we are experiencing success with potty training. After the second time Addie took of her diaper today we put on panties. She told Loni (the fill-in yaya) twice she had to pee-pee and ran to the potty to go! I'm so proud of her. It's all clicking now.

I can't wait for Justin to return. It sucks doing all the parenting by myself. It's nice looking forward to 6 o'clock when Daddy gets home. I'm so lucky to have Cora's help during the day and I dearly miss her healthy delicious cooking. I hate having to decide which crying daughter to tend to first, the sick screaming baby or the pleading two year old who just wants me to sing one more song before she goes to sleep. I miss the Daddy!