Pity Party, Table for One

Well, yesterday was my birthday. That's not so much of a problem; I don't feel any worse for being 34 than I did for being 33. But the weekend...yeah, now that was a problem. So please pardon me while I have some cheese with my whine. :)

First, there was The War. No, not the war in Iraq, but the SCA War in Potrero. We'd planned to go to it, but there was rain and cold weather and none of those things seemed a good idea with a toddler. So, we didn't go. That was fine. Disappointing, but fine.

What wasn't fine, though, was that my daughter suddenly realized she was thisclose to being two (well, sort of; she has a few months yet, but she's been early on everything else, why not this?) and decided that Saturday night was a good time to have a screaming fit for oh, about two or three hours.

And even that would have been fine (annoying, sure, but also part of the age and the stage) except that we were supposed to go up to see my parents for my birthday. (And yes, if you've noticed the irony of us traveling two hours north for my birthday instead of the other way around, you're not alone. We went up mainly because my grandfather hadn't seen the wee one for a few months, and given that the man is pushing 90, we figured we'd at least make the trip.) So I called my dad and advised him that the wee one was now officially a toddler, and therefore might be prone to fits of screaming for no reason at any and all hours of the day and offered to just come up for the day instead of staying overnight. Dad didn't mind if we stayed overnight but...

...perhaps he should have checked with Mom. Mom, it seems, was not in a happy place this weekend---for a variety of reasons, most of which have some validity, and almost all of which deal with the fact that she feels she's been stuck with the majority of the care of my grandfather. This argument continued, with much vehement whispering between mom and dad, the entire weekend.

And if you're wondering why we came up, so did we. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife, the wee one wasn't having a great time and neither were we. (Being stuck in the role of unwilling marriage counselor will do that to a person. :-(

And just when we thought things couldn't get worse, they did. The wee one had another tantrum which wound down after about three hours (but at least she slept through the night...whew.) And for the most part, mom and dad seemed to accept it for what it was---the crankiness of a toddler who is just convinced that she's missing out on something and who doesn't want to go to sleep in case she does. ;-)

After much more "fun" along those lines, we left on Monday evening. And then the weekend hit rock-bottom--the wee one got sick (twice) in the car. We're still not sure what it was--bad food? change in diet? allergy? reflux?--but she seems to be on the mend now. And we did eventually make it home...though I personally felt like kissing the ground when we did. :)

So, to recap: this weekend, we had a rainy SCA war, parents with their (latest) marital crisis, a sick toddler and oh yeah, it was my birthday too. :) Personally, I think I should have stood in bed. :)