What a week!

On Sunday, I went out to get some chocolate milk and gas, which was supposed to be a 15-minute trip, and it ended up being about two hours longer and $250 more than it should have cost.  Why?  Because I put diesel in the gas tank.  I was on autopilot and selected the first grade, which I am used to being regular unleaded, but in this case, was not.  I realized my mistake about five gallons in, when I checked the price per gallon and saw it was more expensive than I expected it to be, and I wondered what the other more expensive grades were... and, oh, shoot.  Incidentally, this happened after the gas station attendant had to help me get the fuel cap off my car (because I was turning it the wrong way).  He's going to be telling stories about me!  He said lots of people have tried to put diesel in the tank but I'm the first to succeed.  Both he and Ben were flabbergasted that I was physically able to, because the nozzle is too long to actually fit a regular car.

Hi, my name is Tarisa, and I have a masters degree from Berkeley in I-Should-Know-Better.

The two bright spots to that story were that I never started the car engine, and a good Samaritan woman stopped and offered me a lift home when she saw the tow truck and all my baby gear that I got out of the car.  She had a 7-month-old at home, herself.

Tuesday, I learned that our FSA account was only active as long as Ben was employed at Microsemi.  We both thought that we had until the end of the year to use the money in that account.  Towers Watson was horrible to deal with, so we're a little relieved to be done with them, but I'm mostly ticked off that we lost that account.

Yesterday, driving from the pediatrician's office to an unknown part of Austin to drop off a borrowed air mattress, I took a wrong turn.  The GPS said to make a left, so I got in the left lane, which became an on-ramp that I apparently wasn't supposed to be on (GPS was unclear), which took me straight to an unmanned toll booth.  50 cents, change only.  I had dollar bills and 30 cents in change.  I was there for a good five minutes searching for 20 cents in the car, in my purse, in my wallet.  (There was no one else on the tollway.)  Nada.  I had to run through the darn thing.  They'll send a fine, probably to our old California address.

Why was I at the pediatrician's?  Michael contracted his first illness.  We noticed around midnight on Tuesday/Wednesday that Michael was really warm.  We took his temperature with an ear thermometer and it was 101.7.  He was up that night almost every half hour because he was so congested, plus he was throwing up.  His temperature was still elevated by morning so I called the pediatric nurse who told me to come in.

Michael lost weight (19.2 lbs with clothes on, as opposed to 19.8 at his 9-month appointment with clothes off).  He has a virus and an ear infection.  The doctor prescribed antibiotics for the ear infection, and said Michael should be feeling better within 24-48 hours.  Poor little guy was miserable, wailing all day yesterday with bright red eyes because he was so tired and unable to sleep!  I felt terrible myself because I wanted to take away his pain and discomfort.

Sometime in the middle of last night, it was like a switch got flipped.  Michael had been having trouble sleeping, then he went an unusually long stretch, and we actually had to wake him up to give him the antibiotics.  His temperature was normal this morning, so we stopped giving him the ibuprofen, and he was in better spirits all day.  He still is phlegmy, unfortunately.  Ben commented that he wished he could get over colds that quickly!

His ineffective nursing led to yet another clogged milk duct, which makes that at least the third time (I lost count, maybe fourth) since we moved to Texas.  I had a lot of "technical difficulties" with breastfeeding at the beginning, then it was smooth sailing for several months until we moved here!  I think a lot of that is due to stress.