Dodging three bullets

    What a long month this has been... what am I saying, it's been a long 1 1/2 years!  I think the sleep deprivation is finally catching up with me, because I nearly maimed or killed each of my three children this week (unintentionally, of course!).  I almost blinded Quinn, almost killed Sierra in a car crash, and almost scalded Kelsey.  Thankfully, the key word here is "almost", but still...
     My 17+ month old identical twins have only recently started to sleep "mostly" through the night - that's not to say that they don't still awake, fuss for a minute, and sometimes go back to sleep without my assistance.  But, for most of their life, they've either woken to be nursed regularly throughout the night, sometimes as often as every two hours for the first few months of their lives, TIMES TWO BABIES, or once I stopped nursing, they've still usually required some amount of tending on my part during the night.  Even before they were born, I didn't sleep much in the last two months of pregnancy, either from not being able to get comfortable or having to pee every five seconds as the growing babies took up every last bit of space in my body (don't get me wrong, I loved being pregnant, even with it's various trials and tribulations).
     I've been able to function on 3-4 hours of sleep per night (interrupted sleep, mind you) for awhile, but that's not to say that my mind is entirely there at all times.  I definitely forget details, names, appointments all the time; I have Lists everywhere; I rarely know what the date is; I walk around the house with my hands on my head saying "I'm thinking, I'm thinking..." when I'm trying to complete a task or remember what I went to that room for in the first place; I've taken to talking to myself, a lot, and am really okay with that and accept it (hey, it's good for the girls to hear conversation and language, even if it's one person, Right?).  But, when my children could literally suffer because of my distraction, I know that it's gone too far.
     Over the past 6 weeks, all three of my children have had various sicknesses - ear infections, colds, stomach flu's, returned ear infections, a strange rash and fever infection...  We had a line-up of med's on the kitchen counter, from prescription drops, antibiotics, motrin and tylenol.  It was a lot to keep track of: who was getting what medication, what time it was last given, how often they needed it, and for how many days... for each of three children!
      Quinn, my beloved 4 year old boy, had been well for over a week (though the youngest twin, Kelsey, was still having ear drops for a returned ear infection), but suddenly on Wednesday, he came down with some weird eye gunk.  It was yellowish-green, and way more than the standard just-wipe-it-on-my-own-jeans sort of gunk.  His eyes were not pink, but there had been at least one child at his preschool who had pink eye, so I called the doctor.  Thankfully they prescribed drops and didn't require me to make another trip to the office, so we started the eyedrops that night.  The next morning, I grabbed his drops from out of the line-up, put them into his eyes with the usual amount of fighting and squirming, and we went about our business.  About three hours later, I was cleaning up the kitchen counter when I noticed that Kelsey's ear drops were out next to Quinn's water and the Kleenex's - and I realized what I had done... I had put Kelsey's EAR drops into Quinn's EYES!!  I started the "I'm thinking", hair pulling walk around the kitchen.  I rushed over to where Quinn was playing and looked at his eyes - they looked fine, no reddness, no apparent issues, and he said they felt "much better Mommy".  I got the girls and Quinn buckled safely into their chairs for a snack, and called the doctor from the back hallway, so Quinn couldn't hear how horrible I was, what I'd done to him, so none of them could see Mommy crying.  I was so worried that I'd blinded him, that he'd have irrepairable damage, but thankfully the doctor (and then poison control) assured me that the antibiotic for the ears is sometimes prescribed for eyes, too, and that if he did have redness and irritation since my mistake, everything should be fine.  Crisis 1 averted.
      My sweet, darling little Sierra.  So, Quinn dodged the pink eye bullet, but Friday morning, he started crying about his ears hurting, so we ended up back at the doctor's office Friday afternoon (double ear infection returned).  I hauled all the kids back to the car after the appointment.  Got Quinn buckled into his carseat, while the girls crawled up into their own carseats, which they love to do.  I got Sierra situated, or so I thought, got Kelsey buckled in.  Got into the driver's seat myself, and pulled out.  Driving through the large, wrap-around parking lot, I glanced into the rearview mirror - "Hi Mama", Sierra said, as she leaned upright in her carseat and started to turn around and climb back out of her seat.  I tried to stay calm and tell her to sit down, as I pulled over and rushed back there as fast as the self-opening door would allow.  Sure enough, I had forgotten to buckle her in!  I don't know how I missed it; I guess since she was already sitting in her seat before we left, I missed it somehow.  I hugged her tightly and told her I loved her, and promised I would take better care of her.  Crisis 2 averted.
      Precious, dainty little Kelsey.  She is playful and likes to explore and get into things.  She wants whatever her Mama has, which in this case, was my coffee.  I sat my coffee cup down long enough to pick up some toy or book or something, and in that split second, she pulled my coffee over, spilling it out all over her legs.  Luckily for her, I haven't enjoyed a hot cup of coffee in about 2 years, so it was lukewarm at best, so she wasn't scalded, but the cup fell on her foot and the whole situation scared her (probably my reaction more than anything else), and she was soaked from head to toe (tears on the upper half, cool coffee on her lower half).  I changed her pants and dried her tears, hugging her close to me.  Crisis 3 averted.
      Thankfully, my errors didn't amount to any permanent damage, and my babies were all perfectly fine.  No harm, no foul.  If nothing else, it taught me that I need to slow down and pay more attention.  I need to focus on one thing at a time, well, as much as possible when my attention is divided by three, and double check things if needed.  And I need to get more sleep... that one is easier said than done!