The last 24 hours of Olive's life have been exhausting...OK, probably more for me than for her. We went to a splash park with Amber's ward play group in the late morning yesterday. My girls are younger than her kids, and so they were done with the heat and the sun a bit sooner than them. (It's so hot right now, hovering right around 120). The plan was to go to Costco for lunch after the park, so I told Amber we'd just meet her over there after her kids were done playing. Amber said they'd only stay another 10 minutes anyway. The heat of the day had already sucked a lot of the life out of me and Olive and Lucy just in the hour we were at the park, and I was inclined to just head back to the hotel and stay in for the rest of the day. But I wanted to give Olive a little more time with her friends (I'm a big believer that keeping kids socialized helps them be well-adjusted and pleasant), so we went to Costco and walked around while we waited for them to get there. Amber's 10 minutes turned in to almost an hour, and I certainly understand that her kids wanted to play. But keeping Olive happy in a Costco shopping cart while trying to pacify Lucy and be a sweet fun mom all at the same time was a tough juggling act. Amber finally arrived, along with 3 other moms and their kids, and we sat down for pizza. The trouble was, with all those kids there, Olive was way too distracted and excited to eat anything. She's too little to sit at the table on her own, but too big and busy to be confined to my lap. So after several times of her falling off a seat or hitting me because she didn't want to be on my lap or running halfway across the store, I decided to call it. We came back to the hotel and stayed in the rest of the day. Coming in from the heat of the day to the cool of the hotel room was way refreshing. I figured I'd put both girls down and have a little time to myself to cool off and calm down. That didn't happen. Olive didn't go to sleep, and didn't even stay laying down for longer than 20 minutes. I let her cry for a while thinking she'd poop out, but she never did. Bottom line is she didn't get a nap all day. She usually takes a good morning nap, a decent afternoon one, and then sleeps a solid 12 hours at night. But not yesterday. So the rest of the day was full of trying to keep us all entertained and happy here in the hotel room. It wasn't bad. Olive had a couple of tantrums where she threw herself to the floor in dramatic protest of whatever it was we were doing at the moment, but other than that we had fun wrestling and reading and going for walks around the hotel. Around 5:00 I could tell she was starting to wind down. So I ordered some Chinese food, and we ate it, and then we began our nighttime routine. I put her in bed just after 6:00 (we put her crib in the bathroom when we're at the hotel - it's better that way for her and us). At about 7:00 it became clear she wasn't going to stop crying and go to sleep anytime soon. So I went in to reset her. That was when I discovered she had had diarrhea. Not only that, but she had opened her diaper and there was poop all over everything. So I whispered a little prayer for strength, put her in the tub, cleaned everything up, put her in some clean jammies, and then held her for a long time. She was shivering and clinging to me. I hated it and loved it. I brought her crib out of the yucky bathroom and put it next to the window. I gave her some cough medicine to help her get to sleep, put her back in bed around 8:30, turned off all the lights and TV and everything, and laid still while she went back and forth between scream-crying and self-soothing. She finally ended that volley and went to sleep around 10:00. She woke up to fuss several times through the night (she never seems to sleep well when she's in the same room as us). So between that and Lucy's night feedings, I saw the clock at least once an hour between 10:00 and 5:00 which is what time Olive decided to start her day today. Brutal! But it looks like she's feeling better, and that's the important thing. She ate a little breakfast, was laughing and playful all morning, and just woke up from a relatively good morning nap. I think we'll all be glad when Daddy comes home.