If this is not rock bottom I'm gonna be pissed.

You know what is awesome about pneumonia?

NOTHING is awesome about pneumonia, that's what's awesome about pneumonia.

My kids gave me one hell of a cold that turned into a sinus infection that turned into a antibiotic resistant strain of pure evil that set up shop in my lungs.  Anyone else thinking of that Musinex commercial now?  For the past two weeks I've been working on breathing.  Just breathing.

And when I'm sick its amazing what gets lost in the cracks of everyday life.

The kids had an after school art program they were begging to go to, just begging.  I signed them up and promptly, and totally, forgot about it.

So that Monday my daughter went out after school for me to pick her up only I wasn't there.  Somewhere in the back corner of my mind I knew she had after school art but here's the rub: she did not.

I didn't remind the kids what the day looked like from our daily calender and she didn't know.

After twenty minutes of standing outside, the secretary figured out what was going on and ushered her into the art room.  You know, the art room her brother was happily sitting in, crafting away.  See, he remembered he had after school art.  It just never crossed his mind to see where she was.

When she walked into the art room and saw him happily crafting away she broke down in tears all over again.

When I went to pick the kids up I was pulled aside, told what happened and again my little girl went turned into a complete and utter puddle.

I felt horrible.  She was out front waiting for me and I never came.  Talk about feeling like a shitty, horrible parent.  I calmed her down, bribed her with a trip to Dairy Queen that was mostly more for me and I thought things were right with the world.

Only they weren't.

"You don't love me.  You hate me.  I think I want a new mom.  If I had a new mom, she'd never forget me.  She'd love me...and make me cookies....and not forget me in front of school."

All the way home.

I had enough.  I snapped pulling into the subdivision.  Pulled a hard right and curbed the minivan.  All the safety harnesses were working on the seat belts.  I confirmed it.

"GOD BLESS AMERICA, I'm sorry I forgot to tell you!  Mommy's sick!  I don't feel good.  You guys gave me some horrible plague and I'm sorry I forgot one little thing.  I'm sorry!"

Cough, cough, cough, hack, hack, cough.....shallow breath in and....

"You know, you guys are old enough to look at that calender in the morning and see what is going on in your lives.  It's up there for a reason and it's most certainly not there for my health.  Now I want QUIET for the rest of the way home!"

And I pulled back out onto the street and drove the whole fifty feet to our house in silence.  Only to walk inside and to be met by a calender that looked like this:

She in PJ's....don't judge. 

And two kids, exclaiming, "See!!!  How can we possibly know what is going on, Gracie drew all over it!  This is all your fault.  Our new mom would never let this happen!"

I gave up.  I swear, one day I will have grown children that can function for themselves.  God as my witness, I will.  They may be in therapy for the rest of their lives but by God, it will happen.  

Right now I want their new mom to come in here and see what she can do with this place, she can start by cleaning that damn calender board.  That things a mess.

February you need to go away, like, right now.

February and I have a love/hate relationship going on.  For me, it's mostly an all hate kind of thing.  It's cold, dreary and even with the hint of spring right around the corner it's hard road to get to the end of those twenty eight days.

In my head, I've been telling February to go fuck itself over twenty times a day.  It's like it's on repeat in my brain.

First we got sick.  Then we got better.  Then we had Valentine's Day and I made the off hand comment at my daughters party, "Holy Cow!  It looks like half the class is missing."  Turns out, half the class was missing and I know exactly what they gave me.  A horrible cold.

And the kids have been home for almost the whole month.  They had parent teacher conferences for two days followed up by Presidents' Day.  Not to be outdone, we had Winter Storm Q pound us and the kids were off another two days.  A State of Emergency was declared and it snowed.  And snowed and snowed and snowed.

Fuck you for that, February.

I thought it would be fun to go out and play in the, you know, snow.  Not so much.  It took over forty minutes to get into snow pants, socks, boots, coats, hats and gloves and even then Alex took a single step out the back door and retreated inside exclaiming he was done.  The girls went out for ten minutes only to retreat inside when they got snow in their mittens.  Ten minutes.

And to think we lived in North Dakota for ten years.

Because the kids have been off school so much, either because of planned events, sickness or snow days, they've been dysregulated.  They don't know what day it is, if they should be getting ready for school or what they should be doing.  It's been awesome.

I took a huge leap, put us on a schedule and did some homeschooling.

They hated it.  They hated me and they hated everything about being home and having to learn something.  I was cutting into their Minecraft time and by God they let me know about it.

I turned off the computers and they suddenly realized that, by God, I was being serious.

We studied, we learned and I think they had fun.

And when I asked, "Who wants to go outside and play?"  The forty minute bitch session was pared down to ten minutes and begging to be let out.  I guess they didn't have as much fun with me teaching as I thought...

They were out the door and in the snow in record time.

We made forts, threw snowballs and laughed.

You know where this would be pretty?
Some place other than my back yard, that's where.  

We dug out from our winter storm and things were getting back to normal.  Taking the kids to Tae Kwon Do, I fell in the parking lot.  I cursed February with my middle finger and a slew of beautifully strung together obscenities.

I'm sorry if you were in the minivan next to me when I went down but really?  That hurt like a mother.

We only had a few more days.

And then they said we were going to have another storm.  Bigger and badder than the last one.  Up to twenty inches of new snow on our already foot and a half.

Again, even prettier if this was your back yard.
Someone want to help me pick up branches?

That's exactly what we got.  Additional snow, snow days and more homeschooling.

I think my kids hate me.  I think I hate February more....but now I have one day left.

Just one day left in February and I can flip the calendar.  There's something about the promise of March.  Sure we live in Kansas and the threat of tornados looms large but we'd be out of February, into the promise of Spring.

I can do this.

I'll take my chances and risk tornados any day of the week just to get past the cold, snowy days of winter.

And then I thought I died.

I got all excited and happy that I was back and then, like all things, fate slapped me around a bit and showed me who's boss.  I'll give you a clue, it's not me.  Gracie came down with the stomach bug.  Now for those of you who have stuck with me for a while, you know how much I absolutely detest puke.  How much it makes me nervous, spin out of control and generally go insane.  And you also know how that is inversely proportional to how much my kids do, in fact, puke.

They puke all the fucking time.

Gracie was so sick, I had to have my neighbor pick up some meds for her to stop hurling, I couldn't get her to the corner Walgreen's without hurling.

It was either that or we were trudging down to the Emergency Department to get an IV.  For seven hours, we'd been sitting next to each other with a bucket so she could spew.  Seven long, horrible, frigging hours.  In that time frame she nailed me in the face and at that point I knew it was over.  My only thought was, "Innoculation complete."

I Cloroxed my face, mouth, neck and even my tongue for good measure.

And she got better.  A day went by and no one got sick.  I didn't get sick.

I was happy, I thought I had beaten it.  And I got cocky.  I was all, "Suck on that norovirus!  You were on my face and I beat you.  I win!  I'm a God."

Only I wasn't.  

I got sick.

One minute I was fine and the next, well, I wasn't.

And for the love of all things good and holy, I wished I was dead.  I have no earthly clue what that child brought into this house but I was sick.  Like, I was sicker than sick.  I threw out my back puking.  I stopped counting the number of times I barfed at sixty one.  My jaw popped out of socket and at no point did I think, "You know what, one day this will be funny and we are going to sit back and laugh and laugh and laugh."

Bait and switch.  Look at the pretty ocean while I talk about puke. 

And I'll just fast forward through all the gruesome details because they were flat out disgusting.  Now I'm up and amongst the living wondering where in the hell two good days went and what in the hell happened to my house.  It was like our toy closet blew up and all the kids were sitting in the middle of it having the times of their lives.  My husband and I clearly have two different views on how to keep the house.

And then I after another day I though I was in the clear.  No one was sick.  I got all cocky.  I thought, "I'm bad ass, I cleaned that norovirus out of this house.  I'm a cleaning God."

But I was wrong, I was so very wrong.

My husband got sick.

Then Alex got sick.

And now I must go and admit my defeat.


As an update, we now have the flu, or a cold that is suspiciously like the flu, in our house.  Alex is home from school telling me all about Minecraft.  Awesome.  

I'm trying to get back to everyone's blog but I'm having a really hard time.  Some of the word verification combinations are killing me!  I know spam is an issue but I can't seem to get past some of them and for that I'm sorry.   

I'm going to be shark bait.

Remember when the kids got sick?  And then the husband got sick?  And then I got sick?  Remember that???  Well, somewhere in that time frame, I snapped.  I frigging lost it.  Had enough with sick kids, sick husband and sick me.  I snapped like a twig.  

I did the unthinkable, called the husband at work and begged, pleaded and then demanded he come home and help me out.  I may have suggested I was going to throw myself out an upper window, or something that drastic, to get his attention.  I may have put that suggestion into his head, I don't know.  I was exhausted, I was feverish and I was quite possibly hallucinating.  

And I may have thrown a fit like a two year old asking, begging, pleading that he please go to Walgreen's and get antibiotics for all of us or I may throw myself out that same upper window again.  Now to be clear, if I did throw myself out that window I'd land in the bushes, probably break an arm, or some other extraneous appendage, and then I'd still have to clean the kitchen and make dinner because the fall would merely maim and not completely do me in.  

Anyway, in my delirium and feverish state I may have said something along the lines of, "I need a break.  I can't do this.  I can't have you sick people all needy and depending on me when I'm sick.  Why, why, WHY, can't our kids just sit in front of the TV?  Why can't anyone just eat a regular pizza and not puke?  And WHY is it so frigging cold in here?"

To which my patron saint of a husband had the stones to say, "Hon, it's not cold in here, you're burning up." And then, thinking I was more lucid and in a more adventurous mood than I really was, he said, "I can't help if the kids got your genes and don't like pizza."   

In hindsight I know he was trying to be funny but trying to be funny with your wife who's not showered in three days, handled more puke than necessary in any one lifetime, and has been without sleep and sick herself for the last week was probably not in his best interest.   

No, I know it wasn't in his best interest.  

And that's where I snapped.

"I can't do this.  I need a break.  I'm sick.  I can't be in charge of everything when I think there is a pony in the kitchen and can't you empty the damn dishwasher?  And for the record, I do not have bad genes.  They come from your family!"

I said a lot more than that but it was all nasty, mean and not necessarily true.  There was no pony in our kitchen.  My husband backed out of the corner I put him in and the next day surprised me by saying, "I've worked it out and we're going away for a week.  No kids, no nothing, just you and me."

And for a brief moment I was happy, I had an out.  I knew there was an end in sight.  And then I asked him, "When are we going?"  Knowing that one week out of four were pretty good odds but still...

And as it turns out, we're going down to Sanibel.  For one solid week, we'll have no kids, no nothing, just the two of us.  And one tag along bag full of tampons, pads and pain killers.

I'm going to be shark bait, chum.

AWESOME.

Wait.  You don't think that was his plan all along, do you?

Seriously, take me out back and shoot me, would you?

Yeah, we're sick again.  Imagine that.  I don't know if my kids lick the floors at school, or french kiss the water fountain, but there it is.

I went to pick up Lizzy at school and the nurse said some kids have been out about four or five days.  Do you know what that means in our house?

Challenge Accepted.

Lizzy was out a week.  Alex has been out four days, so far.  I don't quite know when Gracie started getting sick but I started to pop Tylenol in her mouth when she started to gag, so she was covered.

We're in it to win it, that's all I can say.  In it to win it.

Alex has been sitting on a temp of 103 point holy shit that's hot.  He doesn't even realize he's sick and when he starts screaming, "My arm hurts, my arm hurts!" that's code for "I'm gonna hurl!"  

So far, his arm has hurt three times.  All over the car, missing the bucket entirely.  All over the driveway, nearly splatting a painter when they had a question that couldn't wait.  I guess he didn't hear me screaming, "Now's really not a good time for me!" and "Holy Shit!  Could you PLEASE try and AIM for the bucket.  Dear God, what did you eat?"

Yup. Nothing says back to school like airing out the car.  

Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing that particular painter again.  Remember how I mentioned we were starting on the exterior of the house?  Yeah, we've started.

And I don't exactly remember the third time he puked but Alex says it happened, so I believe him.

Somewhere in there, I've gotten sick so I've been toggling back and forth between Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen.  I don't even want to think about the war that's raging in my liver and kidneys right now.  I just keep thinking it could be worse, much worse, my husband could get sick.

The thing I've noticed with the kids being sick is just this:  my seven year old can articulate what hurts but my eight year old cannot.  Heck, even my two year old can point to her throat when I ask where it hurts.  Alex can't tell me that.  He can't say what hurts, where or even that he feels off.  He just can't put together all the pieces.  He's not there yet.

The only saving grace was that, this time Lizzy went down first so when he got sick, I knew what to look for.

But....but, when he gets sick, it's much worse.  He doesn't understand and he regresses.  I think he fundamentally understands something is wrong but he just doesn't know what.  Then, when your body's not doing what it should be doing, its grounds for some serious confusion.  And this is just me, but I think Alex gets sick longer and he tends to get the worst case of whatevers going around.

While Lizzy was laid up with a temp and sore throat, Alex has all of that, plus puking, plus hives and plus major adrenaline.  For two whole days he was one big hive.  Literally, his whole body was covered in hives and he couldn't stop itching.  The only thing that worked was to sit in a cool shower.  I won't tell you our water bill or how draining it is to keep an eight year old from scratching himself to a bloody pulp.  

And then, because they put the fear of God in the kids about lice at school, as soon as Alex started itching we had to do lice checks.  All The Time.  His head was itchy.  Itchy heads mean lice and because lice causes itchiness there had to be lice.  He was actually disappointed he wasn't growing a whole little nit farm on his head.

I was not.   

And he was bored.  He still is bored.  Good God All mighty, he's bored.  He's bored with NingaGo, How its Made, the computer and horror of all horrors, he's bored with his iTouch and the iPad.  And because he's bored, I get to hear about it, every twenty seconds.

Animusic.  Dear God, please make it stop.    

I have stopped being mom and have reverted back to being, "Hey waiter, I need more Gatorade."

I've become my child's manservant.

And I'm exhausted.  This is how I know having a child with Special Needs is a little more work, a little harder, a little more challenging.  I know it.  I live it.  It doesn't make him any less lovable.  Matter of fact, watching him while he's sick, and lose comprehension and understanding of the situation, rips my heart out.  But it does bring to light the difference between a child who has Special Needs and one who does not.

And now I have to go.  I think Gracie is puking.....again.  

Yup, that's what it was...


Note: the baby was up with a 104.oh shit, I'm scared fever, for most of yesterday and last night.  So if you're wondering where I've been, there's the answer.  I'll try to get to blogs as time arises.....I just didn't want you thinking I went *poof.*  All though, right now, that would be kinda nice....

I'm learning to live with Dragons in our house.

We have a new love in our house, it's iThing related.  Every love affair in this house is iThing related.  I lay the blame squarely at my husbands feet.  Usually when I go out for a bit and wonder the aisles of Walmart or Target for some alone time (don't judge me) he has to fend for himself with the kids.

His fending for himself involves a movie, the Wii or a new app/game on the iThing's.  They all have a good time and when I get back home, the house is reasonably unharmed so I go with it.  I've learned to pick my battles around here and if he's watching the kids, I don't raise a fuss unless there's a hole in the wall or a tent in the back yard.

Both of which have happened, don't ask.  

Anyway, when I came back from the store, my phone was whisked out of my hand and had DragonVale installed in a matter of seconds.  Seconds.

You smug little Wizard you.  

From that moment forward, I have had no peace.  None.  We've been talking about dragons all day, all night, all the time.

"Mom, did you see I have a Cold Dragon?  Lizzy doesn't have one.  Hey Lizzy, guess what kind of dragon I have?  I have a COLD DRAGON!"  Alex screams, happy as a clam he has a new dragon and mindless of the shit-storm Lizzy's going to unleash because she doesn't have a Cold Dragon.

"What?!  You have a Cold Dragon?!?  That's so not fair!  Mom, that's not fair!  I wanted a Cold Dragon!  That's not fair!!!" she wails, stomping around the house in a huff, bound and determined to make our lives miserable.

I would like to say it's stopped there.  It has not.  Lizzy's been bent out of shape ever since.

Until.

Until there was a promotion and DragonVale had this thing where you could enter and possibly receive a Sapphire Dragon.  The to die for dragon.  The dragon to beat all other dragons.

Long story short:  Lizzy got one, Alex did not.  I will save you the histrionics, meltdowns and furor that has been unleashed in this house.  Lizzy is good at payback and lets just say she's paid back, in full.

The Pandora's box of DragonVale.

Have I mentioned the fury/angst/horror that has been unleashed because Alex didn't get a Sapphire Dragon?  I have???  It bears repeating.  It's brought me to my knees.

I've had to write not one, but two letters, into school letting them know what's going on.  Something along the lines of:

"Alex is coming in to you very upset because he's not received the Sapphire Dragon in DragonVale.  I thought you should know so you can break him accordingly.  I don't know what DragonVale is either.  In other related news, tell Lizzy congrats."

I thought this was a one day event.  Lizzy got her dragon, end of story.

Not so.

Apparently the damn thing had to hatch.  See, in DragonVale they gave the eggs out as the promotion.  They still had to incubate and then the dragons hatch the next day.  

So I had to send in another letter, the next day:

"Another rough AM here.  Apparently the dragons of DragonVale need to hatch.  Lizzy's Sapphire Dragon hatched this AM sending Alex into another meltdown.  In other related news, I'm going insane and I hate dragons."

At one point I called my husband and it went a little something like this, "What in the fuck- fuck-fuck is DragonVale?  Wait, don't answer that.  Just tell me how we get Alex a Sapphire Dragon.  Can you gift it to him or something?  WAIT, WHAT?!?  IT COSTS $100!!!  Real America dollars?!?  Are you shitting me?!?   You have to fix this honey, I can't handle another morning like this."  

Yeah, turns out DragonVale was promoting these gems because they're fucking expensive.  The only way Alex could get the coveted dragon, was if I play and gift him gems. When he gets enough gems he can get a Sapphire Dragon.  

That was last week.

I've set strict limits on the kids iThings and we're somewhat back to normal.  Turns out, Alex was gifted another dragon as part of the promotion which is valuable in its own rights, so he's happy.

My very own Dragon Island.

The problem is, I've been sucked into DragonVale.  I've managed to get up to level 12 and I want the Sapphire Dragon.  Someone give me some gems would you?  I want that damn egg.

I gotta go, I have to pick which dragons I want to fight in the Colosseum.    

In which I talk about my GI system. At length. There's your warning.

I swear to God, I've been sick for the last week and I've narrowed it down to two things: Stress and a visit from my husband's aunt.  She traveled in from out of town and cooked for us.

That was last week.

I've been sick ever since.

Maybe it's a combination of being stressed and the visit, I don't know.  My stomach has been pushed right over the edge.  I've spent more time looking at the four walls of my bathroom and I've named the spider that's hanging out in the bottom right corner, next to my sink, Running bra.

That damn spider has set up shop next to the laundry pile and that one bra is just close enough, I'm not willing to touch it--the spider or the bra.  

Spider wins the battle and keeps the bra.

I know.  I'm not that creative to begin with but when you're losing half your body weight our your ass, the mind starts to shut down.  All creative thoughts are purged and the only thing I can think of is, "Oh My Fucking God, I think I have a tapeworm.  Can you get a tapeworm in today's day and age?  A parasite maybe?  Oh Jesus...I swear to be good, just please make this stop, I will never eat fried egg rolls again.  Oh God, I have to get the kids in a few minutes."

So that's what I've been doing this past week.  You know, besides picking out a whole exterior for the house and thinking of the different and varied ways to maim the kids that bullied Alex last week.

On the upside, I think I've dropped three pounds.

This would have nothing to do with my GI issues.
Nothing.  I'm sure of it.  

So yeah, I've been out of commission.

That and the kids are just not happy.  The change back to school is wearing thin.  I almost got my mouth sewn shut with toothpicks when I mentioned homework.

Homework.

That dirty little whore.  Alex has an on again, off again relationship with homework and right now we're in the OFF phase.  As in, I've had to call school and tell them we're not quite there yet and I'm sorry the 'All About Me' collage is really 'All About Lego's' and absolutely nothing about Alex, unless of course, you count that he is all about Lego's, then that would totally work.  Thank God his teachers are understanding and they're letting it slide.

So I'm trying to get back to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday posting but right now it's just not happening.

I'll be back to posting as soon as I get this tapeworm out of my system.      

Steer clear of I-94. We're going to be on it.

By the time you read this we should have worked our way from south Kansas City to North Dakota.  See, we left on Thursday to go to a wedding.  A wedding that we could not miss.  One that under any other circumstances I'd have written it off and sent back the reply card with the "Unable to attend," box checked off faster than you can read this paragraph.

But....but.

This is a wedding we didn't want to miss.  It's the wedding of a dear friend.  She's one of several friends that make my heart stray to the Northern Plains.

North Dakota: home of the sugarbeet, soybean and sunflower.

And then we turn right back around and come home on Sunday.

And then school starts.

And because of that, we're anxious, nervous and stimming.  We've had a volley of emails regarding meeting new teachers, of which we have three new ones this year, IEP concerns, agendas and the list goes on.

Somehow our summer is over and we're right back to another school year.  And I'm loathe to see it happen.

Like a switch, Alex has been turned on, stimming---flicking his wrists, shaking his head back and forth at lightening speed and melting down at the slightest of things.

I'm sad to see our summer melt away, right before our very eyes.

So by the time you read this, we'll have dealt with car sickness, cussing, swear words and more fights than you can imagine.  And all of that before we're even out of the Kansas City metro.  Add to it, I have a new found fear of our car tire falling off, and visions of how horribly wrong our vacations can go, and I'm nervous too.

I don't know how much I'll be able to access the computer over the next few days, as it's our go to item when Alex is stressed.  If I don't surface by Monday I'd start to worry.

Like you couldn't see this coming...

I went back to the pool.  I took all three kids back to the pool to see what would happen.  I had to get that image of my daughter floating lifeless on the bottom out of my head.  I'll tell you now, it didn't remove the image, but it did bring my comfort level back at taking all three of them to the pool by myself.

Go here if you want to get caught up.  

At some point in our marriage, my husband bought each of the kids their own kid size broom.  You know, so they could help me clean.  Most of you know, I have a few issues about keeping the house clean and I can't stand having dirty floors.  Consequently, I'm always sweeping and mopping.

Now I'll let it be known right now, I'm not missing out on the kids formative years.  It's the only thing I know to do to de-stress while I have the kids home with me twenty-four/seven.  Since I've been a bit stressed with all our fun going on this summer, you could eat off my floors right now.  

Anyway, I told the kids they aren't allowed to have their swords in the house.  They can practice in the garage or on the porch, but I draw the limit at having swords in the house.  Last time they had camp, they had nunchucks and it was a colossal mess.  They brought them in and were nunchucking everything in sight.  I think the only thing that saved us was the fact our gross motor skills suck so bad.  You should have seen how clean my floors were then.

The brooms have left the building.  

Anyway, at some point, all three brooms made it into the house and Alex and Lizzy were practicing forms in the family room---with the brooms.  I let them practice because it was the first time that whole day they were actually quiet and to be honest?  It's was too damn hot outside.

Out of nowhere I hear a THWACK then, "Ouch!"  Immediately followed up by another THWACK then, "Ouch!"

I heard all sorts of commotion, a little rolling around of the floor and I think I even heard Lizzy saying my favorite expression, "God Bless America!"

Then I got bombarded with complaints from Alex, "Mom, that's not fair!  She didn't do the forms at all!  Gracie just came in and hit us on our heads.  That's so not fair!"  To which I turned it into a bit of a life lesson and said, "Well honey, sometimes life isn't fair.  Do you think when you get into a fight people are going to follow the forms?"

Alex looked at me, looked back at the two year old, his wheels turning.   Without missing a beat he goes, "Like this?"  And he thunks the baby on the head with his broom.

And do you know what I thought, smack in the middle of another cat fight???  I thought, "Yay!  He's generalizing!"

Shortly after that, all three of the brooms made it back outside and in the garage.

I'm a danger to myself...but I can guest post with the best of them. I think.

I'm over at SPD Blogger Network today talking about summertime activities.  Please pop on over and show some love.

Before I sign off, I'll tell you something that happened this past week.....I was putting away our sunscreen other day.  Well, let me rephrase that, I shoved it in a basket, in the garage, to sort out later.  So when later happened, namely around noon the next day, I reached in the basket to get the sunscreen and I got the shit zapped out of my hand.

"OUCH.  GAWD.  FUCK.  What in the hell was that?"  I ripped my hand out of the basket and smashed the shit out of it on the underside of the shelf the basket was sitting on.

"OUCH.  GAWD.  FUCK.  You have got to be kidding me!  What the fuckety-fuck else is going to happen?"  I mumbled as I cradled my limp paw in my other arm.  I was still trying to figure out if I had peed a little bit from whatever tazed me, it shocked me that bad.  My fingers were both on fire and numb at the same time.  Not peasant.

And now the back of my hand hurt.  

Great, just great.

I looked in the basket to find this tennis racket.  Only it wasn't a tennis racket, it was some bug zapper thingie my husband bought and put in the basket of crap.  And it was still turned on.

I got tazed by a fucking bug zapper.

And the back of my hand was really hurting.  My fingertips were getting less numb and tingly but gaw fuck, my hand really hurt.

That is an awesome bit of information right there.  

I looked down and the back of my hand was swelling up.  I smacked my hand so hard on the garage shelf it burst a vessel.  Thanks to my back hurting, I've been on non-steroidals and a glorious side affect?  It thins the blood.  So when I smacked my hand and broke a vessel, it swelled up like a tick.  All this blood was sloshing around on the top of my hand.

I almost threw up.

And that was the point in which I gave up.  I went inside and sat down.  I called my husband, started crying and put ice on my hand.  I managed to elevate it and found an ace bandage and covered it up so I didn't have to look at it.

I guess getting tazed is what it takes to get me to slow down.  

So I'm slowing down.

I should be back on Monday but I make no promises.  I'm going in for some work on my back later today since its not healed up quite as nicely as we would have liked.  

Never in a million years did I think I'd have back pain.  I'm pretty fit, not too fat and don't generally do stupid things.  Wait that last part is a total lie.  I invent stupid things.  And I do them on a regular basis.

Anyway, go and show Pam some love at i Love Shelling if you want to see some pretty shells and me standing upright without a tazed hand and make your way to SPD Blogger Network to see what I have to say about being outside.

Thanks you guys.  Please know I'm doing what I can to survive summer and my kids....and you are a big part of that.

Thank you.

The day that would not end.

You know what day it is, its Friday.  That means only one thing, I'm hooking up with Sunday over at Adventures in Extreme Parenthood for today.  Go on over and see how the rest of us play with Ryan.  

Ever have one of those days where you want it to end before you even get out of bed?  Yeah, that was this past Sunday.  I think it all started on Saturday because I washed my car.  I never wash my car.  But this past Saturday, I got a hair lodged up my ass and decided it was car washing day.

Five-fifteen Sunday morning I get bombed with both kids, "Mom!  There's thunder!  And lightening!  AND WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!  Scoot over."

Yeah, five-something in the morning.  

Then, "OMG today's the party for Jack.  We have to get ready for the party.  GET UP.  We have to get ready for the party!"  Forget about all the thunder and lightening and the dying stuff.  We have a party to go to.  

The party was not till four PM.  It was five AM.   

All day, "The party, the party, the party's today!  Hey mom what time is it now?  Is it time for the party?  Now what time is it?  Party time yet?"  

And all day I kept thinking, "I know these kids, I'm not too fond of these kids.  This is going to end in tears."  But since this was the only party he's been invited to all year, we had to go.  Saying NO was simply not an option.   

I pulled this out of Alex's backpack around noon.  You can call it a tornado, I call it foreshadowing.  

Look ma, a meso-cyclone! 

And then we went to the party, and true to form, the kids were little shits.  Of course they were.  Playing this game where you had to have a pass-code and they wouldn't let you in if you didn't know the pass-code.  Thing is, there was no pass-code.  They just said "no" to letting Alex join in.  

I caught one kid in the act and hissed, I actually hissed at him, "You let him in, do you hear me?  You let him in."  

But it was too late and the damage was already done, I wanted to gut-check every one of those kids.  Hard.  Gaw, they were such little assholes.  All I kept thinking was, "Is it wrong to gut-check an eight year old and if so, what would the jail time be?  I need to see if I can be away from my kids that long...." 

Alex was sad, hurt and confused...a meltdown ensued.  We went home but not before we ate our own bread sticks, watched a movie and gave everyone the proverbial middle finger---all out front of the play gym where the party was still going on.  

When we were leaving it started raining.  I got pinged there was a severe thunderstorm warning and right when we got home, this happened: 

 

(If you can't click on that because you're at work or if noise is an issue, I get it.  They issued a Tornado Warning and I was on the front porch tooling around with the kids.)

And then we lost our minds running down to the basement.  We all ran into each other and I would have been laughing, if it weren't for the simple fact we were running for our lives.  

Other than by the grace of God, I still don't know how we made it downstairs.  

Then I had another heart attack when Alex started running back upstairs to protect his i-thing from the tornado.  

You know how weird it is to see your street being called out as being in the direct line of impact?  Trust me when I say you don't want to know that feeling.  Ever.  Well, that's what my husband said.  I was outside taking pictures.  You sooo know I was.    

Then when it was all over, and the tornado fizzled, we went to bed but not before I had this vision of Ryan: 

Why yes, I do believe that would do the trick.  

And that is the true story of my last Sunday.

Thankfully there is nothing on the agenda for this weekend.  I suspect the kids will be bored and over it by dinnertime tonight... 

He said what? I wonder where he heard that from....

Today's Friday so can I get a big AMEN?  In the blogging world, or in the cool blogging world, that means we're doing horribly fun things with Ryan Gosling.  Visit Sunday over at Adventures in Extreme Parenthood and see what I'm talking about.

Alex's teacher met me at the flagpole for pickup yesterday afternoon.  I'll let that sink in for a moment.

Having the teacher come out and meet me at the flagpole used to make my stomach swirl with nausea.  A whole host of scenarios ran through my mind.  Did he lick someone?  Did he Tae Kwon Do anther kid?  Did he correct a teacher or tell them their lesson plan was inferior and subject to his review?  Or did he stop, drop and roll minus the fire?

You just never know.

Anyway, his teacher comes out to meet me every day now because we're in a sort of holding pattern.  We're stabilizing somewhere between full on benders and a variety stims.  He has about six stims going right now so in my mind I call it a six-pack.  Honestly, we're just biding out time till school lets out.

Fourteen days left if anyone's interested.  And yes, I'm counting each and every last one of them.

So she comes out of school with a small smile on her face, kind of laughing, so I knew it couldn't be that bad.

Alex?  Well, he wasn't smiling.  "Mom, Mrs. Smith says I said a bad word."

Fuck.  

"Err, you said a bad word?"  Now, a whole host of bad words went through my mind, rapid fire, in under a tenth of a second.  We all know I'm pretty fluent in the base vernacular of the English language.

My next thought was, "Please don't let it be the F-bomb, please don't let it be the F-bomb."

"Yeah Mom, Mrs. Smith says I used a bad word but its not fair.  You use it at home all the time."

Oh fuckety-fuck-fuck.  It was the F-bomb.  I'm so screwed. 

"I said I was pissed off and I got in trouble for it.  You told me it was OK to say I was pissed off when I was at home but now it's not OK to say it at school."

Oh thank you Baby Jesus.

Now his teacher turns and looks over at me, one eyebrow raised, questioning, "You let him say that at home?"

I turn and look at Alex and suddenly he had these big eyes, kinda like this:

Source

Well how can you resist that?  I couldn't lie and blame it on him.  I had to own it.

"Well, yes, I do let him say he's pissed-off when he's at home.  See, for the longest time Alex couldn't identify his emotions and had a hard time articulating how he was feeling.  Gaw, he just now started putting words to his emotions.  So when he was angry we made a scale from one to ten.  One was irritated and ten was super mad, like he was pissed off and ready to explode.  I thought it was important for him to correctly identify his emotional state, as he was feeling it, so we could work on the right calm down methods."

And that's the God's honest truth.

With that I give you my main man, Ryan.

On a different note, I wanted to thank Sunday for having me to her place yesterday.  It was a blast.  I want also thank those of you who went over and took the time to look, see and comment.  You have no idea what that means to me as your friendships are what pull me through.

If you still want to see it, I have it linked here.

And you totally know when his teacher was talking to me up there I was all, "I'm so going to blog about this."   And I did.

Invasion of Science City---complete.

So after sitting around all day Thursday bemoaning the fact there was not school, no schedule and Oh My God mom just made us put down our i-Touches so we could eat breakfast and we almost died, I was thinking we would just sit around and recover all day Friday.

Not so.

My mom got a hair up her ass and decided to take the kids to Science City.  I was quite happy to sit around and recover all day Friday but noooo, that was not part of the plan.  I had to go too.

Since it was her idea to go, she drove.  Mistake number one.

After almost getting killed on the ride down there because Oh My God there is a truck next to me and Lizbeth's Mom doesn't like driving near trucks so she decides to floor it and damn near run us off the road but hey, we made it and since Lizbeth's Mom has a navigation system and because we have a navigation system it is synonymous for letting your brain leave the building and it says to turn but she can't turn and therefor she's going to STOP in the middle of the highway/road/intersection and wait patiently while it uploads our current position and we ALMOST DIE AGAIN but hey, we didn't die and my mom didn't hit the truck and no one killed us so in the end it was all good.

After a slight battle with having to rationalize to an eight, six and two year old that we all have to wear stupid arm bands and yes they are itchy, scratchy and will be pulled off as soon as we get away from the crotchety old volunteer, we all went in and Alex saw this:

Sweet Baby Jesus a Rocket Launcher.

In my delusion, I thought all of Kansas City had started their Spring Break...they did not.  I counted no less than twenty-two school buses parked off in the side parking lot.  To say it was crowded was an understatement.

And since most of the kids were in high school I had to have a quick sex-ed lesson with my own kids as to why so many of them were 'hugging' in the hallway by the restrooms and the kid cave.  Thank you teens of KC.  I really wanted to have that talk at the Science Center on Friday.

Sweet Mother of Pearl, GEARS.  And
"Get the baby away before I hit her mom!!!"

I threw in the towel when we found the water-current-table-thing.

We strategically did this last because I knew when we hit it we were not going to leave it.

Like a game of survivor we outplayed, outwitted and outlasted just about everybody in the joint to work this damn table.  My kids formed their own tribal council of three and for the first time in their lives they collectively worked together to eliminate new kids coming to the table.   I was proud and scared all at the same time.

It was like Vegas craps table.  My kids owned it and damn near charged admission.

Working on currents....

Plotting domination...

Minion elimination in progress.

Total table domination complete.

For as long as I live I don't think I will ever get four pictures to line up like that ever again. 

And then we all went home and we didn't die on the drive back.  

To calm my nerves I made this cake and ate about half of it before dinner.

Yeah, that sooo came out of a box.

I don't remember what happened after that.  The rest of Friday has been erased from my memory.  That's probably a good thing.  

Who wants a butt-rocket?

I can't wait for February to end.  There I said it.  I don't care if our TOR:CON index shoots up to like a five just because we live in Kansas.  I'll take that risk.  There's something about the promise of warmer weather with the coming of March.


















 

In case anyone's keeping count, that sleeping baby down there is winning.  Six to zero.  It wouldn't be so bad if she would only take her Tylenol by mouth.  But ohhhh no, she doesn't like the taste.  I've tried every flavor, every brand and even the chewable tablets.  Even tried hiding it in her cheese.

All of it comes back at me.

She had the same poor review of Ibuprofen.  All makes, all brands.

That's why I get the joy of shoving a suppository up her ass every four to six hours.  She thinks even less highly of that and pukes, I swear, to spite me.  

Let me tell you Gracie, I like shoving my finger up your ass as much as you like it there kid.

On the upside, it's making discipline a hell of a lot easier in this house.  All I have to do is pull out a suppository, show it to her and say, "Do you want this?  Do you want a butt-rocket up your butt??  No, I didn't think so."

Lord, that child will do whatever I ask now.

Only with both hands holding her bottom pretty tightly.

Somebody take me out back and shoot me, would you?

Yeah, we're sick again.  This time Lizzy got hit.  I swear at least one of my kids has been sick since November.  I made the mistake of going to the Pediatricians office for their walk in clinic and we were number fifty-three in line out of fifty-three.  

If you work at a Pediatrician's office take note:  Next time a parent phones in and asks how long the wait is, don't lie.  Just tell her the truth.  That way she won't show up in her pajama's with no snacks, diapers or charge cords for the electronics.  As a bonus, she probably won't yell at you.  Just saying.  

Anyway, I'm guessing every child in South Johnson County was sick and at the same dang office with me.  That, right there, is my version of hell.  

Somebody shoot me.

Before the electronics died.  

We wound up making camp out in the hallway for over two hours and going home with a script for Amoxicillin.  I recommend paying the extra $2.50 and getting bubble gum flavor, heck any flavor.  That stuff tastes like shit otherwise.  

I did have a bit of a "moment" about ninety minutes in when all the electronics died and I went a tish hypoglycemic.  I'm going to gloss over that part.  

And then He Who Shall Not Be Named went out of town for business. 

And not to let any of you down, Lizzy went on a bender around 2:10 AM and was hugging the toilet for a good two hours.  Let's just say she's all ready for college--she's got the puking thing nailed.  Even asked for her hair to be put up in a pony tail so her hair didn't get dirty, poor thing.

Rubbermaid, more than just food storage.

Have I mentioned how sick I am of puke?  I have??  Oh well.

Even porn sites have QR codes. Who knew???

So remember how I mentioned that Alex likes to scan bar codes for fun?  Well it's morphed into something better.  We're now scanning QR codes.  Yeah, I didn't know what one was either.  After I asked Alex I still had no idea so I Googled it.  And then I had Alex explain it to me again.  And again.  And then I gave up went to bed and tried again in the morning.

After several cups of coffee, I found out all about QR codes.  A Quick Response code is a type of bar code.  Go to Wikipedia and read all about it here.

Here's what one looks like.  As a homage to my son, I made one and have it on my sidebar over there.  You get the RedLaser App and then take your i-phone and scan the QR code.  Both of these QR codes are a direct link to my blog so it takes you right there.  Cool, eh?  Now you can read me anywhere.

RedLaser, I should be getting paid for this.  

No reading me in the toilet.  The crapper's off limits.  I strictly forbid it.

So basically my kid's now scanning updated bar codes for fun.

He downloaded the RedLaser App for having a good OT visit.  Yes, I bribe my child.  I'm good like that.  We have a system.  He has a good session and he gets to download a free App.  Bad session, no App.

This was from Sunday's paper, Walmart ad.

Then we had the Thanksgiving holiday and a little time went by and Alex sent a QR code to my phone.  It was to Kink.com.  Now, I very intentionally DID NOT link that site because there is one teensey-tiny little problem with Kink.com.

Kink is a man-on-man porn site.

My kid sent me porn.  After I gasped and, lets be real here folks--looked at a few, I put on my mom panties and asked him what in the hell he'd just sent me.

"Uncle Jim sent me the link to go to Kinko's.  He wanted me to find out how much a ream of paper costs."

"So, um, did you find out how much a ream of paper costs?"

"What?"

"Eyes.  Alex, I need your eyeballs up here on my face when I'm talking.  Good.  Did you find out how much a ream of paper costs?"

"No.  I sent it to you so you could look it up.  I'm too busy, I'm looking up some new Apps."

A private moment here to thank the Sweet Baby Jesus for my small fortune that my son did not get eye-raped by viewing man-on-man porn.

"So, while we're talking about QR codes here, who else did you send that to?

"Dad's whole family."

A private moment to take back all my thanks to the Baby Jesus.

My kid sent my husband's family porn.  Hardcore, man on man, porn.

Are you crapping your pants now?  Cuz I was.

Suffice it to say we've had "the talk" about what can be sent, and what can not be sent, via the i-Touch.  Bottom line, in our house we now check everything he sends out and he checks his e-mail with either my husband or myself.  And we have parental locked his i-Touch so his on-line experience is limited at best.

And my husband made the call to his brother to ask what on God's green earth he had sent our to son.  Turns out he missed a letter in the web address and it all went horribly wrong from there.

And that is the true story of one thing that happened over the past few weeks before I threw the damn thing on the floor and broke it.  And even though this originated from Uncle Jim, I'm the one in the family who looks like the dirty girl who can't keep the kids off porn.

Good thing I'm writing this down for prosperity's sake.  Someday I'm going to look back on this and laugh.

I'm not laughing yet.

Still not laughing.

Yeah, still not laughing.


I'm over at SPD Blogger Network today talking about Alex's classroom desk.  Go, go, go!

My week off and what I did. And didn't do.

I took all of last week off from blogging so I could wrap my brain around what was going on in this house.  Aside from some personal angst, I've had the pleasure of trying to find a new Speech Language Pathologist and figuring out if we want to continue on with individual treatment or opt for more of a group setting for social skills.  Either way, I was given notice that our insurance has stopped paying and unloaded a $7,000 dollar bill on us as they seem to think all past Speech Therapy was/is unwarranted.

Thank you Cigna for your medical opinion.  And by that I mean Fuck You Dearly.

Yeah, we're fighting it.

Add to it, all the social skills group start at $50 per group.  That turns into $200/month to go weekly, which is recommended by our Child Psychologist, not our insurance company.  And, oh yeah, none of them take insurance because, as one lady said, "We decided it wasn't worth that fight a long time ago.  We take cash or nothing."

Yeah, we're so not going there.

Last I checked, I don't shit $200 dollar bills so I got a little overwhelmed.

And then I got sick.

Let me rephrase that.  Alex got sick and my last coherent thought before I came down with his infectious disease nightmare was, "I hate cleaning grout lines. Christ, is it hot in here???  I'm really hot."

And that is the last thing I really remember for the past six days.

Sure, I remember some things:

• Gracie eating cheese balls, cookies and trying to drink diet soda for lunch.
• Alex puking.  And puking.  And puking.
• Me getting a little jealous my six year old was holding down her diet soda. Note: I normally don't let the kids drink soda.  Ever.
• Laying on the sofa watching something about the American Beaver for about six hours straight and thinking, "Hey, I wonder when the kids are going to figure out there is more than one kind of beaver...."
• Looking at the thermometer thinking, "101.4?  Really??  You can do better than that."
• Realizing that, if I did indeed die, my kids would not notice till we ran out of cheese balls and/or soda.

At some point in my fever induced haze, He Who Shall Remain Nameless thought it was a good idea to download Plants Versus Zombies for the kid's i-Touches.  Now Lizzy has established Base Camp next to our bed because she's afraid, "Zombies are going to cut open mommy's head and drink her brains like soda....with a straw."  Her words, not mine.    

Base Camp.

At some other point, Lizzy graduated from Base Camp and move permanently into Camp I.  Camp I is my bed.  It was formerly known as mom and dad's den of occasional sex but now its become the catchall for anyone and everyone who wonders in at night.

While the love's not dead the sex certainly is.    

At some other point during some other night, I told the kids to go puke in their buckets and leave me sleep.  I don't actually remember this, but He Who Shall Remain Nameless tells me it happened.  He swears by it.  I'd swear he was lying but then the kids started telling each other, "Oh, bloody hell, go away and leave me be," and I knew right then and there he was telling the truth.

And I'm not endorsing Tylenol PM here but man, that shit really works. 

Anyway, right when I started feeling better I took Alex's i-Touch down the hallway to be charged but I lost hold of it.  

I LOST HOLD OF IT.  

Now this is where I have to back the story up a bit.  See, Alex is a biter.  He bites things and likes to chew on things.  Anything he can get into his mouth, he'll chew.  At one point in my delirium I thought he'd make a perfect beaver the way he chews things.  Yes, my mind is that fucked up.  Hey, I was sick, remember?

Anyway, he chews his clothes, pencils, pens, erasers, box tops, whatever he can get, he'll chew it.  That includes, but is not limited to, his i-Touch case.  So when I lost hold of his i-Touch, it had a good portion of the case chewed off.  

Shirt sleeve, chewed.

And that little i-Touch in a half mangled case didn't stand a chance against the tile floor.  It hit in the bottom corner and the glass shattered into a million little pieces.

Cue impending horror and panic attack. 

Remember how I said Alex was sick?  Well, he was.  And you all know how our kids can get when they're sick.  Alex was really quite subdued, probably because he had his i-Touch.  That is, until I dropped that damnable, infernal, horrible, fucking little i-Touch. 

i-Touch, 0.  Tile floor, 1.

Then he became the devil incarnate.  I have not been forgiven.  He has not forgotten.  He will not forgive or forget.  The devil incarnate I tell you.

He's gone on a rampage that makes all others pale in comparison.  I'd swear the paint actually went a shade lighter when that damn thing hit the floor and shattered.  He morphed into his evil little twin, damning me straight to hell with every glance, every look and every move.  Every pore of his little body has been seething anger and venom at my lack of fine motor skills.

I'm thanking my lucky stars he's not yet built a ray gun out of Lego's because if he had, he certainly would have blasted my ass into dust without thinking twice.  I suspect this will not stop till I fix that damn thing and even then the residual, I-hate-you-for-dropping-my-i-Touch, effect will be felt for some time.  

And I can't say that I blame him.  I feel for him.  I broke his Holy Grail and now we're all suffering.

And then, because I've not yet had enough drama in the last week my uterus decided to get in on all the action and I started my period.

And that, right there, is how I took a week off, only to get further behind than ever before.


Note:  Yes, you are supposed to be laughing with me at this.  Through it all, I've managed to get some of "me" back, if that makes any sense.  I'm not as worn out and exhausted as I was.  I don't really understand it, but there it is.  I'm feeling better and I'm running with it.