Head lice and asthma attacks. Wait, do lice have asthma?

OK, I wrote this post after the first week of school and I finally caught the horrible cold the kids had.  So I'll let you read what I wrote before I got all hopped up on cold medication and started hallucinating.  Nothing says 'sleep like the dead' like three Tylenol, a few swigs of Robitussin (a teaspoon is highly overrated) and some Midol.  Yeah, I got that landed in my lap too.

Here ya go:

In one week of school I've gotten notice there's head lice and a little viral something-something going around.  We got the viral thing.

I thought we were doing OK with it and then Alex's morphed into an asthma attack.  One that wouldn't go away.  It started on Saturday and by Monday we were doing nebulizer treatments five times a day and starting him on oral prednisone.

We were up at five AM starting treatments followed by spending the bulk of the day at the doctor's office checking oxygen levels and lung capacity.  Good times.  

I think we've got him on the upside of this but nothing says fun like having your child not breathe.

You think you hate autism??  Try Asthma on for size.  Better yet, go for the combo.  Now that's a good time.  Add two extra needy, sick children and my mother and then you'll be where I'm at.  The inner sanctum of hell.

Being sick and then getting all hopped-up on steroids sent Alex into a tailspin.  He's been hell on wheels since last week.

The good news is, he has a new favorite movie: Magamind.  I love it.  Its one of the least offensive movies out there and as a bonus it has Brad Pitt, Will Ferrel and Tina Fey for voices.  I'm totally over Brad since he dumped Jen for Angie but hey, he still has a pretty nice voice.  I don't know if it's exhaustion or what, but I can actually sit and watch that movie a few times over myself.

Now that we've gotten over the hump of the asthma, I'm all worked up about the lice thing.  I get kids will pass things around.  I get it.  But lice???  Now that's just going too far.  Too far.

Ewwww.

It gives me full body shakes just to think about it and every day when the kids get home from school I'm checking their heads like a gorilla checks for nits.  I secretly want to take a can of Aquanet hairspray and a butane lighter and blast one to oblivion.  Never mind the kids heads.

And with that image I bid you adieu.

How to scare the pee right out of you in about thirty easy steps.

Ya want to get the crap scared out of you?  You do?  Ok.  Here's what you do:

Agree to dog sit your sister's dog while they go to Cosumel and save leatherback turtles or whatever the heck you do when you're single and don't have any kids. I don't know.  I'm too frigging tired from dealing with school, birthday cleanup, cranky kids because, you know, it wasn't THEIR birthday.  Add some stress because he who shall remain nameless went out of town for a few days only to have the insurance adjustor and roofing guy show up and tell you your roof is indeed fucked and they don't want to pay for it.  Either of them.  All of which would have been a little easier to swallow if they didn't keep asking if your husband was around.

Look.  This is called foreshadowing.  

But anyway, back to scaring the crap out of yourself.

Get the kids ready for school, stuff them in the car, shove them out the door and hope to God school doesn't call and you make it to 3:30.  Come back home with the baby and throw some clothes in the washer and throw all the clean ones from the dryer on the floor because you're going to have one hell of a backup if you don't keep the laundry train going.  Realize you have to pee.  Bad.  Really bad.  Like I'm gonna pee all down the side of my leg if I don't get a moving now, kind of bad.

Run down to the complete other end of the house to the toilet.  Sweet Mother of Pearl does that feels good.

Hear a blood-curdling scream from the baby and a bark from the dog.

Pee all over yourself, toilet, down your leg and whatever else you come in contact with as you try desperatley to pull up your britches and find out what happened.  Mentally shake fist at universe for not doing more Kiegels.

Realize the irony of the situation, that you did, indeed, pee all down your leg.

You see the baby.

Blood.  On her face.  By her eye.  Blood and tears mingling.  Screaming.  Oh God the screaming.  Still bleeding.  The dog trying to lick her face.  Not understanding.  Not computing.  You or the dog.

Her eye.  It's swollen and sealed shut.

Still bleeding.

The dog wining in the background.

Realize blood is on your clean clothes and issue an internal memo to fuck laundry when you get home.

Snap out of it and stuff baby in car.

Call the Pediatrician and somehow find it weird you know their number by heart and that you had your phone but have no idea how you got it.

Forget shoes, purse, diaper bag.

But remember to kennel the dog.

Add caption

Realize that fifteen years of training as a pediatric RN had gone out the window with your own kid and you don't know what to do.

Spend the remainder of the morning at Children's Mercy South.

Laugh manically when the security guard raises an eyebrow when you don't have ID or shoes.

Get placed in a room and wait.

Wait.  Wait.  Wait.

Watch helplessly but stay strong as they bundle Gracie and hold her down as they look into her eye to check for abrasions or punctures.

Watch helplessly but stay strong as they irrigate wounds.

Watch helplessly but stay strong as she screams in terror.

Look at Registration Dude like, "WTF?!?" when he asks for the co-pay in the midst of it all.

Gracie given a clean bill of health.

Go home.

Baby and dog miss each other and snuggle themselves to sleep.

Pour drink and finally cry.


Note: We later figured out what happened, after the swelling went down.  Gracie has a habit of poking the dog in the eyes.  I know, she's not my best child.  Normally he shakes his head and she giggles and he licks her face.  This time he was lying down sleeping and she was right in front of him.  She poked him in the eye and he used his paw to rub it.  Since she was so close to him she got scratched by his claws as he was rubbing his eye.  As I was coming down the hallway from peeing he was trying to get me to help her.  He had no idea what happened.  At the time we couldn't tell if he bit or scratched her due to the swelling.  After the swelling went down you can see scratches, not bites, on her face.  


We are still watching the dog but he's now staying at my sister's house.  I'm not that stupid.  I don't trust Gracie not to poke him again.  

The Witty and the Wise

So there is this really hot book out on Amazon called: Wit and Wisdom from the Parents of Special Needs Kids: Mostly True Stories of Life on the Spectrum.  Seeing how I am neither witty or wise I am still quite surprised that I am in it.  Shocked even.  Maybe it's the mostly true part...I don't know.

Anyway, this is my shameless plug.  Go on, go clickety-click on that book right up there, or over there on the right, and see what I have to say.

I'll wait.

All done???

Good.

You'll love it.  I know you will.

Now can you please tell me what I said?

See, I passed along my brain-to-keyboard-mostly-true post a while ago and now I totally forget what I wrote.  I mean really, it hasn't been that long, but since I live in dog years it feels like it was ancient history. That, and I forget where I put my cell phone every day so I obviously can't be expected to remember what came out of my brain years ago now can I?

No, in all seriousness, I am honored beyond belief that Lynn asked me to be a part of this endeavor.  And that she actually considered what I wrote good enough to be among the best out here?  I'm humbled.  Truly humbled.

Clearly bribing her with copious amount of alcohol before she sent it to the publisher worked.

See, even now its impossible for me to be serious.  Lord, what's wrong with me?

And yes, you may go ahead and answer that question in comment section.

Because that's the kind of friend I am.  I'm good like that.

An open letter to my stalkers. And by that I mean you, yeah mom, I'm looking at you.

I get it.  You found the blog.  Yay.  At first I didn't mind.  I was all like, "Whatever.  I"m not changing what I'm doing here.  I'll just ignore it.  Whatever."

But then I checked my stats and analytics and found out who was coming to visit and what they're doing.  And it turns out, you are practically a stalker.  Checking it out every day.  And then going to other blogs and checking them out too.

Yay.  You're my biggest fan.

But the thing is, you're my mom.  You're not supposed to be out here.  It creeps me out and I don't like it.  I can't write knowing you're looking at my work and then going out to see where else I've been and who's been dropping by here.

For me, its weird.  I don't like it.

So I have to ask you in the nicest way I can to please stop.

I love you and all and I love that we're in the same house but the blog reading has to stop.  I even love that the baby loves you more than life itself.

But it has to stop.

See, I have writers block.

I'm not able to come up with anything knowing you're reading it on the sly.  And you know there's been plenty going on.  Gracie getting mauled by the dog.  Alex having another asthma attack.  The kids getting sick.  School sucking.  Me not feeling good.  Did I mention school sucking?

But I can't write about it knowing you're out here.

So it has to stop.

See, for all my friends out there, my mom and I live in the same house.  I've mentioned the blog once or twice at home when I knew she found out about it and left it at that.  We never really talk about it in real life.

But then I checked my stats.  And I'm over it.  Over being stalked by my own mother who is literally, in the room right next door.

So you've been given notice, as nicely as I can give notice.  While it's nice if you come to check things every once in a blue moon, and by that I mean almost never, its not OK to be checking up on me every day and then go stalking my friends blogs.  You're my mom and I'm not comfortable with it.

If you want to, go and get your own blog and blog friends, that would work.

What I'm doing here is not "mom material."

So like Hal says in the movie Megamind, "I'm watching you like a dingo watches a human baby."

And for now I am going to leave things at that.

So you say it's your birthday?

It's my birthday too.  No.  Really.  It was my birthday yesterday.  On 9/11.  I was born first.

See?  I have the cakes to prove it.  Why do you ask, do I have three cakes?  Its simple really.  Alex only likes chocolate cake with chocolate icing.  Lizzy only like white cake with white icing.  And Gracie?  Well, we don't know what the hell kind of cake she likes but based on the other two, I can pretty much guarantee she won't get near a chocolate or white cake.  That's why she had a red velvet cake.

See?  Perfectly simple explanation.
 

But first, before we had all that cake love, I had to go on a scavenger hunt for all my presents.  That too has a pretty simple explanation.  When Alex was younger and after all his presents were opened he sat and looked at us and sighed, "Wait. What?  That's it?!?"  Like we had let him down big time.  So now on the kids Birthdays I make up a scavenger hunt and every once and a while I put a present in with the card and they get all excited.  At the end is their biggest present and they love it.

See???  Perfectly simple explanation.

I had to go to 20 different places in the
house, how good of them.  

Except this time I had to do one of my own scavenger hunts to claim my presents.  Some of those cards have my own handwriting on them.  Alex told me he learned all about recycling in school so he saved them from Lizzy's birthday in August.

Then they kicked me out of the house to put balloons and streamers all over the place.  That's why I have a picture of these two horribly freaky little boys.

Again, a simple explanation.  When they kicked me out I went to the antique mall.  Don't these two just freak your shit?  Not only that, but they cost $2,985.  I know, it's ridiculous.  I bet that includes their ghosts, you know, free of charge.  Those boys could see me from every corner of the antique mall and made my skin crawl.  Even now they're staring at me.  Taunting me, the little one on the left whispering, "I ate his brains, now I'm going to eat yours too."  

But after all the running around, it dawned on me.  They were giving me what they liked best about their Birthdays--the scavenger hunts, the balloons and streamers all over the house and their favorite cakes.  All the things that I have been doing for them for their Birthdays, for years.

And this year they returned the favor.

And that was the best present of all.


Note: After this post goes up for a few days, I'm taking down the picture of those two kids and getting rid of any evidence of them.  I want them out of my house, even if they're only on my computer.  I so wish I could un-see them and get them out of my brain.  They freak me out that much.  

Brace yourselves, we had a busy weekend.

That title's a bit deceiving.  We really didn't have a busy weekend at all but it sure felt like it.  Now that we're done with Labor Day I feel like we're really into the school year.  You may feel free to insert your favorite cuss words or your exclamations of joy here depending on which camp you're in.

Me, personally, I need a vacation.

Just for kicks, let's recap the weekend, shall we?  With it being Labor Day and all, you'd think we did something exciting.  Yeah, no.

We actually did try going to the Zoo on Sunday but somebody who shall remain nameless labeled the Downtown City Market as the Zoo in the car's navigation system and since you know, we turned into chimps and the car was driving us, we blindly went downtown instead of the Zoo.

Horrible, horrible mistake.

By the time we figured out our own stupidity, we wound up with:

• One really pissed-off little girl: "This isn't the Zoo!  I want to pet the lambs!  Where are the lambs???  I don't see any lambs!  WAAAAA!!!!!" 
• One car-sick boy: "Mom, my shoulder hurts."  And just like that, breakfast was all over the backseats of the car.  Mental note: Sudoku + driving = sick boy. 
• A baby who promptly fell asleep and then was a little bitch for the rest of the day.  
• With Lizzy still screaming and Alex puking I called it officially over and we went back home.  Please skip this paragraph if you don't like nasty language.  It sounded similar, but not exactly like, "God Dammit, how in the hell did we make it downtown?!?  Oh Fuck No.  He did not just puke back there.  Oh God Dammit, he did.  Son of a Bitch, this is such bullshit.  I'M DONE.  How long is it going to take us to get home?  Thirty minutes?? Oh fuck no.  I'M OUT.  No, no, no guys mommy's not really getting out of the car.  It's just an expression.  She's just really had a rough morning.  Can you guys just keep your headsets on for a few minutes?  Yeah, you can?  You guys are great!"

So I've clearly been a little strung out...    

That's why we did a bunch of nothing over the long weekend.

Friday night:

Saturday:

On Sunday one dropped out but the other was still going strong:

And Monday he was back into his Saturday clothes and doing a little more of this:

And Tuesday they went back to school.

Amen and The End.

Oh My God I'm on fire! Ouch. Ouch! Somebody put me out!!! Anybody? Anybody?!?

Karen over at Ow, my angst kindly awarded me with a very special award and like a good friend it took me a few weeks to get my act together and claim it.  I'm on FI-YAH.  Or something cool like that.  

Anyway, having the mental acuity of a three year old right now I don't remember how I found karensomtingorother but I'm glad I did.  Among other things, you'd swear we were separated at birth, have the exact same kid and live the exact same experiences.  It's like she's me in another dimension, except she's funnier.  Now I"m stuck on this other dimension thing.  Hey, it could happen.  I could have a portal stone in my back yard.  You just never know....

Anyway, you know the drill.  I tell you seven things you don't already know about me (but now that you've read them you can't get them out of your mind and you'll never look at me in the same light again) and I pass the award on to a few lucky victims.  I'll wait as you scroll down to see if I nailed you.

Now that you're back, here ya go.  A few thing you wished you never knew about me...

1. I like tampons better than pads.  See I told you, you'd never get this out of your head.  Ever.  Your welcome.  
2. I told off Emma's mom from the other day.  I really tried keeping my mouth shut but when she made some lame-ass excuse about cancelling the play-date I Went Off and told her, among other things, she could, "Put it in her daughter's community service log."  Yes, I really told her that.  I'm not proud but Good Lord in Heaven, God Almighty did that feel good.  
3. I'm a summer girl and am not looking forward to winter.  I'm always amazed I made it out of North Dakota alive.  Notice I didn't say sane, just alive?  
4. I don't wake up pretty.  I need a cup of coffee plus a good ten minutes till I am even approachable.  Even then, its best to err on the side of caution.   
5. I'm a total type A with the house.  I like to have everything neat and clean which falls in exact opposition to having three small kids.  
6. I secertly like to bash the neighbor about having a sucktastick yard.  They've had a dead tree in the front yard for over a year.  The real irony?  Even with all the storms we've had (we don't have small storms in Kansas) not a single one has knocked that damn tree out of the ground.  I know it's staying put to spite me.
7. And the last bit of information and a real kicker:  My mom has found my blog.  "Hi mom!!  I'm on to you.  You can quit lurking in the background and stalk me out in the open."  I don't care.  I will not shut this site down and move over to Wordpress like I said I would.  I just started figuring out Blogger and I don't have the mental fortitude to try and learn something new.   

I know there are several of you laughing your ASSES off right now.  Go on, yuck it up.  YUCK IT UP.  I know you're rolling on the ground right now, next to your chair trying hard not to piss yourselves.  Don't you wish you were wearing a Poise right now?

And now I shall exact revenge and name you below.  

Flannery over at Living on the Spectrum: The Connor Chronicles.  You know every meme I get you're going to be next.  I don't know how or why but I always name you.  Now it's more like tradition and I have to name you.  It's gotten to the point where if I don't name you, I'm afraid I may offend you by NOT listing you.  

Grace over at That'sRightISaidIt.Dot.Mom.  What can I say, I love ya lady.  Consider this an easy way to make stuff up, you know, how you love public service perosnelle or something.  I don't know, say what you will, I'll still read it.  I love your blog.     

Allie over at Little Baby Fields.  She is just a sweeite who never cusses, has a beautiful family and I still love her for it.  I often wonder how she can stomach all my F-bombs.  Allie, I am working on it.  

And DeeAnn over at Snippets 'N Stuff.  I love hearing about Cody and her general take on life.  It's refreshing and reminds me how insane I really am.  

There ya go, that should do it.  

Now go on and give me a hard time in the comment section.