Lend Me Your Ear

My brain is leaking out of my ear.

Well, not really my brain, but my eardrum ruptured this morning and it just sounds funnier to say it's my brain evacuating me than ear fluid, right? Especially since I had a doozy of a day yesterday and took to the interwebs before I had a chance to gather myself together and process my day like the adult I'm supposed to be. D'oh!

Today?

Much better all around. 1. My ear doesn't hurt anymore -- it's just drippy and gross and I can't hear with it, but it's not painful. 2. I got more sleep last night than I did the night before.

Number 2 is the biggest reason I'm feeling more like myself again. I think it's a foregone conclusion that every post I make where I sound like a whiny-assed baby was preceded by a Night of Little Sleep. I really don't even need that much more sleep to make a difference -- last night I crashed from 11 - 2 and 3:30 - 5 and 5:40 - 6:30 and feel oh-so-much better than I did yesterday.

Heck, I even peered silently at my sleeping children (all of them) before I left for work and thought "I'm gonna miss you guys...". Not "Oh, good gravy, WHY did I think I needed more than zero children?" like I thought yesterday.

So here are some witty musings on a ruptured eardrum:

a) My kids will be able to get away with a ton of stuff today, provided they do it all to my left side since I can't hear.

b) People freak the freak out when you say you've ruptured an eardrum. It actually feels better than the ear pain (I promise), though the yellow gunk I keep dabbing away is pretty icky. At least it's not blood!

c) I'm going to the doctor as soon as Scott gets home from work today. And I'm looking forward to it! Think about it -- when you're at the doctor, you get to talk about yourself, you are the center of attention, and they have to make you feel better. Plus, I'll totally get to wander around Target all.by.myself as I wait for my prescription to be filled. What could be better than a solo trip where I'm guaranteed to have to walk around for at least 20 minutes as they process my prescription?

d) I have a built in excuse for ignoring whomever and whatever I want -- what was that? Did you say something to me? You sounded a bit like Charlie Brown's teacher. Wah-wah. Wah wah wah-wah wah wah.

Hey -- why don't you all send me some more ideas on why it's a super thing that my eardrum ruptured? Go ahead and be as goofy as you dare...

But mostly I'm looking forward to that trip to Target. It's gonna be my light at the end of the ear canal today. Pretty pathetic, huh?

Motivation

Alex Trebek: Motivation?

IASoupMama: What is that which I am lacking.

I am really struggling this week with the urge to just sit on the couch and snooze. I really am -- that's all I want to do right now.

I don't know why. I'm actually more comfortable this week than I was two weeks ago. Yeah, I'm slooo-o-o-o-ow and even slower, but I don't really hurt and am not waddling or anything. I'm just wiped.

Could be because I'm still taking antibiotics for the walking pneumonia. Although, I've had enough doses that one would think my nasal congestion should have cleared by now, but nope! I'm still mouth-breathing and snoring when I sleep because the only thing my nose can do right now is smell things that make me want to gag. Like pork roast. Blech!

Could be that, once again, my kids are sick. They've been running low-grade fevers this week. Milo was diagnosed with an ear infection, but they haven't had any new symptoms other than the fever.

Could be that it seems to be easier for me to tank up on fluids when at home, so I drink lots of water at the end of the day, which equals lots of bathroom trips over night.

Could be that Scott's out of town this week, naturally, so even with help from my mom I am still the only parent in the house. And, of course, my darling short people save their bestest whining and demanding for mom.

Could be that I'm lugging around a 42cm belly. I'm actually pretty happy to be lugging it around because the alternative is babies born too early. Although, watch out all of you moms of singletons who are due in May and whose posts I read on an online forum -- if one more of you complains about how huge you are, I just might come through my computer monitor and deck you. Heaven forbid you be 31 weeks pregnant and measure 31 weeks pregnant... No one is comfy by the end of pregnancy, that's why we're all so ready to face labor. But you don't know uncomfortable until you get to carry a full-term belly for three months...

Could be that my office is so warm it puts me to sleep. Well, I probably wouldn't be falling asleep if I was getting enough sleep at other times in the day, but since I'm not, the tropical warmth of my office is doze-inducing. And damp-inducing as I notice when I wipe sweat from my upper lip.

Anyway... Perhaps I'll find that magic that is motivation again. Although, I might need to really search through napping to get there...

The Plague... The Plague...

Here's a riddle for you:

How many doctor's visits/calls in two weeks does it take to get a family of four (soon to be six) on the road to health and well being?

Answer: Four doctor's visits and two calls.

For some reason unbeknown to me, the plague of walking pneumonia has descended upon our mud-moated white farmhouse. Yes, all four of us are on antibiotics for this.

What??

It started Sunday when Violet started coughing. The poor girl sounded like a squeak toy, but insisted that she felt fine. Scott thought his throat might have been a little sore, but he was just going to keep an eye on it, so we went about our normal Monday stuff, had a normal Monday supper and a normal Monday bedtime.

My pregnant self got up to use the toilet at about 11:15, I had been barely dozing since laying down for the night and figure that before I fell into a hard sleep, I'd use the bathroom one more time. On my way back to bed, I decided to check on the the Squeaker to see how she was.

Not good. Poor babe was burning up. I made a trip downstairs for the thermometer. Checked her temp and it was just below 101. Made another trip down the stairs for some ibuprofen, which she took like a champ, but requested a drink. Made a third trip down the stairs for some cool water. And then a fourth when she asked for something to eat (crackers).

I rocked her for a while, but she was a squirmy mess who wanted to smile at me and say, "I love you, mommy!" and not rest. Then she asked to sleep in my bed. Given that I hadn't really been to sleep yet and it was 12:30, I assented and we climbed into the big bed, where poor little fever girl proceeded to flop all over, to sit up and lay down repeatedly, and to finally ask to go downstairs.

Knowing that Scott (Mr. Ambien) would be useless for a while and would likely get grumpy by Miss Wiggly, I reluctantly bid farewell to my pillow and brought her downstairs, where we watched Netflix over the Wii until 3:30, at which point I decided that Mr. Ambien's medicine had been in his system long enough that he was past the point of uselessness and would now be able to take care of Miss Wiggly so I could sleep until the alarm rang out at 6:30. At 4:30, he brought her back to our bed, where she crashed and we all slept like sardines until I got up for work.

Fast forward a few hours and daddy took Miss Wiggly to the doctor, where she was the first diagnosed with the walking pneumonia. Then he went to an appointment for himself, where he was the second diagnosed with it. Apparently, though I wasn't at the doctor, I was diagnosed, too simply because the bug is so dang contagious and my darling daughter had spent a crazy amount of time breathing her sick breath all over me during the days preceding the doctor's visit. Milo was retroactively diagnosed after a call to his pediatrician, too, since his strep (diagnosed the week before by doctor #1) was gone and the wet cough he'd had before the strep was still lingering, despite a full course of antibiotics.

So that takes us to three doctor's visits and one call. Well, two, as the pediatrician's assistant had written our phone number down incorrectly and I had to call back the next day, confused when they said, "It rang busy three times last night and once this morning." What? We have caller ID. But when you read a 9 and a 1, you dial a number that doesn't exist...

The fourth doctor's visit? That would be my 30 week appointment. Where we had an ultrasound that revealed that Baby A is now 3lbs 6oz and breech and Baby B is 3lbs 12oz and transverse. I have gained another 2 pounds (11 total) and my blood pressure was ok -- not super, but considering the stress of the plague, I'll take it.

So, anyway, I'm ready to see some healthy people around here!

So, Scott Was Out of Town...

So I had about a billion ideas for posts that I was going to make this weekend after the kids went to bed and before I curled up on my Snoogle for a pregnant night's sleep, but they never materialized.

Why?

Scott was out of town.

Most people who know me understand those words and sympathize with me the instant they see them. You see, when Scott is out of town, the Bermuda Triangle of Weirdness descends upon our house. It never fails. This happened even before we had kids -- I'd come home from work to find an appliance broken or that the dogs had gotten into the garage and shredded a crazy amount of paper all over the yard or who knows what.

The strange events did very definitely take a turn for the worse once kids came into the picture. One of them would get sick or I'd be invaded by rodents or something insane would happen.

This time? I got sick. Well, sicker. I came down with the cold the short people had on Tuesday, stayed home from work all day Wednesday and felt much better on Thursday, though I was still producing enough snot that if I were a snot miner, I'd have hit the mother lode. All in all, it was a pretty typical cold.

Until Friday.

About the time that Scott was headed out of town, my left sinus started to ache. By the time I picked the kids up from school, the ache had become a throb. By the time I got the kids fed dinner, the throb had become a vise. By the time I got the kids to bed, the vise had tightened down so far that I felt as if something roughly the size of a football was wedged in my face.

I was blinded by the pain -- and Tylenol (a pregnant woman's only pain reliever) wasn't touching it. I tried my neti pot and discovered that I was so congested the rinse wouldn't even go into that sinus. I gagged and spluttered as I spit it out, frustrated that nothing was helping.

After some welcome assistance from Scott's mom, who watched the kiddos when I went to the doctor, I managed to get a script for antibiotics. Which I began taking immediately.

Since you cannot take crazy high-powered antibiotics while pregnant, the third-string Amoxicillin was pretty much our option. So, no instant relief like I might get after the first dose of a Z-Pack. Nope, I was near tears all day Sunday and ready to melt into bed when Scott finally made it home last night.

I don't know if just having him in the house was enough for me to relax and actually sleep last night or if my poor body decided that it was going to pass out cold from exhaustion (the pain had kept me awake much of Friday and Saturday nights), but I slept HARD last night, getting up only once to use the bathroom and take another dose of Tylenol. I didn't even feel the normal pregnancy-related sleep discomforts, if my hips hurt last night, I didn't notice.

And this morning?

I woke up and blew a copious wad of fluorescent green booger out of my left sinus and feel merely sick, not feral with pain.

Of course, I also woke up to a sneezing hubby...

Overreact Much? Who, Me?

What is it about kid puke that sends me into anxiety over-drive? Seriously -- every time one of my kids has a tummy bug I am a wreck. Just a disaster. I'm far too stressed to eat, have to remind myself to drink, and can't sleep for more than an hour at a time without getting up to check on a both kids, in case someone has vomited in bed and I somehow missed it.

On Tuesday night, the kids had been sleeping, Scott was sound asleep, and I was trying to fall back asleep after a trip to the bathroom. I had already gotten up to pee twice and thought I heard one of the kids moan, so I got up yet again to check on them. Violet was out like a light, but Milo was tossing a bit and woke when I opened his door. He said, "I'm dizzy, mom, can I go downstairs?"

I said, "No, baby, it's the middle of the night. But if you're sick, you've got your bowl, right?"

There has been a tummy bug going around, and I leave big bowls next to the kids' beds "just in case."

He settled back in and I went back to bed, only to hear him coming out of his room five minutes later. I jump up and meet him and his bowl in the hallway as he starts emptying his stomach. Then Scott wakes up and he and I realize that the house smells like poop. Thank you so much, dogs...

Anyway, Milo wasn't even that ill -- he vomited about four times in 8 hours, took a three hour nap and never ran a fever. He wasn't ever in danger of dehydration, nor was he terribly uncomfortable.

But I was still completely unhinged when it came time for bed last night. I woke every hour to check both kids, tossed, turned, used the bathroom four times myself, and was generally awake all.night.long. Some of it was worry that it was snowing and that I'd be driving Scott's little Saturn Coupe to work today, but most of it was that I just didn't want to be changing sheets overnight. Or sitting up all night -- as I had with Milo. So, instead, I freaked out all night long.

I glared at Scott in the dark, beyond annoyed that he slumbered away in his Ambien-induced peace. I listened to Milo snore softly from his room, counted the number of times Violet rolled into the rails of her toddler bed (fourteen times, if you were curious), and heard the dogs sneeze occasionally from downstairs. I watched the fan spin, tried to breathe in synch with Violet's white noise ocean, and started doing random math problems in an attempt to bore myself to sleep.

None of it worked. Sigh...

It's so silly -- I didn't get this freaked out when Milo broke his arm. No, I was a calm, collected, rational mama then. I didn't suffer such angst when they catheterized Violet at 9 weeks to check for a UTI (negative, by the way). I don't get too concerned by coughs, runny noses, ear infections, or strange rashes.

But puke? It gets me every time. And my kids are now able to recognize the "I'm-gonna-throw-up!" feeling and ask for or grab a bowl. Even Violet can wake from a dead sleep and call, "I need a bowl!" I don't get this insanity.

And, mostly, I hope that I'm so darn tired from two less-than-satisfying nights of sleep that I really conk out tonight. Although, Violet's not out of the window of exposure yet. Argh...

Insomnia

Ah-ah-ah-insomnia-ah-ah!

I know why it's happening, but I'm not sure how to make it stop because it is all stress related.  When I type stress, imagine it with 60,000 lightning bolts arcing around it, the metallic taste of ozone creeping into your mouth.  Electric blue stress, with a side of last-adult-standing.

What's goin' on to make me stressed?  Eh, a couple of things.
1.  The miscarriage.  As it stands right now, another phebotomist rolled another vein in my right arm, so I had to attend a wedding on Friday night with a nasty bruise and some track marks on the inside of my elbow.  I solved this issue by always carrying a glass of wine -- brilliant!  Friday night, my poor hubby had to insert four pills of Cytotec into my girly parts to medically induce a miscarriage.  After reading horror stories online, I was too chicken to administer the meds myself.  No horror story for me, though, as it didn't work.  Well, it worked well enough that I had some crap-tastic diarrhea and was limp as a wet noodle all day Saturday, but I didn't finish the miscarriage, or maybe I didn't need to.  I don't know anymore.  I have an ultrasound scheduled for the 21st to see what's-a-going-on-in-there.  Yippee!

2.  Violet had a tummy bug.  And now, every time one of the kids moves at night, I hear it on the monitor and think someone's drowning in puke in their bed.  I jolt out of bed and tear into her room, searching for signs of vomit, then return empty-handed to repeat this ritual in 34 seconds.  This has caused me so much anxiety that I have actually spent part of the last few nights snoozing on the futon where I can't hear the baby monitor.  I'd turn it off, but Scott actually likes it.  Maybe I'll just turn it off anyway.

3.  Speaking of Scott, he's waist deep in a production, as he always is this time of year.  Tech rehearsals kept him out of the house on Saturday when I was winning the couch-parenting-mother-of-the-year award and will tonight and tomorrow night.  So now I've got to chase Violet around the playground during Milo's t-ball practice again.  Because that was super-fun last week.  And will be super-fun on Wednesday, too.

4.  Scott is heading out of town.  Yep, he'll be installing a set in Texas this week.  Yay for the rental fee, yay for the per diem travel, and yay for the wages to install it, but BOO to Scott being gone.  Boo, hiss...

5.  Milo's birthday party is approaching.  Which means cleaning and preparing for a party.  And hoping that kids come...  I've only had three RSVPs (two yes, one no) out of 10 invites.  They aren't due until the 10th, so hopefully a few more will come through.

6.  I'm gearing up to go to part-time status at the beginning of July.  Trying to get as much done before then.  And with classes out, the only living things in the basement of this building are me and the bugs.  Did I mention that spiders creep me out?  Well, they do.

7.  My garden and plants aren't responding and growing as well as I'd hoped they would.  Sure, some things are doing really well (corn, beans, zucchini, onions) but the ones I really want to eat (broccoli, tomatoes, and cauliflower) aren't.  Some of the peppers are and some aren't.  I got some organic fertilizer to see if that will make a difference...  Now to find the time to use it.

8.  I need to renew my driver's license and file for a homestead tax credit.  OK, not real big stressors here, but stuff that does need to be done.  Speaking of which, why hasn't my license plate renewal notice arrived?  Better check into that, too.

9.  Violet is trying to potty train.  Sometimes.  When it seems appropriate.  Or darn inconvenient.  Her little voice doesn't seem to carry the same sort of insistence that Milo's did when he was in that stage.  Sometimes it sounds like she's singing, other times it sounds like she's asking for a drink.  "My need tinkle" sounds a bit like "My need dwink!" doesn't it?

10.  My allergies and sunburn have left me feeling totally itchy.  And like I just don't want to be touched.  At all.  By anyone.  And everyone I know wants to sit in my lap, cuddle me, snuggle me, sleep on me, sleep with me, squash me, and climb on me.  I just don't seem to have any tolerance right now.  Maybe a few nights sleeping in my bed all by myself with the monitor off will do the trick?  Even if they don't that's still what's going to happen.

Bring on the Pancakes!

Ok, not to be gross, but is there anything worse than having that nagging, rib-bruising hacking post-nasal drip cough while your monthly friend is visiting?

Yes.  When you have that awful cough, your monthly friend, and you're taking an antibiotic that totally rips up your gut. 

Thanks for letting me whine -- it's not polite to actually say any of that out loud, at least not when you're headed to your in-laws for a pancake breakfast.

Begging for Death (not really)

I have been begging for death the last couple of days.  Why?  Wicked sinus infection.  The whole left side of my face has been hurting like there's a mule in there trying to kick it's way out.  Not pleasant at all.

I was up all night Saturday because the pain was so intense.  I even considered taking one of Scott's Vicodin, but decided against it for two reasons: it isn't prescribed to me and I was the only parent at home and if the med incapacitated me, no one would be able to take care of the kids.

On Sunday night, I tried sleeping with my face smashed into a warm rice bag -- that helped as long as the bag was warm, but when it cooled off, I had to stumble down to the kitchen to warm it up again.  I did that four times.

On Monday I made it to the doctor.  Because we're trying to conceive, they could put me on a high-powered, knock the germies out with napalm antibiotic, so hopefully the one I'm on will do the trick.  I also tried a neti pot for the first time.  I didn't drown, so I think I used it correctly.  That's about all I can say about a neti pot as it didn't seem to make much difference one way or the other.

Last night, I was comfortable enough to sleep most of the night.  I didn't have to get up for more Tylenol, nor did I have to warm my rice bag.  I did get up to check on Violet, who had a coughing spell.  And there were thunderstorms that knocked our power out for a second or two -- long enough for me to realize that the power was out and then it was back on.  And Scott was an insomniac who turned the TV on three times.  So still not enough sleep, but at least the pain isn't horrific any more.

Delusionally Tired Mama

Tech week for the show.  For those of you who don't know what that means, it is the last week of rehearsal leading up to the performances where you include the crew, lights, sounds, and costumes.  This is normally an exhausting week.

Monday and Tuesday were actually pretty OK. I didn't have to stick around for the second act of the show, so I was home before 9 each night. Kids slept well, normalcy reigned.

Then came Wednesday. I picked the kids up from daycare and while I was putting Violet's boots on her, she cried out "Ow! My mouf hurts!" and stuck her finger into the wayback part of her right cheek. I looked in there but didn't see anything, and she stopped crying quickly, so I shrugged it off. By the time we drove 8 minutes home, she was crying again, that panicky quick "something really hurts" cry, so I bustled the kids inside to find the thermometer and a flashlight to see if I could figure out what was up.

As soon as we got in the house, Milo had a tantrum because I told him I wasn't going to turn on the Wii because I needed to figure out what was up with Violet. I get a flashlight and still can't see anything in her mouth, so I start rummaging for the thermometer. And looking and looking. I give up when I'm about to pee my pants and run for the bathroom. A few moments after I sit down, Violet comes running and shouting "Frow up! Frow up!"

I think she's going to barf, so I ask her if she is sick.

"No, mommy, Mocha frow up on the floor!" That's the dog. Sigh.

I've only got 30 minutes before I need to leave for rehearsal and Scott's not home yet, so I have two crying children and a barfing dog. I can't find the thermometer and I'm trying to cook supper. He finally arrives home about the time I locate the thermometer and, when I try to take Violet's temperature, so looses it when I touch her right earlobe. Yep, ear infection.

Scott thinks we need to call the doctor to see if we can get her in that night. What does he do? He hands me the phone because I've now got 15 minutes to finish cooking and get into my costume. I call the doctor as I'm cooking and find out there are no appointments left that night. We briefly debate whether or not to take her to a walk in clinic, but I think that since it's already 5:45, they wouldn't get to a clinic until 6:30 at the earliest and would likely not get seen until 9:00 -- waay too late for the kids. I think that we can manage her pain and agree to an afternoon appointment for Thursday (yesterday).  I tell him that I can take her and that I didn't think it was a good idea to have both kids out at a walk-in clinic after bedtime.

I had six bites of food, get into costume and was out the door before they were finished eating. I didn't get back from rehearsal until 10:30 and I pretty much ate a snack and went to bed.

Yesterday: I do my annual Staff Talent Show group dance at lunchtime, then dash across campus to the car so that I can pick Violet up and take her to the doctor. Ear infection confirmed. Pick up prescription, do a little Target browsing, drop Violet back at daycare, finish up the work day and pick up the kids -- neither of whom wants to leave daycare. Fight to get them into the car.

Get home to find Scott has the burn barrel going and there's nasty smoke wafting into the garage and house. Great -- I really want to show up for opening night smelling like a bonfire... The dogs are running loose, too, and only one comes into the house when called. Scott finds the other one eating god knows what in the neighbor's yard. They come in, tracking mud everywhere. Scott spends fifteen minutes trying to figure out where the mop is, what I use on the floor to clean it, etc. He mops while I cook. As soon as he finished mopping, Mocha barfs again and now we know what she'd been eating in the neighbor's yard. Sigh...

Kids eat well and I eat fast so that I can get ready for the show. Naturally, Scott is doodling around on the computer and Milo is playing, so Violet comes into my bathroom to amuse herself -- pulling out every hair product I have, wanting to know if she can wear my make-up, and generally making a mess. Because I have 10 minutes to get out of the house. Milo wander in asking for a glass of chocolate milk. Asking Scott was just too easy, considering he was sitting right next to him. I finish my hair, get dressed, and make Milo's milk. Get to the performance only two minutes after I should have been there.

Hang out for the interminable amount of time until they get to my show. Take the stage confidently because I've had three great rehearsals leading up to opening. Get freakin' lost in the middle of the show, stammer a bit, get back on track but feel like a jackass for biffing a line and frakking up the play. Wait the rest of the interminable evening until the second act is done, do curtain call, and head for home.

I finally drag myself momentarily to bed, but then Violet was up four times. Milo had a coughing spell, and I had to pee. I think I slept about 2.5 hours.

It's A-L-I-V-E!!

Hello, world! It's me again!

After spending nearly a day in bed -- and I was in bed, no TV, no music, no nothing -- I am alive again! Stomach bugs should be outlawed in adults. Seriously -- Milo had this bug and was happily playing Wii, dancing and bouncing around between the episodes of vomiting. Me? I puked once and crawled back into bed under the weight of a massive, skull-crushing headache. I've never felt such pain...

Which left poor Scott on day 2 of kid chasing duty. I was clearly in no shape to do anything but breathing, so it was Daddy to the rescue again! Yay for good daddies!

Anyway, I'm up and about today. Not much appetite and a headache that lingered until the caffeine from my morning coffee hit my bloodstream.

I sure hope that Scott and Violet don't get this one...

Bronze Medal

Ring-ring. (That's the phone system's way of telling me there's a call from off campus.)

"I won a brown metal."

Click.

Follow that? That was, in fact, the very recent "conversation" I had with my son. He's home sick with a tummy bug today and was playing the Wii. And apparently had to call and tell me that he won a bronze medal at something.

Three seconds later, my darling hubby called back to tell me what that conversation was really about. I could hear him laughing to Milo and saying, "You have to tell mommy who it is -- say, 'Hi, mom, it's Milo. I won a bronze medal' Like that."

Well, daddy gets the gold medal for staying home with the wee ones today. Milo should, too, for barfing in a bowl and not in his bed, on the floor, or the furniture. Seriously -- the kid woke up and grabbed a bowl at 5:45 a.m. Way to go!

Please remind me...

I think I am going to start a new thing in my blog -- Please Remind Me. I'm going to use it to sum up stuff that is blog-worthy, but not necessarily worthy of an entire post. Oh, and I poke a little fun at myself along the way...

Please remind me that I hate to sew. Remind me of this when I decide to take apart the custom curtains (originally made by me) and alter them from full-length lined panels into lined valences with beaded trim. Remind me of this when I tackle the project when Violet is asleep and Milo is playing a Wii game that frustrates him, because him being frustrated with a game and me being ticked off at my mother-trucking sewing machine is NOT a good combination. Please remind me that real women do not HAVE to do this crap...

Please remind me that I don't need to pick up any more germs from my little angels. Remind me of this when I'm sitting on mt couch and start coughing and pee a bit. Remind me when I sneeze so crazy hard I actually sneeze my tampon outta my hoo-ha. Remind me of this when I cough so hard that I gag, gag so hard that I vomit, vomit so hard that I dry heave, and dry heave so hard that I spit out bloody mucous. And when I look at myself in the mirror and start crying because I have three inches of green snot dripping down to my chin, I'm red-faced, red-eyed, and sweaty. Remind me again when I look in the mirror later and discover that I've broken all of the blood vessels around my eyes, leading me to look like Stephen Tyler after a freakin' good party -- minus the freakin' good party.

Finally, please remind me to hide my garbage better lest my vandalous, obsessive-compulsive mutts get into it and drag bloody tampons all over the main level of my house when I'm asleep for the night. Apparently, putting it in the shower isn't safe enough, because they pulled down the shower curtain and ransacked the entire room. Remind me of this when I'm cleaning up all of the things they barf up that they shouldn't have eaten in the first place.

Par-ty! Par-ty! Par-ty!

Hey! It's a new year! Welcome 2010!

Ages ago, when I was in college, 2010 was the address of THE party house for the theatre department, you know, "Party at twenty-ten!". I can't even say "two thousand and ten" -- it just won't come out of my mouth. I think that there was a standing order for a party there every weekend (and many a weekday). This is, in fact the location of the first kiss I shared with my not-yet-husband many moons ago... Like 17 years ago. Is that right? Holy crap, I'm old...

2009 ended in a vastly different place than I thought it would when I look back to where we were a year ago. Here's the recap!

January: Cold, cold, cold. I had good plans to exercise daily, even going as far as blocking off time on my calendar. I actually did pretty well with this goal, at least for this month. One of my supervisors left and I moved (temporarily) into her old office so that I was closer to students in that program. As a result of the move, I got to use a faster computer. This made me more effective for everything I did, so I was happy with that. I wasn't happy that the office was routinely only 63 degrees and had a breeze...

February: Why can't I remember this month? What happened?

March: Scott celebrated his three-dozenth birthday. He traveled several times, and during one of those trips I came down with an awful, horrible tummy bug and I vomit and pass out in front of my children. That was pretty bad. I don't want to revisit that experience.

April: Busy month -- Scott did a show, I traveled to my last skating competition, and the kids kept growing. Milo continued to follow daddy's interests in Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Violet learned to dress and undress herself. She started talking more, too. We began landscaping the backyard and talk of expanding the swing set because we're "going to be in this house for a while."

May: Scott traveled again, this time to NYC. There had been some talk of me going with him for part of the trip, but it was probably a good thing I didn't as I came down with a freak case of pneumonia and ended up arguing with my physician that she couldn't hospitalize me "because I'm the only parent at home right now!" I paid a babysitter $100 to stay over night in case I was too sick to take care of the kids. After all of the traveling, we managed to get some good family time in and we enjoyed the lush Iowa spring.

June: I got a new supervisor at work! Yay! Who could ask for a better birthday present? Then we traveled to California where we spent two whole weeks with friends, mostly being lazy, but also enjoying the sun, sand, and our friends. I got very excited thinking I might be pregnant, but I wasn't. The kids loved the beach and Milo got to beat Darth Vader in a light saber duel on his fourth birthday.

July: I participated in several committee meetings on campus and feel very good about the feedback I gave and received. I enjoyed getting to know my new colleague and turning over some of her new duties to her. I also sat back and breathed a bit about life in general. We refinanced the house, took a trip to Chicago to meet my on-line mommy friends, and otherwise enjoyed a busy month. Although my family very much enjoyed the trip to Chicago, I decided that the next meet-up will be a mommy-only affair as I was envious of the window shopping and cocktailing my friends did.

August: With both supervisors back on campus, we started gearing up for the new school year. Suddenly, the stuff I have to do seemed less intimidating as I'm not trying to do it and someone else's job. I enjoyed this feeling! We prepped Milo for school and he was alternately excited and terrified. Violet returned happily to daycare and was instantly the sitter's pet. Scott started working on one of the shows he designed. The fall looked busy, fortunately not as busy as last fall, but Scott's schedule, in particular, was daunting as the holidays approached.

September: Violet turned 2! Milo broke his arm! He went on his first ever field trip! I chaperoned my first field trip! We looked at a house and placed an offer on it! It is accepted! And holy-crap-we've-got-to-sell-our-home-ASAP. ASAP.

October: Well, what do you know? Our house sold ASAP on October 3, so we (me) started packing, packing, packing. Halloween was fun, but I can't remember much more than packing, packing, packing. And Milo got his cast off, yeah, that happened in October.

November: MOVE! Got used to driving a little further to work. Got used to having enough room for all of our stuff. I like that feeling! Bought six gallons of paint with the goal of having the entire downstairs (save the kitchen and my bathroom) painted by the new year. Started with the room in which the Christmas tree will live as the gag-a-liscious mauve bird poop faux finish will NOT appear in my Christmas photos. Also had a nasty cyst removed from my leg -- that bugger needed to be packed and dressed four times...

December: Oh, this month dragged on as Scott toured with the Christmas spectacular and took his annual deer hunting trip with his brothers. I had a ton of events on campus this month and raced about on a broken toe trying to photograph everything I'm supposed to shoot. Then I spent the last half-week at work in lazy party mode. Eh... I was even bored enough that I tried starting the novel that lives in my brain and wrote the most awful tripe. Yes, I deleted it. I painted two and a half more rooms and am 1/2 a room short of my goal of having the whole main level painted by the new year. I finished the half room on New Year's Day. Close enough! I also made a guest post on a friend's blog. It was kinda fun and I liked swearing in a blog post. I don't do that often enough. Fu#k. Da&n. Sh%t.

Spent the last night of 2009 falling asleep at 11:30 with Scotty whooshing away wearing his bi-pap next to me in our new home. Pretty good ending (except that I'm still not pregnant).

What will 2010 bring? Stay tuned for further updates...

Moved into new house? Check!

Well, we've moved. We're in the new house now, stumbling over boxes and odd piles of things. The kids are adjusting well, so well, in fact, that Milo asked to sleep in his own room tonight instead in Violet's room. We'll see if he brings it up again before bedtime tonight. Honestly, we don't have another lamp for him and he doesn't like to sleep in pitch darkness. I wasn't planning to transition him to his own room until after we'd painted it and made it "his," but kids grow on their own schedules, not on their parents' time lines.

Anyway, we began the final push on Thursday night as we gathered all of the things we wanted moved on Friday and as I cleaned and did laundry, knowing that the washer and dryer weren't going to be delivered until Monday. Expecting a family of four to avoid laundry for five days is really a stretch. I finished cleaning at about midnight, but slept very poorly that night because I was thinking of all of the things I needed to get done.

I took the kids to daycare and rounded back to the old house to pick up Scott for the stacked closings. We were early to both, finished early at both, and got back up to the houses, where I loaded up a few bags of freezer stuff into my already packed car and drove on up to the new house. I wasn't in the driveway long enough to get out of the car when the DirectTV guy showed up for the installation. We walked around the house and I stalled until Scott got there as he was wanting to put a pole in the front yard and I knew Scott wasn't going to go for that. He didn't.

I began unpacking the kitchen and worked until it was time to take Milo to preschool, I ran into town and delivered him to school, then back out to the house to keep working. Back into town to pick him up from school and take him back to daycare, then a few moments of loading at the old house and back to unpacking at the new one.

Because I knew that it would take the longest time to organize, started in the kitchen. I don't think I did too badly and, with a little thought, was able to transition our belongings in a way that makes sense to me ergonomically. I'm still unloading at least one box a day into the kitchen and I really wonder how I ended up with all of that crap in my kitchen before. Where did it all fit and do I still need it??

I flew back into town to pick up the kids and take them to the house. We met a sitter and were informed that the movers were on their way, so we cleared a path for the two strapping young gents to carry most of our furniture into the house. These were clearly college kids, but were pleasant and did a great job of moving lots of heavy stuff very quickly. I even gave them some pizza as I'd popped a couple of frozen pizzas into the oven for the sitter and kids. For those of you who want to know, yes, they were cute ;) Not that I noticed...

Poor Scott made another trip back to the house to get the kids' bedding and pillows, then we set up their beds and bundled them off to sleep, only an hour and a half late. Violet woke once that night and Milo got up to use the bathroom and wasn't freaked out being in a new house, so I count this as an unmitigated success, which was only improved upon when we realized that our dogs are both afraid to climb the steps and, therefore, have become first-level dogs only. Do I miss a happy tail thump in the morning as I'm stepping over my fur babies? Yes. Do I miss being awakened by a bored dog who thinks she needs to go out at 3AM? Nope, not at all. Will I miss hot dogs panting through a sweltering summer night? Nope, I don't think I will. Is this stoke of fate pretty much the best thing ever? Yep!

Saturday was a blur -- packing, moving, packing, moving, and begging Scott to come over when the kids said goodbye to the house. I was surprised by my sudden sentimentality, but I really felt like I needed all of us to be in the house together just once more before it wasn't ours. We all fell exhausted into bed Saturday night and all slept all night.

Sunday brought a trip to town for some necessities and more unpacking. And our first meal cooked in our new house, yay! I told Milo, "This is the first time we're sitting all together as a family eating food I made in our new house. How cool is that?" He blinked a couple of times and said, "It's just food, mom." Violet chirped, "dust food, mom!" in agreement. Scott shrugged. And I suddenly became that mom who thinks all things special need to be commemorated. Sigh...

In news of the funny, this morning Violet had an out-and-out fit because I wouldn't wear my "flop-flops" to work today. She'd followed me into my closet and pulled out a pair of turquoise flip-flips and, when she couldn't get them to stay on her feet, decided that I needed to wear them. In November. With grey pants and a burgundy sweater. To work. Sorry, babe, mama can't do that!

In news of the gross, I had to have an infected cyst removed from the back of my right leg. I don't know who hit me with the crazy illness stick, but c'mon! Give me a break! First ridiculous tonsillitis (February), then the stomach flu to end all stomach flus (March), then pneumonia (May). And the cold-that-turned-into-a-six-week-coughing-spell (September-October). And now this. I've been to the docs on Monday and Tuesday to have it drained, packed, and bandaged and go back on Thursday. I am so sore from the doctor's "manipulation" that sitting in my car causes shooting pains and uncontrollable gasping, followed by a few quick tears. Seriously -- does it have to hurt so much that I cry every time I sit down and involuntarily yelp (and cry) if my kids bump the wound? And then there's the whole having to go to the doctor when I'm not really sick and being exposed to an entire waiting room full of real germs. Yeah, I'm loving that. To top it all off, yesterday the doc didn't think the inch-deep hole was healing fast enough, so I got a burning shot of antibiotic in my bum, too. Bonus shot!! Not...

I'm not really complaining. After all, the phone guy was amazed that we got DSL all the way out where we live, the water softener guy swapped out the stinky unit with a non-stinky one, and my new washer and dryer are uber-cool, plus we have an extra 400 sq.ft. of living space and a full basement and walk-up attic. Really -- that attic is bigger than the first two apartments Scott and I shared, maybe even bigger than the two combined.

OK, yes, I am complaining. My leg hurts worse than my hoo-ha did after birthing Milo's bowling ball head. It hurts way worse than any dental work I've ever had done. It hurts worse than the worst sunburn I got after splashing tanning oil, not sunscreen, on my back at the pool for five hours when I was in eighth grade. It hurts a whole lot, but only if I poke at it or bump it, or my darling daughter kicks it when I'm holding her, or the dog's tail smacks it when wagging in excitement.

Alright, I'll agree to disagree with myself. I am thankful to be in the new house, but very unhappy about the sore leg thing. And hoping that it isn't MRSA, which would be an entire other can of worms that I don't wanna open.

C & C

I am so sick of coughing. Coughing all night, all day, when I'm resting, when I'm active. Just all the time coughing. I'm tired of it!

Scott and I are sharing childcare duties this week as the sitter's house continues to fall under the plague of 2009. As of right now, both of my children have ear infections, but are otherwise healthy as can be, energetic, and fine. Milo wants to pack, pack, pack for the move -- if it were up to him, he'd have the whole house already packed and we'd have nothing to eat or wear. Violet spent the entire day yesterday singing. When she wasn't singing, she was cradling her little plastic coffee cup, sipping cold water and telling me "I 'tending it's mommy's coffee!" She's going through a particularly sunny and adorable stage right now, holy cow is she cute!

Anyway, this morning, Scott was teaching, so I was home with the children. Shortly after he left, the steam from the shower I'd taken had loosened up my sinuses and my post-nasal drip started flowing -- think of all the slime under NYC in Ghostbusters II and you get the picture. And I started coughing. And coughing. And coughing. Then I was coughing and gagging. As I was making these obnoxiously loud noises, clutching the bathroom sink like I was riding out an earthquake, Milo started asking if we were ready to pack another box. Violet perched on the toilet demanding "Sausage! My want sausage for breakfast! I huuunnn-geee!"

I gasped and told Milo, "I'm (cough, cough, gag) sick right (cough, cough, gag) now. (cough, cough, gag) Please give (cough, cough, gag) me a (cough, cough, gag) minute (cough, cough, gag, gag, gag)."

"Why-eeee? I want to pack now!"

"Can't (cough, cough, gag) talk (cough, cough, gag, gag, gag) right now (cough, cough, gag), buddy (cough, cough, gag, gag, gag)."

During this exchange, Violet had climbed down off the toilet and was tugging on my bathrobe. "My want sausage! Sausage! Sausage! Sausage!"

I didn't even answer her (cough, cough, gag, gag, gag). Barf. Gag, gag, barf. Barf.

And there I was, gasping, panting, sweaty, snotty, red-faced, drooling... so not a good "me" moment. And my children were completely oblivious. As in not even phased one bit by the horrendous old-man cough-gag followed by crazy loud retching. I think that there have been bloody death scenes in movies less gory than me this morning, yet my kids both toodled on about their way as if what was happening was completely normal. That's how long I have been coughing -- long enough that it seems normal to my children. Long enough that they aren't scared or scarred by the sight of their mother gripping the bathroom sink like a life preserver in the middle of a choppy ocean, miles from shore.

That's too damn long.

Oh, and to top it off, my monthly friend decided to be on time this month, though perhaps my uterus was frightened by the coughing and decided that this wasn't going to be a good month to make baby #3. But yeah, coughing and cramps... I guess it's a good thing that the rest of life is pretty good right now, huh?

Kicking the Tires

Well, the craziness from last week hasn't abated. Still busy at work, still busy around the house. Sick kids AGAIN, different cold. Whoopie!

Sunday night going into Monday I heard over the baby monitor that tell-tale seal barking. Miss V was awake and confused and a bit scared. I went in immediately, snuggling her and trying to nurse her. She seemed comforted by my presence, but I could still hear her stridor a bit, so she and I bundled up and took advantage of the near-record lows by hanging out on the deck. She wasn't terribly uncomfortable and it was actually quite peaceful listening to the crickets and the trucks hitting the rumble strips on the highway. I might be the only person I know that enjoys the sounds of the rumble strips, but I do. I also like the haunting whistle of the trains as they speed through our sleepy town at night. I think we both dozed gently for about an hour until Violet's stridor was gone and I could slip her back into her crib.

Monday night brought no recurrence, though Tuesday morning she was an absolute drama queen as she cried and clung and insisted "No! MY do it!" about everything. She was apparently uncharacteristically volatile at daycare as the sitter called me at about 3:00 to let me know that she'd given her ibuprofen after she wouldn't settle during nap and had cried, "My ear! My ear hurts!" So after a frustrating quarter of an hour where I was calling back and forth to Scott about whether or not to schedule a doctor's appointment, trying to figure out if I could manage to not take both kids to the doctor, and scheduling a late appointment (7:00), we determined that my only option was to take both kids to the doctor by myself.

Believe it or not, both kids were stupendous at the doctor! I warned Milo that once the doc was in the room, I would not be able to continue to read to him. Violet volunteered to sit on the exam table, sat still through the exam, allowed the doc to look at her throat and managed the tongue depressor without gagging. Diagnosis: ear infection, but just starting. I elected to have the doc phone in a prescription that I would pick up and hang onto for a couple of days and not administer unless she got worse. So I ask that the prescription be sent to the Target on the SOUTH side of town. I said this very clearly and she repeated it back to me. Keep this in mind, it plays into the story later.

The kids and I trudge back to the car and we drive to the Target on the SOUTH side of town. This is a small drive from the doc's office, but it is closer to home from this Target than it is from the other one. We get there, park, pile into a cart and enter the store. I wheel the cart to the pharmacy, inquire on the status of the prescription knowing that it has only been about 15 minutes since it was called over and, therefore, likely not ready -- but you never know, right? They tell me they haven't received it yet, but will fill it as soon as they do.

The kids and I have a few grocery items to get, so I head to the grocery side of the store. By this point, Violet is getting very tired of the outing and wants to walk next to the cart. While she's on the loose, she grabs five, yes FIVE, boxes of fruit snacks (candy) and puts them on the bottom of the cart. Instantly, Milo's broken rule detector goes into overdrive and he removes them, admonishing his sister in the process. She looks at him, and I swear I saw steam rising from her ears, screams, "NO! MY DO IT!" at the top of her lungs. I glance around to see if we're alone in the aisle, of course we're not. An older couple smirks bemusedly at my squalling offspring. I diffuse the situation expertly and, for an oh-so-brief moment, feel like a good mother.

But just for a moment. Violet is insistent that she carry the loaf of bread, um, the now squished loaf of bread, through the store. But, as she's not quite two and has the attention span of an immature puppy, she dropped it mid-aisle. Milo, who was watching her closely, grabbed it and tossed it into the back of the cart.

"NO! MY BED!" howls the little one. "MY do it, my BEEEED!" Clearly my angel baby is possessed this evening, so I usher the arguing children back to the pharmacy to see if they could take pity on my screaming horde and fill the prescription more quickly -- if not for the sake of my children, but for the sake of the eardrums of the other shoppers. The prescription still has not arrived. They tell me it should only be another ten minutes and check back then. Sigh...

We're off to the other side of the store to check out Halloween decorations. Well, Target right now has a whopping quarter of an aisle of Halloween stuff out. Of which we bought roughly half of the merchandise. OK, so we bought three fake pumpkins. But in a bare aisle, that seems like half of the stock. I was planning only one pumpkin, but Violet again piped up with the "My do it! My puh-kin!" as she lofted two pumpkins into the cart. You know, if they had been real, she might have a great career in the shot put.

We also ended up with a tube of wrapping paper with Disney's Princesses on it because, well, she seemed to stop screaming when she walked through the store, dragging it behind her like a paralyzed pink tail. And I can use it on her birthday presents, since she turns two next week.

Lest you think this tale of woe is over, let me say that I returned again to the pharmacy to see if the prescription was filled. Once again they said they hadn't received it. As this was the third time I'd asked and the third time they couldn't find it, I suggested they call the other Target to see if, by some mistake, the doc had called the wrong one. Guess what? The doc called the wrong one. Now they say, "We'll have to transfer the prescription and then we'll fill it right away!"

I grit my teeth and steer the kids towards children's clothing as it is the only department in the store that we haven't visited, plus Milo could use some more long pajamas. Why on earth do they make the aisles in this section so dang narrow? Don't they understand that nearly everyone who shops in this department has a cart full of screaming monkeys, as I do? Violet starts pulling items of clothing from the rack like she's picking apples. I follow along behind her, re-stocking the racks. I over hear one store worker mutter to another, "The children's department is closed." They laugh conspiratorially.

It is at this point that the crazy in me starts to seep out. I feel like I've done a commendable job of entertaining my sick, past their bedtime kids in the store. I haven't left a path of destruction in our wake. I sign loudly and say to Milo, "We'll be able to go home as soon as the pharmacy gets Violet's medicine done. I know we've been here a long time and I'm ready to be done, too."

As if on cue, Violet takes off running. She pushes the cart into a display rack of t-shirts hard enough to move the display. I gasp, snatch her up, and plop her into the cart seat. She wails. She flails. She hits the back of her head on the cart and sobs. I pick her up and hold her close. It really isn't fair of me to expect her to be well behaved -- she's sick, she's tired, and she's as fucking bored as I am. I reset the display and venture over to the pharmacy for a fourth time.

Now there is a line there. Four customers appeared out of thin air. I decide that we need to pay for our merchandise and take it out to the car because I'm tired of playing bad cop in the store. Thankfully, checkout was easy. Unloading the cart into the trunk of the car was easy. Getting the kids back into the store, not so easy. Even though I'd told them we were headed back into the store, apparently neither of them believed me. They both protested and protested LOUDLY as I re-entered the store. No line at the pharmacy and, lo and behold, the prescription is ready. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We get back out to the car. I'm frayed at this point. Exhausted by the adventure, and rubbed raw by the stress of the day and the last week. As I approach the car, I smell cigarette smoke in the air. OK. It's illegal to smoke indoors in this state anymore, so smokers hang out outside. Whatever, fine. It turns out that the smoker was a woman in medical scrubs, on her cell phone parked with her car nose-to-nose with mine. I'm still all "whatever" about it -- not my body, not my choice. I do buckle the kids down as fast as I can, which is pretty darn fast, thank-you-very-much.

Then I notice that this scrubs-sporting, cell phone-chatting, smoking chick isn't going into the store yet. In fact, she's walking around her car to the passenger side. I don't see a toddler or a school aged child in there, but I do see her pulling an absolutely gorgeous infant in an infant bucket out of the back seat of her car. The baby reaches excited up to the woman, who doesn't notice it. In fact, because she's juggling the phone, the car door, and her cigarette, she blows smoke into her sweet baby's face.

Here's where the real crazy gets out. I'm so stunned that I'm speechless. Thinking back, I think I must have looked as apoplectic as a fish out of water. Without really making a decision, I've laid on my horn. The woman doesn't even look around as she's balancing her infant carrier on a cart, still puffing away. I pull out of my parking space and sit on my own hand so that I don't roll down my window and shout, "Cute baby! Looks like a Cancer, there. Or maybe you're just giving her cancer, huh?" Nope, I practically swallow my tongue as I drive past her, pretending my jaw was wired shut.

The kids did the usual amount of whining on the way home, Violet exclaiming, "I stuck in my seat!" every four minutes or so. "Yes, honey, you're supposed to be stuck in your seat -- that's what keeps you safe!" Milo asked repetitively for a drink and I assured him that he could have one as soon as we got home and before bath.

We pull up in front of out home and find that on our quiet small-town street, there is not room for me to park in front of our own house. And again, I am over the edge -- I've bought a one-way ticket to crazytown, near tears in my frustration. is it so much to ask that a woman with two tired, sick kids be able to park in front of her own home to unload? That I not have to stumble through the grass in the dark to get to my own front door?

Milo picks up on my annoyance, parroting, "Sheesh! Way to park in front of our house! C'mon!!" I'm really glad that I didn't yell at that smoking lady now... who knows what he would be repeating...

I did get the kids unloaded, into and out of the bath, and to bed without further incident. I did manage to unload the rest of the car, load and start the dishwasher, organize the laundry, lay out clothes for the next day, and get ready for bed before Scott returned home from work.

Yep, I did all that. And I kicked the tired of the offending car with every load into and out of the house. Is that considered vandalism? I know I don't kick hard enough to leave a mark, particularly since I didn't want to hurt my foot. But I felt a little better imagining the pharmacy and the smoking lady as I connected with the hard rubber. I didn't have to imagine the car, though, since it was still there when I woke up the next morning.

A new day had dawned, though, and I did not kick the car as I left the house. I guess that even though I'd packed my bag and gone to the airport, I didn't board the plane to crazytown after all.

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

It is raining today. I've looked at the RADAR and it will be raining, and possibly storming, all day. I think this is OK, the rain certainly matches my mood.

It was a tough weekend in the Olinger household and an even tougher start of the week. Today is that mythical mid-way point and I'm searching for signs of improvement in the forecast.

The kids are sick. Nothing serious, but annoying enough to them that I've spent most of the last three nights comforting one or the other of them for the majority of the time that I should be sleeping. Both seem to be doing better today, I hope, anyway.

Milo is hitting an important milestone today! He's starting preschool in T-2 hours. He is appropriately alternating between terrified and excited. My bet is that he'll be excited until we park at the preschool, then terrified as we walk to the building and into his classroom.

Violet can count to ten! Almost... She's got 1-6, 9 & 10. I think she's afraid of 7 because, well... 7 ate 9. Ba-dum-bump!

Work is busy for both me and Scott. This is the week that all of the first-year students are on campus and we've both got meetings and events galore. We played the "shift the kids back and forth so that both of us can attend as much as possible" game on Monday and Tuesday. That's so exhausting... Plus, the kids totally trashed my office twice yesterday. I need to figure out if I can scrub highlighter off of an upholstered chair. Don't ask...

But the news that has made this week the most difficult, drawing me deeply into my shell, is that our dear friend, my sister-by-choice, has breast cancer.

Selfishly I have yet to contact her. I haven't called because I know that I will simply come unspooled if I talk to her. I haven't written because everything I write sounds like a eulogy -- and I'm not sending something that grotesque to her. I know that she needs me and am very thankful that Scott has done what he always does: reach out, use inappropriate humor, and send massive amounts of chocolate. As in bought an entire aisle of dark chocolate from Target -- one of every variety, several of the most tempting.

I am not the one who is sick, but I am not processing this well at all. I am furious that cancer is trying to steal someone whom I love so much. Every time I put Violet to breast, and that has been quite a few times since she's ill, I touch the very tissue that my friend will lose next week. I hold in my hand that which is giving my daughter life and that which is poisoning my friend. And I am angry about it -- who gives cancer the right to creep quietly into her body, sliding between cells, ravenous and vicious?

On Sunday night, the night before I learned of my friend's battle, I lay next to Milo's bed, sighing because he didn't want me to leave his side. His sleep was uneasy, his fever rousting him every few moments. I lay there and thought, "This is annoying, but it will pass. I can't imagine what I would do if one of my babes was so sick that the illness won't pass. I can't imagine the grief of not being able to lie on the carpet next to the bed of my child. I am lucky."

I wept silently as I recalled a young family that I had seen at Disneyland on the trip to California that we'd taken when Milo was about 19 months old. I was pregnant with Violet and we were visiting my dear friend about whom I am writing. We were in line behind the family for the Jungle Cruise ride and I noticed that the young mother was struggling to hold a child on her hip in the heat. The child looked too old to really need to be held, or so I thought until I saw that she was bald. An ugly, ugly scar mapped her scalp. My heart stopped. I realized that the little girl and her family were on a Make-a-Wish trip.

Instantly my pregnant hormones went into overdrive and I started blinking rapidly to hold back tears. My chest tightened and my breath caught in my throat. It was all I could do to not bawl as I watched the girl, grinning from ear to ear, as she described all of the things she thought she would see on the ride. This mother wasn't just holding her child in a long line, she was clasping her into her body, trying to force her back into the womb, back into a time when she was safe and healthy, back to the time when their souls were one.

I had to look away, gulping air. I rubbed Violet's bum inside me, squatted and kissed a sticky Milo, then hoisted him up onto my hip, vowing that I would carry my children into my body any time they needed me to lift them up. I think of this family every time one of my kids is ill.

I don't want to overwhelm my friend, after all, this isn't about me and what I want -- it is about her and what she needs. I am thirsty for knowledge, but unsure how far to push her; I don't want to hover and smother, yet I am unsure of how to support. She is so generous that I don't want her to know how wrecked I am about this; her first reaction would be concern for me and I think she needs to put her energy into healing. I will write to her by the end of the week, I must swallow my own fear and grief and let her know how much I love and support her.

I want to carry my friend. I want to scoop her up and hold her. I want to sing to her and keep her safe. I want to do these things for her because I love her, because I love her children and her husband, and because I love my children and my husband, and a little girl whom I have never met.

Bum, bum, bum, bum, buuuummmmm!

Hmmm... It's been a while since I've blogged, huh?

OK. QUITE a while... Like, two weeks. What have I been up to?

Work: Busy, busy, busy... roll-out events, guests on campus, redoing the budget forms for one of my programs, on and on -- good, yes. Unfortunately the college is struggling with budgetary issues and it sounds like Scott and I will both be receiving a 2% pay cut next year. Ouch! And the college will be reducing their contribution to our retirement accounts, boo, hiss... We'll be OK overall, but it's not gonna be a fun year by any means, and who knows what will happen next year.

Play: Scott's been hard at work on the kids' playset -- it now has rubber mulch underneath and a roof on the platform -- very cute. I think we'll stain it caramel color and paint the roof green to match the hardware. On to more landscaping stuff -- before the dogs smash all of the hostas that I just transplanted. I think I foresee a big dumpster in our future and a week of Scotty cleaning out and throwing away crap from the garage.

Other: Scott was in NYC from the 17-22 for the Broadway Lighting Master Classes. I think he got something from them, though maybe not as much as he expected. Ah, well... He did get to eat some pretty good food and see some good shows, something about which I am infinitely jealous.

Kids: Both kids are doing pretty well. Violet cracked me up yesterday as she drung me down the hall at the Olinger's to the chair where I usually nurse her when we're out there. She said, "Mere, Mom!" and took my finger and pulled me down the hall. She pointed to the chair and said, "You sit here. Nursing you!" I guess she wanted to nurse... Then, while nursing, she smacked me with an open handed slap on my belly, giggled and said, "I'm so silly! I silly!" Although it was likely the wrong thing to do, I couldn't help but giggle... She has also taken to shaving years off my life by vaulting off of the top platform of the swingset into my arms -- whether or not I knew that she was going to do it... Scares the heck outta me...

She's also been protesting her diaper. "My bum! My bum! My bum!" she says... Yes, it is your bum, but until your bum knows how to use the potty, your bum will be in a diaper. And not the one that you put on yourself... You know, the backwards one jammed between your legs that leaves your whole backside hanging in the wind... Yeah... Your bum will be in the diaper I put it in, little missy! "No, it's MY bum!" appears to be a battle cry.

Milo has been a conundrum lately -- he's so whiny that I think he's forgotten how to talk using a regular voice, but then he'll be startlingly sweet and kind about the most unexpected things. On Tuesday night, I took the kids to Subway solo because I was starting to feel icky and didn't really want to cook. I managed to get their food ordered, no small feat considering that the kids working the counter had smaller attention spans than my children. We sat down at the table and as I was portioning out food, Violet spilled half of her milk on the table. We had two napkins. Two... Who thought THAT was a good idea? After I finally managed to get another four napkins from the dimwitted teenaged cashier and mop up the mess, I sat down to eat with my left hand and help Violet with my right. Milo was sitting across the booth from us, eagerly chowing down on his "foot-long" (a six-inch spicy Italian). He watched me carefully -- feedign a toddler in a restaurant is akin to training an octopus -- and remarked softly, "Wow, mom, it looks like it is hard to eat and take care of someone at the same time." Yeah, that's my sweetie... Tears sprung to my eyes as his little round face looked at me with admiration. Yep, that pretty much made me feel like a heel for being annoyed with him whining mere minutes before...

And onto what has occupied the majority of my week: a sudden and harsh case of pneumonia. Completely out of the blue. As in Tuesday morning I wake up sneezing and think, "Gee, my allergies are pretty annoying today" and Wednesday at noon I'm trying to convince a doctor that I don't have swine flu and that I don't need to be hospitalized. Although I do apparently need a chest x-ray, in-office nebulizer treatment, a shot in the bum (rocephrine), two oral antibiotics (zythromax and augmentin), oral steroids, albuterol in both nebulizer and inhaler forms, and ibuprofen for the 102 degree fever. So not cool. I'm still hacking and I have oh-so-sexy man voice. What fun! I paid a sitter to sleep at the house in case I needed help Wednesday night and was off work until today.

I just can't believe how crazy it is that I haven't been sick in ages, then both times I get flat-on-my-back SICK sick, Scott's out of town. I managed to get some rest this weekend, but the kids wanted to be outside with daddy as he worked on their playset, so that meant supervising them outdoors, where my allergies aren't likely to speed recovery. I needed a day to loll about in bed, but aside from a Thursday morning nap, that didn't really happen, either. Oh, I was plenty lazy, but I didn't really REST rest, if you know what I mean. Thursday night Milo woke up croupy at 2 AM, so he and I were snuggled on the deck for a while, then I brought him back to bed with me -- not particularly relaxing as he flipped sideways in the bed and actually kicked me in the face. Then I rescued him three times from falling onto the floor. So not too much sleep that night, either. Violet has been waking once a night again, but I am luckily able to nurse her for a few minutes, then put her back down and she rolls right over onto her tummy, bum in the air. Anyway -- Milo went to the doctor where he was diagnosed with a cold and croup and prescribed steroids, which I will not give to him. Are you kidding me? He's amped up and whiny enough as it is -- I can't imagine him roid raging on top of being almost four... no way, baby!

In the meantime, the crazy amount of antibiotics in my system have done two good things and a bad thing. The bad thing, of course, is destroy the good flora in my digestive tract. Hence my yogurt all the time diet. The good things? Well, the pneumonia has been tamed into a bad chest cold. And the skin on my face is pristine! Who knew...

Live Long and Prosper

Yesterday was the thirteenth anniversary of our wedding -- happy anniversary to my dearest love. Lucky thirteen years!

We celebrated by going to the new Star Trek movie. I must preface this by saying that Scott had been helping his parents re-side the house on Saturday when his cousins dropped a piece of siding on his head. He went to an insta-care and ended up with three staples in his head and a tetanus booster. Apparently, he's having some odd side effects from the vaccination as he's been chilled to the bone since then. He's not feverish, but he has been bundled up like a sumo wrestler on ice. So, he was clothed in a dark sweater, dark pants, and a dark stocking cap (because his hair hasn't been washed in three days) and shivering, so I apparently spent my anniversary with a man who looked like he was a junkie in withdrawal. Classy, huh?

So this post should probably be one about my darling husband and the wonderful love we've had for each other through the years, but it's going to be about Star Trek instead. Not necessarily the new movie, though I did enjoy it as an action flick. But as in the iconography of Star Trek and how that has impacted my life thus far.

"Space... the final frontier..." Well, yes, this is true. But not a frontier that this person can fathom, nor enjoy exploring. I enjoy looking at the startling images brought back to us by the Hubble telescope, but the enormity of the universe frightens me and thinking about the distance involved in space travel sort of makes me feel like I'm drowning a bit, so space is not my likely frontier.

So what is? Where can I "boldly go where no man has gone before?" Aside from the rather obvious entendre, I get stuck on BOLDLY. I am not a bold person. I don't know that I ever have been bold. In fact, I think that I am rather introverted. I really don't like the telephone and my preferred method of communique is email. My handwriting really stinks and I'm a much better and more fluid typist than I ever expected to be. So I think the only bold you'll see from me goes with Crtl b.

The characters from the original Star Trek series are as familiar to me as my uncles. Star Trek was one of the shows (and later movie series) that my whole family would watch. If someone were to ask me "Star Trek" or "Star Wars," my easy answer is Trek. By a mile.

In college, Scott and I watched "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine." In graduate school, it was "Star Trek: Voyager." I even went one Halloween as a Klingon. We used the music from the end credits of Star Trek 4 as our wedding recessional. I will admit that I've never seen en episode of "Enterprise." Life got too busy to make it appointment TV.

I did, however, realize that I am a Spock kinda girl, particularly after watching the updated movie. I have always found the journey that Spock goes on as a character to be the longest and most difficult. Sure, Kirk got all the glory, but, oddly enough, Spock had all the heart.

I think that, as a tween, I sort of saw my father in the rakish Kirk -- he'd talk about his escapades as a kid and I could see some of that "Oh, yeah? You wanna make me?" rebellion in him. He was a smart kid masquerading as an average student, a pioneer as an early baby boomer. I often wonder if he'd been just a bit more bold himself, if he wouldn't have run with the counterculture, ditching the security of his Iowa home for the romance of following Route 66. That maybe with a little nudge, he'd have stepped into another universe. With his sandy blonde hair and round baby face, it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine my dad as Captain James T. Kirk.

And yet, still Kirk was not my favorite. I think that as I was entering those formative teen years, the struggle and angst not unusual to a pubescent girl drew me towards the conflict Spock felt as an inter-species love child. The part of me that wanted to be so dang grown up and capable was the Vulcan, the little girl who was afraid of growing up, changing and becoming a person unto myself, then Earthling. As I said, the usual teen angst. That whole ego/id struggle, you know.

And then during my parents' divorce, my perspective changed -- about nearly everything. I began to see what I thought was silence and disconnect from my father as the Vulcan in him, bravely trying to hold the all-too-human in him back, to reign in the fear, loss, and yearning. Captain Kirk had lost his way, and Spock had come to find him. Never again have I regarded his slow intake of breath as disinterest -- I realize now that my father's love is so consuming that one drop over the dam would start a flood. That all of the times I was searching for a word of encouragement or display of pride, that all he could safely muster was a hug and a pat on the back -- to show more would betray his passion.

Thankfully, as Spock ages he finds no need to reign in the human influence over his heart -- and the same can be said for my father. Getting to know him as an adult has been one of the best things in my life. Perhaps this is the final frontier... knowing one's self. I think it might be mine and I think I want to go exploring, boldly or not.

And Scott? Well, I must admit that I did marry a Scottie -- he's got a solution for everything if you just give him a minute, his sense of humor flaps behind him like a superhero's cape, and he's never met a donut he couldn't refuse. Live long and prosper, my love!

Happy Spring!

Spring has sprung! At least for the first part of the week... Warmer weather included our first trip to the playground, which both kids enjoyed. We also got out the sidewalk chalk and the ride-on toys for an after supper block party. Well, if our house is a block. Then, when Scott returned from Cincinnati we took a family walk about town. Much fun!

Of course, by Saturday we were bursting out of the house. We'd had an unplanned four-day weekend after mama got a tummy bug. I was actually in pretty bad shape on Thursday. As in passing out while vomiting bad shape. I've only passed out twice in my life -- both times while vomiting and both times hitting my head on the toilet. Unfortunately, this time was witnessed by my two small and relatively helpless children. I'd spent most of the day on the couch except for an excursion where I brought Violet into the bathtub with me -- Milo was happily playing with his Star Wars guys and I needed to contain her long enough for me to close my eyes for a few, so she happily splashed and washed her hair while I melted into the tub. When the kids wanted to play outside, I brought a pillow out and laid on the deck near the sand table while they played around me. In retrospect, I should have called for help when it became obvious that I couldn't stand for more than two minutes without wanting to die.

Anyway, I was holding on for bedtime knowing that the minute I closed the kids' door, I was going to crawl over to my bed and conk out. I got them bathed (laid on the bathroom floor while they payed in the tub) and pajama-ed (with a five minute break between Violet's diaper and her jammies -- thank God Milo dressed himself) and managed to get up the stairs to their room. I sat down on the floor, propped against Milo's bed and Violet asked to nurse. She had just latched on when I realized that the exertion of carrying her up the stairs, heck probably just CLIMBING the stairs, was going to make me vomit again, so I plucked her off my breast, set her down gently, and dashed for the bathroom.

I think I heaved two or three times when everything went kind of gray and an alarm started ringing. I remember lying on the floor thinking, "There is a child in my dream and it is crying." I remember another part of my brain trying to convince me to stay asleep. But then I heard Milo's panicked voice calling, "Mom? Mom? Mom?" I snapped to alert and sat up, heaving a few more times. I felt him as he stepped over my legs, running into his room. Violet was in the doorway, screaming because she was mad that I'd stopped her from nursing. I couldn't do anything about any of it right then. I seemed to dry heave endlessly, but as soon as I stopped, I looked up and Violet was still screaming in the door frame, Milo was peeking out of his room and into the bathroom, eyes wide. I had a big glop of saliva on my arm, I must have drooled when I passed out. My shirt was damp, too, so I yanked it off and used it to wipe my arm. Violet ran from me when I approached her, clinging to the bookcase in her bedroom, not looking at me no matter how I enticed her.

I found a clean t-shirt and sat down right where I'd been sitting when I started to get sick. Milo instantly climbed into my lap with a Winnie-the-Pooh book. "Mom?" he asked, tentatively, "Mom? You scared me when you were throwing up and when you were lying on the floor."

"How long was I asleep on the floor?"

"Not long, you sat up real quick. But it was scary!"

"I know, baby... I didn't mean to scare you. I'm OK now, I promise!"

"OK. Can you read the Pooh book?"

Eventually Violet let me pick her up and nuzzle her tummy. I honestly think she was mostly just mad because I made her stop nursing, but I do know that Milo was scared. So was I, though. So was Scott -- he insisted I call for back-up as soon as possible, so Grandma Sue spent Friday helping me keep the kids out of trouble. I was still pretty weak Friday, but was feeling much better on Saturday -- hence the trip to the playground!

Oh, and in a note from Miss Extra-Cute: Toddlers should always smile and sing, "Happy! Happy! Happy!" It makes your parents want to give you anything... Last week at daycare, they celebrated a birthday and every since, Violet is walking around singing, "Happy! Happy! Happy!" It makes us all pretty darn happy to hear her!