I call this one 'Perfect Timing'

 

Sabine was struck earlier this week with the stomach but that's been going around.  She threw up four times over the course of a day or so, with each one being more severe or more hilarious than the one before.  The first two times were while she was in bed.  The first one was not so bad; I thought it could have been a fluke.  After the second, it was clear that she was ill.  This picture shows the aftermath of the third time.  She was 'home sick' for the day, but insistent upon going outside to play.  I told her she could not go outside to play because she was sick.  But she did not care, and without my blessing, began to get herself dressed for the outdoors.  

I was in the other room when I heard the suspicious sound, and came around the corner to see this.  Just as I was walking over to her, I saw Zach in the window of the front door; he was just arriving home for lunch.  I got such a kick out of his perfect timing that I had to take a picture.  I wouldn't have left her standing there like that if the camera hadn't been right nearby.  But it was just too funny because he could see for himself what it was like to be home with a puking kid.  And as an added bonus, he was there to help me clean it up.

Part of the reason I took the picture was so I could prove to Jacob that his purple lizard really did need to be thrown out (there it is in the middle of the throw up at Sabine's feet).  Anyway, her snowsuit, jacket, gloves and hat all went directly into the washer.  Her boots had a good wipedown and that mat had to be taken to the car wash.  Later in the day Sabine threw up for the last time.  She was behind the couch, but hanging off of the back of it.  Zach was right in front of her and she puked all over the back of the couch, including the back of Zach's head.  I am sorry I don't have a picture of that.

Anyway, this is day 1 of a new stretch of 'picture a day' photos.  Hope it didn't ruin anyone's lunch, but I couldn't resist.

The Haircutting Incident

I've been promising for a couple weeks that I would post these pictures of Sabine's very first self-inflicted hair cut.  The pictures actually don't do justice to her non-talent in the hair-cutting department.  It's just sort of looks like normal bangs.  They're not though; all those 'bangs' are the top part of what was Sabine's right braid when she took the scissors to her hair.  

This all happened because I tried to take a shower without locking her in the bathroom with me.  Silly Mommy, wanting time to yourself!  Jacob was nearby doing crafts at the table when Sabine cut her hair, and he's actually the one who alerted me to the fact that it was taking place.  So it's a toss-up as to whether or not I think he had anything to do with it.  Sabine definitely did it herself, I'm just not sure who originally thought up the idea.  But I'm trying to repress that idea because I wouldn't be able to live with Jacob if this was his doing.

Yeah, so anyway, she had braids in, and I didn't think there was that much damage, until we were getting her ready for bed that night.  She wanted her braids taken out; but literally, they came right out when I went to undo them.  The pictures of just hair below are her right (the bigger one) and left braids.  I held one to show the size, but the actual measurement was eight inches at the longest.

I took Sabine to get her hair 'fixed' at the salon, and so now she has official bangs, which I think are hard to pull off on a curly head of hair.  Zach and I don't like the bangs, so I try to pin them back and then do something else with the rest of her hair.  I part it on the left to even out the thinness of the right side. I can get it looking decent, it's just more involved now than simply brushing it.  Wait till summer comes though.  One word:  Humidity.

The pictures on the bottom with Ginger have nothing to do with her hair, they're just cute pictures where you can see the bangs, and I didn't have another place for them.

But I realize this is all relative, and in the scheme of things, it could be worse.  At least she's healthy.  And still cute.

 

Cast-Offs

Remember back in December when Jacob had a loose tooth and a cast on his leg at the same time?  I never followed up with that post, so I will now that I'm trying to get back into posting more regularly.  At the time I wrote about three big things happening in that one week.  I wrote about Jacob's tooth being the third thing, but it was really just a cover for my finding out I was pregnant.  Anyway, that's sort of the reason why I stopped posting, there hasn't been much time or energy to spend on the computer.

So here's some pictures of Jacob in his cast, and then a picture of him the day his tooth fell out.  His tooth did not fall out the same day as Christmas, but it did fall out the same day that he got his cast off.  So I thought that was kind of funny that both those things happened within a couple hours of each other.  I sent him off to school on a Monday morning with all of his teeth intact and then picked him up a few hours later to get his cast off, but there was no longer a loose tooth.

  

They Come in Threes

That's the line, right?  Things tend to come in threes?  Last week, in the course of 24 hours, three big things happened.  The last one isn't such a big deal though, unless you're a seven year old kid.

A week ago on Friday afternoon I was at a complete stop on our road waiting to cross a lane of traffic in order to take a left-hand turn into our own driveway.  There were several cars behind me who were also stopped, so I guess the jackass in the big pickup behind all those cars decided he didn't want to wait in the line of stopped traffic.  He pulled out into the left lane, facing oncoming traffic, and proceeded to pass the entire line of cars.  I began to take the left turn as he was passing me (but of course I didn't look behind me before I turned), and I didn't see him until just after he'd slammed my front left bumper and kept on going, swerving back into the right lane to avoid a head-on collision.  And kept on going.  And going.

I was in shock because I couldn't believe that someone had hit me, and in even more shock that he left the scene of the accident.  It took me a minute to remember what I was supposed to do, and then I realized oh yeah, call the police.  All I could do was describe the car, he'd been going too fast to catch the license plate, and no one else who stopped had gotten it either.

About 15 minutes later when Zach had gotten home, I was in the driveway showing him the damage when a saint disguised as an ordinary citizen pulled in the driveway and produced the license plate number of the pick-up who'd hit me.  He'd followed him about 4 miles down the road before catching up and getting close enough to read the plate.  Then he drove all the way back here to give us the best pre-Christmas gift ever.

With the license plate number the police were able to get the guy and slap him with a bunch of tickets.  He's 19, a local college student (everyone had said, oh it must have been a college student) from the school down the road, and was driving an unregistered vehicle not belonging to him.

Anyway, we're all ok, the kids were in the car with me, so it could have been much, much worse.  A few feet more and I might not be here, or Jacob, or Sabine, because I figure he was going about 50mph.  But MY KIDS WERE IN  THE CAR WITH ME.  I am so pissed that someone could, and would, do something like that.  We knew it was only a matter of time before one of those ass-hole drivers that we see on our road all the time would come to affect us personally.  Now we have a real incident to refer to when Jacob wants to know why he's not allowed to go in the front yard.  I'm surprised that I'm not more shaken up about what could have happened, but maybe all the other things going on have kept me too busy to think about it that much.

The same night as the car accident, Jacob was on the kitchen counter and decided to jump off onto the floor.  he landed with both feet, but flat-footed.  I think most everyone knows the difference between landing properly and landing with your whole foot like that.  The impact rushes up your whole body and shakes you, almost like getting the wind knocked out of you, but in a vertical way.  In the middle of the night is when he started crying about pain in his foot but we just assumed it was growing pains like he usually has.

The next day it was still hurting him, so we gave it another night and then brought him in for x-rays on Sunday.  They didn't find anything, but that night into the morning brought even more pain so we took him to see a specialist on Monday afternoon and it was decided that there was, in fact, a small break.  He's got a cast now and is getting along pretty well.

The last thing that happened is that over the weekend Jacob presented us with his usual, "I think I have a loose tooth," which is usually wishful thinking on his part, because he'd never had a loose tooth before, and had been desperate for one.  But when I stuck my finger into his mouth to feel it, I was totally grossed out by a definite wiggle in the bottom left toother! 

I actually feel like he got a little cheated on the loose tooth thing because he's been waiting for so long, and now it's kind of overshadowed by the cast.  Two childhood rites of passage at the same time! 

It was hard explaining to people what happened to Jacob's foot, that's the reason we eventually settled on the jumping-off-the-counter explanation, because as best we can figure that's when it happened?  But I almost wish I could use the car accident as the reason, it would be easier to explain why both these things just happened to occur on the same day.  And I've been privately joking with Jacob that the car accident must have shook him tooth loose.

Anyway, I remember the Christmas when I was seven, I was waiting for my two front teeth to grow in and I thought it was so cool that I could sing that song, All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.  Jacob keeps asking when his tooth is going to fall out; with his luck of late, I wouldn't be surprised if the tooth fairy and Santa Clause showed up on the same night.  I'll just make sure we don't leave the tooth anywhere near the cookies.  Santa would never forgive us if we accidentally fed him a lost tooth!

Day 84: There She Goes!

Even though this isn't a really great photo, it's still going to become a family classic. Right after my brother hit the ball that was the one a bunch of us headed out in three different boats to collect as many balls as we could. There's a significant sand bar in the middle of the lake, due to it being man-made so several of the balls we actually within reaching distance.

The ball my sister was reaching for, however, was not in reaching distance. So she just kept leaning further and further to her left in order to reach the ball, until the kayak tipped right over. You can see from this photo that she did, in fact, have success in getting the ball. I also love (in the photo I linked to) that look on my brother's face as he's laughing his ass off because that's what we do in my family, especially when it comes to my sister.

Also, I'll link to this photo because I think maybe it's the one my brother has been asking for?

PS - this post is a day late because we have no internet at the house right now, the hardwood floor project is still going on.

Day 71: The New Face of Back Woods IPA

I'm not clear on the entire story, but then again, I'm not clear on most of the things that happened on our trip. This (the missing tooth) happened before we got to Cape May, which accounts for why I don't have my facts straight. Apparently Richard was in the ocean when this happened? He either lost his bridge, or lost the tooth. Either way, they both came out and one was lost, the other he was able to save. But it doesn't matter...what matters is that Richard walked around all week like this and it was pretty funny.

He let me take this picture at one point and we had a lot of fun deciding that it would grace the label of a beer, and what the name of the beer would be. Classy, right? I'm pretty sure it's ok to be posting this picture, if not, it's a good thing I'm leaving town one more time.

The only thing that could be more funny, would be to hear how he originally lost that tooth way back before it fell out the first time, causing the need for a bridge in the first place...

day 53: This Little Piggy Got a Fracture

Zach's been doing This Little Piggy with Sabine a lot lately. It's cute, he has his own little twist on it, appropriate to our family, one of the piggies has a veggie burger instead of roast beef. Two nights ago Sabine was laying on Zach in bed with her feet up by his face and he was running through all the piggies and it's one of the cutest things to see. So the next day when Sabine was 'nursing' Baby Honey (see Day 50) I looked over to see she was also humming (because she doesn't talk yet) the tune of the piggy ditty while pinching Baby Honey's little tootsies.

I thought it was the cutest thing I have ever seen and that I might die of heart palpitations, and so I was rushing to get downstairs to grab a phone when I, ironically, injured my little piggy. I had to climb over the baby gate at the top of the stairs, which is not a problem, but since I had just cleaned the upstairs bathroom the day prior with a fine tooth comb (actually, it was q-tips) the hamper was still in the hallway and as my foot came down from it's arch over the baby gate, it slammed into the hamper.

I sat there on that top step yelping and whatnot for a good five minutes, and then got up and hobbled off to call Zach. I assumed it was like all the other time and I just had to buck up, but as the day went on my foot got more and more painful and kept turning a deeper shade of purple. Everyone agrees that means it's broken, but that there's really nothing you can do about it. Which is better really, because I don't have the time to make another appointment!

Anyway, the picture really doesn't do it justice, and I swear I'm not trying to be over dramatic, the only reason I put an arrow on my toe is because I couldn't get the damn camera to auto-focus on my toe so I think it needed a precise point upon which to focus. Today it is much darker and spread out, and it's the under side of my foot that is really gross looking.

And that is just one of the many job hazards of being a mother.

Day 51: Art Therapy

Drafting this post in my head earlier today, it felt like I could make it short and brief, but who am I kidding to think that brevity has any rightful place in my life? So buckle up, or hold on, because the description that goes with this photo may contain boringness and you may fall asleep and bang your head on the desk if you're not careful.

Today my therapist asked me if I could journal it. And I was already forming this idea in my head of what I wanted to do, so I told her I didn't think I could, I didn't want to put that kind of negativity into a book that I carry around with me every day. And now that I'm home, typing this, (I have yet to take the photo that I've got in mind, the right characters aren't available at the moment) I sort of understand why I've been experiencing a craving to take this picture. I'm feeling caught between different emotions, going back and forth between being really, really angry and then realizing in the scope of things, it's not that big of a deal.

So I asked the therapist if I should just try to forget about it since no resolution is likely to come of things. On the drive home it occurred to me that forgetting about it or wrestling with the anger aren't the only two options. I need to put it into some concrete form so I can wrap my hands around the experience and shove it into place. I just need to get a hold of it, find it a good home in my psyche and get on with things; things that I'm supposed to be doing, like packing for the beach vacation, mowing the lawn, cleaning all the dog beds and anything else that might have fleas on it.

So here is my attempt at Art Therapy. This is Zach in the Civic, asleep, with Sabine on his lap, grabbing the wheel, at a pretend rest area.

This is why we were at the rest area: We went to visit long, lost friends for a few hours in NYC on Sunday. We took every wrong turn that was possible getting out of the city and that is why at 1am Monday we were still traveling and not yet cozy in bed.

This is why I needed to take this photo: Because someone else at that rest area decided it looked funny and took a picture of this scene while I was inside getting coffee. Except I was already on my way out and was right behind her when the flash went off. She saw me, my brain registered what just happened, her brain registered that those funny people belonged to me, and she went running inside.

This is what happened next: I took a split second to look back at Zach and see what she'd been taking a picture of, then turned back around and yelled, "Hey! Did you just take a photo?" If the bitch would have stopped running I could have just said, "Would you mind deleting that, please?"

My yelling that to her woke Zach, who opened the door for me and I shoved the hot coffees into his hands. I grabbed Sabine because he didn't have any hands left, and yes, someone just took a picture of my baby so my protective instinct made me hold her to my heart. Zach asked what happened and I said, "She just took a picture of you!" When I said that out loud I realized what I had to do. Not because I am particularly brave, or because I have a tendency to stand up for myself, I am neither of those. But because I am damn stubborn and will be heard, but the bitch kept running, so she left me no choice. I still had Sabine in my arms so in I walked with her.

My sister doesn't think that I should have confronted someone with my child in tow (an actual CPS worker), but I seriously had no idea it would become a confrontation. The silly little girl was embarrassed and so she ran, once I met up with her I assumed she would delete the photo at my request. Also though, I was not going to leave Sabine in the car with Zach, who was just coming to.

I waited for her little black flip flopped feet to emerge from under the stall for a good five minutes. When she came out I politely said, "Excuse me, can I ask you a question?" When she ignored me I moved a little closer and started again, "Excuse me, did you just take a photo of my family?" But this time she didn't let me finish, she starting yelling at me very loudly, so that everyone would hear. "Did I take a picture of your baby?! Of course I did! You left your child alone in the car!" She started walking away from me, and I yelled back that I did not and that she was well aware of the fact that I didn't leave my child alone because she saw my husband in the car with her and that's why she took a picture. We were in the lobby by now and everyone was watching us because she was yelling louder.

At this point her 'male companion' (who I like to think of as Ass Hole Boyfriend) came along. A lot of this is a blur in my mind now because I was having such heightened emotions. But she kept yelling the same thing over and over again, and I was not backing down. I think she wanted to embarrass me, and normally I am VERY concerned with how I look to others, but I honestly didn't care because my outrage was so great. And I think that she was proceeding with such indignity, that other people could tell she was the antagonist in the situation. Things went on like this as we moved toward the door (because she wouldn't stand still and face it like a decent human), and that's when she thought up the idea to declare she works for CPS.

Not for a second did I actually believe she worked for Child Protective Services because that's just a stupid thing to say. But also, um, no, if your livelihood is based on caring about endangered children, then no, you don't take a photo and run away. You call the police. You wait for the police to get there, you proceed with the situation calmy. And even if you don't work for CPS and you are just a concerned human being, then you still call the police and alert them that a child is left alone in an automobile. And then, when that mother you're screaming at asks what county you work for, and to see your identification, you hand it over, as policy dictates. You don't let your Ass Hole Boyfriend then get into the mother's face (the mother who is holding a 20 lb toddler) and scream at her. In her face. 2 inches away from her baby's face.

And that's what really bothers me. You don't act like that in front of a child. Me - that's one thing. You don't do that around someone's baby. And I definitely hope you never, ever procreate because God help those children. And it also really bothers me that she couldn't just delete the photo. Seriously, that is all I wanted. Not because there's anything 'incriminating' in it or because I thought Zach's skin was a little off color, or maybe I thought she could have gotten a better angle. But my child was in that photo. I seriously can't get myself enough into her shoes to figure why she couldn't just be a normal human, why she had to react so offensively.

And I know it's not that big a deal that she took a photo of my kid. It's not. But it's her reaction to my request and the way they harassed me that is what makes me feel so violated. It's everything after the photo, not just the photo itself.

I realize there are far worse things that happen to people, like actual crimes that are committed, and I'm not trying to put myself on the level of that kind of violation. That's why I'm writing this, so that I can get it out of my system and get on it with it.

And so getting back to the part where I attempt to make light of the situation, infuse it with humor and make it concrete so that I can grab a hold of it and put it away: You may have taken the photo Stupid Bitch, but I stole it from you in the end. And when you look at the photo and post it to your facebook account, you''ll probably have to look at your ugly face lit up in my car window's reflection.

You peeled away with your Ass Hold Boyfriend, but I got your license plate number:

BWF-8673

Day 44: Eight Years

This isn't really the best picture of any of the kids, but it's cool because none of them are crying yet, and there's Camp in the background. You see, this was just before the shit hit the fan. We were in the row boat, me rowing and my sister in the front. Benny the bug-eyed dog was with us too. I snapped this photo just before my sister thought it would be a good idea to throw Benny overboard and see what he would do. (This isn't as cruel as it sounds, we in a man-made lake and there's a considerable sand bar smack dab in the middle of the lake).

Benny fared well for a couple minutes; he poked around the island, sniffed at some stuff floating on the surface of the lake. Then the wind came in with a huge gust and Jacob's precious Yankees hat flew off his head and into the water. He started crying for his hat, and so I started trying to row back to it, but the wind was killer and we were all laughing so I was experiencing the temporary loss of my abdominal muscles. With the sudden rise of emotions going on in the boat, Benny started to get freaked out that we were leaving him on the sand bar for good.

That's when Marisa starting bawling her eyes out because Benny had surpassed the point where he could touch bottom and was now swimming to the boat. Problem is, he's a abnormally-bred dog whose behavior doesn't really even resemble a dog - he's more of like a gremlin - and his breast stroke resembled someone drowning (not to mention his ever-bug-eyed look); hence Marisa crying: She thought he was going under.

Project Yankees Hat Recovery had to take a back seat to the dog and my sister and I were still laughing our butts off. Actually, she was peeing her pants (her words) and I was struggling to maintain my composure so that I could row the boat. And do you have any idea how hard it is to row a boat to a precise location while struggling against the wind and a boat full of hooligans? Sabine was the one laughing her butt off. She was cackling away, pointing at Benny, as if it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. And on either side of her were Jacob and Marisa, each screaming at me to save their precious belongings.

Anyway, the dog and hat are both safely back in their respective homes, and we all made it out alive without having to jump overboard. It is a nice memory, one I am recalling in honor of Marisa's eighth birthday (Today) because I was there when she was born, and I love her, despite the fact that she often makes me want to throw her out the window!

Day 38: Power Outage

We love power outages. And if you can guess what this drunk-looking toddler has to do with the power going out, then you win. Woohoo! Anyway, we really do love it when the power goes out because we get to do things that we'd never have the excuse to do in real life. Like, for instance, eat really mushy ice cream in bed at 10:30pm (or who knows, maybe it was even later, you don't know, your power is out!) from a cone, when normally, your parents would never-in-their-right-minds give you your own cone because you're only two and if they set the principle then you'll forever be wanting your own cone?

Yes, that's the kind of thing that happens when the power goes out.

And then in a flash, when the power goes back on and all the lights are like, "waaaaahhhh" in your face, suddenly everyone is laughing at you because they had no idea how you were faring over there on the other side of the bed with your first-ever-own-cone. And then you yourself realize what a mess you have become and stumble over to the other side of the bed for a long, cold drink of water to wash away the sticky, sugary taste in your mouth like there's no tomorrow.

Update on the corn

The trash goes out tonight. I am so excited to get rid of that rancking (I just made that word up) tub of nastiness . The garbage went out last week, which left the can empty for me to shove that bin in there. It just fit when I squeezed it in on its end, but to get anything else in the can, we have to lift the tub that held the corn out slightly above the lip of the garbage and shove whatever it is into the tub.

Even though it's out of sight now, it's still not out of mind. It was a real scorcher last week, we had one day that topped off at 99 degrees. The tub of rot was just sitting in there, turning into more rot. Remember, this is after the stuff has been dumped, it's just the empty tote bin now. When the Verizon tech came last Tuesday to fix our internet, she was in the vicinity of the garbage can so that when I went outside at one point to ask her if she needed me to do anything, I could smell it ten feet away and rushed over to move it. She said, "Oh, that's where the smell is coming from..I kept smelling myself hoping it wasn't me who stunk."

Also, one night when Zach was taking out a small bag of garbage, the kids and I were near the window that is closest to the big garbage can. We couldn't see him because it was dark, but we could hear him and for a minute I thought he was making spooky sounds to scare the kids, but then I realized he was gagging trying to get the bag into the garbage! I laughed my butt of for a good five minutes after that.

The only thing that could have been worse than puking from the smell of the that (which we have decided smells like actual puke) it if the mess of corn and mold and unidentified liquid had actually come in contact with our skin. I had a real close call on the day that I took the photos of it. Notice below that the lid is askew on top of the container. Well that's because I took the close-up photos first and then when I went to put the lid back on, not wanting to even touch the outside, I used my foot to try to slam the lid back in place. I was a little too forceful and as the corner of the lid went into the container, my foot slid and almost followed right into the corn! Before I realized that I'd made it away safely, I was envisioning pulling my bare, maggot-covered foot out with the accompanying pain of having your flesh eaten away at. I'm not sure how that little pail got on top of the lid. I may have thrown it as a knee-jerk reaction while I was screaming and running away; the kind of reaction you have when a monster is coming after you and you grab whatever meager implement you're holding in an effort to fend it off.

Not the first time this has happened

It's been in the nineties this week so, yeah, I've just been letting Sabine go around naked. Half the time because it's so hot I just don't care, the other half because it's so hot I don't have the energy to chase after and put clothes on her. Well she pooped on the floor today. I walked into the dining room and there she was - I don't know what she was trying to do, pick it up - with her hands covered in poop.

I scooped her up and with my arms fully extended, carried her to the bathroom, washed her hands three times, cleaned up her toosh and then handed her off to Zach. I went back to the dining room to clean up the mess and it was gone. In it's place were the dogs, looking very excited about the treat they'd just received.

The End (of the corn)

The End is the title of last night's episode of LOST. The Last Episode Ever. But I'm far too numb in that regard to ruminate on it here. I just needed to get that out of my system; this post is really about the corn.

Over a year ago we attended a birthday party for one of our little friends. We got to leave with a 50 lb. 'goody bag' of dried corn. Since then I'd kept it on the deck and used it as a texture bin for Sabine.










I left the bin on the deck for the winter, underneath something else protective, but at some point during the frigid winter the box cracked and water leaked in. I didn't know this until we went to use the corn for some project earlier this spring and saw that the bin was half full of water. I tried to salvage some of it but quickly realized most of the corn was green.

I've been doing my fair share of the yard work this year but the 50 lbs + whatever the water weighed was too much for me. Zach told me to leave the dirty job to him. He kept telling me he was going to do it, but then would forget. A couple months went by and we had a couple very hot streaks. Can you imagine what that crap would look like trapped inside a plastic bin in the hot, hot sun for weeks on end? Well, lucky for you I took a picture, so you don't have to imagine it.

Normally in a case like this I would have just kept on leaving it, but this past weekend I hosted the spring party for my moms' group. We had 14 families coming over, some of whom had never been here before. I couldn't go and let this be their first impression of my home. I would have called it my Third Annual Husband Experiment in any other circumstance, and I'm sort of sad that I didn't get to see where this would go, but at least that stank is out of my yard! Seriously, the smell was getting really bad. I couldn't open a couple windows on the back side of the house because when the wind blew the smell came right in. When I took the top off to take these photos I had to hold my breath, it was that bad. I thought it might be crawling with maggots and half expected it to take form and swallow me whole.

So Zach did fulfill his long-ago promise and he dumped it in the woods behind our neighbor's house where we always take our clean fill, though there's nothing clean about this fill. Anyway, I had had plans for that bin that it was in, but in the end there is only so much to the claim Plastic makes it possible. There was no saving that thing. After the garbage gets collected in a couple days I'm just going to toss it right in there - to hell with recycling. I don't want to be the cause of one of those recycling people to be rushed to the hospital.

How not to get sick

A few weeks ago, when we were nearing the end of February, I casually mentioned to Zach that winter was almost over and I couldn't wait until spring was here so I could officially say that we'd made it through without any of our household members being sick.

A few days later Zach came home with a cold. He blamed me, of course, for making the Sick Gods aware of our good fortune. I think he willed himself to get sick so that he could point out the error of my ways. A couple days after that Sabine was sick. Then, in the middle of one night, Jacob sat up in bed and threw up. I thought it was all over, the thing I feared most was coming to get us. The Stomach Flu. Apparently the once vomiting was enough penance for me to pay; he didn't throw up again. But then I got sick, just a cold, but a really nasty one that left me out of it for a week.

We were all good to go for a week or so after that point, until Friday afternoon when Jacob said his throat hurt really badly. His throat was red and angry for the rest of Friday, but he perked up with some medicine, so I thought maybe it was just a virus. Jacob's throat still hurt earlier today and when he started to cry about how badly it hurt, I took another peek. This time I saw the telltale white spots all over the place. By then the day was nearing a close, but I lucked out and found an urgent care in the area that was still open. We walked in with five minutes until they closed. The nurse swabbed his throat and said the culture started to turn blue the instant she tested it, which I guess means he was very, very positive for strep throat.

Four pharmacies later I found one open until 7pm and we had our Rx! It's only the second time Jacob's been on antibiotics, the first time being last year, for the same reason.

Anyway, the moral of the story: Eat raw garlic every chance you get (ideally one clove a day), take astragalus whenever you feel a cold coming on, or have been around others who are sick, and never, ever, EVER announce that you or your family just don't get sick.

Laws of Nature

I don't know what you want to call this; it's not really Murphy's Law, but maybe it is. When something like the following happens, I just mumble about the laws of nature...that's what I call it. For instance, all in a 24 hour span of time the other day three things happened. We'd been sleeping on a bed with no sheets for a few days, just a quilt layed over the mattress because I kept forgetting to put the clean, urine-free sheets back on the bed during the day. And then when it's late at night the last thing you want to do before you fall into bed is stand there and make the bed. Well of course the day I finally decided to do it, everything matching for once, hospital corners and all...that was the night that we were so tired that I crashed early on the couch with Sabine and Zach was too tired to check for a bed pad under Jacob. THAT was the night, the first night in a couple weeks, that Jacob wet the bed. Go figure.

But sheets aren't the only thing that get messed up around here. It was later that day that we were having some company over so I finally got around to clearing off the dining room table. It hadn't had a tablecloth on it since a couple months before when I just put it down five minutes before Jan brought over a pizza and someone spilled pizza sauce all over it. So on this night with the company, my mom helped me get the table cloth on and into place while Jamie stood there waiting to put down the tray with a half gallon of ice cream on it. As soon as we finished he dug in and don't you know the very first scoop of ice cream fell on the table just between his bowl and the tray I had in place to catch spills like that.

While my mom and Jamie were here that night, I gave Jamie the task of figuring out how to reset the clock on the VCR because it had been blank for several months and I never knew what time it was. He did reset it, only to have the power go out within a few hours and the time go blank again.

It was just that kind of day, I guess. I'm always looking for meaning in things like that. Was the Universe trying to tell me something? Just sleep in the dirty sheets, or don't put them back on to begin with? Maybe it wants me to stop eating ice cream?

Mango's eating disorder

So Mango ate my chocolate earlier in the week. First off, that bitch. No one messes with a woman and her chocolate. Secondly though, I had an interesting conversation with Beckie.

I had to call her and fess up that Mango had eaten some mildly important Playschool papers that I was going to give Beckie. Somehow that led Beckie to say, "You know I give Taz Pepcid, right?" No, I hadn't known that. And I hadn't even told her about the chocolate bar yet.

She explained the vet we both take our animals to had long ago recommended giving her dog, Taz, Pepcid. He doesn't get it every day, but I guess most days. I asked her if he recommends this for all dogs, or only some. She replied that it was specific to Taz's case because he was eating whatever crap that was laying around the house, was eating all day long, burped a lot, etc. I said, "Um, that's Mango to a T."

"Oh yeah, you've said that before, that it's like Mango has an eating disorder."

That's right she does, although my mom just called it Pica.

So I'd previously put two and two together about the missing chocolate and the throw up on the floor, but it hadn't yet occured to me about the paper that Mango has been eating all week. See, normally she'll pick off some random object if we've left the dogs home alone for too long. And usually only when we're away from the house, or if we've committed some particularly attrocious crime, according to dog mores. But every time I turned a corned this week there was some half-eaten paper laying on the ground.

I expressed my confusion (as to why all of a sudden she was doing this) aloud many times throughout the week. But not until I was on the phone with Beckie did I realize that dark chocolate is extremely acidic and by eating the paper Mango was probably trying to neutralize her stomach and alliviate the heartburn she must have been experiencing from eating Mama's sweets!

So I went to the store today to get Pepcid. I can't believe no one (Beckie nor the vet) ever mentioned that to me before, but it makes perfect sense. Mango took a dose today and I have left the house, we'll see the status when I get back.

Where's my chocolate?

I had this awesome chocolate bar I got from the co-op the other day. It was like $4, the kind you eat a tiny bit of each day over the course of the whole week. I accidentally left it next to the computer the other night when I was shutting it down so I could go to bed. The next morning I was looking for it so I could put it away but I couldn't find it.

Over the course of this week I've been searching everywhere, as well as asking Zach if he's seen it. Today I finally said to him that I couldn't find it and where could it possibly be? He told me one of the dogs probably ate it. I said no way, that they would be dead, or at the very least there would have been some trace of it, a bit of wrapper, or chocolate smudge somewhere. Zach then informed me that Mango had puked in the middle of the night and he had cleaned it up on Tuesday morning. He said it was brown and had foil in it.

There's my chocolate. This was had 85% cocoa content because why have chocolate if you're not going to have CHOCOLATE?

Mango's been acting berserk all week, eating papers mostly every time I leeave the house, even just the room sometimes. Anyway, isn't that much chocolate supposed to be really bad for dogs? How come Mango is still alive? She's indestructible.

There comes a time in your child's life....

....when you have to stop blogging about the embarrassing things that happen to them. You have to look deep inside yourself and decide that telling a good story is not worth the future humiliation that they may feel from finding out their lives have been on display for the whole world to read about. It is with this in mind that I that say the following - that time has not yet come!

And thank God Jacob finds it funny and doesn't care who I tell because this is just too gross to keep inside. So I am breaking my 2 1/2 week non-blogging streak (the longest ever - I just needed a break) to tell you this brief story.

Over the weekend Jacob was running around naked, like he often does. He had made a tunnel and was squatting down to crawl under it and, you know, accidentally pooped on the deck. Puts whole new meaning to the term 'poop deck'. I wasn't there to witness it, and actually didn't believe the 'accidental' nature of the whole incident, but Zach tells me he thinks it was truly unexpected.

So Zach started freaking out because he can't take things like that. "Pookie, you gotta get out here, I can't take this!" So I went out to see what was up and there were a couple of big chunks. I ran into the house to get a handful of kleenex and when I came back out Mango was standing over where the pile had been licking her lips. Needless to say, we've all had trouble stomaching our meals and Zach no longer lets Mango lick his face.

1 AM: A play-by-play

1:10 am: Zach wakes me, there's pee in the bed. A quick assessment is made on his part. He decides Jacob wet the bed. I, however, am covered in pee. So is Sabine. I wonder how the hell three humans are soaked in pee from only one bladder. I conclude that Sabine has also leaked through her (doubly-stuffed) diaper.

1:11 am: I'm only half aware of the things that are happening because as it is we've been asleep for a very short while. Sabine woke up from what turned out to be just a nap at 8pm. She was awake for the next three hours.

1:12 am: I somehow manage to open my eyes. Zach is going into action. It amazes me how good he has become at the middle-of-the-night routine. I used to be the one who was fully functional in the middle of the night. Ha. Something just struck me - though we are failing miserably in the bedtime routine area, we have gotten this 'wee hours of the morning' routine down pat.

1:14 am: Zach has escorted Jacob to the bathroom and I hear a stream hitting the toilet water. Check. I realize I am sitting up in bed and a new diaper has magically appeared at my side.

1:15 am: Zach and Jacob re-enter the bedroom. I'm still sort of coming to. Oh yeah, I am wet, and starting to get cold. We are arguing about who will change Sabine's diaper. I am wet with pee, and on this night Zach is not. I win.

1:16 am: I find a cold, wet washcloth hanging from the hamper in the bathroom. I don't care where it has come from or what it is wet with. I use it to wipe pee off my skin.

1:18 am: I've managed to change my clothes and Sabine is ready for me. She has a dry diaper on but no clothes. Zach has removed the two, count 'em, TWO bed covers that we keep on the bed so that 'accidents' may go there. Funny, there are still puddles in the bed when the covers are removed.

1:19 am: We question aloud how the hell pee got under the bed covers, then remember whose lives we are living and oh yeah it all makes sense. Why wouldn't that happen? Why bother with bed covers anyway.

1:20 am: I got to the bathroom the get a bath towel. Lay it over the giant pee puddle in the bed. Then lay on top of that. Grumble about how I JUST washed the sheets and hung them on the line to dry two days ago.

1:21 am: I commence nursing Sabine, Zach begins his first attempt at getting clothes on Jacob.

1:23 am: Jacob is sideways in bed, naked from the waste down, kicking and thrashing at Zach as if he's trying to kill him. Zach is repeatedly attempting to put underwear on Jacob.

1:24 am: Jacob has underwear on and Zach throws the jammie pants across the room. Fuck it we both agree.

1:25 am: Lights Out.

Murphy's Law in action

My life continues to live up to my blog name. Constantly. Tonight Zach went to a party for a guy he knows who's getting married. I was ever so happy to let him go and was positive I'd be able to get the kids to bed myself and would have everything under control. Not so.

The first couple hours went well except for the fact that the kids were still awake. At 8:45 everyone was hungry and still awake. I put Sabine in the high chair and started feeding her tiny, tiny shreds of pretzel, which is what Jacob was having (except bigger pieces). Then I gave her a peeled grape in the Baby Safe Feeder. This two food items were new and I knew I was taking a risk because I am one of those people who feeds the baby only cooked, mushed and approved (meaning they were given on three consecutive days and proven not to be allergenic to Sabine) foods. She downed the food and then started choking. I pulled her out of the chair and with a little help from gravity she threw up the contents of her stomach. Then she threw up the contents of her stomach again on another part of the kitchen floor.

Fun times.

I decided it was definitely time to get her to sleep so I put her on the couch (because we don't have a changing table) pulled off her diaper and started stuffing the new one (note to self: must remember to have diaper stuffed and ready to go before pulling off old one).

Let me interject to say that yesterday I finally cashed in on my Christmas present from my mom: Professional carpet and couch cleaning. The couch and the nice rug in the living room got cleaned. No more food on the couch and no more dogs on the rug. Just a few hours ago I decided the cushions surely were dry and I pushed them back into place.

Can you see where I'm going here? Sabine flips her little body through the air and stands there looking out the window, tapping on it making noise while I'm fumbling with the diaper. Then she makes another kind of noise and I realize she's peeing on the couch. The nice, CLEAN couch! I mean seriously? It just got cleaned! She managed to hit four separate cushions at once because of the place she happened to be standing. Oh the talent.

Oh, and can I also complain about this regularly scheduled napping thing? It's been a couple weeks now where Sabine has been taking these 'regular' naps. It's nice, about 10am she sleeps, maybe for an hour or so. Then again in the afternoon, I couldn't tell you what time though, maybe 2pm. Today, we were at Jacob's T-ball game and Sabine fell asleep at the regular time but when I went to put her in her carseat ten minutes later, she woke up. The 10 minutes was just enough to take the tired out of her so that she wouldn't go back to sleep in the car or when we got home. She didn't go to sleep until after 12pm, which would have been ok if she could have slept for a few hours, but we had to leave the house around 1:30 to meet the guy from Craigslist with the bike for Jacob. So that was a big dilemma. Even though her nap was only an hour I thought she'd stay awake the rest of the day because it was already the afternoon. Not so. She fell asleep around 4pm. That screwed uo bedtime which ended up beingba 10pm thing. So my question is, how do you implement regular naps without being a slave to the clock?