Self Quaratine

I wanted to go out today, I really did. I wanted to take Maggie to speech, and then let her have a play date at Duyah's house while she and I lamented over Organic something or other, and let loose our stresses and medication woes, and the fact that Spring wants to be here, it really does, but there seems to be some giant elastic band holding it back, back, back, readying it for a final release into Chicago.

I really did.

I wanted to take Neighbor Kate over some sour cream in exchange for the beef stock, both of which she has borrowed, cause I'm nice like that, so we could take turns telling her dog to shut up, and be interrupted mid sentence repeatedly by kids needing something now.

I wanted to run over to Emma's school and pick her up and bring her home so I could check her head myself. I wanted to make Maggie sit still for an hour so I could comb through every.single.inch of her hair (which would take forever, thanks, Nunn Bee) and look for nits and bugs.

But instead, I sit here and quarantine my kids into oblivion because I don't want to be that mom. You know, the one where she thinks her kids are immune to the bugs, sends them on their merry way, and sure enough, a week later, lice kids start popping up all over the place. I'm not doing that. I've worked in enough salons, and enough hospitals, to know how fast things can spread. Lice isn't something I want to tango with. Salsa, maybe. Tango, no way.

So tonight, those kids, which so far appear to be nit free, are not leaving the house. I'm vacuuming every inch of everything, and they're all taking baths tonight whether it's been a day or three days. Wash, wash, wash. Scrub scrub scrub.

Not The Roofing Kind

People. Can I have your attention please?

Now, we all know that I have been going through an extremely, uh, bumpy patch the last few weeks, right? Right. Okay. Well, it has lightened enough that I can now function semi-normally. I'm sure this has nothing to do with the meds, and everything to do with the fact that my MIL has sworn on her life that she will indeed call me every.single.night until I am better. It's working. Don't take that like I don't like her calling or that I don't like her in general. I love my MIL. I love love love her to death. I think sometimes I married SugarDaddy just so she could be my MIL.

Well, after our trip to the Dells, I started feeling kinda funny. Not "Ha ha" funny like normal, that is still wwwaaaayyy off down the recovery road, but funny like my skin kinda itched and tickled, but I couldn't put my finger on it exactly.

Sunday night, enter the rash of doom. Covered. Head to toe. Itched like a mad hoss too. But then it went away, and all was better in Keliland.

Monday arrives, and arms, owie. Upper arm, left side, major owie. And bumps. And pus. And eeewww! I start popping Benadryl like candy, but no relief. It was then I knew what it was.

So I head to the doc, and then to the pharmacy, wherein they fill my brand new RX for Valtrex.
Go on, click the link. Before I go on, and to make this post that much funnier, click the dang link.

Clicked? Okay.

Turns out there's a new herpes in town. Valtrex treats my kind of herpes as well as the genital kind, so don't go getting no idears or anything.

Shingles. Good for roofing, bad for people.

She Seems Harmless

Last night was a strange night. First of all, with 1 PM church time, I don't get my usual Sunday nap in anymore, and that just puts me in a strange mood to begin with. But after church, and a delicious meal of Laura's chicken enchiladas, we settled in for a view of Amazing Race. As I hunkered down under the blankets, I got that no so fresh feeling. Ewww. I hate that. So up to bed I went. I tossed and turned most of the night, trying at first not to throw up, and then trying to get myself to throw up just so I could feel better.

Nothing happened. Except a very strange dream.

I sat observing a preschool class, in which 3 of my own children were enrolled. The class instructor was very strict, and as I observed, I found myself needing to step in to help control her very bad temper. She was a beautiful teacher, long blond hair, and the cutest little lisp. She had on very fancy jewelry, and wore stunning pointy toe shoes. But still, despite her good looks, she was mean.

At one point, my Sister-In-Law arrives with her 3 kids, drops them in the classroom and heads out on her merry way, none the wiser to our harsh teacher's antics. I stayed, and felt I needed to protect my kids from her.

Finally, just as class was ending, the teacher turned to me, and I recognized her face instantly. She told me she couldn't deal with my kids anymore, and she was certain their lives would be screwed up forever because of my bad parenting skills. She actually used the words "screwed up", which surprised me, even in my dream state, because she is so eloquent with language, that I felt she could have found better words. And I don't see her as the "screwed" using type in her real life, even though I don't know her in real life.

But as she stormed out of the classroom in a huff of arrogance, she turned to me and lowered down to face me where I was sitting. She was so close I could smell her toothpaste. As she was about to say some other mean snarky comment, I took my right hand and POW! I punched her square in the eye. She stumbled back, and came back at me with a force that shoved me over in my chair. She straddled on top of me, and began pummeling me with her fists.

All the while, I lay there taking the punches, thinking to myself, "why on earth is CJane punching me?"

She seems so sweet. I've never gotten the abusive vibe from her at all. I mean, she took in her nieces and nephew with nary a days notice, and fed and clothed them for months just out of the goodness of her heart. And yet, here she is, punching me in the face. It was shocking, really.

But then I was startled awake by the 2 AM screams from Gretta, apparently she was having a scary dream, too.

So CJane, I know we don't know each other, but if you could please remember that when you're teaching my kid(s) in preschool, don't start punching me in the face for being a bad mom. I beat myself up enough for both of us.

Germy Fungus

While I shopped and shopped yesterday, I had my kid in the cart. She was sitting so quietly while I perused the wall of ribbons, looking for that one perfect design. I took my sweet time. Upon turning around, I see her sucking on the handle of the shopping cart. Sucking on it. Like a newborn sucks on a binky.

I don't consider myself a germ freak by any means, but I do know the facts. Like, the fact that most people don't wash their hands properly, if at all (BLECH!) after using the bathroom. And then those filthy hands find their way, along with their hitch hiking germs, onto various surfaces. Like door knobs, and telephones, and yes, even grocery cart handlebars.

And now my kid has sucked it clean.

Needless to say, she woke up with a wicked cough. I hope that's all it is. I'm worried about seeing a rash, or sores, or worse! Especially since I know of 2 people whose babies have come down with MRSA.

Let's hope she recovers quickly, and that I won't become that mom who sanitizes everything and won't let her kids touch other kids toys and such. Yeah, like that would happen.

At Least It's Clean

Yesterday started out like most days. Up and at em bright and early. Emma off to school, Maggie awake and dressed in her standard outfit consisting of a Hannah Montana shirt, jeans, and the puffy pink skirt over the top of the jeans, all of this topped off with sparkly pink shoes. She is all girl. And Gretta being her silly self carrying around 13 binkies and her milk. We headed over to the local Starbucks to meet up with some friends and get "coffee", which is code for Hazelnut Hot Cocoa. Mmm. I chatted up the ladies while the kids sufficiently destroyed the table and chairs with donut pieces and spilled milk. Eh, we'll just leave a tip, no biggie. After I had my fill of funny stories and gross sex talk, it was time to head off to Maggie's dance class. She danced her little butt off. Gretta got her white-girl groove on, too, and it was hilarious.

So we head home. I've decided that on the way, a trip to Linens N Things is in order, to take advantage of their misfortune of going out of business and scoring an electric blanket for cheap. Sounds good, right? Yeah. So I'm heading along, minding my business and listening to Cathy and Judy's Sex Thursday talk show, when I approach the turn off for my street. Should I continue to LNT, or should I head home and put Gretta to bed? Hmm. If only there was a way for this decision to be made for me. If only.

Then suddenly, "Waaahh, baaarrrfff." Gretta has spewed all over in her car seat. Decision made. I turn up the street and head home as fast as I can. She continues barfing in her seat, not really crying, mostly just saying "Eeewww", and looking at her slime covered hands. We whip into the driveway, I pull her out of the van, and strip her down naked on the grass. Mind you, it's 30 degrees outside. But I'm not taking any chances of having my van smell like rotten milk, as I was doomed to drive around a Jeep that smelled that way all summer. My bad. But I digress.

I pop G in the tub, and start the mind numbing task of disassembling the damn car seat. Does that remind you of the movie Short Circuit? "No disassemble, no disassemble! Number 5, alive!" That movie reminds me of Meg for some reason. And again, I digress.

What the heck is with those car seats? I mean really. I understand the need for safety and all that good stuff, but who hasn't had their kid puke in the car seat, and needed to rip it apart STAT? You'd think they would make them a little easier to get apart for washing and sanitizing and such. This is the second time in 5 months I've had this kid puke in her car seat. I should be a pro at this by now. I'm not. So now I have a clean, sanitized, taken apart car seat in my dryer. Sugar Daddy is out of town, and this time I don't have an identical model to copy like I did last time. What's a girl to do? I guess I'll stay home and take care of business here. Or I could attempt to put it back together. But at least it's clean.

Again I Say

You might remember a little while ago I posted about a booger being stuck to my mouse. And it wasn't mine. I swear.

Well, it has happened again. Only this time it wasn't on my mouse. It was suck on the closet doors in my entry way. Nice.

I guess this is what happens when 2 kids have runny/stuffy noses, and the other one just has a special affinity for picking hers. And 1 of the 2 kids has croup, and the other one of the 2 kids has an ear infection. How lucky are we? Just in time to pass it all through the family for our trip to Utah. Yippee.

And today, after hearing of a friends passing from cancer, I miss my mom. I hate knowing what they are in store for over the next few months. It makes my heart hurt.

Dang You Darci

A few weeks back, my loving cuz Darci from L-to-the-V blogged about her sweet kid pooping in the bathtub. You will want to scroll down a little bit to see the comments section. Go ahead, scroll. I'll wait. I'm waiting.








Did you see what I said? Yes, my kids had only ever done this once. Note that I said kids. With an S.

Until recently. Gretta has taken it upon herself to poop in the tub 4 more times since I wrote that comment.

Murphy's Law? Probably. Sick irony. Yep. For sure.

Possibly TMI

There are few things that can remain sacred after 11 years of marriage, and 3 children. You know what I mean. Of course the marriage itself is sacred, but there is a loss of privacy boundaries that just naturally occurs. It's a comfort thing really. It's not a bad thing. Well, at least not all the time.

But sometimes things happen that should have remained private. Like as in remained private forever. And ever.

Yesterday, a new level of "comfort" took place. It certainly wasn't comfortable for me, but it was for Sugar Daddy, and I'm not sure I'm okay with that.

He went, you know, with the door open! Like as in OPEN! While I was a mere 3 feet away! There aren't enough exclamation points to express my utter disgust. But as he was mid, well, whatever, he said, and I quote, "At least this gives you something to blog about."

Yes. Yes it did. And um, thanks, I guess.

I Haz Skillz

If you thought that my skills were limited to, say, crafting, blogging and word craft, you are sadly mistaken. It seems I have a new title under my belt. One that I'm not sure I should tout, but what the Heck, why not?

Thanks, Kate.