(Semi) Wordless Wednesday - Better Than Toys

I’ve been trying like crazy for the past several days to eliminate the excessive amount of crap my children own. Unfortunately every time I try to banish one of their condemned toys to the “donate” box, said receptacle has been commandeered for less practical purposes. My five year old actually fits quite comfortably with room enough for his little brother to squeeze in. I might have to make an executive decision and save the box in the garage, should that fabled day ever arrive when I finally take action and ship my little band of miscreants to the circus. I can pack at least two of them in happily and still have room left for snacks.

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When It Rains It Pours…Vomit

If I had a puke umbrella, it would have seen quite a bit of use the past few days.

Saturday, my five-year-old son, who I had assumed was over the worst of his (0ur) flu, began throwing up. He was lethargic on and off all day between bouts of vomiting. I was sure he would be too sick to attend school (thus successfully ruining my dreams of a mostly empty house) but by Monday, he was absolutely fine despite his assurances that *koff, koff, groan, groan* he was still very ill.

I can spot a faker when I see one…he is number three in a family of quite dramatically gifted children.

But yesterday the other shoe fell, and my toddler, my sweet hellion of a child, proceeded to throw up on or near my person a whopping total of five times. There’s only so much barf a mother can get on herself before she starts to take it personally, before she begins to think it’s some sort of gross conspiracy designed with the sole purpose of breaking her spirit…

So of course, it being a weekday, we whisked our sick little cherub to the pediatrician’s where he quickly diagnosed him with nothing other than some irritating bug that will eventually run its course.

Well, duh.

Also, we should not feed our baby dairy, or soy, or anything that he normally eats.

In case you have never met a toddler, let me fill you in. There is no reasoning with a two-year-old. Their language is limited, their patience is nil, and their capacity for shrieking is otherworldly.

Now, say a sibling pulls out a bag of Cheetos and starts munching away in said toddler’s vicinity. The results, my friends, are EXPLOSIVE. Perhaps not nuclear, but pretty darn destructive in their own right. I won’t even touch the powdered donut fiasco.

Another down-side…and you responsible parents might want to cover your ears eyes for this next segment. My toddler, my two-year-old child, falls asleep every night happily sucking on a bottle of soy milk. Without the bottle, there is no bedtime routine, he will not put his sweet little head on his pillow without that silicone nipple propped in his mouth.

This is going to require some improvisation, as well as creativity I doubt I can muster after the night we had. Let’s just say said throw-uppy baby ended up in his parent’s bed, his little boy feet pressed alternately against his mother’s ribs, her spine and her neck. I’ve got muscle aches places I didn’t even know there was muscle tissue.

Hopefully we’re seeing the tail end of this thing, this ongoing plague. Even still, I think that puke umbrella is a good investment.

You’d buy one, wouldn’t  you?

In The Breakdown Lane - HASAY Update

Curious as to what HASAY is and what Casey’s club can do for you…go there.

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If I am to consider my recent fitness efforts a journey of sorts, then for the last three weeks I’ve been off the shoulder with four flats and a smoking transmission, if you get too close you might even smell gasoline. My body has not seen a lick of exercise since early December. My Jillian Michaels DVD has quietly gathered dust atop my entertainment center and the only thing I ventured to shred were potatoes and cheese.

I suppose the fact that I’ve been eating like a ten-year-old hasn’t helped my cause much either. The chips, the cookies, the ice-cream, the pie, have all contributed to the discomfort I feel when I try to button my pants. I actually spent the better part of Christmas day with my jeans unfastened…fly unzipped all the way down to accomodate my expanding waist line.

Then there’s all that coughing I’ve been doing.

And all my kids that have been spewing.

How through it all I’ve just been chewing,

chewing,

chewing.

Full of excuses aren’t I? At least you got a nice little rhyme out of it.

Yet tomorrow is a new day, a new week, the real start of the new year.

I will eat like a grown up should.

I will take my vitamins.

I will embark on some form of exercise daily.

I’ve got four new tires, a sparkly new transmission, and an engine that’s revving to go.

January’s my month, I can feel it. My jeans will fit me…oh, yes. They will.

Hello New Year, Sorry I’m Late - Spin Cycle

Seems a little odd to ring in the new year the second of January, but we at the Bear house scoff at tradition, especially considering the difficulty we had putting 2008 out on its crummy keister. That ill-tempered house guest simply would not vacate the premises, luckily we had inevitability on our side, phooey on you old man last year, and 09 was at last granted access.

Currently I’m only an hour out of my pajamas. I’ve spent the day cleaning and folding laundry and feeling at odds with the calendar and the clock. It’s one of the unwanted side-effects of winter breaks, or any recess from school for that matter. Routine goes out the window, along with the better part of my sanity because without our rigorous schedule it seems the days simply lose their identity. Saturday, Monday, Friday, they all meld in to a single indecipherable string of day and night and accidental meals. With no where to go, no timetable to adhere to, we’re all pretty much doomed to loaf and constantly inquire of each other what day it is or what hour has passed.

Technically I know it’s 2009. On paper we’ve just gotten a year closer to ending the decade, scary in and of itself. Yet, here in the house, while the holiday break finally draws to a close, it’s not a new year until Monday January fifth, when the kids (barring any re-infections) at last go back to school. And while the mornings will pose their own set of difficulties it will be nice to have 75% of my children out of the house…and me out of my pajamas before dinner time.

So as far as resolutions go, they’ve got zero chance of accomplishment before Monday. I’ve never gone so far as to commit these ambitions to writing, seems too much like setting myself up for ridicule, particularly if the goals are overly specific - meaning deadlines, diagrams, pie charts - but then again I’ve never had a blog to broadcast them on.

Suffice to say, I want some things to be different, I want others to stay the same, I want less of some things and more of others. I want to change the things I can control, I want to accept the screwed up things beyond my power, and of course I want to keep my sense of humor at all times. Because laughing is therapy and it keeps the sanity in tight reign.

Because 09 will be the year I giggle and grin and guffaw and hopefully find the inspiration to write that breakout novel that will fund an addition for our tiny house brimming with children.

I can dream, can’t I?

Wishing you all lots of laughs in 2009. Happy New Year, in case I forgot to mention it…

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For some real resolutions visit the Spin Cycle , brought to you courtesy of Sprite’s Keeper .

Viruses Are Made for Spreading

It never fails.

When mom is sick and in dire need of some TLC, 24 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and perhaps a near lethal dose of Nyquil, the crap will inevitably hit the fan.

Currently our household is afflicted with the plague. At some point our borders were breached by some kind of uber-virus camouflaged as a runny nose. In a house with four kids, the cross-contamination is a given. That runny nose was passed on from one child to another, from that child to their mother, mother to father and back again, until everyone, everyone was seeping mucous. Harmless enough, right? What’s a little cold among family members?

Except instead of clearing up, it’s getting worse.

Yay!

Think puke, think ear infections, think orange tinged drainage. I’m coughing up solid chunks of something that could possibly be lung. Trust me when I tell you, it’s hard to sleep when you’re hacking up organs, when the offspring are waking up covered in last night’s dinner.

Is it no wonder I’m so anxious to leave 2008 behind?

I’m ready to hit that big reset button. Start fresh in 09 minus the infections and whining and drama.  That’s an option right, to shed the grossness and wake up cleansed, rejuvenated, ready to tackle anything except more of the same phlegm covered same?

Please tell me that’s an option.

To all of you healthy people out there, bring in the New Year with a delicious bang.

For the rest of us, just think reset button.

Cuz I’m Sick - koff koff sniffle sniffle - HASAY Update

Casey tells me this is week 10 of Club HASAY.

I’ll have to take her word for it, since the month of December has left me feeling like I’ve stumbled in to some kind of vortex where time is completely irrelevant. Days feel like weeks, weeks like months that feel like years. It’s like I’m carrying an extra decade on my face. Surely that can’t be flattering.

So if a simple calendar puzzles me beyond belief, should I really be expected to count calories? Cut carbs? Blast my abs with a cardio workout?

The answer is nay. NAY I say.

I haven’t exercised. I haven’t dieted in…since…let’s just say a while.

Due to the emotional nature of the crisis I recently experienced, I waffled from no eating at all to binging on Christmas cookies to subsisting on Hot Fries and Green Tea. An unhealthy dietary regimen the consequences of which I am currently reaping.

I am sick. koff koff. With the flu. sniffle sniffle.

All joking aside, I feel like garbage. That got hit by a semi. Then trampled by a herd of Spanish bulls. Then slammed by a freight train. Hauling garbage.

There’s no way I’ll be facing Jillian Michaels in my condition.

The only squat thrusts I’ll be doing will be…okay no, I won’t be doing any squat thrusts for a while. At least until my nose stops whistling and my man voice disappears. Instead I’ll be drinking fluids, taking my vitamin C and various OTC meds and longing for the day I’ll be able to hop back on that HASAY wagon.

This week though, the wagon passed me by, while I waved half-heartedly and blew my chaffed nose in to a hanky.

A Hitchcock Christmas

Honestly, I didn’t have very high expectations for this year’s Christmas. I mean, the kids always do well thanks to “Santa” and all their too- generous relatives who believe there can’t be a holiday without giant sacks of unnecessary overpriced battery operated crap.

The kids are always satisfied (much to the dismay of my overworked fingers that end the day in arthritic knots from untangling scads of packaging twist ties and severely bloodied from all the third degree cardboard cuts.)

This year most of the adults in our family opted not to exchange gifts for a variety of reasons, among them financial and practical arguments against spending unnecessarily. Some people however could not be persuaded to quash their giving natures and chose to bestow presents upon my husband and I against our will. We struggled against them, but alas they were too persistent.

My favorite among the pleasant boxes of PJs and chocolates I received was a collectible Barbie. No, I am most definitely not a fan of the doll, nor do I collect things of that nature. This particular Barbie, however, was special. To know why, you’d have to understand that 1) I have always had a lingering love for all things dark and morbid 2) I’ve been a fan of The Birds since I was about eight years old.

Yep, I mean Hitchcock’s birds. The ones that inspired this:

Excuse the weird reflection, she is, of course, still in the box she came in, propped up on my dresser and  looking slightly aloof. Here, look closer…

Not exactly the expression I would’ve expected from a woman under assault by flocks of homicidal birds. More like she’s trying on a feathered hat she’s not sure goes well with her outfit, never mind the crow perched on her shoulder, or the one clinging to her skirt, obviously going for her femoral artery. You’d think the folks at Mattel would have opted for at least a scowl, or a grimace, instead she looks almost serene - completely resigned to the fact the birds are about to peck her eyes out.

I. Love. It. I really do.

The icing on the fruit cake was this bumper sticker from my husband, who after 15 years knows me pretty well.

Cause nothing says Christmas like zombies and birds out for blood.

The Topper

At some point last week, we managed to put the tree up. Because regardless of whatever personal crisis the adults in the vicinity are fielding, the kids in the house need a tree.

They. Need. It.

They will ask every day when they can pick one. When it will be brought home. When they can decorate it.They wonder aloud how Santa will be able to bring them gifts if the house is bereft of a dolled up Frasier fir. They wonder if Christmas can even arrive without a tree standing guard in the center of the living room, blinking, glowing, exuding holiday cheer.

So at some point we caved and bought a tree.

Talk about excitement. Talk about glee.

I strung up the lights, the kids were responsible for the decorations. Multi-colored balls, plush bears, school crafted ornaments. All pepper the tree in a haphazard, uncoordinated, manic way that my children love.

And at the top is this lady…

Hold on, that picture doesn’t do her justice, you need to see her in all her fiber-optic glory…although this one doesn’t really give you the full, pulsating light effect.

This is our angel tree topper. A gift of Christmas past bestowed on me by my mother-in-law who thought she was simply a ceramic doll. When our Winnie the Pooh carousel topper quit spinning, I opted to put this glowing ceramic vision at the tree’s apex. Now I lovingly refer to her as the Vegas showgirl angel, which is where I think she moonlights when I unplug the power cord and head off to bed. The wild coiling blond extensions, the heavily made up bedroom eyes, the glitz on her seemingly austere robes. What other conclusion could I come to?

Now Christmas can arrive.

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I also want to take a moment to thank all of you who have stopped by with warm thoughts and well wishes since my last post. While we’re still dealing with some…er stuff, all your kind words are truly, truly appreciated.

Thank you.

Please Leave a Message After the Tone…Beep

Sorry no one is here to answer your call.

It’s nothing personal.

Currently I am experiencing a familial crisis of sorts and while I’m not really ready to go into a lengthy, detailed post about it just yet, the entire ordeal has adversely affected my blogging abilities. How I long for the days when I was only having anxiety over the holidays. Added to that are a whole slew of other concerns - worries and annoyances that are seriously sapping my strength both physically and emotionally.

I offer my apologies for not being able to read your latest posts, or comment on all the wonderful and amusing anecdotes you all are no doubt producing. I am missing the blogosphere (more than a little bit) and I hope to return as soon as I can. I will try to post as often as I’m able and hope you will all keep checking back, but for now please forgive my sporadic attendance and the fact that I’m not able to return your calls visits as often as I’d like.

I have a guest post up at Casey’s blog today, due to her son Graham’s recent surgical trifecta. They’ve had a rough patch recently with the slew of ear infections plaguing the house. You guys are welcome to visit me there. Stop by and wish them a speedy recover, and a good night’s sleep, cause that girl needs one in a bad way.

Don’t we all.

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Birthday to Me

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