sick summer

The baby oh that sweet little baby.

He woke up today, ate grapes and promptly threw them up.

His fever was nearing 102. He was on fire.

So you know who we call in these cases of emergency......? Of course, our friends Anthony, Greg, Jeff and Murray. Oh the Wiggles, how I love them.

At one point when the baby stood up to tell Jeff to wake up, in a language that only he can understand. I noticed the little fella looked a little chubby and perhaps a little older. Now, I come from a paternal line of folks that wear their double and triple chins with ease, but his look is at least 30 years premature.

But like a gramma with a goiter, this boy had a neck a-swellin something fierce. It was only on the left size and when the call nurse asked me for the size and gave me options of a pea, a cherry or a peach pit. I told her perhaps a can of peaches was more like it.

Well a trip to urgent care *because my kids don't get sick Mon-Fri 9a-5p* turns out that the little fella has strep throat. It just so happens I had strep a couple weeks ago.

Tonight as we wound up the day, Q said he hoped the baby didn't get sicker than he already was. I agreed. That's what happens sometimes, he said, people get sicker and sicker and sicker and sicker and then they die, right mama?

Right, Q.

"Is that what happend to Obachan (grandma)?"

Yup.

"She must not have washed her hands."

what a summer

It started out as a joke.
My kids will go to every bible school available this summer, I thought as I headed into the summer months, thinking of the three hours a day of free supervised childcare. Heck they'll even do Hispanic VBS. ha ha. Nevermind they don't speak Spanish.

Well.....guess what we are doing this week?! Yep Hispanic VBS.

monkey matters

Oh how I felt for this gorilla. "I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL!" I yelled as I pounded at her through the glass.

At one point, this gal had two small babies clinging on to her. One on her back and one on her leg. This little guy on her leg never let go the entire time we watched her.

My little cling-ons are 1, 4 and 7 years-old.

The 7 year old doesn't cling as much as he used to, but the two younger ones are always on me.

"Oh Mama, you are the best person in the whole wide world. There is nobody better than you," my Mama's boy Q tells me with a serious wrinkled brow.

For now I'll take what I can get.

i wonder why i'm tired

My day is almost done. The boys are in bed. That is where I want to be too.

I know that this is the time of day I should get everything done I couldn't do while they were awake, but I just want to sit and stare at the wall. I know that I operate in survival mode most days.

I figured out part of my overeating is an extension of my survival. I eat while I can, all I can because I might not be able to later. But I do later, though maybe not when I want to or what I want to. I eat everything I prepare for these guys. Which by the way is three meals and two snacks, but not always at the same time. And then I eat my regular stuff. I eat while the eatin is good, because oh I don't know, perhaps the end of the world is near and I'll have to live off my fat stores.

And then I'm tired. So tired. I don't know how to shake it. The baby actually sleeps through the night, which means I get anywhere from 6-8 hours of sleep.

I know. Excercise. The healer of all that ails. I excercise. On a semi-regular basis. I have to tell you about the Korean Nazi personal trainer at the YMCA, but I'll save that for another time. I think I need to sleep.

Oh the guilt

Today, my friend took the boys in the morning. I ran some errands sans enfant.

Home, lunch, to the pool.....

By 3 or 4 in the afternoon, I was wondering what I had to do to get them out of my hair again.

These are my little blessings from God right? Oh how I longed to run away from those three little Godly gifts. My hunka works overnights and insists on sleeping during the day and leave me to fend for myself with them.

And then it sets in, the guilt. Oh, the mama guilt. These are my sweet children that I labored for. So sweet, so formative, so wanted so...so maddening.

So I packed them up in the van, which around here takes about 1/2 an hour, and headed to the YMCA. I toke them all to the childcare rooms and then sat and read for about 30 minutes before I did a workout.

So great and yet so guilty. Technically, I shouldn't need the break since my pal took them for three hours in the morning.

Oh well, the day is done. No harm done, as far as I can tell. They'll just have to send me their therapists' bill in 20 years.

Happy Fourth of July 2007

So the baby takes off his diaper, right. Remember how I said I've resorted to duct taping the little guy into those diapers. Somehow the little Houdini has figured yet another way around my tactics. The past two mornings I went into find piles in the crib. Last night I taped him into his diaper around the waist twice and then down through and around the legs a few times. This morning I woke and ran in as soon as I heard him, in hopes of catching him before he had the chance to squat.

nothing.

So I wait all day for this child to relieve himself.

nothing.

This is what has become of me.

As I taught my eldest how to shovel doogie -doo from the back yard, I thought this is what it comes down to for me. poop. poop and more poop

Then as I scooped the cat box later that day I thought, again, poop. Really when the little blessings in my life are able to dispose of their own excrement in a proper and sanitary manner, this is when my life becomes easier.

Happy 4th of July.