When it rains

I get hit with cats and dogs and step in a few poodles.
Yes, I am being cheezy, but there's not much more to say.
We've hit another wall, a new snaffu, another delay in resuming that path our lives were once on.
If we don't get back on that path soon, we won't be able to find it for the overgrown and grass.
Maybe we're not supposed t resume that path. I don't know. But right now it seems fairly idyllic when compared to our current trail, which is full of worries, budgets, and blasted sticker burrs.
Whatever the future holds, i just wish we could start moving forward instead of inching our way along, wondering what lies around every corner.

Three days

Bug has had three good days of school thus far--last Friday was a winner, and Monday and Tuesday have been great.
We're creeping into Wednesday hopeful and quaking with fear.
And this morning, he woke up in THAT mood.
The "I don't want to" and "I'm gonna have a bad day" mood that sent me scurrying to the bathroom to take deep breaths and pray toe very deity I could come up with.
Shiva and me--old buddies. Buddha got his belly rubbed. You get the picture.
So i did what every self respecting parent would do when faced with insurmountable odds.
I tickled him until he almost wet himself and oxygen was a luxury.
His mood perked right up then!
Then w danced the good day dance, sang the good day song, and I retreated while I was sort of ahead of the game.
I will spend my day at work worrying, stressing, and waiting for the call to tell me how his day went and if I need to pick up bribes for his teachers to let him come back tomorrow.
His attitude is really affecting my pocketbook.

Bed Bugs

I have bed bugs.
Not the gross, biting kind, but the giggling, wriggling, little boy kind.
Every night to early morning, I end up with an unexpected bed mate.
A very cute one, but still.
They hog the covers, put toes up my nose, fart, drool, and snore.
And I end up not going back to sleep.
I've tried being stern about it.
Which results in tears and wailing from their room.
And I still don't sleep.
I was always very firm in my belief that children should not be in their parents bed. Until Punk came along, and, desperate for sleep, I caved.
And it's been snowballing since then.
And since Boo started school, its become a nightly thing.
I wake up to find him in our bed, on the end of our bed, staring at me from the side of the bed.
I hear his bear jangling as he comes down the hall.
I am sleep deprived because my kids want to be with me, in my bed, and they aren't good bed mates.
They turn sideways, upside down, fling arms, head butt me, and all the while, I'm huddling behind my pillow praying to the blasted Sand Man to knock them out so hard they stay still.
I love my bed bugs, but I'm about to unleash a big old can of Raid on them if I don't get some sleep soon!

Suck that Thumb!

After 3 1/2 years of avid devotion to the art of thumb sucking, Boo, per the advice of his dentist, will kiss his oppose able digit goodbye.
No, we are not chopping it off, but we will be stopping it from dwelling in his mouth before I have to bankrupt myself on braces in ten years.
I did the research and ordered a product with great recommendations that should be arriving in the mail by this weekend.
If it, unlike my other mail, isn't high jacked by my deranged mailman for some house built out of mail and junk.
So we will enter the fray of a mad preschooler who can't get his thumb sucking fix. We'll suffer through detox.
We'll bounce off the padded walls while Boo wails and moans the loss of his beloved thumb.
We just hope it works.
And that our middle child doesn't fall off the wagon and go on a thumb sucking bender to rival all benders. Think "The Long Weekend" Boo style.
*slurp! slurp!*

The sound of . . . .D'oh!

The Man has had some choice parenting moments lately, including but not limited to:
Bathing the heathens then giving them dinner. With ketchup.
Telling me Bug will not run off at school.
This particular piece of parental wisdom resulted in me chasing my five year old, gasping, wheezing, fat flapping in the breeze.
He stopped so I could catch him, kind child that he is.
The Man is really having some d'oh moments lately.
Not that I am perfect. Not that I don't do stupid, boneheaded things that make me slap myself senseless.
I just can't remember any right now.
Convenient huh?
And before he gets his feelers hurt, he is a great parent. With lapses of memory and judgement thanks to the onset of dementia brought on by his ripe old age of forty.
*gasp*
While I am spry and lively and in control of all my faculties thanks to my youth.
(I can hear The Man sputtering indignantly right now!)

The sound of . . . nothing

Little did I know that my pediatrician would do a hearing test on my five year old.
And one ear would fail.
As I grabbed my child's ear, twisting it this way and that looking for the elusive ear wax that had to have ruined that test, I wondered . .
Could bug have some degree of hearing loss?
And what would that mean?
While I have no illusions I will be playing Annie Sullivan to his Helen Keller, i a wondering what new road this prospective problem might lead us down.
And if this might be a partial cause for Bug's behavior problems.
Or if we are just handing him ammunition for his later years when he tells his wife he didn't hear her say take out the garbage.
What does hearing loss mean for a child? For his family?
I find myself facing the possibility with a sense of surrealism.
Ad a hefty dose of maternal guilt.
Bug has had exactly one known ear infection in his entire life. Emphasis on known. Did I miss one? Did I ignore the signs?
Or is this all because The Man listens to kiss, Led Zeppelin, and all other hair band crap music too loud and it damaged my baby's hearing?
That's the answer I'm leaning towards.
The Man? Not so much.
Is Bug deaf? No. Is he disabled? No.
We won't even know for sure until his retest next month.
But I find myself watching my oldest with more critical eye, wondering if his distraction is just because he's not listening or because he's just not hearing.
And wondering where do we go from here?

The house of plague

I can tell our family has started the school year.
Yep. Sick heathens.
My kids have always been pretty healthy, but now that they are rapped in the pox plagued halls of academia, not so much.
Their baby in a bubble immune systems are battling every snotty nose, cough, and virus other people's unclean, unsanitary, hog far bred kids bring in.
(And I'm sure their parents say the same thing about my Lysol scented precious babies.)
Boo brought home a cold three weeks ago.
The score now is:
Mommy--2 times
Boo--2 times
Daddy--2 times
Punk--1 1/2 (I think we'll be on two by Friday)
and Bug--1 time
It's kicking our cans all over the place.
We are our own breeding ground of bacteria and germs and funk.
I've murdered multiple cans of Lysol, boiled everything o within an inch of its life (you should have heard The Ma when we sanitized his Little Mister!)
Nothings working.
We are plague.
Hear us hack.
And choke
and cough.
And blow our noses.
This illness has made me rethink my stance on homeschooling just because we wouldn't have to be out there.
With the germs.
Michael Jackson and his ask may have been onto something there.

Damn! It's really been that long?

Last week, the Man and I celebrated fourteen years of wedded bliss.
Aside from a kiss on the cheek and a fly by "Happy anniversary", it was no big deal. I worked. He worked. We chased kids. We did normal "us" stuff.
Hell, we didn't even sleep in the same bed that night.
(He was at work. I was alone. Pervs!)
But I realized fourteen years is a long time.
I was 19 when we married.
When I vowed for better or worse (still waiting on some more better), richer or poorer (waiting on that richer time), 'til death do us part (as we're racing each other to the finish line on that one, assisted by our three heathens.)
Would I change anything? Some days, it's tempting. But then what would I lose out on?
The dumb ass things he makes me laugh myself sick over?
Our babies?
Knowing that while I may want to murder him, I'd miss him when he was six feet under?
Having a man who cleans and does dishes and cooks?
Would I miss out on all the good if I changed one thing?
And would I like what it became?
Fourteen years is almost 1/2 o my lifetime.
After that long a time, I don't want to change.
I want more goodies and an easier life, yes, but change, no.
Because, to quote Aerosmith in "Armageddon", I really don't want to miss a thing.

Play therapy

Bug will be starting play therapy this week to help him cope with all the crazy things in his wee little brain.
No, I'm not saying my child is crazy.
Well, he does take after his father.
But, still, not crazy.
We are hoping that this will help him adjust more easily to school and demands and change.
Although the changes we've already enacted with the school is showing signs of definite behavior improvement.
So crossing all crossables for a positive outcome.

Brown paper bags and epiphanies

The Man gave me an epiphany while watching "Marley and Me" the other night.
I said epiphany, you dirty minded lechers!
We were watching the movie, and Jennifer Aniston was reading Owen Wilson's past columns.
And she said that, during a really bad day where everything has gone wrong, she always has that.
And it's five minutes of him.
The Man turned to me (probably thinking sweet talk would get him something later one) and said that's how he feels about my blog.
It's a conversation he can have with me without heathens, dogs, or demands.
And asked why I hadn't been writing lately.
My response? I have nothing positive to say.
I am spinning in a world of my own making, wrapped up in concerns over my oldest, the Man's hand, and money worries.
And I've wrapped myself in it so tightly, I can't find a way out.
Damned wet paper bag.
But I also realized that by not writing, I was letting him down, which in fourteen years of marriage is something I've avoided like the plague.
And like the bathroom after one of his sabbaticals.
So I vow, babe, to do better. And thank you for tearing a small hold in my brown paper prison.

That's my boy!

Picture this:

The Man taking the heathens (yes, all three) for flu shots.

Child two and child three down.

Bug takes off running down teh hall.

Yells: "You won't get me, copper!"

Okay maybe it was more like: "I'm not getting a darn shot, this is your doctor dad not mine!"

That's my boy!