Next year, I'm coating our jack o'lantern with cayenne

This past Saturday, we went to a local farm market to pick out this year's pumpkin.

We came home and Kiddo and Hubby promptly got to work carving said pumpkin into this year's chosen design.  As we've long since established around this here blog, Heather does not do pumpkin guts.  This was the first year that Kiddo did the majority of the carving work herself (under Hubby's supervision, while I popped in and out every so often for a quick picture but otherwise kept well out of arm and nose's reach of the goings-on).

Kiddo was well pleased with her kitty jack o'lantern when we set it out on the front porch and lit it up for a test run Saturday night.

Yesterday afternoon, Kiddo and I attended a Fall Fun event for our local Girl Scout troops.  As we pulled into the driveway upon our return, I noticed something a bit off with her pumpkin......

Closer inspection revealed that some critter or critters had zombie-fied Kiddo's jack o'lantern by snacking on it quite thoroughly (they also removed and chewed on the tea light I'd left inside it overnight).  I didn't catch any such critter redhanded (or orange-mouthed), but my strongest suspicion points in the direction of our multitude of neighborhood squirrels.

Kiddo was upset, naturally, and immediately clamoring for a return trip to the farm market to get a second pumpkin.  This request was denied as we were now less than 6 hours away from Halloween (and last night was a school night to boot), the market was closed and, frankly, we weren't overly eager to drop some more green on another delectable squirrel treat.  By this morning, the other parts of Halloween (costumes! parade! party! Trick or Treating with friends!) had mitigated her disappointment at the jack o'lantern mutilation somewhat, and off she went to school.  I went out to clean up the pumpkin detritus around midmorning, and decided that there was, in fact, enough unspoiled pumpkin on the back half that technically someone could carve a second kitty face onto the other side.

I promptly looked around.  Turns out the only someone who was home and available for such a project around 11 on a Monday was me.  (Well, I mean, I could've asked the cat, but she lacks both the attention span and the opposable thumbs for such an undertaking, and then there's the extensive list of things she's managed to damage with her own sharp bits over the years - do I really want to be arming her with a pumpkin carver?)

Have I mentioned how much I detest pumpkin guts?  I am not kidding when I say I have a pathological aversion to them.  The smell and/or feel of the inside of a pumpkin can induce the urge to vomit in me more than actually being vomited upon by another human being.  Seriously.  (Pumpkin seeds, on the other hand - delish! So long as someone else has cleaned them off and toasted them up.  Also, I love pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins - as long as I don't have to touch or smell the raw ingredient in its most primal form.)

I feel that it is a pretty remarkable testament to my overwhelming love for my child that I sucked it up and did this:

 and a pretty remarkable testament to my willpower that I neither threw up nor fainted at any point while doing it.  (I kinda wanted to do both at a few points along the way.)  (And as to Hubby's reply text when I sent him the above picture, yes, they had scooped out most of the pumpkin guts before the first carving.  Most of them.  The pumpkin was a far cry from pristine inside, and being out on the porch in the cold made it extra-clammy.  Unless some of the clamminess came from squirrel spit, but really, does that make it better?)

That isn't to say that next year, I won't be sprinkling our jack o'lantern quite liberally with cayenne pepper before I set it on the porch.  I may love the kid enough to suffer the trauma of raw pumpkin meeting my hands and nose once, but I have no intentions of there being a sequel.  I'd rather have to deal with actual zombies on my front porch then try to repair a zombie-fied jack o'lantern again, thankyouverymuch.

(Oh, and I am tired and punchy enough right now to point out that when lit with the slightly-gnawed tea light tonight, in the pitch black darkness that is 7pm in our parts this time of year, the kitty cat was glowing mightily in its newly carved facial area, but also casting light out of the rather gaping hole in its backside.  I believe there's an expression about blowing sunshine and one's posterior regions........)


Happy Halloween from me and mine to you and yours!  (Kiddo, for the record, was one of several Hermione Grangers tromping the grounds of school in today's Halloween parade.  She was the only one with a Crookshanks with her, however.)

You want fries with that?

Earlier this week, Kiddo and I went with some friends to the county fair.  While perusing the various dining options, we saw many traditional fair foodstuffs, like funnel cake, fried dough, snow cones, etc.  I mean, one doesn't go to a county fair for fine cuisine, after all.  Then, we came upon this booth:

Holy moly.  Now, I've eaten deep fried Oreos before and they're actually quite delicious.  However, I just couldn't help but feel like this particular food emporium has gone a wee bit over the top with its listing of deep fried fare.  Some things just shouldn't be deep fried, dontcha think?  Like, say, pizza.  That is just wrong!  (And this is coming from someone who is currently in the throes of major PMS and who would gladly dive head first into a giant bag of Fritos, followed by a supersized order of fries from Mickey D's and finish off by finishing off a bag of Double Stuff Oreos.  It isn't that I'm against junk food or grease or oil or deep frying, is what I'm saying, it's just that sometimes one can go too far.)  The stand didn't seem to be lacking for customers, however, so maybe I'm in the minority here, thinking that not everything tastes better when it's been deep fried.

(Also, I'm trying reallllllly hard not to comment on the grammatical error right there at the top of the stand's sign.  Reallllllllly hard.)

Bitch and Moan Monday, just what I needed!

Yes, I know it isn't even 9:00 in the morning yet, but this has been one craptastic Monday so far.  Therefore, I was utterly delighted to come upon this:



over on a new blog I just discovered this past weekend.  Heck YES, I want to play along this morning!

You see, my morning actually started at 2:14, when into my dream of auditioning for The Amazing Race with my sister came a shrill and persistent, sustained beeping noise.  Eventually, my dream self realized that no, in fact my sister and I weren't going to be meeting Phil Keoghan and his raised eyebrow after all, because that noise wasn't coming from my dream.  I halfway woke up and pondered.  It was hard to tell if the noise was real or just some sort of freaky, tinnitis-like sound I was only hearing in my head.  I lifted my head off the pillow to listen with both ears.  Hmmmmm, now it not only seemed to be a real noise, but it was sounding an awful lot like an alarm going off somewhere in the house.  Smoke detector?  Carbon monoxide detector?  Crap.


I hopped out of bed tout de suite, fumbling for my glasses in the dark, and made my way downstairs where the cat greeted me in a state of mild but clear distress.  Okay, at least that means there were two of us hearing this ungodly sound.  I looked at the CO detector - nope, that wasn't it.  I flung open the basement door and instantly the shrieking beep dramatically increased in volume.  Not seeing any smoke, I quickly determined that the sound was coming from the sump pump alarm and that the sump pump had stopped running.  (For the record, we've had the basement flood three times since the beginning of January due to sump pump failure.  I should also mention we have a brand-new sump pump now, as well.)  Crappity crap.  I dashed back upstairs and woke Hubby up.  Hubby, who has always been the much lighter sleeper of the two of us, who wakes up with a start if a fly lands on the ceiling or a dust bunny moves on the floor, was sleeping soundly away, totally oblivious.  As soon as I whispered "Dude.  That's the sump pump alarm going off!" he was out of bed and racing for the basement in a flash.  I followed him back downstairs to see what level of an emergency this was going to be.


Turns out there was a small piece of plastic that looked like the cap off a container of caulk that had found its way into the well and jammed itself into the machinery in such a way as to prevent the pump from starting when it should've.  Given that it had been raining pretty steadily for the past several hours, the well was on the verge of spilling over, hence the alarm.  (I'm not sure exactly how long the alarm had been sounding before I became conscious of it.)  Hubby extracted the piece of plastic, the pump started up, the water level began draining and the alarm shut off with a very horrific, dying SQUEEEEEEAAAWWWWWWWL sound.  Crisis averted.  We headed back upstairs to bed, leaving the still a bit freaked out crazy cat in the family room.  (Okay, I get that the noise was probably extremely upsetting to her - it was upsetting to me and my hearing is nowhere near that of a cat's.  However, this is the same creature that hears secret messages from the Cat Home Planet whenever we use the DVD player, so, you know, her reaction to any noise is automatically suspect.)


By 2:19, I was back in bed.  Wide awake.


I checked the clock again.  Yeeha, it was 2:31.


2:48.


3:12.


3:43.


4:07.  Dagnabit, why am I still awake?  SHUT THE HECK OFF ALREADY, BRAIN!


Of course, I know darn well why I couldn't fall back asleep.  Besides the fright factor and subsequent adrenaline rush of "AN ALARM IS GOING OFF SOMEWHERE IN THE HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT EEEEEEEK!" that had rendered me fully awake, I had lots of things to think about.  Things like Kiddo's upcoming CSE annual review, for which we have a team pre-meeting today.  You know, those things that like to keep one up in the wee, small hours of the morning.  Bleargh.


4:36 and I thought about giving up and getting up, but eventually, finally I drifted back off to sleep.  It was a brutal awakening when Kiddo's alarm went off two hours later.  I rolled over and felt the pounding behind my eyes. Splendid.


I had just made my way to the kitchen, where the Excedrin Migraine lives in the cabinet above the sink, when I heard the dulcet tones of my beloved daughter freaking the heck out.  For reasons unknown to anyone but her, she'd decided to wander down into the family room without turning on any lights.  The family room which was pretty much still pitch black, as the sun wasn't up yet and the shades were drawn anyhow.  As she made her way through the darkened room, she stepped in something cold, wet and slimy.


Yep, you guessed it.  Cat hairball, with a chaser of what once was dry cat food, now mostly digested, for good measure.


Now, you would think that as long as it wasn't you who had trod upon cat barf in naught but a pair of fuzzy slipper socks, life would be good.  However, when it is your child who steps in the cat barf and then promptly flips out and begins screaming and hopping around, managing to grind said cat barf further into the carpet and spread it around in the process?  Actually, that's much, much worse.


So there I was at ten to seven this morning, skull feeling two sizes too small and eyes feeling like they were about to burst right out of their sockets, kid shrieking and ewwwwwwing and hovering over my shoulder to witness the scene as I used the last, few paper towels on the roll from the laundry room to clean up cold, wet, ground-in cat barf.  (Apparently the cat was more upset by the alarm than I'd realized...)


And speaking of the last, few paper towels on the roll, it turns out that every kind of paper product that comes in roll form had decided to run out simultaneously this morning.  I kid you not: when I got up to pee at 3:12am, voila, two measly squares of TP left on the roll in the master bathroom.  When I went into Kiddo's bathroom to grab some Advil at 3:43, I discovered another empty roll.  After using the last of the paper towels in the laundry room for Operation Barf Removal, I went up to the kitchen to wash my hands......... and discovered the paper towel dispenser next to the kitchen sink was devoid of Select-a-Size Bounty as well.


Cheese on toast, man!  This Monday is definitely a contender for King of the Craptastic.


And it's cold.  And it's raining.  And it's freaking MONDAY.  And I have to go grocery shopping in the cold and rain this morning.  And we have that IEP meeting I was up stressing out about this afternoon.  And Kiddo has her swimming lesson after school today.  And it's freaking MONDAY.


Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!


I totally want to run away to the Seychelles after watching last night's episode of The Amazing Race.  I'm fairly certain those ginormous tortoises that live there do not barf up hairballs... of course with my craptastic luck, I'd probably arrive just in time for a monsoon.

Leopards and poodles and pigs, oh my!

So, my parents came up to visit for the big Halloween weekend festivities. Mom arrived with her year old standard poodle on Thursday, Dad arrived Friday afternoon. Of course, the Halloween festivities had actually started prior to their arrival, with the Halloween party at Hubby's office on Wednesday afternoon:





On Friday, inclement weather forced the school's Halloween parade indoors. All the various parents, grandparents and siblings crammed into the auditorium and the classes paraded through. I sat on the aisle, camera at the ready, and caught this shot:





You'll notice that this particular leopard *does* in fact change her spots. I never did the same spotting pattern twice for all the various costume-requiring activities. Artistic license, yo!


So, I mentioned that my mom brought up her poodle. Well it turns out that the poodle, ginormous as she may be, is scared - petrified, even! - of Kiddo's goldfish, Swimmy. The dog would slink up to the tank and then when the fish would swim over (because to Swimmy, any movement in the vicinity of the tank could bring manna from Heaven in the form of fish flakes, so Swimmy gets verrrrry excited to see things moving about in any close proximity) the dog would jump back and cower, tail between her legs. Heh.





The Halloween festivities continued on into the weekend, with Kiddo attending a friend's costume birthday party Saturday afternoon and then Trick or Treating in our neighborhood Saturday evening. Alas, a little bit later Saturday night, we went from leopard spots to swine flu. Kiddo spiked a fever of 104 and by midday Sunday, I was chilled, feverish and coughing too. Phone calls with the pediatrician's office have concluded that we both have H1N1 (which is running rampant through the school - over 20% of the kids were absent last Wednesday) so now I'm supposed to be monitoring Kiddo for worsening or new symptoms that might indicate a secondary infection and keep her resting comfortably and pushing fluids in the meanwhile. Sadly, without that great pacifier of TV, Kiddo is proving to be a most cranky and recalcitrant patient, which I do not particularly enjoy given that all I want to do is crawl into bed and let Nyquil take me away. Stupid Swine Flu. Hopefully for Hubby's birthday (yes, today marks the beginning of that glorious period where, for exactly six weeks, Hubby and I are the same age. Then I go back to being a year older, sob sob...) we will NOT give him our germs. He's threatening to fly off to Vegas after work, Dad left for work early this morning and my mother and her scaredy-fish poodle have departed for their apparently equally germy homeland of New Jersey (both of my nieces and one of my nephews down in Jersey have H1N1 symptoms as well) so right now the house is merely occupied by Cranky, Achy, Sneezy, Chilly, Fevery, Whiny and Coughy. Trust me, that's plenty of company for the time being.





(Apparently the above is available for sale as a t-shirt - don't know to whom the credit goes but it's not my original design and props to whomever did create it!!)

We interrupt your regular weekend programming...

... to bring you this Extra Special Bout of Germies! Kiddo woke up an hour after bedtime last night and came back downstairs complaining of a sore throat. I dutifully checked the scene out with assistance of a flashlight and it didn't look remarkably red, bumpy, patchy, blotchy, swollen or any of those other things that one doesn't want to see when peering down one's child's esophagus. I gave her a dose of ibuprofen anyhow, as she was quite insistent that it was hurting, and waited out the night to see what morning would bring.

And morning brought it BIG, y'all. A crying kid who stumbled to the bathroom, clutching at her stomach and saying that her "throat hurt so much" that she "couldn't swallow her slobber" (eloquent, eh?) and then promptly vomited and who was sporting a forehead hot enough to fry eggs upon. A quick check of her temperature verified the egg-frying abilities of her skin, as she had a fever of 102.9. Given that she's not quite proficient in oral thermometer techniques (and that she was afraid she was going to vomit again), I was using that more as a rough estimate of her fever and guessing the actuality might've been a bit further up the scale.

Hubby prepared a "barf bucket" (we're full of the elegance 'round the Smith house) and got Kiddo settled in on the couch while I called the pediatrician. Shortly thereafter, Kiddo and I were on our way to the doctor's office to meet the on-call doc. There was one other sick kid there ahead of us, so Kiddo had to nervously clutch her barf bucket and leopard in the waiting room for a bit, then it was our turn. One rapid strep test later it was confirmed: Kiddo has a raging case of strep throat. She wound up vomiting in the exam room for good measure, and he wrote us out a prescription and sent us on our way.

Kiddo rallied briefly, playing Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii with her dad (his reward to her for cooperating at the doctor with the whole "jab the extra-long q-tip down your throat for the strep test" bit) but then she began to fade. She then spent the majority of the afternoon like this:



I woke her up around 4:00 to check her temperature. Even with a dose of ibuprofen (and antibiotic) coursing through her veins, her fever was up to 103.6. Again, with the oral thermometer, so it is quite possibly higher than that. So, now we're doubling up, doing acetaminophen in between the ibuprofen to try and bring the fever down.

The saddest part to me was how Kiddo was really, really upset that she won't be able to go to school tomorrow. She was cheered by the news that if she has no fever tomorrow, she'll be able to go back to school on Tuesday. (Though that sky-high temperature she's presently heating the house with doesn't bode well for tomorrow being fever-free...) She actually cried this morning at the thought of not going to school tomorrow. I wept a small tear myself at the notion that after only 4 days of school this year, her chance for the Perfect Attendance award is shot for another year. Who are those kids that have perfect attendance? Not elementary school kids, I'm guessing....

My biggest concern is that the last time she had strep, it developed into pneumonia. I don't want that happening again. Here's hoping the antibiotic (a new one to us - Cefdinir, which sound for all the world to me like a character in the Lord of the Rings movies) works well and she is much improved by tomorrow morning... Oh, and the icing on the cake of the Super Sick Kid Sunday? The cat wanted in on the barfing action and proceeded to gack up hairballs and cat food (too hastily gulped down, methinks) in three separate places on the kitchen floor. I tell ya, if Hubby barfs, he's on his own.

Happy Fourth of July!

We're spending the Fourth indoors, prepping Kiddo's room for painting. Kiddo and I picked up 3 gallons of Princess Pink paint this morning while Hubby was busily patching a squillion and three holes in the drywall (nail holes, not gigantic holes, but holes that needed patching nonetheless). I attempted to help Hubby with the sanding project - all the walls and trim and basically everything except the ceiling and floor in her room need to be sanded before we can paint - but even with glasses and breathing mask on, I was a wreck after less than half an hour of sanding. My eyelids did NOT like it one bit and promptly got all swollen and painful. Yikes. I hung up my sandpaper and resigned, and shall paint my heart out extra-hard to make up for quitting this afternoon's project. *blink blink cough sneeze blink blink*

In the meantime, the sun is shining outside and I hope everyone else is enjoying the holiday, despite the cooler-than-normal temperatures in our area. (Hoping it's sunny and warm wherever you might be!) I'm pondering grilling in honor of the holiday, but leaning towards making pierogies as those are easier and less work than dealing with the grill.

I shall leave you to the rest of your holiday celebrations (well, my fellow Americans, anyhow - the rest of you I shall leave merely to your weekends!) with the musical work of that awesome group of patriots, The Muppets:

Why if anything drips on us from the ceiling of the new house, I will FREAK

Hubby was terrible thoughtful enough to share the following news item with me. Before I give you the link, I must warn you it is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard, ever. And I grew up on a working farm with livestock and have been raising a small human for the past six years, so I know all about disgusting. This, though? Takes the cake. The really, really, really disgusting cake.

Okay, now that you're duly warned, click here if you dare... and if you're REALLY brave, click on the video clip in the story that was aired on the local news affiliate. It features some amazingly awful awesome sound effects. I was giggling throughout, which is kinda hard to do with a dropped jaw. Seriously, while this was a totally horrific thing for this poor woman to have gone through, it is one of those things that you laugh at even while you're getting utterly squicked out. (Or maybe that's just Hubby and me. We laughed as we got squicked out, anyhow.)

The good news is that Hubby shared this news item with our insurance agent before sharing it with me, so he was able to reassure me via the response he got from our agent that should we find ourselves in a similar situation when we move into our new home, with similar..... liquids dripping onto us or our belongings from the ceiling, we will be covered. Whew.

I'd still freak the heck out, though. I want to take a shower just from thinking about it!! *shudder*

Um, I love George and all, but I think *this* is even too much for me...

Check this out. I don't even think I would want to eat that. Well, maybe if it meant we'd get a buyer for our house..........

Speaking of house news, Kiddo and I are off to meet Hubby and look at our #1 house choice again (saw it this morning) and then discuss offers with our agent, AND we have the first showing of our house set for this Saturday afternoon. Things are moving along, hopefully quickly, smoothly and positively!!!!

This-n-That

As usual, many random thoughts bouncing around the vast, empty expanses of my brain, none of which seem to warrant their very own post, so I shall commence with rambling for a bit and throw them all into one post now. As they've been percolating for a while, you can consider this a crock pot stew of randomness...

Kiddo's school has been having various events for school spirit, Read Across America and Dr. Seuss' birthday this week. Yesterday, the kids were supposed to all wear their school t-shirts (which Kiddo did, albeit over a turtleneck because it is still fuh-reeeeezing here) and there was a school assembly. Tonight is the Literacy Fair, which doesn't start until 6:30, but which they've hyped to the kids so Kiddo is dying to go. I'm a little surprised at the number of events that they hold for an elementary school that don't start until 6:30 or later. I mean, is it just *my* kid that goes to bed at 7pm on school nights? She doesn't do well staying up much past that during the week. I've told her we will go for a little while, but I also emailed her OT to give her the head's up that Kiddo might be more out of whack tomorrow than usual. Speaking of whack, tomorrow is "Wacky Wednesday" and the kids are supposed to dress, well, wackily. (Is wackily a word? Would just plain wacky be correct? ARGH, I can't decide.) Kiddo is way, way, waaaay excited about the wacky dressing concept, and I'm wracking my brains (which, as I've already mentioned, are mostly empty, having lost the last of my marbles some time in the past few weeks with this whole Project Moving '09 thing) trying to figure out what of her wardrobe will constitute "wacky" enough while not going too over the top. I did pick up some neon colored hair extensions for a buck at Walmart earlier today that I was thinking I could incorporate into a wacky hairstyle of some sort, though it has to be hat-friendly, because, did I mention? It is FREEZING here. (Yes, I was at Walmart again, this time to return the sheer panel I'd bought a week ago for the Window to Nowhere. As of right now, the decision is to leave that window bare - we'll see if the realtor suggests otherwise when he comes... While I'm digressing on the subject of the house, the realtor is coming over on Saturday to take pictures and do all that needs to be done for the listing, which should be up by Monday morning. WOO-HOOOOOO!) So, I've got wacky hair all set, now to figure out from the neck down. Kiddo wants to wear something out of her dress-up clothes, but I'm not entirely convinced that is the best plan. I may pick the brains of other moms at the Literacy Fair thing at school tonight. Friday is "wear your favorite hat" day and I'm pretty sure Kiddo will be going with her pink, monogrammed Mouse Ears from our trip to Disney last summer.

So, anyhow, the house. It is almost done, almost... I've begun looking in earnest at the different listings online and have fallen in love about six times over with properties that meet our basic criteria and are on the right side of town. I've never actually gone and looked at a house (as this was our first house and we had it built) so I'm extra-excited for that part to start. I can't wait to find out if everyone else has killed themselves as much as we have with the cleaning and decluttering and painting and fixing up stuff... I'm a little nervous about the showing of our house, more from a logistical standpoint (what if someone wants to come see the house and I have Kiddo in the tub or she's in bed? What if I can't find the cat and she gets let out inadvertently? How much will people really poke around in our cabinets and closets? Will it be okay to leave the toaster out on the counter, or should I stash it in the basement every time there's a showing?) than anything.

Have you guys seen this? How gross is that? I would pay money to see someone actually eat a can, I think. Not much money - until after my lottery ticket wins the Megamillions jackpot tonight - but real money nonetheless. Ew, ew, and ew. I'd like to buy a can (if they sold it around here) just to have it in my pantry as a conversation piece!

So, isn't the Amazing Race extra-awesome this season? Anyone else watch besides Hubby and me? If so, do you have a favorite team yet? I'm rooting for Mel and Mike and Margie and Luke thus far. I like the new music but I do wish they'd have left in the gongs and rattlesnake shaking of foreshadowing... If you are an Amazing Race addict like me, you'll definitely want to check out Josh Wolk's recaps over at Entertainment Weekly's website, as well as M. Giant's recaps over at Television Without Pity. Both Josh and M. are hysterically funny writers, and real fans of the show, which shows in their writing, too. Oh, and Phil Keoghan also blogs over at EW's website, too. Love me some Phil and his eyebrow.

Speaking of reality TV related things, I'm loving American Idol so far this season, though I'm a little bummed that there aren't going to be enough wild card spots to get all my early-on favorites in to the top 12. I know a lot of people didn't like Nick/Norman, but I loved him, he totally cracked me up. I don't think AI is the right forum for him, but my good bloggy buddy Hot Tub Lizzy suggested to me that he'd be great on Last Comic Standing, and I totally agree. I would like Anoop, Megan and Jesse to all make it into the top 12 though, so obviously I'm going to be disappointed to some extent. Oh well, once the top 12 are done, my pool starts and I can't wait!

Also on the reality TV topic, America's Next Top Model starts tomorrow night - WOO-HOO! I do so love that show. Obviously, makeover week is my favorite, but it's all good, trashy, mindless entertainment. I need that on a Wednesday, given that Lost always twists what's left of my brain into teensy, tiny, pretzeled knots every Wednesday night. Hubby and I are always quoting this bit of Dane Cook's during the commercial breaks of Lost (and ps - that link has some non-PG rated language...). I do love that show, though!

Okay, time to get Kiddo off the bus and see if she had a good enough day today that she gets to whip my butt at Mario Kart Wii for a bit. Happy Not-Monday Anymore, y'all!

What's a sick mom gotta do to get some sympathy?

So, I've been sick. I think it may be the flu. It's miserable, whatever it is - a fever topping out in the 102 range, killer headache, body aches and nausea. Oh, the vomiting. So very, very NOT fun. Yesterday, I was a total disaster and collapsed in bed as soon as Hubby walked through the door at 5:30, leaving him to finish all the Kiddo nightly routine - bath, dinner and bedtime - and then to tackle our joint to-do list all on his own. Have I mentioned Hubby is totally my hero? But I digress......

Anyhow, earlier on, as I seemed to be recovering, Kiddo wrote me the following sweet and heartwarming note:



(Translation: Mom, I hope your cold feels better soon. I love you so much. I don't want you to get sick again please.) Awwwwww.

Alas, however, this level of sympathy did not last long. After days of ingesting nothing more than ginger ale and the occasional Tylenol (with varying levels of "remaining in the system long enough to work"), I went a little crazy today and ate a handful of saltines around noon. I quickly paid the price for such folly, spending the rest of the afternoon alternating between painting the primer coat on the walls of various closets, cleaning windows and racing to the upstairs bathroom to throw up. What was the next note I was handed?



(Translation: DO NOT throw up again PLEASE!)

Like I'm throwing up because I enjoy it so much. Sheesh. To make matters worse, as I'm in the bathroom retching, Kiddo is alternately trying to peer into the bowl over my shoulder and see what there is to see (which: Ew.) and then loudly proclaiming "THAT'S DISGUSTING! EW Mommy's BARFING and it is SO DISGUSTING!!" to me and the world at large.

Not fair. Let me tell you, I have wiped off/up and/or removed seriously nasty secretions from my beloved child, and never, in the throes of her moment of need, did I either proclaim DISGUSTING! or write her a chastising note. (Okay, maybe I said something to Hubby or my mom or sisters on the phone later, or even took to my blog to decry the foulness, but NEVER have I said anything remotely of that level of truth in the moment, while Kiddo was sick.)

No sympathy at all. Humph.

In other news, we're presently on schedule to have Paintathon '09 finished up (with the exception of a bit of trim work) by Monday night, despite my present condition and lack of stamina to wield a paint roller for any significant duration. This, again, is mainly due to Hubby the hero and his crazy late nights/early mornings of house-related work around his regular, full-time job, which is in a tough industry that makes his days a far cry from a picnic on the beach of late. We've got carpet dudes coming in this week so all our wall-to-wall will be spiffy and sparkly and fluffy, and we're meeting with the realtor again at the end of the week with a target date of March 2nd for listing the house. To which I say HOORAY! I may even celebrate by attempting to drink some chicken broth, now that I haven't barfed in almost six hours..........................

Note to the crazy cat

Just because you gacked up a hairball underneath the Christmas tree (and all over my adorable snowman-decorated, felt tree skirt) does not mean that the hairball (and accompanying, ahem, "sauce") is a present of any sort. For that matter, I don't enjoy cleaning up your hairball "surprises" anywhere else other than the linoleum, so if you really want to give me a gift, kindly restrict all barfage to either the kitchen, bathrooms or front hallway. Okay? Thanks.



(PS - that is just a picture of the cat in her favorite spot under the tree, NOT a picture of her with hairballs in any form.)

Edited: A public restroom nightmare

(I have decided, upon hearing that folks might be linking to this tale of woe, to break out the two very different topics into two separate posts. 'Cause I'm guessing the folks that might want to actually - oh dear me - read this bit might not be so interested in the goings-on of our fight with the school district. That portion will now be in its own post below this one.)

In other news, that norovirus? So not good for being out in public. (WARNING: THIS IS ABOUT TO GET GORY. CONSIDER YOURSELVES WARNED - THOSE WITH MORE DELICATE SENSIBILITIES MAY WANT TO STOP READING RIGHT ABOUT NOW.) You see, I had to make a quick stop at the grocery store on my way home from the meeting, to restock on bananas, saltines, chicken broth and ginger ale. Kiddo's only in-town grandma had come over to watch her so we could go to the meeting, and I wanted to take advantage and not have to take Kiddo out with her fever - especially in the ridiculous snow showers we had this morning - for supplies later on in the day.

So there I was, attempting to zip quickly through the store for those few items I needed, none of which, of course, are located anywhere near each other. (They need to rethink how they stock grocery stores: the Stomach Bug Aisle, for example, with the ginger ale, saltines and broth, and the Head Cold aisle, with the Puffs Plus and the Nyquil and the Throat Coat tea, oh and then the PMS aisle, with the Midol and the chocolate and the Cheez Doodles... THAT would be a dream shopping scenario, dontcha think?) It was hard to "zip" when I was being bent double by abdominal cramping every thirty seconds or so. Eventually, and of course while I was at the furthest possible point from the bathrooms, I had to make a call: Can I make it home to the sanctity of my own bathroom, or should I make a run for the bathrooms in the store? Not wanting to explode in my car on the way home (as I wasn't wearing my Oops, I Crapped my Pants undies today*), I decided to take a quick stroll up to the public bathrooms.

Now, I am pretty sure we've all been there - when you have to make a visit to the restroom even though you'd really rather save such business for the privacy of your own home. (We all have been there, haven't we? Tell me I'm not the only one who's had to face this horrible situation...) I had my fingers crossed that the bathroom would be devoid of other women. I lucked out in that regard. Alas, this was just a three-seater, not the more preferable many stalled, easier-to-hide sized bathroom. I thought for a fleeting second of using the family bathroom, but having been in need of that room for changing a squirmy baby myself in days gone by and having been stymied by a non-family-type-person using it, forcing me to have to change the squirming baby elsewhere, I opted to suck it up and deal with the more public women's room. (Okay, I lied. I only didn't use it because it was already occupied. I would totally have used that one if it had been open. Not only for the privacy, but I figured I could at least blame any soon-to-be-happening funk on the diapers in the trash can. Sue me.) I shut myself in a stall and began praying that I would finish with my funking before any other wayward woman wandered in for a hand-washing or something.

And funk it up I did. It was one of those terrible, horrible, no-way-to-disguise-what-was-transpiring sort of funkings. There was noise, there was odor. Sweet fancy Moses, was there odor. There were not enough courtesy flushes in the world to stop or even sufficiently quash the odor or sounds blasting forth. Unfortunately, my bowels had apparently decided to open up some portal of Hell, and things went on in this loud and odoriferous way for waaaay longer than I'd hoped. It seemed like hours, though in actuality it was less than ten minutes. Once, I heard the door to the restroom squeak open, but apparently that woman took one whiff and opted to hold it 'til she got home. Then, a few moments later, the door opened again. This time, someone dared enter. She used the stall next to me, and then took her time with washing her hands and fluffing her hair in the mirror. I could see a teensy sliver of her through the crack in the door - she was an older woman, and so I hoped she was hard of both hearing and smelling. As she tossed her paper towel into the trash and secured her plastic head kerchief under her chin, she muttered "Whew, that's bad." and then made her escape. Great. Now I had to deal with Walking Out of the Bathroom Post-Funking. I, the Funker. As soon as it seemed safe to stand and move on with the Walk of Shame, I did so. As I flushed for the last time, another person walked in to the bathroom. Great - now what? Stay hiding in the stall and wait her out, or just walk out of the stall and pretend that the smell preceded my arrival? I opted to wait for her to enter a stall, then zipped out, washed my hands and BOLTED from the bathroom.

I think I'm going to start carrying one of these around in my purse at all times... though today's Funking probably would've laughed at the tiny cloud emitted by a one ounce spray can. I'd probably need the jumbo size - gonna have to get myself a bigger purse! In the meantime, I'm just glad there are other grocery stores in near enough proximity to my house. I figure in another year or so, I'll be brave enough to return to shop at the one I Funked today.

In less disgustingly detailed news, I was wiped out when I got home from the meeting and the shopping/funking trip. So wiped out that I let Kiddo watch the new Tinkerbell DVD (thanks Redbox!) twice in a row so I could curl up on the couch under a couple of fleece throw blankets and the cat and moan quietly. So wiped out that Kiddo and I both fell asleep for about 40 minutes this afternoon. So wiped out that I don't know if I'll make it until 9pm to watch Heroes tonight... But I sure darn well am going to try! (Kiddo, on the other hand, was miraculously rejuvenated by her 40ish minute nap and is still awake in her room, an hour after her bedtime, and apparently arranging some sort of birthday party for one of her stuffed animals by flashlight...)

So, that's the update from here. I swear to you (anyone who may still be reading at this point, that is) that starting tomorrow, this blog will go back to being bodily-explosion-description FREE. Promise!






*

Hurltastic happenings

So, within mere minutes of my finishing the previous, rambly post and heading into Kiddo's room to play with her, things took a very, very quick downhill turn.

Kiddo asked me to read her a story. We curled up on her bed with one of her Skippyjon books and I began to read. As I was reading, she quickly went from fine to very much not fine. I could literally feel her start burning up and she went gradually more limp against me. I immediately flashed back to this past spring, when she had her first ever case of strep throat. This seemed eerily similar to the onset of strep last time, and I was feeling quite concerned as I took her temperature. 102.3. Yikes - that came on fast. Recalling the notice that came home from school on Thursday announcing that strep throat had been diagnosed in her classroom, I immediately grabbed the phone and called the doctor.

About an hour later, I brought my feverish, complaining, lethargic child into the pediatrician's exam room where the nurse took her temp again (up to 102.6) and then did the strep test. She left the room to process the test and Kiddo climbed off the exam table and into my lap. She straddled my legs and pressed herself flat against my front, tucking her head under my chin because she had the chills. She stayed that way while I read her a story and we waited for the nurse to return. A few moments later, there was a knock on the door, heralding the return of the nurse.

Unfortunately, at that same exact second, there also came a tidal wave of vomit. I suddenly felt something warm gushing over my admittedly ample bosom and lap, pulled Kiddo away and saw the fountain pouring forth. I looked up at the nurse as I did that weird, instinctual thing of trying to cup my hands under Kiddo's mouth to catch the vomit (why do mothers do that? this was not the first or even the tenth time I personally have done that - it never works and just makes things messier. Seriously, parental instinct, lay the heck off or evolve or something!) Kiddo continued to vomit, so the nurse helped me get her off my lap, turned around and over the garbage can, where she heaved for a good five minutes. The nurse helpfully handed me a handful of those industrial, brown paper towels (you know, the ones that are about as absorbent as sealed granite) and then backed out of the room. I washed my hands off (thanks again, parental instinct) and fished my cell phone out of my purse, called Hubby and asked him to bring us each a change of clothes up to the doctor's office. Thankfully, he was there within ten-fifteen minutes, which unfortunately was enough time to allow my shirt and jeans to soak through, ditto my undies, so I was clammy and cold and basically marinated in all that had been burbling about in Kiddo's stomach for the past several hours.

Now, back in the day, Kiddo never could tell when she was about to vomit - it's part of her SPD. I've mentioned that before here because we had finally reached a point earlier this year where her body did recognize she was about to hurl. Alas, with the fever and the not feeling well, Kiddo just didn't feel it coming on today. A child with SPD can be more disregulated than usual when s/he is not feeling well, and that seems to be the case today.

So, the nurse came back in to let us know that the good news was that Kiddo's strep test was negative. She then went on to say it seems that Kiddo instead has "the stomach bug that is going around" - apparently Kiddo was only the second Exam Room Barfer of the morning, having been beaten to the punch by another little girl a half hour before. I inquired as to the nature of this stomach bug, because the one that swept through Kiddo's elementary school the week before last was a 24 hour, vomit only variety. "No, this is a different one. This one has a fever, two to three days of vomiting and then two to three days of diarrhea." (Ed note: I'm fairly certain I've lost any and all non-parent readers at this point. My apologies.) Oh, joy. Joy, joy, joy.

Hubby turned up with the clothes and got Kiddo redressed and bundled her off for home. I changed and mopped up as best I could and then headed out to the desk to check out, profusely apologizing for the Trail o' Vomit Kiddo sprayed across the exam room floor. When I got home, I headed straight for the shower, and not even a vigorous scrubbing under the hottest water has me feeling truly clean. Ew. Meanwhile, Hubby got Kiddo tucked in on the couch with a barf bucket and gave her some Motrin, and she's had a couple of Pedialyte popsicles that have stayed down for 2 hours now, so that's good. With her fever now lower thanks to the Motrin, Kiddo is seeming a lot better already than she did. A teensy part of me is hoping that the barfing was induced by the jabbing at the back of the throat required for the strep test, but there was a several minute time lapse between the jabbing and the barfing, so that is probably wishful thinking. I guess only time will tell... In the meantime, I'm now feeling slightly queasy and headachy myself. The only thing worse than ONE family member praying to the porcelain god is TWO. Blech. Mommies don't have time to be sick, dagnabit! I'm hoping it's just sympathy queasiness and I'm fine...

But I am glad it isn't strep like she had this spring, especially since ultimately developed into pneumonia and all... (Yeah, I didn't realize that strep could lead to pneumonia, but apparently it sometimes does.) So, happy it isn't that diagnosis, even if the "exploding from both ends" germs aren't the most fun.

I think I'm going to go curl up on the other couch and watch kids' movies with Kiddo for a while. It might be good to be in closer proximity to a barf bucket...

BLEARGH!!!

Filled with dread...

Hubby is out of town tonight. Kiddo, who I kept home from school because of a cold she's been brewing, has been campaigning all day to take his spot tonight. I am filled with dread at the prospect.

Now, it isn't that I don't love snuggling with my child. It isn't even that I mind the way she twists around in her sleep, invariably winding up perpendicular to me with a foot jammed into my armpit or a knee/elbow combo in my ribcage. Truly, I can handle that. I wound up sleeping in bed with her every single night while we were in the hotel in Florida last August. It's not even that she snores or hogs the covers and pillows.

It's this:



Except, instead of water cascading over a rock ledge, it is snot cascading down my beloved Kiddo's face. Snot and germs galore.

Yeah, really do NOT want that inches away from my face all night, dampening my pillow and befouling my flannel sheets. I mean, I've been Mommy the Human Kleenex all day today, so it is highly likely I'm contaminated with her germs already (despite fanatical handwashing, liberal use of hand sanitizer and several vigorous applications of Lysol to various rooms). I just don't want the Niagara Falls Nostrils snuffling into my room and beseeching me to snuggle all night long. I admit, I am virtually powerless against the charms of my child in the night, even when she's sporting the Glazed Donut Monster (tm Bill Cosby) look.

Hoping against hope she falls deeply asleep and doesn't stir until morning...

(Oh and the good news is this cold hasn't been nearly as bad as it seemed like it was going to be - *knock wood* - so unless her symptoms are dramatically worse in the morning or she begins running a fever, she is totally going to school. So much for the kindergarten perfect attendance award!)

Miscellany: Sweet 16, The Silence of the Voles, Google hilarity

Sixteen years ago tonight was my first date with Hubby! He picked me up at my apartment in his teeny-tiny Ford Festiva and we went to Pizzeria Uno for dinner, then to see Last of the Mohicans (its opening night). After the movie, we went to Friendly's for dessert, where I was impressed by Hubby managing to put away an entire Jim Dandy sundae -



- that's FIVE scoops of ice cream, y'all! (I should point out Hubby was only a 19 year old college student at the time, and hasn't eaten a sundae half as large in over a decade...) We sat and talked 'til the restaurant closed. Then, we headed back to my apartment where Hubby came up (oh hush now, I'm not like that on a first date) and we watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, because I was horrified that Hubby had never seen it. (That's a movie that we still quote to each other on practically a daily basis, and it's a good thing Hubby liked it as much as I do, as that was part of my future-husband-material litmus test.) After that, we talked some more and he left my apartment around 4:15 in the morning. And that was the Great Beginning, sixteen years ago today...

***

So, yesterday I mowed the lawn. It was far overdue for a mowing, and the back yard was especially jungle-y. When I got to the back, I dragged Kiddo's playhouse up onto the deck, as is customary, and shook my head when I saw the obvious signs that some of our community of voles had set up an outpost - vacation home perhaps? - underneath the playhouse - vole poop, little trails, two voles scurrying away and under the fence, etc. We never put any rat poison underneath the deck this summer, where their primary metropolis exists, and I've seen evidence as always that they were utilizing both my food garden and planting beds as their own personal salad bar, so I wasn't surprised to see that they'd been under the playhouse. I began the mowing, iPod on and my Aerosmith playlist cranked up so I could hear it over our loud, old, gas-powered push mower. As I was going over the area where the playhouse had been, I mowed over a largish tuft of dead grass that I had figured was the voles' vacation bed. Coincidentally, as the front edge of the mower hit this tuft, the song I'd been listening to ended and there was a moment of silence just long enough for me to hear some hideous squeaking as the mower blades momentarily caught on something in the grass. I immediately stopped the engine, but it was too late - what I'd just run over with the Grassy Blades of Death was not an abandoned pile of grass for bedding, but a nest containing several small and now quite diced and dead baby voles.

I felt just horrible about it, as I hadn't intended to slaughter an entire nest of helpless babies, rodents or otherwise. I fetched a shovel from the garage, scooped up the gooey, gory remains and carried them ceremoniously down to the pond, where I gave them a burial at sea. (I figured the fish or herons or other pond-area wildlife would appreciate some Vole Tartar.) I mean, as much as I hate the stupid voles and do intentionally try to off them in their adult form (via the rat poison under the deck), I didn't mean to kill a whole passel of babies. To paraphrase Hannibal Lecter, now it will be some time before the voles stop screaming............... It also will be some time before I offhandedly mow any lumps of grass, as well. I imagine those baby voles are now sitting up there in animal heaven, alongside the squirrel I ran over when I was 17 and the bird that flew into my car earlier this summer, leaving grisly bits embedded in the front grill, and they're all waiting for their turn to cast their judgement upon me, the careless machinery operator who sent them to their doom...

***

So, from time to time I read posts other folks have written about the weird Google searches that brought people to their blog. Well, I certainly have my fair share of those too, and now's as good a time as any to share them with you. Here goes with a sampling from the past week's searches:

goldfish getting fat

Perhaps installing a tiny treadmill in the tank would help?

coke-bottle glasses thick

Yep, that's me. I could start fires in seconds by holding my glasses up to the sun. Seriously.

kids gotta pee

Yes, they do. True story.

how to make a loud burp without soda

I'm a bit sad that I didn't have any actual answers for this person on my blog...

the mom haircut
and
Mrs. Brady hair

These both appeared several times from different places. Who knew so many folks out there are interested in either mom hair or the mother of all moms, Mrs. Brady's hair?

neti pot hurt eardrum

Well, I told you I don't ever want to use one of those things, and here's just one more reason why.

why is my child barfing all over the bed

Um, I'm not sure, but sorry - perhaps a throw-up bucket would be a good idea?

funk

In which regard: bringing it, smelling it, or listening to it?

How to look like Angelina Jolie

Sorry, I certainly can't help you there. Getting Brad Pitt as arm candy might help, though.

apple bread more with less

This one just doesn't make sense. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

food getting stuck in teeth all the time

Have you tried flossing?

moms in jeopardy

I don't know what you were looking for, but I was on Jeopardy and I am now a mom...

How to remove very big splinter from childs skin without screaming

Well, I certainly would also love the answer to that one!

Boobs in a swimming pool

Yes, there frequently are.

Now, I have had many search hits every week for things like "naked locker room" or "embarrassing public nudity" thanks to some of my older posts, but I'm guessing that the people doing those searches aren't getting the results they were hoping for when they stumble upon my little blog. Hee!

Okay, I could keep rambling on, but I have a list of errands to do and I'm burning daylight here. Hope everyone is having a great day out there in the blogosphere!

Eeeeek!

So as if I wasn't already going to have enough trouble sleeping tonight, what with the potential for a repeat of last night's (oh, I probably should warn you, don't click on the upcoming link unless you want to see a really, really gross picture!) Hubby-as-Two-Face nightmare (*shudder*), well, I've got a new reason to watch the clock tick, tick, tick the hours down 'til morning now.

You see, we showed up at the gym for the kiddo's gymnastics class this afternoon to be met at the door by the coaches, who took me aside to let us know that there was "a problem" they needed to tell us about. It seems that during the camp that was held at the facility earlier that day, it was discovered that one of the campers had a raging case of head lice. They'd closed down the one area where the camper spent a good bit of time, but apparently the camper had also been in the gym where they do the gymnastics class, and the gym was being kept open because supposedly the lice can't survive in that atmosphere, blah blah blah. So, I could let the kiddo stay and roll around on the mats and whatnot for an hour, if I wanted to, but they just wanted to let us know the situation. How kind of them...

Needless to say, I opted (as did all the other parents, I do believe) to NOT have the kiddo stay for class today. Just in case. Because head lice? No thank you, not even if there is the sliiiiightest chance. Knocking serious wood here, but I've never had head lice, neither has the kiddo, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Of course, as soon as I heard the words "head lice" I began to feel itchy. Kind of like how I felt when my dear friend Coco mentioned the Ear Canal Visitor she had recently. The other moms and I, congregated outside the building and discussing the situation, came to a mutual understanding that we weren't going to tell the kids exactly what it was that caused the cancellation of class. We all just said "someone was sick and we don't want you to catch what they had" because if I'm itchy, whew, I can only imagine how the kiddo would take to the concept of teeny, tiny critters in her hair. That would guarantee me no sleep, as she'd be in my room waking me up from my nightmare (Hubby as Two-Face WITH head lice) to share her own......

I'm trying very hard NOT to google "Head Lice" or to even read the detailed (and illustrated) handouts the coaches gave to the parents this afternoon. I'd like to stay in the dark, please. The blessed, itch-free, critter-free dark.

Sometimes, I really rue my incredibly vivid imagination.