Brought To You By Sick Kids And Insomnia

I always have insomnia when I'm pregnant. During my third pregnancy, I came to terms with it and just accepted it and it wasn't so bad.

Now, I'm not pregnant, but all three kids have gotten sick in the last 5 days and I'm sleeping like we have a newborn or like I'm pregnant. Right now, Avee has the flu and croup. She's had croup several times and every time except once, we've managed it at home. One time she just couldn't get air in so I took her to the doctor, he couldn't get her oxygen level up and so he sent us to the ER. Since I know the breathing thing can go either way really fast, I decided to get her help early in the game. She was visibly struggling to get air.

I won't gripe about how I had to ask four times for them to check her oxygen level. Because while I haven't had very good experiences with doctors here, I don't think all doctors are like this, and I have several friends who are doctors or married to doctors and I feel guilty when people start bashing doctors as a whole. But since this is my blog....

I stated when I first got there that I was sure she had the flu and she clearly had croup and I just wasn't sure she was getting enough air. They swabbed her for the flu. It came back positive. They checked her ears, her throat and her lungs. And said she had croup. Each diagnosis, I asked for her oxygen level to be checked. Finally, as we were being finished up and I was handed FOUR prescriptions, I asked for the fourth time, "Please, could you check her oxygen level before we go? She's got a history of being unable to breath with croup, this is the only reason I brought her here."

Sure enough, it was low. She got a breathing treatment and it seems like that helped a lot. She perked up about 2-3 hours later, her fever broke, and besides sounding like the 77 year old hacking, cat lady around the corner, she seems fine.

However, Danyo climbed on me last night with a blazing fever. For some reason he doesn't get that- dark outside--zonked out, unresponsive parents--sleeping siblings means NOT TIME TO PLAY AND SOLILOQUIZE. He also has the seal bark cough of croup.

Here's where my aforementioned insomnia comes in. I wasn't really awake when he was in our bed. It was after he elbowed J in the face and J kicked him out of our bed, that I had the insomnia.

But WHILE Danyo was in our bed....well, a little background. Recently, I finished watching Ugly Betty, all three seasons on DVD. I loved it. I think out of like, nearly 70 episodes, there was one that I wasn't totally in love with. I'm all caught up and can watch it weekly on tv now. But, having watched all those episodes in the last month, it's kind of stuck in my brain. If you don't know the premise of Ugly Betty, she is a "plain" Queens girl who works for a high fashion magazine in NYC. Well, there's lots of intrigue and plotting and scheming and backstabbing and colluding, in this show. That, is apparently what was in my mind.

So, while Danyo is in my bed rolling over me, hitting me with his empty water bottle, trying to get me to turn on the tv---I am working it into what's already going on in my head. I so desperately want to sleep, peacefully and uninterrupted. I want it so badly, that I decide to work out an alliance with Danyo and I will let him have the position of feature editor, WITH that exclusive interview I managed to score, if he will just get his squishy diaper off of my face, and let me sleep peacefully.

I tried this approach for probably 2-3 hours. That coveted sleep was so close I could taste it---when I hear J say, "What is going on here, Danyo, what are you doing--get in your bed!"

Then I woke up. I explained to J that Danyo was sick, and Danyo cried at me for two minutes about what Daddy said to him. I finally got up, changed his diaper and put him back to bed. In time for about an hour and a half more sleep.

Only, I couldn't go to sleep. I couldn't turn my brain off. I was amused by my combination of Danyo harrassing me in the middle of the night, and Ugly Betty.

I was going to blog about it in the morning. And I had the funniest line, I couldn't wait to write in my blog.

This was it: "This is why I don't drink. I can't even hold my TV on DVD, can you imagine how I'd be with liquor?"

Isn't that the most hilarious thing you've ever read?! When I'm in those dark hours before sunlight and I can't turn off my brain I am funny, witty, articulate, never caught off guard, have the best comebacks, etc, etc, etc.

Lucky for you, TODAY I remembered my clever clever line.

What do you think? More insomnia inspired posts, or should I invest in some sleeping pills?

Remember When

You were young and being popular was such a wonderful dream?

If you were, you loved it, and if you weren't, you aspired to it?

You just wanted to be picked first, invited everywhere, confided in the most, sought after on the playground regularly, and surrounded by people who loved and adored you?

You wanted someone to sit with lunch to swap your mom's homemade uber-fiber oatmeal, rasin, carrot, sunflower seed "cookie" for your friend's uber-processed negative-health benefits Oreo?

You wanted someone to pair up with to do out-loud reading or times tables. Someone to sit under the table with you and let you try to pierce your ear with a dull safety pin because your totally unhip parents wouldn't let you get it done the right way?

You dreamed of overnight parties to be smooshed into a room with 8 other girls who giggled and talked and crowded you?

Sigh.

All I wanted today was to be totally unpopular and left alone, and ignored to lay on the couch reading a book. Alone. Where no one liked me and wanted to lay on me or fought over the squishy comfortable parts of me to lean against. I didn't want to look at anyone's cute outfit, hear about someone's favorite part of the show, or respond to the 52 offers of kisses. I only wanted to buckle myself in. I wanted to only find my own shoes...

Why oh why do I have to be so popular in my own home?

I wish I was a lonely outcast.

In Which I Think It's A Good Idea To Sit Down And Blog

One of the things I loooooooooove hearing out of my six year old's mouth is, "This one time, on Family Guy...."
This morning's recap was about Peter saying "That's baloney!" I felt my entire body tense up as I waited for Bo to repeat what he'd heard. Fortunately his grandmother even says that, so, no damage control necessary there. But J's still totally fired. I asked Bo when he watched it (because I am like a cross between a ferocious mother bear and a hawk when I hear Family Guy, South Park, or even Simpson's playing when the kids are awake). Bo answered, "October 18th, ha ha, maybe the 17th, I can't remember exactly." Not sure if I need him to be more specific or less. Either way, he cracked me up.

Yesterday was a "I don't want to be awake" day. I wasn't tired, per say, as much as I was lacking the will to function even one tiny bit. To my credit, I got two kids dressed and to school on time, one of them bearing snacks for her entire preschool. That, is awesomeness personified. Thankyouverymuch.

I came back home and put on Danyo's new best friend "Dora Dora" and snuggled under a blanket on the couch. I've been trying to read the same book for the last 3 weeks. I'm now on page 117. J has read 4 books in the interim, waiting patiently for me to finish this one and read "Catching Fire" so he can talk to someone about it. I'm passive aggressively punishing him for being able to read books that fast while I either can't tune out the kids, or can't stay awake long enough.

At 11:15 my friend knocked on the door. I stumbled off the couch in a stupor and opened the door. She apologized to me. That's how good I looked. It pretty much made me laugh the rest of the day that I, a mother of three, who should not have been sleeping on the couch ANYWAY, elicited an apology from an 11:15 visitor. I have nice friends.

In the past, when I've gotten blogstipated, I've just gone with it and waited for it to go away and haven't stressed. It usually only lasted a week or two.

We're going on about 5 months now. I don't really know what to do about it. I realized that I'm not exactly at my best lately, and I tend to not blog about the humdrum stuff. Also, I realized that Bo's school was a significant source of fodder for me last school year, and it's not this year. He has another really wonderful teacher and I've done as much as I can to eliminate his exposure to paras who were raised under the Nazi regime. Bo is doing really well school.

Actually, that leads me to a thought I've had recently. Last year when Bo was repeatedly being singled out and punished for either being a victim or for something that wasn't worth even noticing, two different people suggested that Bo's hair color might factor into his treatment.

It had never even occurred to me. Ever. And it was two people who's opinion and ideas I respect a lot. It actually made things make more sense. Maybe she thinks he's a problem child because she has a prejudgment on redhaired boys. Who knows? I certainly think some kids look like troublemakers more than others. I'm usually right though. :)

Anyway, last week I went to the YMCA to get my hospital discount attributed to my account. The YMCA lady was totally rude and tried to disregard me a couple of times to no avail. First I asked about the hospital discount and she said, "Yeah, but you need to have your badge." I had assumed I'd need to show a badge or a paystub, so I brought my badge. Because I knew where that was. She said it as though I wouldn't have brought it, and we were done.

So, I let her help another person and then said, "I have my badge right here, is there anything else you need?" She looks at the badge and says, "I don't know if that's going to work." I laughed when she said that. It was so blatantly stupid and lazy. She didn't want to deal with me, so she was contradicting herself to make it happen. As I laughed, out loud, I said, "You're kidding right---it's the badge you just said I needed!" Right then a friend who was sitting in the waiting area said hello and I turned to talk to him. I related my experience to him and then said, "She's always been unfriendly to me though, you'd think if you're going to work at the YMCA front desk, you'd make a little effort to be a people person."

Of course, I NEVER think it's about me. It's sort of what makes me totally cool. I'm never responsible for other people's stupidity. I'm rarely responsible for my own.

And my friend, jokingly I'm sure, suggested maybe she didn't like redheads. It was funny, but it got me thinking. Maybe there ARE more people out there with prejudices like that, than I ever considered.

I mean, people with mustaches make me nervous. Who's to say redheads don't do that to other people? What do you think? Do you think any unfavorable interaction I've had with someone my entire life is because of my hair color?

I wonder if there's some minority victim fund I could draw from. My life is hard guys.

"I Loved Her First"

I posted this first, two and a half years ago in March of 2007.
This is how I'm feeling lately....


Today I was driving in my car
And a song came on the radio
A man was singing about his little girl
That he was now giving away as a bride

“I loved her first” he sang,
About the day that she was born
And tears streamed down my face
As I thought of my own daughter at home

My morning was spent changing and dressing her
And doing her hair fourteen times
Followed by a battle to get buckled in her car seat
Just to hear her wail “no way mom!” two dozen times

Later she wanted me to hold her
But my body ached from the child I carry inside
Nothing I did seem to make her happy
And it was hard not to be annoyed by her whines

But alone in my car an hour later
My tears flowed uncontrollably
So that I had to pull over my car
And let them fall as I sat there alone.

Two short years ago she was the child I carried inside
Who made me too uncomfortable to hold my son
Every night she jabbed my ribs to say hello
Starting early to make her presence known

Then a tiny bundle of pink wrinkly skin
With the most sparse head of red hair
We all fell in love with her immediately
And I didn’t remember my heart before she was in it.

Eye contact, smiling, rolling, giggling, crawling, climbing.
Walking, climbing, singing, talking, signing, climbing.
Giggles, running, greeting, climbing, complaining.
Laughing, hugging, testing, climbing, and she can do it herself.

Every little thing she does, I get to be a witness to.
Kicking a ball, tasting lemons, loving her brother.
Suddenly two years are gone and I sit on the side of the road,
Crying about my two year old becoming an adult bride.

Will I forget to cherish the moments that lead there?
Will I accidentally get caught up in the trivial things,
And forget to notice the woman she’s becoming?
Will remembering I loved her first feel like I missed too much?

I Can't Be Perfect ALL The Time!

Sometimes it takes the absence of something, to realize what you have. I realized the other night that J is always right there being supportive and not laughing at my stupidity. Infrequent as it may be.

Until Friday night.

Any of you who know Bo or have read this blog for a while, may have noticed he has the tendency to obsess over things. Spiderman, numbers, Mario Kart, Barack Obama, Pokemon, and now it's Harry Potter. His every thought is consumed by thoughts of HP and all the characters. If he watches the movies, he's following along in the books, finding which chapter in the book they are on. He asks specific questions about characters or storylines that I'm fairly certain even JK Rowling didn't think about. He reported on Obama's speech to the elementary schools that "JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter". That is all he recalled for me. He lives, breathes, dreams, and wishes he could eat it. That's how he rolls.

On Friday Bo and Avee had some friends over and their mom stayed to visit as well. As the kids were running around the house like wild animals Bo was chasing after the sweet girls, yelling, "avada kedavra!" at them.

A small part of me didn't care. Another small part of me was bothered that my son was "pretending" to kill people. And there was a good part of me that thought I was being dumb to even let it register. And another tiny part of me worried bit that it would bother my friend that he was doing this to her girls.

So I told him not to do it anymore. And yes, I felt a little sheepish telling my 6 year old "We don't do death curses in our home". I even had to tell him more than once.

I thought about it a lot throughout the evening, wondering if the logical part of my brain (you're being dumb Nobody) was right or wondering if the "My kids must always appear perfect" part of my brain was right.

So that night, as J and I were getting ready for bed, I brought it up. That's what marriage is for, right? Sounding boards, feedback, insights...

I said, "Bo was doing the avada kedavra curse today and I told him not to do it. I'm not sure if I really care, and I kind of felt dumb thinking it mattered...."

I heard J stifling laughter. He's not a very good stifler.

"Well," says I, "I don't really want him running around 'pretend killing' other kids---"

J interrupted, "WHAT!? He did it in front of the muggles!!!?"

And that's when I knew what the absence of support felt like, and how regularly J doesn't let me feel stupid.

There are just some things you can't fake.

In Which I Belabor My Wake Up Time. And Other Nonsense.

***I posted this yesterday. Danyo deleted it. He may have done us all a favor. But I'm persistent, so I posted again. Bring it Danyo.***

Yesterday afternoon Avee had a half birthday celebration. She's been harrassing me for about 2 months for a party. Normally I don't give into that kind of pressure, but I remembered Bo being very excited about his age and getting older, right around this time. His 4 and a half mark happened to fall exactly on Thanksgiving, so basically he got a HUGE party with tons of pie. Avee wanted to have cake and watch a movie for 8 minutes. Those were her specifications. Poor sweet girl has no idea how long 8 minutes are. You know, it just occurred to me, maybe she means 8 minutes in bull riding time. That would make a lot of sense.

Anyway, yesterday there were 9 kids here total. How did that happen? I don't know. Fortunately they are all good kids, (like I'd say any different, their moms know about this blog!) and only one of them was a neighbor kid who heard me say cake and wormed his way in.

After dropping off some of her friends, Avee and I discussed dinner plans. By "discussed" I mean, she didn't like what I had in mind and screamed "Mack a woe knee and cheeeeeeeeeeeese" at me all the way home.

Clearly she was tired. She had been sick the two days before, so I figured she was still recovering.

She got sent to her room when the screams turned into questions like, "Do you want me to hit you!?" and "Do you want me to slam your hand in the door?!"

She fell asleep. At 5:15.

So guess who's been up and bright eyed since 5:02 this morning? I woke up to her crouched by my bed, big, bright, happy face, smiling she said, "Danyo's alseep on the floor, isn't that 'laywious!?

Yes. It's hilarious. Go to bed.

"Oh yeah, I'm also SO SCARED."

No you aren't, go back to your bed.

"Oh, I fuhgot. Hee hee!"

Now it's 9:45 in the morning and I've been awake waaaaaaaaay too long for it to only be 9:45 in the morning.

Avee's friend is here this morning. Avee bragged to her that she was going to rub two sticks (that were in fact, laying on my living room floor) together and make fire.

Ella yelled, "NOOOOOO! Yaw mom will have to call 9-1-1!!!!"

Why is that so funny to me? Probably because I have been up since 5 AM.

Today I have so many things I'd like to get done. I know a lot of people say things like that frequently. I'm not one of those people. I'm very happy to settle in mediocrity and underachieving. I never make lists, I rarely accomplish what I set out to in a day, and I almost always don't care. I am the antithesis of my very best friends in this way. They are list-making hyper achievers.

But today, I have a list and some things really have to be accomplished. Like "Buy pretzels and juice and napkins" and "Take pretzels and juice and napkins to Avee's preschool".

Other than that, I'm pretty sure nothing else will get done. Because it's a rainy day and I bought a whole bunch of different herbal teas yesterday (it's like I knew!) and Ugly Betty Netflix.

And I got up at 5 AM.