Snorers Anonymous...not that we can hide something THAT loud...

Dear Fellow Snorers,

Howdy. My name is Murphy. (Hi, Murphy!) I wanted to give a bit of a testimonial today about the history of snoring in the Brawn household. For some odd reason, that has cropped up quite a bit in recent history, most recently in a discussion with Pig Jr.'s Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) doctor as he tries to figure out what is causing my son's repeat sinus infections. My son rarely snores, so that's not the issue with him, but it sure got me thinking about snoring.

I am one of those lucky souls who winds up having to take allergy medicine pretty much every day of the year. Congestion should have been my middle name. I have been told by the man I love that I snore on occasion. He, of all people ought to know snoring when he hears it: My husband is a champion snorer. Actually, I suppose I should properly state that he once was a champion snorer. Those days are long gone, much to my immense relief. Want to hear how that happened? Well, tough. I'm going to tell you anyway.

A number of years ago, I got very little sleep at night. My husband would snore loud enough to wake the dead. Naturally, this meant I would wake up since we don't typically have any dead in our room with us. After an earth-shattering snore, Pig would often stop breathing for a number of seconds. I would poke him in a panic, telling him to wake up, start breathing, and roll his sorry snoring self to face away from me. Eventually, I started bothering him about his snoring during my waking hours, and by that I mean "daytime", not "whenever his stinkin' snoring woke me up." He agreed to go for a sleep study, probably because it would be cheaper than divorce court or building an addition on the house for him to have his own room.

To make a long story even longer, Pig was diagnosed with sleep apnea. He has had a special machine that forces air into his nose while he sleeps so that his breathing will continue as it should, and not have those long pauses where he wasn't breathing. Sleep apnea is not pretty, folks. It causes all sorts of nasty problems. If you don't believe me, go research it. (Google and other search engines are our friends these days, no?) But once the apnea was addressed, the snoring stopped. Yay, science!

Since Pig's miraculous cure from snoring, I've learned a few things about it. First, if your partner says you are snoring, take them seriously. He or she is not going to lie about being woken up by your nocturnal trumpeting. Secondly, if your listening buddy hears long pauses in your breathing, get thee to a doctor! Third of all, getting snoring addressed by the proper medical professional BEFORE your loved one puts a pillow over your face is much better than offering him or her the chance to spend a number of years behind bars. Just trust me on this one.

Sincerely,

Murphy Brawn

Glue Sticks

Last Thursday, Rooster came home from school and told me her teacher told her to bring in two glue sticks. I mumbled something about having to pick them up the next time I went out shopping. I was fairly certain that I did not have any left in my school supplies stockpile. (Santa cleaned me out when he took some of my stash to wrap up for the kidlets' stocking stuffers.)

Friday, I went shopping at a store that was conveniently located just a couple hundred feet away from the store where I typically buy glue sticks. Did I enter that store? Not a chance! Did I look for them in the store I actually entered? Nope, can't say that I did. I wandered the store aimlessly, wondering what it was that I was forgetting to purchase, but that was the extent of it.

Saturday, I took Horse to her piano lesson. While out at the lesson, I remembered that I still needed to purchase three airtight containers and a digital food scale that has some degree of accuracy so Horse can mummify some hot dogs for a Science Fair project. Then I went home, Horse and I ate lunch, and I took a nap. Afterwards, it was time to make dinner, get the kidlets in bed, do the dishes, then go snooze some more. I think it is safe to assume I had totally forgotten about purchasing glue sticks by that point in time. The only items that stuck around mentally were for Horse. The concept of having to shop for Rooster must have leaked out of my ears while I slept.

Sunday, I went to the store to purchase Horse's mummification supplies. Coincidentally, I went first to the very same store where I should have purchased glue sticks. I remembered to pick up the shampoo for my younger two kidlets. I found the airtight containers where the hot dogs would apparently be spending the afterlife. Glue sticks never even crossed my mind. I went to another store to find a cheaper digital food scale, but that store did not sell glue sticks so I cannot be blamed for not purchasing any there. The fact that I would not have remembered even if they did sell them is irrelevant.

This takes us to today, which is Monday. I went out grocery shopping today. The grocery store has a nice, somewhat overpriced stationery/office/school supplies department that sells...wait for it...glue sticks! That would have been really quite convenient had I remembered to enter said department. Instead, I sailed around the store, forgetting half of my list, but being quite thankful that I remembered to pick up frozen vegetables this week. (I forgot them last week, which had warranted a separate trip to the grocery store because I wanted us to eat something other than five-year-old canned beans.) As of this point in time, I think it is safe to say that my usually organized brain is attempting to take an unscheduled holiday.

After school let out, Rooster handed me a note from her teacher. It informed me I needed to send in two glue sticks. Dang it. Well, at least I remember them again.

Lunchroom Issues

The local elementary school appears to have major issues with their lunchroom. Oh, it has its fair share of the usual issues: too noisy, too smelly, too crowded, not enough time for the kidlets to buy lunch on pizza day, and too many behavioral issues. That last one is almost expected when you pack a bunch of kidlets into a tiny space. I am, however, starting to wonder just who actually is supervising the students on their lunch break.

I have heard a number of stories from my kidlets about how rowdy everyone is in the lunch room. Kidlets are shouting, pushing, punching, bullying, and pretty much doing anything that crosses their minds. This year, a number of classes have assigned seating in the all purpose room because of their misbehavior, but I don't think that has even slowed the offending students down one smidgen. Horse tells me about how a couple of boys who sit near each other get into scraps every day. One steals the other's lunch, the other retaliates or goes after the other's coat, someone pushes someone else, a punch gets thrown, and the adult supervisors have been notified multiple times without seeming (to my kidlet) to actually do anything to break up the fights. Sounds like "fun," doesn't it?

Lately, Horse has been concerned about a game that a group of other students have created, by the name of "Spin the Pear." Now, when she first told me the name of this game, my initial thought was that they were too young to be playing Spin the Bottle-type games. However, that was not what the game was. Someone would spin a pear, and would call out a question. Whoever the pear landed on would be the supposed answer to the question. "Who is awesome?" was probably the only positive question my daughter overheard. "Who is retarded?" and "Who is gay?" were the two questions she was very concerned to hear. My daughter told me she did not know what those questions meant, but she could hear the scorn and ridicule in those other students' voices, and she figured they were meant as insults.

The first chance I had, I fired off an email to Horse's teacher. I explained the game, expressed my concern, and begged him to let me know if I needed to notify anyone else because I wanted that game stopped. This is a form of bullying, and it should not be allowed to continue.

Thankfully, Horse's teacher replied fairly quickly, stating that he had talked to the students and told them the game was unacceptable. There was absolutely no good reason for saying such things as a means to put one another down. He told me that even the staff in the lunchroom was notified so they could put a stop to such a game should it recur. I was happy to hear that, and eagerly waited for my daughter to come home from school that day so I could ask if the problem was addressed.

Horse's only comment about the game was that pears were in short supply so that group of students spun someone's hat instead. Methinks they missed the point. I guess I get to be the annoying parent who keeps hounding the school faculty until everything is properly addressed. Oy. If things are like this now, I am not looking forward to my daughter entering middle school in another year and a half. I wish I could put her in a bubble and keep her naive and innocent forever.

Semi-sleepless nights...

I used to think that by the time I became an adult, nightmares would be a thing of the past. Clearly, I was misinformed.

I have had extremely violent nightmares ever since I was quite young. I have died in dreams more often than not, and I am living proof that doing so does not mean you die in real life. Typically, my dreams turn to nightmares when I am stressed, pregnant, or sick, although there have been other times, too. I have actively tried to change my nightmares only to be told by people or creatures in my dreams that I am not allowed to do so. I have no idea what that implies is going on in my head, and I don't really want to find out.

Last night, I was hoping to get caught up on sleep. Dragging around in a stupor is becoming far too commonplace of an occurrence for me. I went to bed without blogging here, which rarely happens, and did not even bother logging into my favorite online game. Just before I nodded off, I heard one kidlet bump into the wall in his sleep and another kidlet make some sort of indistinguishable noise. From that point on, I was in full Mommy-alert, unable to sleep most of the time and having nightmares when I dozed off from sheer exhaustion.

At one point, I forcibly woke myself up from a dream where a demon-like monster was using uprooted trees to bash the back of a truck in which a bunch of people, myself included, were hiding. That was pretty much it for me in the sleep department. Where my brain comes up with this sort of thing is beyond my comprehension.

What strikes me as weird about the whole thing was that I did not watch anything violent before going to bed. I had read a pretty peaceful book that I really enjoyed during the day. None of the kidlets were fighting with one another, and they all seemed happy and healthy when they went to bed. I did not eat a late-night snack, or nosh on anything that would mess with my stomach and potentially cause bizarre dreams. To the best of my knowledge, I can only assume that my brain is trying to kill me for no good reason.

And now that it is time for everyone to start waking up, I'm going back to bed. Wish me luck getting some sleep.

A walk down (someone else's) memory lane...

Today is my grandmother's birthday. It's relatively easy for me to remember because it is exactly one month (and a huge number of years) before my own birthday. I do have to refer to where I have it written down to determine how old she turns every year, but given that I can never even remember how old I am without having to stop and perform mental math, I hope I can be forgiven for that memory lapse.

As I typically try to do every year on her birthday, I make the semi-obligatory phone call to her house. She is not the type of grandmother to call me up on my own birthday, or heck, even acknowledge that I was born a good portion of the time, but this is something I like to do for her anyway, regardless of just how one-way this street appears. Most years, I call after dinner in case she had the chance to go out somewhere nice. This year, I wanted to place my phone call before the other relatives who reside with her got home from work. Those two other individuals scare me a bit, particularly the one who talks incredibly fast, makes very little logical sense, and tried to hug my head right off my shoulders when I saw her for the last time about eight years ago. She's on my avoid-unless-you-are-stuck-seeing-her-at-a-funeral list.

Anyway, I bribed the kidlets with two new books to keep them occupied and relatively quiet while I wished my grandmother a happy birthday. In hindsight, two books for three kidlets was probably not the best ratio for such a thing. I suppose they could have been much louder, so I shall have to consider it to have worked.

My grandmother was oddly nostalgic. She told me stories about what things were like when she was younger. She told me how her icebox worked ("The iceman would come and bring a big block of ice and carry it up the stairs to put it in the top of the icebox. It would drip down into a drip pan underneath the icebox. It worked! My last year in that apartment, I finally got an actual refrigerator.") and ignored me when I asked questions about how often the block of ice needed to be replaced or how often the drip pan needed to be emptied. I am presuming she either did not remember or did not think such questions were worthy of an answer.

She talked about being pulled in an [unintelligible word that I still do not know what it was] behind horses to get to school, and how they had to bundle up and go outside to run around in the winter, regardless of the temperatures at their recess time.

My grandmother talked about going into the local school to tell first graders about life when she was their age. They were astounded at the lack of television and electricity. ("They wanted to know what on earth we did if we couldn't watch television. I said we were busy helping out with the house. We had to help my mother with the picking, and the canning, and everything else.") They were baffled about the lack of a bathroom. ("We did not go into any detail on that one though!")

We talked a bit about my great-grandparents, her parents. I mentioned the only memory I have of her father, which is of him poking me with his cane while my great-grandmother cackled and told me to take it from him to teach him a lesson. She said he was always "teasing" the little kids that way. She told me how her father would reach into his pocket and pull out a stick of gum to give to "the boys" (Whoever they were. I don't even know if she meant when she was a kid or if "the boys" were her own sons.) before church, and how they would sit there and just chew and chew while her mother would be fuming. She chuckled when she mentioned how my great-grandmother would ream out my great-grandfather after each time he did such a thing.

I asked her about doing laundry, which is one of the most present subjects on my mind these days. She talked about having to use a washboard to clean clothes, and how they all had to be wrung out by hand. Her mother would handle most of the wash, but each girl was responsible for cleaning her own underwear. My grandmother fondly recalled when her father finally got a "Maytag with a gasoline motor." She said it shook the whole street and you could hear it from quite a distance away, but she was so happy to not have to wring out the clothes by hand. ("It sat out there on the back porch, and I did the laundry every Friday.")

Mostly, my grandmother mentioned how they did not have everything, but they had enough. There was enough food on the table. They had enough clothes. They had "wood burning stoves that are probably healthier for you anyway" so they did not feel cold in the winter. She claims it was a much better time. This is from a woman who lived through the Great Depression. I am not sure if she truly felt that way at the time or is looking at her life through rose-colored glasses.

Happy Birthday, Gram. It turns out that you gave me a gift today instead of the other way around. Thank you for telling me those tales from years gone by. I wish you would put pen to paper to record them, but since you claim you lack the motivation for doing so, I hope I have managed to accomplish a bit of that for you here.

Proudly Considered to be "Stupid"

If you listened to a select group of people, you would find out that they believe I am stupid, a moron, or an idiot. Perhaps, you might also hear that I am insane or that I believe in fairy-tales. I am sure they come up with some other fairly creative descriptions when insulting my intelligence. Then again, you might find out they are insulting you, too, depending on your religious beliefs. You see, I believe in God, and some people are of the opinion that they have free range to insult my intelligence, and perhaps yours, too, when it comes to this subject.

Now, normally I would avoid any and all talk about religion, politics, or other divisive topics in this blog. I have this thing against being tarred and feathered for not holding the same exact viewpoint as whoever might potentially be reading this. However, I have lately heard a number of the aforementioned comments directed at people like me, and I wonder why this is happening.

Let me be perfectly frank. Right now, I am not debating whether or not God (or whatever else you wish to call Him, Her, or Them) exists. If you believe in Him, welcome to the party. If you do not believe in Him, I respect your right to hold that belief. If you're not sure, I can understand that, too. Ultimately, none of us will know for sure whether or not a divine Creator exists until we die. By then, it's a little too late to change your mind. I am conceding the point that I cannot prove the existence of my belief, but I am also stating that someone with different beliefs cannot prove they are correct either. This is where faith, or a lack thereof, comes into play, and I do not wish to argue over things that cannot possibly be proven one way or another.

I recognize that there will always be a group of individuals who will make blanket statements about the mentality of anyone who holds different beliefs than they do. I know a number of atheists and agnostics as well as people from various religious affiliations who would never even consider telling someone they were idiots for holding a different religious viewpoint than they do. I have been in multiple conversations where people who do not believe in God have asked honestly and without malice, why someone would believe the way I do. I know it is possible to question someone else's belief system without questioning their sanity. I have seen it in practice.

I have also witnessed a number of people make comments that imply (or outright state) that whoever believes in any form of Divine Being is the mental equivalent of an earthworm. I am sure there are people who also accuse atheists of substandard intelligence. I am not one of them, and I would hope my incredibly intelligent readers would not do so either. But there are people out there who do insult one another instead of simply accepting the fact that not everyone believes (or doesn't believe) in the same things they do.

Ultimately, here's the thing: The only one I need to justify my faith and belief system to is the very One whose existence is in debate. So if you want to assume I am "stupid," a "moron," or an "idiot" because I believe in "fairy tales," go right ahead. You insulting me is not going to do anything to change my belief in God. It will only change my opinion of you.

And I thought the kidlets ignoring me was bad...

A week or two ago, Rooster brought home her usual "We're going to have a class party, so please send in two bucks for your kid" envelope. The attached paper also stated that the money was for two parties, Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day, and the New Year party was going to be on the 26th instead of actually on Chinese New Year. I am not entirely sure of that logic, but whatever the case may be, I shall deal with it.

I wrote a note on the envelope that Rooster might not even make it to school for the Chinese New Year party. She has an appointment with her gastroenterologist that morning and we might not make it back to school before lunch. (Lunch is the typical point at which I draw the line and either do or do not bring them to school after an appointment.) This particular doctor often cancels or reschedules appointments with little or no advance warning, so that was the extent to which I notified the school about Rooster's potential absence.

A few days ago, Rooster came running out of school and bragged about how she was one of the few kidlets chosen to be in the Chinese New Year play. I asked her why that was the case when I had notified her teacher that she might not even be there that day. She told me she asked her teacher the same thing, and her teacher told her to just try and make it before their afternoon festivities. What? As if Rooster has any control over how long her doctor's appointment runs!

Today, Rooster informed me her teacher needed to speak with me after school. I dutifully walked over to see what she wanted. Basically, her teacher just wanted to remind me that I needed to send in a snack for my food-allergic daughter to eat during their class party tomorrow. I reminded her that she might not even make it to school tomorrow, and her jaw dropped. Her words were, "But she's in our class play!" I had to re-explain that the doctor's appointment had been scheduled and that we would do what we could, but we had to wait and see. She acted surprised to hear this information.

Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother notifying this particular teacher of anything anyway. At least she finally remembers that Rooster is not allowed to eat anything unless I send it in with her!

Energy

The kidlets love to mess with me when walking to school in the morning. They either walk so slowly that I swear they are moving backwards, or they race ahead, dragging me along in their dust. Every so often, they mix it up by having one going in slow-motion while the other two tear along the sidewalk, or vice versa. My energy level tends to remain the same regardless of their speed settings. If it is before noon, no caffeine has been ingested, and I am not in an adrenaline rush, then I have no energy. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

This morning, all three kidlets were set to "hyper." I felt sorry for Horse and Pig Jr.'s teachers, but was secretly chortling over Rooster's teacher having to deal with her bouncing off the walls. (Serves her right for assigning so much stinkin' homework every night for a kidlet who would rather sob for two hours, saying that she can't do the work, rather than buckle down and finish it in fifteen minutes.) I was able to keep up with my frisky offspring, but it was rough going on my part.

Pig Jr., who is still required by Mommy Law to hold my hand on the walk to school, kept trying to pull me along the sidewalk while he cheerfully blathered on and on about how his energy levels were one hundred. I am not quite sure what an energy level of one hundred should look like, but if he was a living, breathing example of it, then I hope I never see a child with energy levels higher than that. Just watching him was wearing me out, although I suppose that him trying to tear my shoulder right out of its socket might have had something to do with that.

As we hit the halfway point between home and school, Pig Jr. looked up at me and smiled. He told me, "Mommy, I give you one of my energy. I have ninety-nine now so you can have energy, too." If only it was that easy, kiddo. Still, the thought was sweet and filled me with warm fuzzies.

I guess this means my energy is now one.

First grade homework is not for wimps...

As far as I can tell, Rooster does not belong in first grade. She "can't" do the work. It's "too hard." She has just spent the past one and a half hours sitting and sobbing at the kitchen table while she tells me just how impossible her homework is. She is making major mistakes on her math homework, and if I did not know any better, I would say Rooster is doing this deliberately to make me twitch.

     Me: "What do the directions say?"
     Rooster: "Circle groups of ten. Write the numbers."
     Me: "Okay, so circle the pictures in groups of ten."
     Rooster: *circling a group of five*
     Me: "How many is that?"
     Rooster: "Ten."
     Me: "No, it's not. Erase that and try again."
     Rooster: *erasing and then circling the same group of five*
     Me: "It's still not ten. You need to circle something different or add to the group to make ten."
     Rooster: *erasing and then circling the same group of five*
     Me: "Count that. How many is in that group that you keep circling?"
     Rooster: "Um, not ten?" *erases the circle and rips the paper in the process*
     Me: "Oh, for the love of all things sacred..."

Lather, rinse, and repeat for the aforementioned hour and a half. In case anyone is curious, this is why I do not homeschool my kidlets. I'm already developing nervous mannerisms just from trying to have my daughter complete her homework. (I wish I was joking about that. I am reverting to doing the hand stretches and thumb cracking--my own, not Rooster's-- that I used to do when I was stressed out as a child. Nervous behaviors and I go way back.)

In the middle of all of this, I get a phone call from a well-meaning individual who wished me a happy Chinese New Year (Yay! She remembered it's the year of the Dragon!) and told me that I'm not supposed to scold my kidlets today because of the holiday. I figure I have two choices: Don't scold Rooster and leave her homework incomplete, or get after her to fix her mistakes and maybe, just maybe she will finish her homework before the next Ice Age.

And just think: I get to have the same amount of "fun" for tomorrow's homework, too! I am starting to think her teacher deserves combat pay.

Addition with Rooster and Pig Jr.

Every so often, I overhear a conversation between my two younger kidlets that makes me smile and clamp a hand over my mouth so I do not laugh out loud and break the spell. This afternoon, I was eavesdropping on their back-and-forth as they gave each other addition problems to attempt.

Note: Pig Jr. is four and in preschool. He technically will not see an actual addition problem until kindergarten next year. Anything he has picked up thus far has been strictly from conversations with his sisters and from asking Pig and I random math facts. Pig and I will also ask him questions in return, although we try to limit our questions to ones he can answer by using his fingers. His sister is not that kind. That's almost irrelevant, because he does not often arrive at the correct answer even when counting on his fingers.

     Rooster: "What is four plus four?"
     Pig Jr.: "Nine!"
     Rooster: "No, it's eight."
     Pig Jr.: "You're wrong!"
     Rooster: "You can ask Mom. She'll tell you."
     Pig Jr.: "Well, what's one hundred plus five?"
     Rooster: "That's too hard for me. No fair! What is three hundred plus two hundred plus two hundred?"
     Pig Jr.: *counting on his fingers* "Eight?"

Neither kidlet would have passed a mental arithmetic test, but both of them had a blast trying to ask and answer questions. They went back and forth for much longer than I expected, and both kidlets did manage to correctly answer a number of addition problems. The former math teacher in me was gloating, not because they were struggling to correctly count on their fingers, but because this was what they chose to do for fun on a Sunday afternoon. I am so proud.

Snow Day Stupors

Well, it's about time that we saw enough snow that the kidlets were able to play in it. Granted, it was only about two inches, but that was still enough to bundle them up and shoo them outside. I also made the executive decision to push my husband out the door to shovel the driveway while I stayed inside and "did laundry." Technically, the washing machine did the laundry. I attempted to use the Wii Fit for the first time in ages now that I've shrunk my jeans again. (I'm blaming the washing machine for that, too.)

A couple of hours later, I called everybody to come inside the house. I am still amazed that kidlets who complain about walking to school in the "freezing cold weather outside" (translation: forty-two degrees Fahrenheit) have no problem spending hours outside when it is twenty-five degrees, provided there is snow on the ground.

Now that everyone is inside, had some water and a snack, and resting, they are all in a stupor. I'll even add myself to the stupor list. I clocked in a whole sixty minutes on the Wii Fit, and I'm fairly certain that doing anything more energetic than slumping in a chair would probably kill me. Even my favorite dairy-free chocolate chip cookies are not worth this exercise-related exhaustion and muscle soreness.

The adults in the household are starting to doze off as we sit and rest. This is pretty much a guarantee that in a few minutes, the kidlets will come into their second wind and turn hyper on us. I am holding on to the hope that they will all be in bed, asleep, by eight o'clock tonight. Surely I can manage to stay awake until then!

It's still nice to enjoy a snow day stupor. Two inches of snow would not have been enough to cancel school, so I am glad today's snow happened on a Saturday instead of a school day.

The Miracle Beach Towel

Pig Jr. has been home from school for a few days this week. Technically, he's missed three of them because he was discovered to have a sinus infection stemming from his having influenza. Figures the one kidlet who actually got a flu shot this year was the one kid to come down with the flu.

Anyway, despite the fact that his school district would probably have been okay for me to send him back to school, I've kept him home. He's very congested and his coughing sounds atrocious. He also has massive mood swings where he is sobbing one moment and laughing hysterically the next. He gets tired quickly, too. If I didn't know any better, I would swear my son has PMS. I hope this break from school germs and viruses will help his weary immune system to finally beat this thing.

When Pig Jr. and I walked his sisters to school this morning, I situated him into our sole remaining stroller that is large enough to hold him. I threw a beach towel over his legs to help keep him warm in the bitter cold wind. Twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit is cold enough without wind, thank you very much. That wind chill was brutal, although I'm sure people living in colder climates would laugh at our wimpiness when it comes to winter weather.

Sadly, the beach towel was not enough for Pig Jr. to feel warm throughout our mile-and-a-half round trip. However, he proceeded to make use of it for a good portion of the day.

The beach towel became the cover for a tunnel that "only little kids can crawl under. Not you, Mommy." It was a cape so he could fly around the room. It was mummy wrapping around his four-year-old Mummy self. It was a blanket to lie down upon while reading some books. It was something to hide under and giggle while shouting, "Mommy can't find me! I disappeared!" It was a snugly blanket to curl up under while trying to hide his ears from Mommy. (I'm still not sure why he wanted them hidden. But I was informed, repeatedly, that I could not find them because his hands were over them, so apparently they were hiding.)

Even after playing with his beach towel for several hours, he still wanted to share his new favorite toy with his sisters. That is, however, until he told Horse that the two of them needed to jump onto the beach towel as he held it up high. Two bashed foreheads, two screaming and crying kidlets, two ice packs (and cloths to cover them), and one frustrated and annoyed mother later, and his miracle beach towel was put into his hamper without ceremony.

I can understand a four-year-old coming up with an idea that will get multiple kidlets injured. I don't understand why a nine-year-old, who cannot walk down the hallway without tripping, thinks that jumping into a towel towards her brother was a good idea. I also have no idea how they managed to accomplish the whole forehead-smashing thing, since Horse is quite a bit taller than her brother, and that implies she would have been the one to either bend over or fall into him, not him falling into her. He couldn't even hold up the beach towel high enough to block her visibility.

Too bad this miracle beach towel can't come up with any answers for me.

Hearing about another mother's loss...

Yesterday evening, my husband came home with the news that a coworker had "lost her baby." I have that in quotes, partially because it's his words, and partially because I hate the phrase and am using it under protest.

A pregnant woman whose baby dies does not "lose" her child. That sounds as if she has misplaced her baby. Whatever you choose to call the life that was growing inside of her has died. I remember having the ultrasound that proved that my own baby, whose heartbeat I had just heard for the first time three days prior, was no longer going to continue to grow and be born into this world. My doctor told me I had lost my baby. I wanted to scream at him, first for my loss, and secondly because I did not LOSE my baby! I knew exactly where he or she was: in my uterus. His or her heart was no longer beating. That fact was hard enough to digest without feeling as if the blame was somehow mine. Even though I had done nothing to cause that loss of life, every time I heard someone say they were sorry I lost my baby, it felt as if the whole world was blaming me.

My husband was not blamed for "losing" that baby. He heard things like, "I'm sorry your wife lost the baby." Great. Even his coworkers blamed me. Harrumph.

Needless to say, it felt as if my entire world ended. That was my third pregnancy, too, so I had two beautiful girls who needed me to pull it together and try to function. Hello, Zoloft!

My husband's coworker does not have the benefit of knowing she can carry a baby to term. This was her first pregnancy. My heart absolutely breaks for her. She also suffered this loss of life much later in her pregnancy. A first trimester miscarriage is miserable enough. I cannot even fathom how horrific it would be to one day feel your baby moving around inside of you, and the next day there is nothing, and no successful delivery in-between the two.

I hope my husband remembers what not to say to a woman who suffered such a loss. "I know exactly how you feel. We lost a baby, too." No, you don't know. I don't care if you have had one miscarriage or twenty. Every woman feels this loss differently, and foisting your own thoughts and feelings on someone else is just adding insult to injury. You also don't know if a woman is feeling guilt, relief, or shock. She might have been concerned she could not handle having a child, or additional children, and is completely conflicted over what she feels.

"You can always try to have another." You don't know that. That mother might not physically be able to carry a child to term. She might not be emotionally able to take another chance. I know my OB-GYN was upset that I would ask about permanent ways to prevent having another child after my fourth pregnancy. He insisted that no permanent solutions should be considered until after a happy, healthy baby was born. I told him it was hard enough for me to risk that fourth pregnancy after having a miscarriage with my third. I would either have a successful birth and welcome my third child into the world, or I would have another miscarriage and close up the baby shop for good. Emotionally, that was all I was able to handle. Thankfully, our son was the end result of that pregnancy. Not all women are that fortunate. Other mothers might not feel able to handle more attempts.

What I do hope my husband says is that we are sorry to hear about her loss, and that if she wants or needs to talk about it, we are here. And then give her time to get through this. I hope he takes his cues from her. If she walks out of the room when he's telling a story about something silly our kid did at school, he had better not hunt her down later to finish the story.  She might not ever want to hear about children again, she might want to hear a zillion stories to give her hope about her own future, or she might feel somewhere in the middle. Whatever the case, I hope she knows a lot of people care about her, and are thinking of her right now.

But why would anyone WANT to mummify a hot dog?

Horse is being required to participate in a Science Fair for the first time in her school career. She was more than slightly ambivalent about coming up with an idea on her own. As she put it, she's not really a science person. She is more of a sit-down-and-read-a-fictional-book type of person. Regardless, she's stuck doing it whether it's her thing or not.

Horse came home from school today, where she was supposedly going to think about ideas for a science project. She skulked into the kitchen and informed me that a friend of hers wants to do a project on volcanoes. Not to insult every other fourth grader out there who wants to do a science project on volcanoes, but it's really not the most challenging thing to throw some baking soda into a clay, hollowed-out cone, and pour some vinegar in after it. I'm fairly certain we saw at least four or five volcanoes just like that at every other Science Fair we attended at the kidlets' elementary school. The school might be okay with that, but I think my daughter is bright enough to come up with something a little more challenging.

Thankfully, at least before SOPA any way, there were a couple of good kidlet-friendly websites that are centered around Science Fair projects. Horse took over my laptop (harrumph) and hunted around online to see if she could find something. She couldn't. In fact, she said that there was nothing even remotely interesting at all. Yet vinegar and baking soda is? Come on, kiddo. I showed you that magic for the first time when you were a toddler and I needed to disinfect the kitchen sink drain.

After Horse's allotted computer time was up and there was no science project idea that she was willing to attempt, I took over the search. I first pulled up a project that involved cooking, which Horse loves, and food allergies, which our family lives with on a daily basis. That sounded right up her alley. Nope. Horse stated it was too boring because she is used to dealing with food allergies and substitutions all the time anyway. I would like to say I was mature enough to not roll my eyes at that pronouncement, but I would fail a lie-detector test on that one.

The next project I clicked on was more up my alley than Horse's, since it was about mummification and I am a fan of mummies. (True story: I told my then-groom-to-be that I would only elope to Las Vegas if we were able to stay somewhere that imitated ancient Egypt, thinking even Las Vegas would not have such a thing. Yeah, um, I had never heard of the Luxor, which was where we stayed after flying out there.) Horse said she had been interested in the project, but wasn't sure if she could do it because it required buying a package of hot dogs so she could mummify one.

I quickly established that any good science project would require supplies to complete, and a package of hot dogs was not going to break the bank. The project instructions were promptly printed out and a now-giddy Horse filled out her paperwork to attend the Science Fair. She will be mummifying a few hot dogs over the next couple of months in order to complete her project.

I personally think it's a great idea for a Science Fair, however, I have no idea why anyone would want to mummify a hot dog, of all things. Those things have more preservatives than Dick Clark.

A Homemaker's Worth...

A friend of mine shared a link that talked about how much the average stay-at-home mom or dad could earn if they performed their services out in that mysterious location called "The Real World." In other words, how much would you have to pay people to perform comparable services? The answer is typically an astronomical figure that fills me with glee when I contemplate my actual monetary worth.

I did not have the usual reaction today, which surprised me. I actually felt downright depressed to read that high number and look at how it was broken down into individual tasks.

Perhaps my unusual response is because I am far behind in my household chores. The floors are not mopped, the furniture is not dusted, and I cannot even remember the last time I vacuumed. I do know the bathroom was wiped down with chemically-laden cleaning cloths after the phone call today that told me my son tested positive for influenza. I know that the clothes my husband washed at the laundromat yesterday when our washing machine committed suicide were put away, although it took me until this afternoon to finish that task. I did wash the breakfast and lunch dishes, but they are still sitting out in the dish drainer. I started collecting the paper recycling in preparation for the recycling to go out tonight, but neglected to cut and bundle the cardboard that also gets put out at the curb this evening. Pretty much every task I started today, or even yesterday, was not completed.

In other words, if I had to actually bring my services to "The Real World," I would be fired for my poor work completion skills. I guess it's a darn good thing I work for free then, eh?

Playdates are starting to concern me...

Pig and I are entering a world of which we are quite unsure: The world of having a tween daughter. At least he's unsure. I used to teach kidlets around this age, so I feel a little bit more comfortable with certain aspects of it, although my insider knowledge makes me a bit more leery of things, too. Some of the stories I heard while teaching were enough to make my hair stand on end, and that was before I had a daughter of my own about whom I would worry.

Horse's Pokemon friend asked if she could come over for another day of epic gaming today. This was a boy who was in her class last year, and they have gotten together before so he could cheat at cards...erm...I mean so they could have Pokemon battles. The time was agreed upon for 11:30AM, and Horse was invited to stay for lunch. I was in the middle of baking chocolate chip cookies at the time of her departure, so Pig drove her over to her friend's house. I wish I had been the one to take her instead. She would not have gone into their house at all.

Now let me first state that to the best of my knowledge, Horse and her friend had a grand time, enjoyed their pizza lunch (and the homemade chocolate chip cookies I sent with her for dessert), and everyone was safe and sound the whole time she was there.

The paranoid mother in me wants to smack my husband upside the head for dropping her off at a boy's house when the only adult in charge is the boy's father, who was still in his robe after just getting out of the shower. You don't leave a nine-year-old girl alone in a house with an adult male you barely know and who is not fully dressed. I do not care how secure you believe the situation is. You don't do it. Yes, I met the boy's father on a previous occasion. Chatting with someone briefly does not put them into my "trust them implicitly" category. I do not consider that to be a safe and secure situation, especially for a little girl who is still incredibly naive about members of the opposite sex.

That brings me to the following mental train-of-thought: How supervised were Horse and her friend at that house? How innocent and naive is the little boy? Were the two of them simply involved in card games and everything was on the up and up, or was anything more sordid taking place? From what I have seen of this boy on previous occasions, he is just as innocent as my daughter is, but at this age, that is possible to change at the drop of a hat. If the only person keeping an eye on them was someone woefully underdressed, were they really supervised properly? One would assume that adult had to at least go and put some clothes on properly while the kidlets were off playing. I am not saying that a grown-up had to be hovering over them, and even at playdates here I do not do that, but putting multiple closed doors between the adults and children does not strike me as a wise move.

I am thinking that any get-togethers with this child are going to have to take place at our house from now on. At a bare minimum, we can guarantee that there will be no underdressed adults here. It is also nearly impossible for the two kidlets to be left alone in any given room in our house. Our house is just that small.

If I am this paranoid already, I am really not sure how I will survive my daughter entering the dating years. We might have to postpone them until she is thirty. Think she'll go along with that? Yeah, me neither.

The Giggle Bug Cure-All

I do the whole "cranky" thing well. (Go with your strengths, right?) So when I got hit with a massive sinus headache last night, had it prevent me from sleeping all night, and then got up feeling miserable, I had to physically keep myself away from my family so my crankiness would not rub off on them. One cranky person out of five is not so bad, but five cranky people all stuck inside one house on a frigid day is not something to be attempted lightly.

I managed to take a nap just after lunch, and woke up feeling a bit less cranky, although still headachy, so I declared the afternoon to be "Movie Afternoon" and put on a movie to watch with my kidlets.

Pig Jr. decided he was less than thrilled with my choice of movie. He plunked himself down on my lap and started arguing about why he should not have to watch it. (My response? "So don't watch it. Nobody's forcing you.") For some reason, his four-year-old mind considered that to be a challenge, and I tickled him instead of trying to come up with some bizarre form of logic that would make him give up his arguments.

The next quarter of an hour was filled with tickle attacks from both parties, and attempts of a forty-pound kidlet to try and tackle me. I guess nobody ever told him that wrestling maneuvers are better suited for people more equally matched in size and weight. Pig Jr. was giggling the whole time. He found it hysterical when Mommy grabbed both of his hands and made him clap. He thought it amusing when Mommy tickled his neck. He thought it entirely unfair that I was able to stop his attempts at wrestling, pouncing, tickling, and other giggle-inducing maneuvers, but that did not stop him in the slightest. For those fifteen-ish minutes, my little Giggle Bug threw himself wholeheartedly into his energetic play. He only stopped when I realized it was shower time for him and he went to go get cleaned up and into his pajamas.

It strikes me as ironic that I was trying to avoid my family so my crankiness would not wear off on them, yet the contagious part wound up being the silly antics of my adorable son. I love that boy.

Dental Work of Doom...or is that redundant?

Dental work and I are not friends. Mouth pain is some of the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life, and that includes having gone through three inductions to give birth to three over-eight-pound watermelons, or so it seemed at the time. My youngest child's delivering doctor actually pegged him at nine pounds at first, simply from the size of his huge noggin. Suffice it to say, I am well-versed in the pain of childbirth, and I'm still saying it's nothing compared to mouth pain.

Last Saturday, I went to see the dentist so he could start the process of putting a crown on a tooth that is slowly splitting itself apart. A fractured tooth is not a happy tooth, so he wanted to put the crown on it to prevent it from splitting and to hopefully prevent needing either a root canal or an extraction. I suspect he also wanted another month's mortgage payment for a vacation home, but I digress. (And yes, I know that he actually does not see a whole heck of a lot of money from that huge chunk of change I had to plunk down for this crown. But after plunking it down, I still find it to be more than I wanted to spend, so I will instead erroneously stick to my guns that he's making out like a bandit here. Denial's not just a river in Egypt, you know.)

To make a short story even longer, I spent the past week dealing with all sorts of pain and discomfort from Saturday's work. I had cold sensitivity that was so bad I felt as if a nearby tooth that had a root canal (and should therefore not feel anything) was feeling the pain, too. I could not stop biting the inside of my cheek, which was swelling, bleeding, and otherwise making its hurt known. And heaven help me if I accidentally hit the side of my temporary crown with a spoon or fork, because the pain would just shoot up like a dagger into my brain.

I went back to the dentist today for part two of the "let's make a crown" game. I felt like the world's biggest complainer as I told him about the misery he unknowingly put me through from his work. He actually bit back a smile when I told him about the cold sensitivity of a tooth that should not feel anything anymore. (Maybe if he had bit his cheek instead, I would have felt we were on an even footing.) After going through my whole rant about the mouth pain this week, my dentist took a look in my mouth. Approximately half a second later, he announced that he could see the problem. The temporary crown was not seated properly, thus exposing whatever part of the tooth that reacts to cold (which can then radiate over to teeth that really are not feeling anything anymore thanks to their prior root canals), making me bite my cheek (one edge of the temporary crown stuck out too far when my mouth closed), and causing all sorts of unhappy feelings pretty much anywhere that tooth's nerve went.

One new temporary crown later, and I am hoping my week-long dental work woes have come to an end. I still need to take some form of mild painkiller (I <3 ibuprofen for dental work pain) until the swelling in my poor, abused cheek disappears, but the rest of the trouble has hopefully gone the way of the dodo bird.

The Domestic Goddess Rut

Heaven help me, but I've become one of those weirdos who become ecstatic when shopping for a new ironing board. If I happen to find a new iron to go with it, I'm thrilled.

When my vacuum dies a slow, painful death, I look forward to picking out a new one that might, perhaps, be able to actually clean up the smashed raisins that my son likes to trail throughout the house.

Finding a new draining board to put underneath my dish drainer fills me with glee.

When I realize that my preferred food storage containers are on sale, I am likely to squeal in the store aisles. I wish this was an exaggeration.

If I should find a thermal travel mug (long since apparently sold-out during the last season) stashed away in the far recesses of the wrong department in the only store that sells the particular brand and size my husband likes, I will debate taking a cell phone picture of said item just to send to my husband to prove what a good find I just made. I will beam with pride as I purchase the travel mug, and rush home to wash it and have it ready for the next time my husband needs it.

What the heck is wrong with me? I've become domestic!

When I first took off time from work to give birth to my baby, I counted down the days until I could return to work. Granted, the postpartum depression might have had something to do with that, but I still felt as if my teaching job was calling to me. I was not entirely sure I was going to survive staying home with my little girl for the whole year-and-a-half maternity leave my school district approved for me.

Just before my daughter turned one, I realized that I could not leave her to be raised by someone else. The fun stuff had started (crawling, walking, talking!), the postpartum depression was a thing of the past, and I felt as if raising her was the most important thing I could do. I gave my notice to the school district, and dedicated myself to being a stay-at-home mother, which was a job I never in a million years would have wanted for myself before that point in time.

Two additional babies later, and I had my hands full raising three of the most beautiful and amazing children that were ever born. (Okay, so I might be slightly biased on that point, but that's my story and I'm sticking with it.) My life centered around their well-being and their individual needs. They started school slowly, one at a time, and I adjusted to my changing role in their lives. It wasn't actually until this September, when all three of them went to school for a full day, five days a week, that I started noticing the disturbing changes that I outlined in the beginning paragraphs of this blog entry.

I now have far too much time to spend dealing with the tasks that make a household run smoothly. Laundry, ironing, cooking, cleaning, and other related tasks consume more of each day than I ever would have thought possible. And sadly, when I attempt retail therapy, I wind up either purchasing things for the kids or supplies to make those mundane household tasks a little easier.

Boy, do I need a life. (Oh, and one of those wood floor mops, too...Bwahaha!)

Wake me when it's July...

I detest all of the germs and viruses that kidlets bring home with them from school. I loathe how miserable the kidlets feel and despise when they decide to share their "joy" with me. The younger the kidlet, the more often they seem to be sick, too.

Pig Jr. has been battling chronic sinusitis for ages now. Once he gets congested, he starts coughing and potentially wheezing. I know it's contagious because a few days after he starts coughing in my face, I wind up with it, too. So far we've had multiple pediatricians, an allergist, and an ENT weigh in on how to treat the problem. The ENT today decided to take a culture and have us come back next week after they determine what exactly is brewing in my boy's head so they can treat it properly. In the meantime, he has to just deal with his symptoms, and I with mine. (There's no bloody point in treating my own symptoms if he's just going to give it right back to me once I'm better. I'll wait until there is a treatment plan for him.)

I relayed all this information to Pig Jr.'s school nurse today, and asked her if she wanted me to keep him home until he's on his next course of sinusitis-specific antibiotics. She said to just send him in to school and to remind him to blow his nose. (Which I have been saying pretty much repeatedly to all three of my kidlets since school started back up in September...) 

Her parting bit of knowledge was that there's a lot of puking and stomachaches floating around the school right now.

There are times when I truly hate the school year.

Duck, Duck, Stuffed Goose!

Rooster and Pig Jr. love playing Duck, Duck, Goose. The only problem is that it is kind of hard to play with just two people. Oh, they have tried to add other players, but rapidly discovered that Mommy does not get up nearly quick enough to chase them around a circle, and Horse is often doing her own thing (typically, fourth grade homework) and cannot be bothered.

That's not a problem when you have stuffed animals.

Whenever the Duck, Duck, Goose urge strikes, my two younger children arrange a number of stuffed animals in a circle. Whoever is "It" will go around and dutifully tap each "Duck's" head (or head-analogue, depending). Whenever "Goose" is called, the other remaining human kidlet will pick up the "Goose" and carry it while running around the circle. There appears to be a rule that all players must laugh their fool heads off while participating in the running part of the game.

The game gets a little more complex if an actual stuffed duck or goose is part of the circle. Then a duck can be Goose, or vice versa, and the laughing must escalate to hearty guffaws or mad cackling.

Eventually, the stuffed animals become projectiles, players in Hide-and-Seek, or students in a classroom. It's a little like watching real-life versions of Calvin and Hobbes play Calvinball. (I <3 Bill Watterson...and so does my husband, so it's all good. Horse even reads those old comic strips to her siblings, so the whole family is appreciative of Mr. Watterson's work.) I just hope my kidlets know their stuffed animals are actually inanimate objects.

So it wasn't a mortgage offer...

I am the person who, on most days, is responsible for bringing in the mail. This coincides with me being the person stuck having to pay the bills. My husband feels like this way I am aware of our finances so that I will not spend more than we have. I suspect it really is more about him wanting to pass an unwanted task to someone else, but I digress.

Anyway, since we have taken our house off the market, we have received a huge number of "Hire me!" offers from realtors who want to sell our house and refinancing offers from various mortgage companies. I find that combination entertaining. "Hey, we can sell your house!" "No, they can't. Refinance instead!"

Yesterday, I went to open up what I thought was another mortgage offer. The handwriting on the envelope struck me as the pretend handwriting that is actually just some computer generated style. The name on the return address, which showed the envelope originated about three thousand miles away, was unfamiliar. It had to be a mortgage offer, right?

My husband has given me permission to open up mail coming in for him, which is mostly bills, as part of the privilege associated with having to pay the bills in the first place. I therefore ignored the fact that it was only his name on the outside of the envelope, and ripped it open.

Out fell a watercolor picture of a sultry brunette lounging on a couch in the midst of wrapping Christmas presents. What the heck?

My thoughts ranged from wondering what happened to the mortgage offer to pondering if paternity claims would be forthcoming. Needless to say, I was less than amused with my husband for being the recipient of such artwork, regardless of how talented the artist might be. Thankfully, I checked out the rest of the envelope to see if there was any correspondence enclosed with the picture. (Newly worried about claims of paternity, remember?)

It turns out that an artist who plays the same online game that my husband and I play offers up a certain amount of free artwork for the holidays. My husband was one of the last people chosen to receive her watercolors. He was the one who requested a picture of a brunette resting after having wrapped tons of presents. After all, that sounded to him like me. I am indeed a brunette (well, until the gray hairs win that battle) who handles all the gift purchasing and wrapping. He was hoping the picture would come in early enough to give to me for Christmas. The fact that the brunette in question was quite curvaceous, in a miniskirt, and reclining on a couch was all the artist's interpretation.

My husband wants to know what I think of my gift. That's really hard to answer when I'm still looking at the watercolor through the eyes of a paranoid wife.

When is a nap not a nap? When a kidlet is involved...

Last night was a long night in the Brawn household. Pig Jr. was up a good portion of the night with coughing and congestion. This means that I was also up a good portion of the night. Yippee-skippee.

Anyway, my theory about kidlets being up all night is that they do not get to go to school the next day. What would they do there? Sleep all day? Infect everyone else in their class? I don't see that as being a positive thing to do. Therefore, like it or not, Pig Jr. was going to keep me company at home after taking his sisters to school. So much for that trip to the grocery store I was planning on making this morning.

Once the girls were safely ensconced in the school environment (and likely picking up germs and viruses of their own), I told Pig Jr. it was going to be rest time. He, however, had other ideas. The boy was bouncing off the walls. How a kid who got no sleep all night long could have so much energy in the morning is beyond my comprehension. I finally bribed him with his electronic gadget of choice so that I could at least shut my own eyes for half an hour.

Here's how that half hour went:

     Pig Jr.: "Mommy, are your eyes open yet?"
     Me: "Please just let me rest for a few minutes."
     Pig Jr.: *half-second pause* "Is it time for you to get up yet?"
     Me: "No. Please let me rest."
     Pig Jr.: *poking me* "Are you getting up now?"
     Me: *fake snoring in the hopes he will give up and go play on his DS Lite*
     Pig Jr.: "You're silly, Mommy. Are you opening your eyes yet?"

Lather, rinse, and repeat for the remaining twenty-nine minutes of that half-hour time frame. I have heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. I'm fairly certain this means I qualify as insane since I kept telling him to let me rest and expected him to actually do so despite his track record to the contrary.

I am sorely tempted to wait until he drops off to sleep tonight, then pull the same stunt to him that he did to me. Sadly, because I am technically the grown-up in this situation, I shall not. Harrumph.

When Allergic Kids Make Rash Decisions...Pun not intended...

Horse went to a birthday party for one of her friends. As the normally overprotective, paranoid parent that I am, I stayed for the duration of the party. I know that, in theory, nine- and ten-year-olds can probably survive just fine at a party with a few adults keeping order, but I am still unwilling to go along with just dropping my kid off if a party takes place someplace other than at someone's house.

As is to be expected with a kid's party where there are dozens of kidlets running amok, it was pandemonium at times. The kids were yelling, running, popping balloons left and right, and generally having a blast. Horse was right in there with them. The parents who threw this particular party were at least smart in the types of games and challenges they planned, so there were actual times when the kidlets were calm, quiet, and concentrating on a given task. I made a couple of mental notes to keep those particular games and challenges in mind when I am tasked with throwing a party for my own kidlets.

For the most part, I did what I could to stay present but out of the way. Chaos is not a friend of mine, and I do try to avoid it as much as possible. However, I did wind up playing an unexpected role in the midst of the party atmosphere.

Horse has been friends with the birthday girl since kindergarten, so we have been invited to a number of birthday parties where we see a bunch of similar faces from years before. One particular family was familiar to me because I had spent a few hours last year discussing food allergies with them. Their preschool-age son has severe food allergies that are very similar to Rooster's, including both dairy and egg. That little boy also reacts by having GI issues, with his reaction to milk products being almost immediate vomiting. Having been there, done that with Rooster, we had a lot about which we could commiserate.

Today, I happened to notice that little boy walking away from the food table with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, and he looked as if he was about to be sick. His mother immediately herded him outside. I asked his father if the little boy was okay, and he said his son was having an allergic reaction. I told him I had liquid Benadryl on me at all times if they needed it for their son, but he said he hoped his son would just throw up the offending food and feel better. His mother came in shortly thereafter and was looking for her car keys so she could get Benadryl (which had been left in their car) for him. I immediately volunteered what I had, which she took and then went to give it to her son.

Once her son was on the mend, that mother thanked me for the Benadryl and said she was worried about how long it might have taken her to get it out of the car. She did have her son's EpiPen on her, but like most parents (or so I would imagine), she was hesitant to use it unless absolutely necessary. Giving a three- or four-year old a shot of adrenaline is not something you do lightly.

We talked a lot about food allergies after that. We compared notes about what treatments our kidlets' allergists have us doing, and talked about our hopes that this, too, shall pass. We discussed how social situations are actually the most challenging things to deal with when food is involved, even when we as parents are exceptionally vigilant. This little boy today knew he was not supposed to eat anything at that food table. He saw another child pick up some popcorn and eat it, and for some unknown reason decided to do the same thing. Kidlets just do things like that sometimes. Unfortunately, the popcorn had some cheese flavoring on it, which immediately made him sick. Thankfully, his parents were both present and could take charge of the situation, and did have the necessary medical supplies, even if the Benadryl in my bag was a bit closer.

That was a scary situation today, and I am glad the little boy did not seem to suffer any long-term effects from his allergic reaction. Within just a few minutes of taking his dose of Benadryl, he was much improved and asking his parents for his allergy-safe cupcake. (That quick reaction time, by the way, is why I only carry the liquid form of that particular allergy medicine. It starts working immediately. There is no wait time for the outer capsule to dissolve, you can dose differently depending on the age and weight of the person having the allergic reaction, and I have personally found that it provides immediate relief for a throat that is starting to constrict. It's kind of hard to swallow a pill if your throat is swelling shut. To have to wait even longer for the medicine to start working could be deadly. In theory, that is where an EpiPen would need to come into play, too.)

At least the rest of the kidlets at that birthday party seemed blissfully unaware of the allergy drama taking place in their midst. The adults who were involved might have been shaking a bit, but no one had to deal with the panic of controlling thirty-ish kidlets if 9-1-1 had to be called. Thankfully, that phone call was unnecessary.

The three ladies...

I was driving back home from the dentist's office this morning, just a few minutes ago. I was going slightly less than the speed limit of thirty-five miles per hour since I was driving into the sun. Ahead of me, I saw the shadow of a deer dart across the road, so I hit the brakes. Once I saw the deer was safely to the side of the road, I once more started to accelerate. I never saw the second deer, which probably darted out into the road around the same time I was moving my foot off of the brake and onto the accelerator.

Thankfully, that second deer had better speed than I did, and he gave me more of a glancing blow than I gave him. I was not injured, the deer sped off so I presume he was unharmed. I was very fortunate.

I pulled over immediately after hitting the deer. I wanted to make sure there was not an injured deer anywhere near me and that the car was unharmed. I was petrified of finding any blood on the front of my minivan. I was not hurt, but more than slightly shaky.

I glanced behind me at the traffic, which I noticed had suddenly stopped. One car had stopped next to me, effectively blocking the road, and the female driver rolled down her window to ask if I was hurt or if I needed anything. I informed her I was okay, just startled, and wanted to make sure the car and the deer were okay. She told me the deer had run off, so she assumed the deer was just fine. I thanked her before she drove off, then got out of my car.

By this time, I noticed the car that had pulled over behind me. Another woman got out of that car and came over to ask me if I was okay. I repeated my story, and she commiserated about how quickly the deer darted across the road. She was the one who noticed the dirty-looking marks across my front bumper, and said she presumed that was where the deer hit the car (or vice versa, depending on your viewpoint, I suppose). There was no visible deer-blood or dents. I thanked her for stopping to check on me, then went to get back into my car.

A third female driver blocked traffic to stop and ask if I was okay. I thanked her, said I was fine, and she drove off while I got back in my car and got ready to drive away.

I am very thankful that I did not kill (and hopefully did not injure) an animal. I am exceedingly grateful that I did not do significant damage to my car. I am relieved that I am uninjured. But what I am most thankful for is the three strangers who cared enough to stop and ask if I was okay. None of them had another person in their car with them. I could have been a crazed psycho for all they knew. But each one of them, particularly the lady who got out of her own car to check on me, cared enough about another human being, a stranger, who had just had a run-in with a deer.

I can't speak for the chicken, but I suspect that I know why the deer crossed the road: to teach me that strangers still do care about the welfare of others. Thank you, ladies.

Something about glass houses...

There is a rumor floating around among the preschool parents in my kidlet's class. Another parent supposedly pulled her kid from the preschool because not only was her daughter not learning anything, she was picking up bad habits.

First of all, I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that if a child is picking up bad habits, that counts as learning something.

Secondly, I wonder why the parent of a child who spent a lot of class time in time-outs would think that it was everyone else's fault. This is the third school year my child has been in preschool there, and to the best of my knowledge, he has been in a time-out precisely twice. This woman's daughter has him beat hands down in the misbehavior department. And my son is not the only one who cannot compete with that little girl. I would find it more likely that she is teaching them bad habits.

Third of all, if you are teaching your child bad habits, please don't blame everyone else. When parents cannot get their child to school on time (on most, if not all days) and show up late for afternoon pickup, they are teaching their child that it is okay to not keep a schedule and that other people will just have to cope with covering for them. When someone is the classroom parent and manage to lose all of the paperwork associated with classroom parties for the year, they teach their child a heck of a lot about how to NOT manage responsibilities properly.

I guess what I wish I had a chance to tell that parent was that sometimes the child has no chance to learn bad habits in school when they have already mastered a number of them just by watching their parents in action.

Then again, I am nowhere near being a perfect parent, so it's probably best that I did not have the opportunity to say such a thing. I can just silently rejoice that there is one fewer misbehaving child in my son's preschool class right now.

My love affair with sleep (as an adult)...

If it were completely up to me, I would wake up naturally every morning around 10:00AM and fall asleep sometime between 1:00AM and 2:00AM. I am fairly certain that I proved that particular wake/sleep cycle worked wonderfully with me during my college years, at least when I was able to schedule my courses properly. I could wake up gradually without the use of an alarm clock, and feel fully awake and alert by the time my feet hit the floor. Then I would go through my daily routine and climb back into bed once I felt tired.

When I started teaching, I adjusted my sleep schedule so that I could handle waking up at 4:30AM every day. Granted, I was still up later than I should have been at night, but I managed to catch up on my sleep on the weekends. I was living on my own and in my early twenties, so I did not worry about being tired during the workweek. Sleep and I could ignore each other for a good portion of the week as long as we reconnected for a good long while on Saturdays and Sundays.

Then I got married. My husband was also young and foolish and did not mind getting far too little sleep during the week and attempting to catch up on the zzz's on the weekends. It was a match made in heaven.

Three months later, I was pregnant. Suddenly, sleep seemed to be of paramount importance. I probably would have slept the entire day through had I not still had to get up to go to work five days a week. I would go teach, come home, take a nap for an hour or two, pick up my husband from the train station, nap while he made dinner (gotta love a man who cooks!), correct papers over dinner, and get to sleep as soon as possible afterwards. Little did I know this would be the last solid sleeping hours I would have for a decade or so (and counting).

Naturally, once my darling baby was born, sleep became more of a figment of my imagination than reality. Over the next five years, I popped out two additional children and continually decreased the number of hours that sleep was a possibility. I was unable to sleep in later in the mornings because my children preferred to wake up earlier than I would under normal circumstances, and if I wanted to get a shower at all that day, I had to do so before they woke. (My attempts at showering during the kids' nap times were almost always a failure, since someone would find a pair of scissors or a Sharpie and remind me why they should never, ever be left unsupervised...especially when I could not always hear what they were up to over the noise of the shower and bathroom fan.) I also had to take over the task of cooking meals, much to my chagrin, which cut back on my potential nap times.

Sleeping through the night was a rare occurrence, and staying up late and getting up early became the norm. Forget sleeping in on the weekends! Children are born naturally programmed to wake up earlier on the weekends than they do during the week. I am not entirely sure why this appears to be the case, but I am fairly positive this is because they love to watch their parents twitch. Once school started, our week waking schedule became even more strict, with more and more requirements for tasks that needed completion before we left the house. Sleep and I became merely passing acquaintances who rarely do more than nod in each other's general direction.

Now that all three children are in school five days a week, I can sometimes sneak in a nap during the day to supplement the less-than six or seven nonconsecutive hours of sleep I get during the night. I am still struggling to wake up every day at five o'clock in the morning when I have gone to bed at ten o'clock the previous evening and slept in bursts maybe an hour or so in length. On a related note, there should be a law against waking up to a blaring alarm clock when it is still dark outside.

I love sleep. I love naps. I love feeling well-rested. My husband still delusionally thinks he is in his twenties and can stay up late and get up early and not suffer. He also drinks multiple cups of coffee a day and is not the parent who gets up with any kid-related issues in the middle of the night. For those of us who handle kid-duty at night and whose caffeine of choice is in the form of chocolate that is almost never present in the house, sleep-deprivation suffering is the norm.

I think sleep and I need to meet up on a vacation somewhere away from it all so that we can reconnect. If he's lucky, and if we can find an overnight sitter for the children, I might even let my husband tag along.

Happy I'm-Not-In-Labor Day!

A friend of mine went into the hospital last night to start an induction for the birth of her second child. When I spoke with her mother this afternoon, the baby had yet to make his appearance in this world. I was induced for all three of my children, so that news was not unexpected. Inductions can take their sweet time working.

I was a little leery of my own children asking questions pertaining to the birth of their friend's soon-to-be-brother. Thankfully, their only concern was what on earth was taking that baby so stinkin' long?

Naturally, this led me to think back to my own inductions and my own question about what was taking my offspring so long to present him- or herself? Heck, by the time my first child was born, about twenty-four hours after the start of a particularly miserable induction managed at a hospital I would not return to even to enter their morgue if I died in the street in front of them, I just wanted it over already. When the resident at the hospital (my own doctor had not yet made his appearance, figuring that things were going slowly enough he would have to do a C-section by the time he got there) delivered my baby, I had pretty much determined I was never, ever going to have another child again, let alone suffer through another induction.

I had two children after that, and both of them were induced, too. I did, however, stick to my guns about not going back to that hospital.

Even though my younger two had much smoother births and fewer hospital mistakes, I can still say that I am thrilled to be done with the whole "childbirth" thing. So while I am eagerly awaiting news about my friend's labor and delivery, I am secretly thrilled it's not happening to me. Happy I'm-Not-In-Labor Day!

Chicken Soup (Not) for the PDD-NOS Soul...

Today was the first day in months that I was able to make chicken soup for my family. We have had a rather long string of bad chicken from the local supermarkets, so I have been unable to make my usual slow-cooker chicken, which has prevented me from collecting my usual chicken stock afterwards. However, a couple of days ago, we started the New Year right with an absolutely delicious, tender chicken that made a great start to tonight's soup.

Due to our family's food allergies, I tend to make a base chicken noodle soup, cook up vegetables separately, and then stir them in to various individual food bowls, depending on each family member's needs. Rooster and I ate the same basic soup with just green beans, Pig and Horse had corn and carrots added, and Pig Jr. sat and sulked instead of actually consuming any chicken soup.

To be fair to my son, he has sensory issues. For those either really bored and want to google something, or for those who know what it means, his neurologist classified him as PDD-NOS. In other words, he is not autistic, but has a number of characteristics of a child with autism. Thankfully, he is not a severe case, but if something looks or smells a certain way, is the wrong temperature, or negatively impacts on any of my son's senses, he will not even attempt to eat it. I swear the boy survives on dry, crunchy carbs and yogurt-covered raisins.

So this evening, while four of us were gleefully chowing down on the first soup we have collectively consumed in months, my son's lower lip was sticking further and further out of his mouth in an ever-expanding pout. I told him he needed to eat three of the green bean pieces and ten of the seashell pasta shapes, which he had been able to handle in the past. Not tonight. Eventually, Pig put some pasta on Pig Jr.'s spoon, and told our son to eat it. He listened, started to obey, and then immediately started retching.

In a rather bold voice, I said, "No!" and told my son he was not allowed to gag. My son immediately stopped trying to throw up.This completely confused Rooster, who is normally the designated puker. She had no idea that someone would try to will themself to get rid of food that way, and could not quite understand why telling someone "no" was enough to prevent what for her is not a choice at all. We had to explain the difference between your body being ill or having an allergic reaction, and getting sick to your stomach on purpose.

In hindsight, this was not a wise discussion for the dinner table.

Pig Jr. did manage to choke down that bite of chicken soup, but he downed a whole glass of chocolate soy milk immediately afterwards, and gratefully fled the table. The boy would rather not eat at all than try to eat anything that seemed wrong to him somehow. Eating that one bite of chicken soup was apparently quite miserable to my little man.

It's a good thing we are aware of his sensory issues and understand the cause rather than just accusing him of being a picky eater. He normally eats the individual ingredients from tonight's soup. He just does not normally consume them all mixed together in a broth. (One of his sensory issues deals with hating anything that looks "wet." This even includes most drinks.) Yes, we will have chicken soup again, and yes, he will have to eat some of it. Yes, we will have to warn him to not gag. Thankfully, he listens when we say that. But each tiny bite we can coax into his mouth makes it that much easier the next time. Now here's hoping we will continue to enjoy a run of good chicken from the grocery store, or his next soup experience won't be for months. A wait time that long would actually make things much more difficult for our PDD-NOS boy.

Tag-team walks and torture-worthy exercise devices...

After all of my cookie binge eating over the holidays, as well as the month or so preceding them, I have decided to try and get myself to behave a bit in the health department. This means eating fewer bits of junk (Sob!) and increasing my exercise (Sob! Sniffle!) so that the excess weight just seemingly melts off my body. Okay, so I might be a bit delusional in that regard.

Seriously though, if binge eating for a day or two easily adds five pounds, why does eating properly and exercising for a day or two not drop the same five pounds? It's just not fair that I have been behaving myself for three days now and I weigh the same as when I started. Come on, scale, throw me a bone!

Anyway, one of my preferred methods of exercise is to take a walk. It's free, invigorating (especially in 36 degrees Fahrenheit weather), and I can do it with one or more members of my family or my friends. Failing everyone else's availability, or desire to freeze their patooties off, there's always my trusty MP3-player. Today, I took a couple of walks in a row, with a different kidlet keeping me company each time.

I had seen a weight belt that can be worn to increase the number of calories you consume while doing exercise, but rejected that in lieu of using my naturally added weight that came from the consumption of delicious goodies. It should do the same calorie-burning trick, no? It should!

Oh, the girls loved their individual walks with Mom! They chose the direction we walked, talked about whatever flitted through their heads, and had one-on-one time that comes far too infrequently in a family with three kidlets. Combining the two walks had me going over 1.8 miles, according to my pedometer, so I did not feel nearly as guilty as I should have when I consumed a serving of cake later, in the form of the cupcakes I was decorating to freeze for my food-allergy kidlet.

Afterwards, as I sat at the table dealing with some correspondence, I even tried one of the more affordable torture-worthy exercise devices that I think was ever created.

This morning, when running errands, I neglected to realize that a store I needed to enter opened twenty minutes after I arrived there. There were other stores nearby, so I popped into one of them to pass the time. In it, I found one of those thigh-toning springy things that looks like a giant potato chip bag clip. The theory goes that you hold it in its open format between your knees and then squeeze the darn foam-padded sides together. That sounded easy enough to accomplish while trying to work on the computer, so I purchased one.

Well, I am presuming that device must work wonders because after attempting to use it, I am sore in places I did not even know I had. I neglected to realize just how much pressure was required to squeeze the darn sides together, and managed to bruise the insides of my knees. Oops. Clearly my flabby legs require more foam padding than was provided. You also cannot use that while wearing baggy clothing or you are likely to fling it up in the air as it slides. Either that, or you get vicious rug burn on your knees.

I am happy to say I managed to complete the set of repetitions that were recommended for a beginner. However, when my eldest asked me what that funny-looking contraption was, I simply answered, "A torture device." Okay, so that's probably not accurate at all, but I still think that's true.

A Family of Gamer Geeks

When two gamers meet, fall in love, get married, and start a family, you can be sure that their offspring will also become gamers. In our family, we lovingly refer to anyone who enjoys playing games (online, tabletop, board, computer, Wii, etc.) as a gamer geek. I am not quite looking forward to the day my kidlets come home from school and ask me why someone used the term "geek" in a derogatory manner when we use it as a positive term of endearment.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that we are a family comprised of five gamer geeks. This was completely in evidence today on the start of the New Year. By ten o'clock in the morning, we had two people vying for dominance on Mario Kart on the Wii, two people playing individually on their Nintendo DS Lites, and one doing laundry while popping in and out of her online game of choice (Kingdom of Loathing, or KoL, for those who have not heard me talk nonstop about this before now). Lest you think that it is only electronic games that hold our interest, I shall point out the hours of Monopoly that were played yesterday alone and the Pokemon battles that render our coffee table useless for anything else during their duration. And then there are oodles of other games that take their turns being played...except for Spill the Beans. That poor game is in a landfill somewhere after my son discovered the beans were the perfect size to fit up his nose. ("But they're all out now, Mommy. Why are you throwing it away?" Gah.)

I hope that as a family, we are able to spend more time together, preferably while playing games, in this New Year. We communicate through banter, teach the kidlets how to play fair (as opposed to allowing their predisposition to cheat at Monopoly to shine through), encourage good sportsman-like conduct, discourage being a sore loser, and also teach them that you can't win them all. They learn to follow the rules, complete multi-step processes, challenge themselves intellectually with planning strategy (well, perhaps not while playing Candyland...that's pretty much the luck of the draw), and use numbers in various age-appropriate ways. (Mathematics for the win!)

I am happy our kidlets all enjoy playing games. I love my family of gamer geeks...and I love being one, too.