So ...

So since the beginning of September, I've been feeling the call to blog again. Who knows how long it will last this time, so I won't break my neck notifying anyone.

And then the last two weeks have been insane. Annika started first grade. Celyn started in the "Frog" classroom over at preschool. Annika's had approximately four and a half days of school so far, Celyn's had one morning, and we've all already been sick once. No one was sick at all the entire summer. Now I'm deliberately sending my kids back into the disease farms. Why I'm doing this, I'm not sure, because honestly, I seem to get LESS done on the days they're in school. Celyn's used to having her sister home all day to entertain her, so she's out of the habit of entertaining herself and is hanging off me like a wet washcloth.

Today has been particularly stellar, as I woke up late, one kid wet the bed, and the other barely made it out the door in time for the bus. I decided to take Celyn to the museum, and we were just driving around the parking lot looking for a spot -- wtf is "Special Needs Parking," btw? -- and the elementary school called to tell me Ani had a fever. Celyn was livid, but managed to fall asleep anyway right before we reached the school. Now Annika is tucked into bed reading dinosaur books with a cup of Tummy Tea, and Celyn is playing at the foot of her bed.

And during these two weeks of child insanity, I've also had friendship insanity and marital insanity. The marital insanity has resolved. The friendship insanity ... not so much. I feel let down and disappointed and angry. It always burns when you discover just how little you actually mean to someone.

And it's That Anniversary. And it's raining.

So I'm going to fall back on blogging, and child caretaking, and baking, and later, ineptly flinging around a bo staff at the dojo and bruising the hell out of myself.

Because I'm worth it.

No Clever Title Required

I always feel compelled to make some excuse as to why I'm not posting more. In my blogging heyday, I posted every single day. Part of the reason why I don't is that I've voluntarily given up my niche. I don't consider myself a "mommy blogger" anymore and I don't want to talk about my kids all the time, for a variety of reasons.

Almost everything else going on at the moment is a bit repetitive, and not really worth extensive obsessive updating.

Anyway, we're all recovering from "Week from Hell, the Second" of this winter. Can't wait for the next one. We all still have coughs, and the grownups have lingering sore throats, but I'm blaming either the low humidity or the mold for that.

Speaking of mold! It's a long story, but we were finally able to prod our landlord into acknowledging our existence, and we have a mold remediation company coming out on Wednesday. It's not much, but it's something. Supposedly we are to hear from some chimney/flue companies as well, but that hasn't yet happened. Things are moving, though, and I think we have some leverage. Keep your fingers crossed, if you do that kind of thing.

I was only off my normal exercise routine for four or five days, but apparently the illness was pretty thorough because I wasn't able to charge right back like nothing had happened. The first class I went back to I had to take pretty slow, and I kept up with yesterday's okay, just a little slower and weaker than usual. I'm not sure if this was a good idea, or very stupid (and honestly, I can't bring myself to care) but I started a T-Tapp bootcamp (Google it, too lazy) on Thursday. It's only a measly 15 minutes of exercise in the morning, so I can't believe it's too much, you know? I don't know why T-Tapp feels so unbelievably corny and silly to me, but it's supposedly a pretty impressive workout, and again, takes up very little time, so what the hell. I'm on Day 4 of what I hope will be a 7 Day Bootcamp, but if it ends up being less, I don't care. Four consecutive days is supposed to be the important bit, and that's now done. Yay.

The children really need to go back to school because they are kind of driving me crazy. Baby C has this new atrocious habit of speaking continuously in a totally random way. It goes sort of like this:

"Daaaad?"
"What?"
...
"Daaaaaaaad?"
"What, Cel?"
...
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaad!"
"If you want to talk to me, come here. I don't want to keep shouting!"
"What?!"
...
...
"Daaaaaaad!"

Repeat every three minutes indefinitely. Side effects include irritation, unpredictable fits of rage, inexplicable helpless laughter and hair loss. And presumably, if left untreated, insanity and death.

Another part of her plan to drive us all mad is her curious refusal to take herself to the bathroom to pee. If she has to poop, no problem. We don't hear about it until she's ready to be cleaned up. If she has to pee, she begins an elaborate song and dance routine. She denies she has to go, then she starts to whine that she needs help, then she bursts into tears because OMFGSHEHASTOPEE! but will not make any attempt to bring herself to the bathroom. You know, that same bathroom she just used to take a crap all by herself a few hours previously.

Fortunately for her, she's very, very cute, what with the dimples and the curls and her natural inclinations toward ducking her chin and batting her eyelashes, so we haven't yet sold her off to a traveling carnival.

(Though to be fair, it's a slow season for traveling carnivals.)

...

It's been very sunny the past few days. Maybe it's cold, I don't know. I haven't left the house in fecking DAYS. The rage is beginning to unfurl from deep within. At first, I thought it was merely onset of more gruesome cramps, but it has a slightly different quality.

Yeah, so let's review: Q got pink eye on Weds. I started feeling ill on Thursday. Baby C was diagnosed with pink eye and dual ear infections on Friday. She started throwing up on Saturday, which is conveniently when things got bad for me as well. Sunday and Monday Q took care of all of us, and I'm feeling better (though not terrific) just in time, because he came down with this Gastro Bug from Hell last night.

A is either going to miss this one, or she's going to come last. We just don't know. It's part of the fun!

I Hate February, and I Hate Winter, and I Hate Germs. I'm really tired of putting my life on hold every few weeks to deal with some new version of Ick, and continually being behind on everything. Because ODDLY ENOUGH the world doesn't stop just because we're all fucking languishing over here.

Yeah yeah. Whine whine, bitch bitch.

Honk!

I do not think it's a coincidence that I came down with a cold within hours of my Christmas guests leaving. Fortunately, this feels like "just" a cold, not anything like those horrid diseases we were infected with all fecking November long. I'm tired and stuffy and fuzzy-headed and taking advantage of my husband's good nature by lying around and ignoring my children. (Hey, it's not like I got to do this the other 47 times I've gotten sick since having children, so sue me.)

I hope this is mostly gone by tomorrow, though, because I'm getting bored. I don't have the energy to do much, but on the other hand, there are only so many OkCupid quizzes I can take, and I'm afraid at some point I will come crashing to the end of the internet. Online shopping is great, but if I have nothing to do but lie in wait for the UPS man (closer ... closer), the gratification delay is much more noticeable.

The period between Christmas and New Year's feels like a weird holding pattern, like lost time. The normal rules of time and space are suspended, people aren't working, some things are closed, the world is topsy-turvy. At the same time, the major holidays are over, so there isn't much to actually DO while waiting for New Year's. And New Year's is no big deal around here. I was never big into the NYE party scene even before kids, and that hasn't changed.

But I guess if I HAVE to be sick again, it may as well be during this lost time, when at least my husband is on vacation and I can lie around and paint my toenails while I sneeze and cough. Right?

Oops

So, I missed yesterday on Holidailies. I had a good excuse, though. Despite my copious applications of Lysol, Purell, and hot water and soap just about everywhere, C developed a nearly identical illness to what A had earlier in the week. She recovered faster, though, thank goodness. Today she seems back to her usual, crabby/sweet bipolar (almost) three year old self.

So yesterday was spent doing laundry and cleaning, and more laundry and cleaning, and today is cleaning and laundry, and more cleaning and laundry, and perhaps soon I'll set the furniture on fire. I'm just not sure yet.

I also spent a lot of time setting up every humidifier and vaporizer we own. Low humidity contributes to virus transmission, did you know? It's almost funny. We have mold in the attic and in the basement, and the rest of the house is bone dry. Hee hee hee hee. (You can't hear the Renfield-like cadence of my giggles.)

My mission today is washing all the blankets and scrubbing down the kitchen from top to bottom. I will be conspicuously consuming hot water and bleach and I don't even care. I also need to make muffins and soup and granola bars. But those are low priority. First is death to viruses. I'm wondering if giving A a bath as soon as she gets home from school would be overkill ...

I just can't get enough

Sickness, that is. Whoooowee. Somehow, I knew there was a very good reason I didn't get into the shower in a timely fashion this morning. Had I done that, I'd have still been upstairs primping, and not heard my cell phone's delicate ringtone, when the nurse told me to come get my vomiting kid.

I had been planning to go get lights (yes, I know) for the tree, maybe pick up a latte, and grab some groceries we were low on. Instead, I'm making chicken soup and homemade play dough. Which is okay; I'll be moving on to cookie doughs next, I think. I'll make chai to cover for the latte. Not the same amount of caffeine, alas, but the sugar ratio is about the same.

I am doing this annoying thing, that I do every single year, of putting on the local "All Christmas Music, All the Time, All Freakin' December" music station on for most of the day. Somehow, even though I am a crabby old crank, I don't mind overdosing on Christmas music. (With the notable exception of "Christmas Shoes," which I find so appallingly maudlin and saccharine and exploitative that it makes me want to shove knitting needles into my ears while retching. I mute the radio every time it comes on.) The kids eat it up, too. The playlist isn't that great, though, so I really need to assemble my own and get it on the Sansa so we can have some variety.

The Christmas music and the snow lightly falling outside, combined with the spottily lit tree and the Yankee candles burning makes it quite nice and toasty and cheery inside.

Vomit and all.

A Purely Positive Post

We got to take a second scenic drive this morning up to beautiful Lockport, NY, to visit our pediatrician's NP. Celyn says, "Doctor Chad is kinda GREAT." Whatever she may have had before, she now has bacterial conjunctivitis. That's great, because we can knock it out with antibiotic eyedrops and by washing nearly everything in the house. Yeah, our washer is broken, but hey, what's wrong with boiling your laundry in a pot on the stove? It brings you closer to your roots. I'll get dual pots going: laundry in one, polenta in the other. This will solve the total lack of humidity in our house, to boot!

Tomorrow Annika has off from school for Veteran's Day. I'm so glad, because we really just can't ever get enough togetherness, and I know she'll enjoy helping me wash and mop.

I'm starting to feel much better, myself. One ear opened up sometime this morning, maybe when I was singing and yodeling happily at my fellow drivers as we did the twenty minute drive to Lockport. I really enjoy seeing the senior contingent out on the roads, independent, enjoying the right to drive and really savoring the experience by going as slowly as possible. That's what Zen is all about, right there.

I made some more pendants last night, and have been working on rings this morning. It's nice to be able to work again. I loaded the attic with spare toys, so that when I'm working, the kids are usually happy to just hang out in there with me, playing with stuff they haven't seen in a while. I set up my desk in the brightest corner, near all the windows, and as I was working this morning, leaning back in my chair, an icy cold splish dripped onto my chest from the skylight above. It wasn't "the leaky one" either. Now they match!

After I wrap this up, I'm going to go get Sickie McEyeball some apple juice, start some mopping, and get those pots a'boilin'. It'll be nice to have a clean, fresh-smelling house again soon.

(How'd I do on the positivity? Too much sarcasm?)

Was it YOU?

Ok, 'fess up. Who cursed me?

Two weeks of unremitting illness. An 8 hour ER visit. An abduction attempt. And now, my washing machine is broken. Broken. Aaaah!

On Thursday, when I was coming home from taking Cel to the doctor, my phone rang, and it was Annika's school. She tripped on the playground and fell across some chains and ended up in the nurse's office.

"I think she's okay to come home on the bus," the nurse said. "If you can just try to remember to have her return this ice pack."

I almost laughed.

Today, I feel slightly better, thanks to antibiotics. Celyn, though -- her eye just looks even worse, and I will probably have to keep her home from school another day, and take her back to the doctor's tomorrow. Since apparently Thursday's visit was useless. The poor kid.

So, seriously, once I get the house scrubbed down I'll apparently have to do some sort of banishing ritual to get all these funky vibes off. Sheesh.

This Message Brought to You by Rage(tm)!

Long story short(ened): Ani got sick while we were on vacation. It was our last day, and she started to falter at the Children's Museum, complaining of stomach ache, nausea, becoming feverish.

She slept in the parking lot outside for an hour, then we brought her back to our hotel to rest the rest of the day/evening.

As of yesterday night, she hadn't eaten anything in two days, was taking very little liquids, and wasn't keeping those down. Her total malaise was what scared me, and she seemed dehydrated, and her pediatrician told me to bring her to the ER. (I mean, she was watching a cooking show. And she wasn't complaining. That is not my child.)

That kind of sucked, but it was one of those necessary sucks. We got in fairly quickly and got a room, and she got to watch TV. They gave her a chest xray, put an IV in (that really sucked), and took blood and gave her fluids. She also got Tynenol suppositories. Yes. The staff there was scaring the bejesus out of me, talking about running a CAT scan if her WBC count was elevated.

Her doctor wanted her to stay longer for fluids and observation, because of her blood test results, but the hospital I went to doesn't keep kids overnight. So they transferred us to Womens and Children's Hospital by ambulance. That was kind of scary; fortunately, she was so tired by that point, and the Tylenol had kicked in, so she slept for most of it, and slept for almost all the rest of our time at W&C. They gave her more fluids and some IV anti-nausea medication, and sent us home.

Problem was, my car (and all our carseats) was still at the suburban hospital. No way could my husband come get us, since he had Cel and no carseats in his car. I explained my dilemma to the nurse, and after a little while, she came back to say that the nursing supervisor was going to get us a cab and the hospital would cover the cost.

Wow! I was so thankful and overwhelmed. I collected my poor, sad sick girl, wrapped her back up in her blanket, and was sent to wait in chairs by the front door of the hospital with some sort of reimbursement form to give to the taxi driver.

At 2:20pm, a taxi pulled up, and we handed him our form and got in. He asked me where I was going, and I told him. He asked me how I wanted him to go, and I said, "Uh, just the fastest way? I'm not really familiar with this area." (Meaning, the area of the city around the hospital.)

So he takes off, and I notice he's not heading for the expressway, he's heading up the main thoroughfare directly north. We need to go east. I figure maybe he's just going to take surface streets and then cut across to the east. It's late and I'm tired and I'm worried with a sick (and carseat-less) kid on my lap.

I do, however, sit up and take notice when he gets on the expressway going west, and then gets on another northbound expressway heading towards Niagara Falls. Perhaps it's my paranoia, but I got this absolutely harrowing sensation.

"Why are we going on 190N?" I asked.

"Oh, I made a wrong turn. Going to turn around, excuse me!"

But then he went southbound and passed the entrances to the east & westbounds, back down into the city. Got off at a random exit, went north again, got back on the southbound expressway, further down into the city, got off again, went north again.

By this point, he had turned off the meter.

I was furious and frightened. I couldn't see any logical reason for him to be doing what he was doing. There was no way for anyone to be that lost. He kept giving excuses to all my questions that made no sense. I said, "Do you even know where Blah Blah Suburban is?" and he said, "Oh, I thought you were going to Blah Blah Blah Circle," which was less than a mile down the street from the hospital I'd just left. Which would mean, if he genuinely thought we were going there, we'd have been there already because he had to pass it to leave the city.

I got out my cell phone, and texted my husband, but I knew that was pointless, since it was late and he'd be asleep. But I wanted the driver to know I had my phone out and I was using it. And then I said, "If we don't start heading east towards the hospital immediately, I am going to get very, very upset."

(Translation: "I am going to call the fucking police.")

I asked him to get off the expressway at the first exit I recognized, because even though it was a long way to go to where I needed to be, at least I knew the way directly, and I did not want to be on the highway anymore. He questioned my judgment, but got off. I told him which way to turn off, and he questioned it. At each intersection heading east, he said, "I think we are going the wrong waaay ..."

Then he said, unbelievably, "I thought you said you weren't familiar with this area."

I sat at the absolute edge of my seat. He tried to blow through my next turn (that I'd given the directions for seconds before), and I yelled, "Right here!"

We finally made it to the original hospital AN HOUR after I'd gotten in his cab.

I made him drop me at the ER entrance, because there was no way I trusted him to bring me out to my car in the parking lot. He was apologizing profusely, but stupidly and insincerely, and when he pulled over he made no attempt to help us out of the cab. I wrapped up my sick kid and carried her through two parking lots in the snow -- after he drove away. We finally got home around four in the morning.

Now, there was no reason for him to do this to run up the meter, because we weren't paying. He already had his reimbursement form, and no matter what he wanted to charge them, there was no reason to cart me and my sick kid all over randomly in the wee hours of the morning. It really scared me. No one I've spoken to likes to think he may have been a really bad guy, but I think it's entirely possible and that it's also possible when he realized I was not going to be docile, he changed his mind. I don't want to think that, but no other explanations make sense, either.

Seriously, I entertained thoughts of how I would strangle him with my purse strap if he stopped in a strange place. No effing shit.

Today, I'm still caring for a sick kid, but I'll also be writing letters of complaint to the hospital and the cab company. That's minor; I should have called the cops.

The good news is, she picked up a lot from the fluids and the rest and the Up the Butt Tylenol, and she's still sick but doing much better.

Seriously, don't fuck with a woman with her child. Because of her, I was that much more on my guard, that much more aggressive, and ready to do ANYTHING I had to to protect her. Yes, that's dramatic. It's also true. I wanted to kill him merely for keeping my sick kid from her bed for so long. I was shaking with rage when I got out of that cab.

And that's the story of my suckass night touring Buffalo and its hospitals.