December 12, 2005

just out of curiousity . . .

. . . how much Tylenol can one medium-sized person take in, say, a 24 hour period before she starts to worry about things like, oh, liver failure?

Just wondering.

Updated to add: I DO have a strep infection! Who says I can’t diagnose myself? I spent an hour and a half (of my next-to-last completely kid-free day until the New Year) at the Urgent Care center; I was finally swabbed by a nurse who had clearly been outside smoking RIGHT before she came to take my vitals, and diagnosed by a doctor with NO sense of humor. None. Nada! ZIP! I made a very funny joke about how I could self-diagnose, it was the prescribing part that got me, and he just looked at me. Then again, I was running a fever, so maybe it wasn’t that funny. But he put me on an antibiotic that I have to take THREE times a day for TEN days, and it’s already making me sick to my stomach. NO sense of humor. Nothing.

Every single part of my body hurts, including my liver, although that may be from all the Tylenol. And now Henry is having a tantrum because I won’t let him open Christmas presents. Good times!

I’ll be back when I can sit up without getting woozy.

December 11, 2005

happy Christmas! I feel like crap!

On Saturday afternoon, I went out to collect the mail and found a package! For me, even! Imagine my happiness! Now imagine how much happier I was when I realized that my package was from Adria!

This box had a new supply of salt and vinegar potato chips (aka, Salty Crack). But! even better! there were COOKIES! Handmade by Adria! Chocolate Chunk Ginger and Chocolate Chip; they are so delicious that I am slobbering all over the keyboard just writing about them. I couldn’t decide if I should photograph the package or start eating. I opted for eating.

Adria’s timing was perfect, too–I have four million things to do this week (like all my Christmas shopping!) and I’m sick. When I was growing up, someone in my family was ALWAYS sick at Christmas; usually it was my brother, who is one of those people who will work and work and work until his immune system goes ‘GAH!’ and gives up, leaving him a disgusting mess of germs and phlegm for every family gathering. But he got his sick out of the way at Thanksgiving (he couldn’t talk for a couple of days) and is, from what I hear, much better now. So this year I guess it’s my turn. I have a sore throat and headache and every muscle in my body aches. The only thing keeping me from crawling under the bed and hiding are Adria’s chocolate chunk ginger cookies, which I am not sharing with ANYONE.

Tonight, as we were savoring the cookies (the boys both had their mouths crammed full of chocolate chip manna from heaven and were staring glassy-eyed into space), Wade said, ‘If Adria really loved us she would send us the recipie.’

‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘because then I would have to make them, and it just wouldn’t be the same.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘because these are made with love.’

Smartass. But he’s right, and the cookies are beyond fantastic, and I wish you could all have some. But not my ginger cookies–keep your mitts off those.

December 8, 2005

the black hole in my head

I went to dinner tonight with my friend Leslie, at an actual grown-up restaurant, where there was a wine list but NO children’s menu. It was the first time in the nearly four years we have known each other that we spent any time alone, without children or spouses or other adults. And yes, I still like her! And no, I did not have a drink, as I was driving. But Wade has gone to the beer store, so I will be drinking soon, rest assured.

When I came home, the boys were in bed but still awake, and Wade was assuring them that yes YES he was GETTING them some ICE water! He came in the kitchen and said, ‘Charlie fell out of bed, and somehow got his head wedged between the bed and the bookshelf. There was some screaming and crying, but he seems to be fine now.’

‘He hit his head on the bookshelf?’

‘No,’ Wade said patiently. ‘He got his head WEDGED between the side of the bookshelf and the side of the bed.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously.’

‘So is he okay?’

‘Who can tell with our kids?’

I took Henry his sippy of water, and told him that I would be back to tuck him in, right after I checked in on Charlie. ‘What happened to him?’ Henry asked.

‘He fell out of bed and hit his head.’

‘Oh,’ Henry said. He thought. ‘How did he do THAT?’

‘I’ll let you know,’ I told him.

Charlie and Wade were sitting in Charlie’s bed, with the lights on; Charlie seemed to be fine. ‘Tell Mommy what happened,’ Wade prompted.

‘I fell out of bed!’ Charlie announced gleefully. ‘And Daddy was in Henry’s room!’

‘Was the bed rail down?’ I asked (not because I thought Wade was being neglectful, but because I seem to be incapable of remembering to put the rail up at bedtime lately).

‘Yep,’ Wade said. ‘I don’t know what he was doing, but his body was caught between the bed rail and the mattress and his head was stuck between the bed and the bookshelf. And he was screaming.’

‘How fun!’ I said.

‘Yes!’ Charlie agreed. ‘My HEAD was stuck! It was like I was in a BLACK HOLE!’ He looked at us for a moment, and then said, ‘I want to do it again!’

Where is my drink?

December 7, 2005

so what exactly is a crumpet?

Kara asked the other day if we ever have snow in Oklahoma; she lives in the Boston area and will soon be up to her Mass in snow. Get it? GET IT? Up to her Mass in snow! That was the whole point of this post! See how funny I am? And oh god do you want to know how long it took me to come up with that lame ass (ha ha lame Mass!) joke? I don’t know why you nice people keep coming back here.

Okay, but seriously: snow. Yes, we do indeed have snow in Oklahoma, but not much and not often, thank goodness. Today we are bracing for the First Storm of the Season. The Weathermen (and yes, for some reason they are all men here) are predicting between two and eight inches of accumulating snow, depending on what channel you are watching and how low their ratings are (low ratings = significantly more dire storm predictions, which are designed of course to raise the ratings). The snow I can deal with, but the HIGH temperature FOR THE DAY is supposed to be 18 degrees. EIGHTEEN DEGREES, people! I’m still going around in mules without socks! Yesterday I had to go and buy down jackets for Henry and me (okay, I didn’t HAVE to buy one for myself, but after my weekend, it only seemed fair, and Henry really did not have any sort of winter coat, so it’s not like I went to Old Navy just to shop for me). It’s going to be COLD, people!

I don’t mind cold, really (yes, I will put some socks and proper shoes on). And I don’t mind snow–I will even drive in it, if I have to. But god help us if they close the schools. Last year Henry had TWO snow days IN A ROW; by day two I was a nervous wreck. Because really, where are you going to GO with the kids on a day when the weather is bad enough to cancel school? On the second day, my friend Caroline and I were both starting to see double and so we met at a TGIFriday’s for lunch (I have no idea why Friday’s, I actually hate Friday’s because they do that thing where the servers are encouraged to sit down at the table with you and pretend they are your friends, but at the time it seemed like a good idea. See how crazy we were?). Charlie wore his Halloween cow costume (this was in, I think, February, by the way) and ordered ‘A HAMBURGER! WITH FRENCH FRIES! AND KATCHUP!’ which Caroline said had to be some kind of wierd cannibal thing. And, just after we ordered, Henry started to cry. To wail. To HOWL. And to say that his ear hurt. Could it be that the boy had a spontaneous EAR INFECTION? Why, yes! He did! Go figure. So we spent the second half of our snow day at the pediatrician’s office.

I don’t know what the point of that was either, but please PLEASE pray that school isn’t cancelled. Because I might be forced to go back to TGIFriday’s, just to get out of the house, and that would most certainly push me over the edge.

In a completely unrelated bit of fun, Holly expressed her delight at Charlie’s use of the world ‘pullover‘, which I assume she approves because it is a British term and she is a Brit (although I should tell you all that in our house, a ‘pullover’ is any fleece garment that one pulls over one’s head; preferrably, it is manufactured by REI, although the boys’ fleece pullovers come from Old Navy because while we have standards we are cheap when it comes to the kids). So, where was I? Oh, right–being British!

No, I am not actually British (although how COOL would that be?) but, influenced by waaaaayyyy too many viewings of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone over the past two weeks, I have decided to start affecting certain Britishisms. For example, I will be wishing everyone a ‘Happy Christmas!’ this year, and handing out crackers to anyone who comes to my house. And the other night, I suggested that we celebrate Boxing Day, and the boys got all excited because they thought I was saying that for one WHOLE day they could beat the crap out of each other! with my permission! so I had to withdraw that suggestion. But if you have any good suggestions of Ways I Can Sound English, beyond saying, ‘bloody hell!’ a lot and calling all the bad drivers around here ’stupid gits,’ let me know.

One last unrelated thing: Cynical Dad has been nominated for a Weblog Award for Best Parenting Blog. Click the link, vote for Chag, tally ho! And if you’re not already reading his site, then bloody hell! Get over there! Right now!

And now I think that I shall fortify myself against the coming storm with a pot of breakfast tea and a nicely toasted muffin (both of the English variety, of course). Although I might make my tea Irish, if you know what I mean. Because I need to be ready if they cancel school.

December 6, 2005

I knew the hookers would lead to trouble

Charlie has a girlfriend, at school, Elizabeth. She’s the cutest little wisp of a thing, and she’s always so happy to see him. Yesterday, when I dropped him off, she came running up. ‘Hi, Charlie!’ she said happily, and went to give him a hug.

‘Elizabeth,’ he said seriously. ‘I am TRYING to take my PULLOVER off.’ Poor Elizabeth.

When I picked him up, we had this conversation in the car:

Me: Charlie, how was your day?

Charlie: Great! I went to school.

Me: I know! What did you do?

Charlie: I played with Elizabeth. We played DOCTOR!

Me: Really?

Charlie: Yes. And one of the Lukes was the patient. Not the Luke with the pacy, the other Luke.

Me: I see.

Charlie: We peetended Luke had a BABY in his tummy!

Me: How nice!

Charlie: Yeah, but he didn’t, really.

Me: Hmmm.

Charlie related the story again at dinner (at my prompting, of course), and Henry asked, ‘Was the baby a boy or a girl?’ And Charlie said, ‘ We THOUGHT it was a girl, but it was a boy!’ So Henry asked, ‘How did you know?’ and Charlie said, ‘We PEETENDED!’ Then at bedtime he told me that he and Elizabeth were able to tell the sex of Luke’s baby by hugging him. And that they all laughed.

At least he’s not playing hooker.

December 5, 2005

lost weekend

When I was in college, some fraternity boys I knew had a Friday Afternoon Drinking Club, which really just meant that at 4:00 on a Friday they would tap a keg and start the weekend. I always liked this kind of late-afternoon cocktail partyish drinking (which of course I did not participate in until I was of legal drinking age, lest you think my moral character is somehow corrupt), although sometimes we would start with beer on Friday afternoon and the next thing you knew it was Sunday and you still had to read a substantial part of Plato’s Republic and write a paper on Transcendentalism (what? I went to a liberal arts college). And I would think, where did my weekend go? And where can I get a bottle of water and some Tylenol?

This weekend was sort of like that, but without the drinking or the homework. My Friday started with Henry having a huge meltdown at 4:00 pm and Wade calling moments later to say that he would be late (of course!). Saturday I left the house exactly twice: once in my pyjamas ans slippers, at 7:30 am, to take my car to have it maintenanced, and again in the afternoon to pick the car up. In between, I was home with Henry, who was in some kind of BAAAAD mood and spent 45 minutes hiding in his closet because I opened the blinds in his room. Seriously–I pulled up the shades, so that he wouldn’t have to get dressed in the dark, and he said, ‘I can’t see with that much light!’ and went in the closet and shut the doors. (Did I mention that Friday night’s tantrum was caused by me CLOSING the blinds, because it was getting dark out and his room faces the street? No? Well, it was). So instead of going to Starbucks with Wade and Charlie, I stayed home with Henry, who finally came out of his closet and played in his room. Eventually, I conned him into playing chess with me, but it was pretty much a long morning of Henry talking to himself. At least I got a shower.

Saturday night Wade’s parents came for dinner, which was fun, especially since my mother-in-law brought dinner with her (no that wasn’t my plan, but she had a casserole in the freezer, left over from Thanksgiving, and since I wasn’t able to leave the house all day, it worked out well). Wade had offered to get rolls and salad ingredients when he went out in the morning; he came home with a bag of iceberg lettuce. That was all. No tomato, no nothing else. ‘It has carrots and cabbage in it!’ he said, ‘What more do you want?’ Um, a TOMATO? But no. But dinner was lovely and the boys were good, so whatever.

We were celebrating Henry’s half birthday, which had seemed, on Friday morning, like a good idea. Henry’s actual birthday got short shrift this year, as he had his cavities filled the day before, which threw me, and he’s been getting these great notes from school all week, about how well he’s doing in class, so I thought, ‘We’ll celebrate!’ Initially the boys wanted to make cupcakes, which I can manage, but then Henry asked Wade’s mother to make him a pumpkin pie instead (actually he wanted a pecan pie, but she refused–too much work, especially after having 2,000 people in her house for Thanksgiving). I hate pumpkin pie. Go ahead, say I’m unAmerican–it’s just too slimy for me. But it’s one more holiday food that won’t be going to my ass, so it’s a good thing.

So Saturday I folded laundry and listened to the boy talk to himself about what he might want to do for his half birthday (which of course he was wasting doing NOTHING but talking to himself about what he might do), but Sunday was a new day, right? Uh, yeah. I DID leave the house, to go to Starbucks (thank god) and the bookstore, and I actually got some Christmas shopping done, for the boys and our nieces (Wade distracted the boys while I bought stuff–he’s a good man, tomato aside). But then Charlie, who has a cold, decided that he was tired and wanted to be held–no, wait, he wanted to go home–no, wait, he wanted to be held–you get the idea, so we left. And honest to pete, I have no idea what we did at home. Henry refused to eat lunch and hid in the tent (yes, we have a tent in our family room–don’t you?) and Charlie ate his lunch but whined about how he didn’t like it; Wade had taken a Benadryl, because he was itchy, and was hardly able to keep his eyes open. So we all laid down to nap. Well, not me–I folded more laundry and watched HGTV, which just depressed me. Why don’t MY holiday decorations look like that? My house looks like it was decorated by preschoolers. Oh, wait, it was.

Blah blah, the kids got up at 2:00, Henry wanted to play checkers but wouldn’t let me explain the rules to him, Charlie was crying and INSISTING that I hold him (while I sat in the teen tiny chair that goes with the boys’ teeny tiny child-size table). And Wade was still sleeping. Eventually we all went outside, where it was a whopping 36 degrees (if people in Minnesota can go outside ALL WINTER we can do it too), but Charlie kept crying and Henry was playing with a very big stick (that WADE had given him! go figure!) and nearly impaled himself a couple of times. So we went BACK inside and packed everyone up and went back to the bookstore. And at that point I thought, what the hell happened to my weekend?

At dinner, I said to Wade, ‘I’m going to call my dad in a little while here; I haven’t talked to him all week.’ And he said, ‘Be sure to tell him that you didn’t shower today.’ Yes, because really that was the most interesting part of my ENTIRE WEEKEND. Oh, yeah, and I wore the same clothes for two days. But I was never once drunk, which makes it all the sadder.