Do Not Want

We were packing and a gecko jumped out from under the bed and right in my face. I screamed like a girl and ran, and everyone is laughing at me.

I just LOVE Florida.

This is why they invented beer.

Starfish

The kids found a living starfish. I've never seen one.

Addendum

3 of these and the beach isn't so bad. You still can't make me go past my knees, or where I can't see the bottom, though. I blame my mother. Years of going to lake Michigan and being threatened with undertow and rip currents will do that to a girl. Or is it undertoe? Spellcheck says undertow. Either way. Beer is the key to beach survival. No one told me that when I was a kid, before fun was invented, obviously.

Beach

I am the only person you know who could be here and be miserable, because apparently I was a kid before they invented fun, or so my kids tell me. Also it's 120 degrees outside and I still have a sinus infection. And I look ridiculous in a bathing suit. And I sweat like a man. I am drinking beer (no opener, so a strange older man whacked it on a stump to open it, and I kissed him, sweatily), taking pictures, and reading "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by the Bloggess. Appropriate, no?

Legoland

Cooling Lego bricks.

100

Grandmother was able to enjoy her party for a while, in spite of the stroke she suffered last week. She was surrounded by her three daughters, six grandchildren, and all 13 of her great-grandchildren. It was the first time we've all been together since Granddad's funeral, and many of those great-grandkids weren't alive yet, then.

And I'm a crappy blogger, because I didn't take a single picture with my phone, so you'll have to wait until I get to a real computer before I can post anything.

Seeing our kids with all of their cousins was really special.

Gulf

Cousins!!!

It's so much fun getting to know our niece and nephew. Look at how much Cassidy looks like Mary Grace! We're headed to the beach. More pics later...

Leavin' On A Jet Plane

Winning at Bathing!

Sometimes bathtime can be a bit of a struggle.  We generally give the kids a bath before bed, so they're tired (and we're tired), and we bathe them all together because they have fun and it's faster, and Claire is very tender headed and hates having her hair washed, and Jack gets water in his face every single time I try to rinse him off, and I'm pretty sure that whenever Mary Grace is out of my sight she ties her hair into teensy tiny little knots that I have to comb out...  In other words, there's often a lot of fussing from all corners (including mine).

Tonight for some reason I decided to turn on some music (we recently got a wireless bluetooth speaker so that BJ can listen to his NPR 24 hours a day and not just the 23-1/2 that he used to - hee) for them and lo and behold!  Peace and tranquility reigned!

There was still a lot of goofing around and splashing, but we were all a lot more calm with one another.  Clearly I need to start playing music more often.

In other news, we're headed to Florida in about 12 hours, and I still have that sinus infection.  The doctor's office said I can't have any good antibiotics until I finish the first one they gave me (cefprozil) when I called to complain that I'm actually getting sicker.  I posted on Facebook yesterday that I made my dad look up my nose with an otoscope to verify that there wasn't a spider up there (my nostril was so swollen that the hair on the left side was tickling the right side of the nostril whenever I breathed.  Either that, or the light scared the spider away.  She's probably in my sinus right now spinning webs that say, "Some Cold!" and "Terrific" - my spider is sarcastic).

Right now I'm losing my voice, which could be good because we're traveling with BJ's parents and their spouses (I kid, I kid, everyone gets along swimmingly).  I did about 473 loads of laundry today, give or take, and got everyone's clothes packed.  We have enough time in the morning that I can take care of toiletries and chargers then.  When is Apple going to come out with something that will charge, oh, say...  10 iDevices at once?  Because there's a market...  between the iPads, the iPods, and the iPhones...

I was just chatting with Kelly - I think the reason we're sick so often is because we have our kids in 3 different care situations.  MG is at the elementary school, Claire is at the preschool, Jack is with Erin and her daughter for 10 hours a week - and her daughter is in a different preschool class at the same school as Claire - so we're exposed to the germs of like 90 different kids per week, thus we get everything that goes around town.  It'll be interesting to see if we get sick less often when they're all at the same school.  (Stay tuned - that will happen in 2022).

In case you've been wondering, that "all natural" honey based cough syrup with the bee on the label does less than nothing for an actual cough.  (I got it because Jack needed something, and I tried it on myself, and it didn't help at all.  Whoever decided to take all the medicine away for children under six obviously doesn't have any children under 6.)  Poor Jack keeps waking himself up coughing.  BJ has fallen asleep on the couch.  I think that's my cue to go to bed.

A Boy and his Dog

Penny and Jack are at the exact same developmental point.

They're both pretty much non-verbal.

They're both extremely mobile, but they don't have the sense to keep themselves safe.

They both put everything in their mouths.  Constantly.

They're messy eaters.

Neither one of them will keep their feet off of the furniture no matter how often I tell them.

Neither of them really listen or follow directions in general.

I have to tell them the same things over and over and over and over.   

They both break things frequently.

I guess the good news is they'll both keep improving.  

Boys

Naps with trucks and space shuttles make my heart squeezy.

Is there anything sweeter than a little boy?

Sunday

I've hesitated to say anything here because I've done that before and then nothing happens and everyone's all, "Oh look, another failed diet, quelle surprise," but you all are too nice to say so to my face, or even to think it, so it's just my own insecurity thinking it for you, and then I get mad at you for what I think you thought, and it's just not good for our relationship at all.... but...  I started dieting again.  I went to the doctor for the sinus infection crappy taste thing and let's just say that I achieved a milestone I SWORE I would never ever achieve again, dammit.  So I started counting calories again, which worked last time, and I have an accountability buddy (Monica) and fortunately I came home and my scale here is 5 pounds nicer than the doctor's scale so OBVIOUSLY the one at home is right and the one at the doctor's office is crap, amIright?

I've been good for THREE WHOLE DAYS which is like a month of dieting, and today I had a baby shower and a kid's birthday party (happy 3rd Kade!) and I did not pig out on anything other than very sensible fruits and veggies and I had a very modest piece of chocolate chip cookie cake at Kade's party but no cake at the shower.  And then I had a huge salad for dinner.

My pants already fit better.

Of course, dumb bunny that I am, I started a diet the week before we go on vacation.  Oh well.  I'll just be as good as possible under the circumstances, and I'll allow myself to drink all the wine that I need to drink to endure a vacation with three small kids, and we'll call it "medicine," and it will be ok.

Also, Megan is totally going to have that baby while I'm gone, and I may not forgive either one of them until I get home and hold the baby and forget all about it.

And that's Sunday, folks.  Hope you had a good weekend!  Going to go watch Game of Thrones!

Typical Saturday

Quickie

I vacillated about taking the antibiotics I got at the doctor on Thursday because aside from everything tasting weird, I didn't have any symptoms.  Well.  I'm glad I went ahead and started them because my ear freaking HURTS.

Julie, Gary, Craig and Curtis are here for dinner.  We ordered pizza because it's too cold for a cookout.  TTYL!

Daddy Daughter Luau

Mary Grace is all dressed up for the Daddy Daughter Daisy Scouts Luau tonight. Claire is miffed that she can't go. It's hard being a little sister. :(

Sinusitis

Cousin Kelly wins the prize for diagnosing my sinus infection.  Let's see what Kelly wins....

***opens envelope***

***builds suspense***

***cue excited music!***

Internet glory.  Sorry kiddo, this blog's budget for fabulous prizes is weak.

I got an antibiotic that I've never heard of, and a refill of my zoloft.  "You're ok on 25 mg?" the doctor asked.  "Yeah, it's enough to keep me from yelling at people on the phone," I said.  (Longtime readers will remember that I almost had to find a new doctor because I got cranky with his nurse over Jack's reflux-that-isn't thing.  Oops.)

Jack was kind of magical - he fell asleep in the car on the way to the doctor's office, and I somehow managed to ninja him into the stroller without waking him up (which is decidedly more difficult when they've outgrown the bucket seat).  He slept through the entire appointment.  That kid deserves an award too.  (Internet glory all around!)

Monica (who actually did gag when reading about my coffee selection, then laughed when I called it!) watched Claire for me and picked Mary Grace up from school so that I could head to the doctor's without the whole brood.  Then I picked up lunch and headed back to her house afterwards.  When I got there, I saw this:

Eeyore.

It actually got worse after I took this, before it got better when we pumped her full of Benadryl.  Poor kid!  This is the second time that she's swollen up like this at Monica's house.  They don't have pets, either. They do have an older house (1930s) and a lot of flowering trees that are in bloom, so she must be allergic to one of those.  It was so gross - the white of her eye looked like wrinkly yellowish Jello.  I asked my dad, later, if it could rupture, and he said no, so that was comforting.  I also made sure that she knew to come to me if she had trouble breathing.  Gosh, it's chill being a mom of 3.  If this had happened back when she was my only kid I would have SPAZZED and taken her straight to the ER.

We gave her a whole 25 mg Benadryl, too.  It's a wonder she didn't pass out.  I gave her more at bedtime because it hadn't gone away entirely.  Poor kid.  What's weird is that it doesn't happen every time we go to Monica's house.  Kelly?  What do you think?

My brother had asthma growing up, and occasionally had to go to the ER because he had asthma attacks during the night, and I remember one time someone used the phrase, "His eyes were the size of golf balls," and for some reason that mental image stuck with me - maybe I was in that literal phase where kids don't understand metaphors at all, so if you say "skeleton in the closet," they start looking for actual skeletons in actual closets (I only bring that example up because I totally did that, too).  Anyway, that mental image came racing back today when I saw MG.  I hope she doesn't end up with asthma, that would suck.

In other news, we had Claire's parent-teacher conference today, and she's ready for kindergarten.  She has learned so much in the last year.  It's really neat to see the testing laid out in front of you like that, showing where she was when she came in and how far she has come.  They even had a copy of her progress report from last year to compare to this year.  It's just awesome how fast they learn at this age.  She's getting to be so big.  All of the pictures she draws of girls have the hair on just one side of her head, like a side ponytail.  I guess she has seen Tangled too many times.  Too funny.  Both of the girls' school journals feature a lot about their siblings and a lot about Star Wars.

Erin's kiddo caught the plague, even though we were well for a full 48 hours before they came over on Tuesday.  I think the flu is coming from inside the house.  Luckily Polly came today and cleaned everything, so it should be safe (unless Polly gets it, too, then all bets are off).  The neighbors down the street also have it.  Again, 48 hours passed between our last symptoms and them coming over.  This thing is awful.  I feel like Typhoid Mary.  And the mom down the street is 32 weeks pregnant.  I told her I would come down and help if she needed anything.  Hope she'll take me up on it if things get bad down there.

Let's see - Dad, Monica's 5 family members, Kathryn and Ian, Erin's daughter (so far), and the two girls down the street - we've spread this mess to 11 people so far.  Gah!  If it were any more virulent, you'd be able to catch it just reading about it.

Taste in my Mouth

At the late night, double feature, picture show....

I've mentioned the bad taste in my mouth.  It's still there, and it's gone from metallic/salty to rotten.  It's really super annoying.  It gets worse when I eat sweet foods (which sucks because I made chocolate chip cookies for the girls today).  I tried gargling with apple cider vinegar (thinking it might be fungal) and a neti pot (thinking it might be sinus-related) but neither helped.  I've brushed my teeth and tongue repeatedly, I've flossed like crazy.  Nothing.  The only thing that tastes normal at this point is water.  So I called the doctor's office and spoke to the nurse.

"This is really stupid.  I'm not sick, so I hate to come in..." because you know I'm going to touch something germy and get sick, it happens every time, "but this is so weird and so annoying.  It's been going on since Sunday night.  I even called my dad who's a nurse to see if he thought I had a stroke!  He says my throat looks a little red, but it doesn't hurt.  My only symptoms are seasonal allergy type things - occasional sneezing, runny nose, etc. but no worse than they've been for months, and the onset of this taste thing was abrupt and unusual..."

Every single nurse that works at my doctor's office thinks knows I'm insane.

Longtime readers might remember back in August of 2009 when I tasted soap so badly that the doctor did bloodwork and I harassed the water company into coming out and taking samples of my water.  I couldn't remember how that all turned out (this is why I blog - because my memory sucks.  I can't even tell you how many times I've thought, "I wonder when that was..." and googled my own blog to find the answer).  Well, guess who came down sick right after everything tasted soapy?  Everyone.  So I'm guessing that it's some kind of ominous precursor to a virus, which is absolutely unfair because we just got over the stomach virus from hell.

It's funny that back then I thought it was the water, and this time around water is the only thing that doesn't taste like roadkill.

What do you want to bet I've come down with something by the weekend?

(picture from Wikimedia Commons)

Holy Busy Tuesday, Batman!

Kelly managed to postpone getting sick until after her exit exams, which she passed (probably with flying colors, but she's too modest to say so).  Way to go, Kelly!!

We were back to regularly scheduled programming today - both the girls at school, wonderful Erin here with Jack so I can work (you know you've made the right childcare choice when your baby, upon seeing their caregiver, lights up and runs to her with arms outstretched), I picked up Jen's kids on the way to school because she has 5 kids and that's a lot of driving, then went to work by way of the bank, worked a few hours (not nearly long enough), picked my girls and Juliet up from school, and Monica met us here with lunch.  Then the neighbor kids came down and stayed most of the afternoon giving their pregnant mama what was, I'm sure, a much needed rest.  Monica and her kids left to pick their Jack up from a playdate, and I ran Mary Grace to her scouts meeting (GBob played the part of the adult-in-charge while I was gone).  Flew through Walgreen's on the way home, made GBob the Welsh Cookies I promised him for getting sick for us, GBob picked MG up from Scouts, girls played with the neighbors some more while I finished the cookies, finally sent the neighbors home and left to meet Karen and her kids for dinner at Chuck E. Cheese for Kade's 3rd birthday.  BJ met us there, and so did Tammy and her daughter Katie.

Whoever coined the term "stay at home" mom obviously didn't have school aged children.  There is no staying at home involved.

Got home, put the kids to bed, ruined Mary Grace's scouts vest by accidentally ironing some plastic onto it.  I suck at domesticity - therefore I am also not a "domestic engineer."

I'm a stay-in-van mom.  Picture credit.

Sat down, checked the internet for news, didn't find anything noteworthy, read a couple of marginally interesting articles, wrote a marginally interesting blog...

Hey, questions, I have them...  BJ got me a Keurig coffee maker for my birthday, and I am completely addicted (even though everything still tastes weird - metallic and salty and rotten today.  GBob says my throat looks inflamed, and I said, "I'm sorry, I've already met my quota for sick this month," which means I'll come down with something in about 15 minutes).  I ordered some awesome flavors and I'm looking forward to getting wired on all of them.  Do you do K-cups?  What are your favorites?  I got chocolate glazed donut (OMG), German chocolate cake (seriously?!), decaf French Vanilla and decaf Hazelnut.  Monica is probably yakking in her shoes right now as she is a coffee purist and only likes the sort of coffee that puts hair on your chest. She can have all the samples that came with the machine of "BOLD" and "RICH" and so on.  Here's another K-question.  Is it worth it to get the cocoa and tea, or is regular cocoa and regular tea the same?  We have a near-boiling hot water tap on our sink (love! Except when kids come over and think it's soap, don't love that...) so heating up the water isn't an issue.  Does the machine do anything special to the tea or the cocoa that I can't achieve myself with Swiss Miss or Twinings and a hot water tap?

I think it would be hilarious if someone came out with K-soup.  Like Top Ramen for fancy people.

The noodles would probably clog the machine.

When I get this random I know it's bedtime.

You're glad we never call

Almost every time I have ever been to Grammaland, I've felt guilty because there was someone (or a lot of someones, usually) who I've wanted to see but haven't had time to see while we were there.

This time, I have a different sort of guilt.  This time I feel guilty because the people we saw got our horrible pukey flu.

Poor Ian was up all night with it, and Kathryn came down with it today.  Stu has the biggest conference of the year for his industry this week, and Kelly has her exit exams for nursing school tomorrow, so it's the perfect time for all of them to get sick, right?

Thank God we didn't see my 36 weeks pregnant sister!  

I have never seen anything like this thing. You get exposed, and between one (Mary Grace) and 4 (Claire) days later you're vomiting, and then 5 days after you vomit you get diarrhea.  What the hell??  And it's not just a little queasiness or a little bit of the runs, oh no.  It's the waking-up-already-throwing-up kind.  It's the can't-make-it kind.  And the body aches that went with it, I've never felt anything like that.  Even now, a full week after I had the vomiting, everything still tastes weird - metallic and salty.  (Facebook thinks I'm pregnant.  Facebook needs to stop saying very scary words to me.)  

If you've been anywhere near me, or my husband, or my kids, or my dad, or my aunt Kathryn and Uncle Stu, or Ian and Kelly, or Monica, Craig, and their kids in the past 10 days, call your doctor and get a prescription for compazine right now.  Because this thing is coming for you, and it is ugly.  

It needs a name so that the news people can talk about it.  What are we going to call it?  

Oh my gosh, y'all, so I paused there to do a little research and I googled things like "gastroenteritis outbreak 2012" and whatnot - apparently there was a recent norovirus outbreak in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is interesting, but anyway, I found the most hilarious icon I have ever seen in my life - are you ready for this?

http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/barfblog - proving that there really is a blog for everything

BWAHAHAHHAHA!  

It's either laugh or cry.

Kelly - print that out and stick it on the front door!!  

Busy weekend

More about the weekend later. I just wanted to share with all of you that I've taught my phone to call me mommy. It's nice to have someone in my life who calls me mommy and does what I say.

Noses

This is what happens when you're raised in a family with lots of seasonal allergy sufferers.

Emerging

Wikimedia Commons

This has been a long week.  Everyone in our house is better, but GBob is still feeling pretty badly.  He came over for a little while twice yesterday, but he just wasn't his usual effervescent self.

Poor GBob.  I'm going to make his favorite cookies for him when he's all better.  Talk about taking one for the team!

The laundry is done (well, it's clean anyway, it's not all folded and put away), the kitchen and bathrooms are clean once again, and life is returning to normal.  I kept Claire home today to observe the 24 hour rule, but I think we're in the clear.  (Knock on wood!)

Not a moment too soon, either, because I've got Book Club (slogan: We read wine labels!) tonight and my birthday is tomorrow and I can't think of anything more tragic than having a sick family on my birthday.  I would pout.

I have amazing friends.  I can't even tell you how wonderful everyone has been.  You know who you are and what you did, and I really appreciate it.

The best news is that we didn't transmit the virus to the family we spent Easter with.  I checked around, and no one has gotten sick.  I was especially worried about Charles and Nina, who are in their 90s.  They do not need the stomach flu. I guess if you've been around that long, you've developed immunity to just about everything.

Thanks for keeping me sane.  I love you all!!

Act 3

And now we have reached the portion of the show lovingly entitled, "Mommy Cannot Take Much More of This Shit."

Mary Grace is bored, so she's up my nose.  Jack is bored and feeling better.  He is into everything.  He tried to drink the liquid that had accumulated at the bottom of Claire's sick bowl (which was mostly water and LYSOL for God's sake), and now he's taking all the things out of the cabinet in the dining room (wine, a giant thing of cheese balls, other random junk...), and now he's pulling all the Kleenex out of the box, and now he's trying to get in the china cabinet...  Claire feels better enough to lament that she can't do anything, and being sick sucks, and now she's demanding and she wants things and I don't want her to have things (like drinks) because her stomach is still a ticking time bomb and 5 year olds really don't understand the instruction, "Sip it."  Mary Grace wants more coloring pages.  The TV quit working.  BJ wants to know where some random information is for the taxes.  Jack is in the dog food.  The dog is eating all the things.  This all happened in the last 10 minutes, and BJ has been gone since 7:45 am.

It's a damn good thing that tomorrow's book club night.

Oh no!

It got GBob too! This is ridiculous!

Another One Bites the Dust

That lump on the sofa is Claire, who just threw up. At least I'm healthy again and can take good care of her. Poor honey. :(

Notes on Illness

It's amazing how fast my house goes from "clean" to "laundry bomb detonated, and took the kitchen out with it" when both BJ and I are sick.

I broke all the capillaries around my eyes.  From now on these are called "Sad Freckles."

Compazine, which I should have taken about 6 hours earlier than I did, is the BEST THING EVER.

Children do not understand when you say, "I know that YOU feel better, but Mom and Dad still feel like death on toast, so please kindly shut up and stop needing food and water and clean diapers for the next 24 hours*."

GBob rocks.

I busted out some maternity yoga pants because the thought of wearing anything squeezy today made me sickish.

I would be the world's worst chronically ill person.  If I had to deal with that day in and day out for a long time, with no end in sight, I would go down to the river and jump.  The only thing that kept me sane was thinking, "I'll be better in 24 hours."  Ugh.  I am such a wimp.

Thank God for school, iPhones, good friends who kept my spirits up via text messages, apple juice, and compazine.

(I'm 90% better.  BJ is still recovering.  I've tamed the Laundry Monster and the kitchen is clean.  Starting to feel human again.  Contemplating Starbucks after I drop Claire off, so I must be all right.)

*I didn't actually say this to the children, but I thought it really loudly.

There should be a medal

BJ and I have both become victims of this virus. Grandpa Bob (or GBob, his new street name) is taking care of the kids. He deserves an award.

Flu Math

If your 6 year old gets sick six times and your 1 year old gets sick 13 times, and everyone slept on the sectional sofa so no one would choke in their sleep, how much sleep did you and your spouse get?

Show your work.

Notes to the School

Dear Mrs. Teacher and Mrs. Principal,

Mary Grace has a stomach virus, and I'll be keeping her home tomorrow.

You're welcome,
Amy

I would think it was just an Easter candy overdose, but Karen's husband came down with it yesterday.  Extreme dizziness was his main symptom so we thought it was more of an ear infection.  Then Cam got it  this morning, then Owen and Kade caught it later this afternoon.  And now Mary Grace.  So we have established that it is extremely contagious.  Chances are that we're all going to have it before it's over.  Except BJ.  He never gets sick.  We moved the girls' mattresses to the floor so they don't have to try to negotiate the ladders while getting sick, and we put the baby monitor in the bathroom so that (hopefully) they'll remember to go in there and yak rather than coming all the way down the stairs and around the corner to our room like she did last time.  Oy.  Stanley Steemer.

I maintain that learning to vomit into a toilet is a less-often-used but more important skill than potty training.

If we were smart, Karen and I would put all the sick kids in one house and all the healthy kids in the other, and then we'd take turns playing Florence Nightingale at one house, and recuperating at the other, but at this point I think it's too late.

Somebody please tell me that this is just a 24 hour virus, and that we'll all be ok before my birthday Friday.  Please?  Pretty please?  Anyone??

Secular Easter Thoughts

Mary Grace turned over the coloring book thing she got in her Easter Basket.  "The Easter Bunny bought this?"

"Sure," I said.  "He doesn't have elves like Santa."

This statement is totally going to bite me in the ass in December, when she sees her Christmas gift in some toy catalog.  "Why did Santa buy this? Why didn't the elves make it??"

Kid's too smart for her own good.

***

She bit the ears off of her chocolate bunny.

"You know what he says now, don't you?"  I asked.

"Noooo...."

"WHAT?  WHAT?"

***

Often you can buy the generic and it doesn't matter at all.  But there are some other things where it matters a lot.  Jelly beans are one of these things.  Generic jelly beans are vile.  Jelly Bellies are delicious.  Jolly Rancher jelly beans are good.  And the black ones are always vile (and look a little bit too much like bunny pellets), no matter what brand you buy.

We have some kids to bathe.  Sorry I missed yesterday.  It's all Karen's fault.  We were having too much fun to blog.

Happy Easter!

Of Beads and Noses

Claire stuck a bead up her nose tonight right before dinner.  Again.

Last time, she managed to blow it out on her own before we paid the co-pay.  We weren't so lucky this time.  I tried to get her to blow it out at home (BJ and I could both see it) and she succeeded in sucking it in deeper, instead.  $75 and a very deep nasal probing later, we learned that she had swallowed it.  Probably.  But if she starts stinking or dripping pus or other disturbing things they'll send her to an ENT.  Awesome.

She did a good job cooperating at Urgent Care, considering how completely she was freaking out at home. She thought they were going to have to cut her in half to get it out.  Where do they get these things?

BJ wanted to walk over to the ice cream store once we got home, but I don't want to reward this sort of behavior, and I had a beer in the fridge calling my name.  I think I might go to bed.  It has been a very long day.

PS - I'm over the house thing.  Maybe next year.

Nevermind

9 years later our house has appreciated by about a dollar.  So we won't be buying that house.  Oh well.

Home

I found the perfect house for us today.

It has four bedrooms and a basement.

It feels like home.

The location is perfect.

There are a few flaws, but they're either things I could easily live with or they're fixable.


The laundry room is on the second floor.  LOVE.  TWO pantries.  Love.  Amazing great room.  Awesome kitchen.  LOVE the screened porch.  It's one house away from (and yet not on the same street as) the school we're going to have kids at for the next 8 or 10 years.  Love love love.  It's at the end of a cul-de-sac.  It's PERFECT for us.

Of course, BJ is in Portland for the rest of the week.  I posted on Facebook, "Exactly how much do you think BJ would kill me if I bought a house while he's in Portland?" and got answers ranging from, "I bought my house before my husband saw it!" to "I got a dog while my husband was out of town.  Let's just say that I still have the dog," to, "I recommend more analytical and numerical studies to find out just how much BJ would kill you." (That was BJ.  Damn wifi on planes!)


Anybody want to buy my house?

Are These Things Related?

After 15 months, Mary Grace and Claire have still not gotten it through their heads that they are not allowed to pick up their brother unless it's an emergency (because I don't want them to just stand aside and watch him run into the street).  Claire picked him up and spun him around when we got home today, after an entire day of exasperating behavior (disobedience, acting out in public, tantrums, etc.), and I told her then, "If I see you pick him up again I'm going to..."  Well.  You know how that turned out.  He was trying to crawl onto the hearth, she tried to "help," and he face planted into the bricks.  He knocked a scab off of his nose (from where he scratched himself with too-long fingernails) and bled.  I was livid.  She has been sent to bed with no story and no snuggle, among other punishments that I'm not going to write about because I just don't want to get into that debate with the internet, thank you very much.  It suffices to say that occasionally, when the crime is very serious, we go old school in this house, and it hurts me more than it hurts her.

Jack is still not sleeping well.  BJ is leaving on a business trip tomorrow morning very early and won't be home until Friday.  No back up.  Awesome.

The dog has dug up the entire yard trying to kill a mole that has also dug up our entire yard.

At the dentist today I discovered that I'm grinding my teeth so much that I have cracked my lower left rear molar.

Coincidence?

Hooligans

Totally just busted these two going way past their boundaries in the Barbie Jeep. Enjoy your ride home, ladies, because the car is gone for two weeks. Mom will always know when you're bad, I'm like Santa.

Lonely

Mary Grace had school this morning, and will be at a playdate until 2:45.

Claire went fishing with Grandpa, then came home and promptly decided to go see if the neighbor could play.

Jack stayed with Grandpa for a bit so I could run payroll, but otherwise it has been The Jack and Mommy Show all day today.

So weird.

Looking back, getting pregnant with Claire was the best thing I ever did.  I suck at having one kid.  And my kids miss each other when they're apart.

I'd like to be able to say that I've played with him and read him books and done all sorts of other Important! Enriching! Activities! today, but mostly I've let him play with his toys and I've been on the internet, doing laundry, or paying bills.

I'd do something now, but home boy needs a nap.

Oh well, I get a B- in parenting for the day.