sick day

Cadence came home early from school on Friday because she wasn't feeling good.  She had tried to tell me at breakfast, but I thought she might just be sleepy and could make it through the last day of the week.  So I gave her a vitamin and sent her off only to be called two hours later by the clinic lady. "Ms. J" told me that "Candace" was sick and could I come get her.  I said, "who's Candace?".  Okay, not really, but I did correct her- IT'S CADENCE...dur.  Don't you remember from the three times you called me last year when she had lice in her hairs???

Anyways. Sam and I fetched the sickly thing and brought her home where I promptly banned television for the day and asked her to play quietly or read.  There was no fever at this point, just a runny nose and cough.  I didn't want her to enjoy her sick day too much and try again for more next week.  I know certain someones who have certain kiddos who learned some tricks to getting out of school.  And I maybe was possibly one of those kiddos myself. 

So. No tv.  I got a lot done while she and Sam played in her room.  Laundry, bills, etc.  Exciting stuff.  But not nearly as exciting as what they were up to while left to their own devices.

Super-dude.

The fun is over.  The fever has arrived and we're in full sick mode now.  Looks like Monday will be sick day number two.  Boo.  Here's to hoping Sam's super immune to sister germs.  Hope you're all having super weekends.  Don't forget to watch the Oscars tonight and then blog about everyone's weird fashion sense.  I'm relying on you.  Especially YOU!

Update. Don’t read this if you don’t like puppies.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve had a puppy.  I said in my last post that most of our family pets were strays and orphans and that meant mostly older pooches.  This one named Polly is ten weeks old.  Small. Wrinkly. Velvety ears and nose.  Really just the kind of thing that melts your face off when she stares deeply into your soul.  And she pees and poops every commercial break of any television show I could ever possibly want to watch. 

I can tell you things are getting better since my first post.  The husband has done a one-eighty and completely fallen in love with her.  My daughter and son are managing better now that I’ve given them some tools to avoid play that quickly turns too rough.  “DOWN” and “OW” are working like magic charms.  Ladybug and Trevor have more fun in the back yard with the doofus dog than all the hula-hoops and jump-ropes combined and I found the miracle “pacifier” for puppies that keeps her busy for just long enough for me to make dinner/post on my blog/fold laundry.  Those chewy bone thingies. Yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s the official name for them.

And she’s responding to the word “No” surprisingly.  Which I can’t even say I’ve successfully gotten Sam to do on a consistent basis in the past (almost) two years.  She folds her ears back and walks away from whatever I “no” her about.  I think she might even be smart?  Once our fence is put up next week, she’ll be spending more precious time in the hot green grass with my other pooches.  Everyone will love that, no?

And since she is still small enough to fit in my bathroom sink, I gave her a wash last night with my coconut shampoo.  Then she slept on JG’s neck.  And the two harmonized their snoring.  It was precious. (sorta)

So. If you were worried about me, thanks.  I think we might make it.  I just can’t promise I won’t be posting I-HATE-PUPPIES updates intermittently when she finds new ways to annoy me.  For now, she’s not such a handful as I first thought.

Pupotentiality. It’s a word, I looked it up.

It happens to every family, eventually.  Somebody effs up and does something so unforgivable that even the littlest, most agreeable person in the family is pissed.  Some spouses make career decisions that take their family far away from friends and familiarity.  Many guilt their partners into having a child.  Some people have sex changes! My faux-pas is pictured below:

Let me explain.  I grew up with a mother who practically drove down the streets of our town with her passenger door open whistling and calling stray animals for fun on the weekends.  Sometimes she called it “garage saling”.  More often did it end up that we’d foster a scrawny dog or cat she found eating out of a trash can than actually finding a good deal on patio furniture or roller-skates.  And I have fond memories of Bubba, Pierre, Tootsie, Sophie, Dusty, Zoe, Gabe, and Chiquita the cockatiel who “just landed on her shoulder in the Pinch-a-Penny parking lot”.  There were even photos of me as an infant with the random rag-a-muffin terrier from down the street or Jeep the mutt and Judge the cast-away. 

Some stayed for years.  Some stayed for weeks.  All were loved and honored with prime real estate in the family photo albums.  Each name remembered and my mom could tell you which street or back parking lot they were rescued from.  Pierre was a poodle gifted to my grandma after being attacked by the neighbor’s shepherd.  He lived to be almost twenty and had his coif maintained on a bi-weekly basis.  Many were entrusted to family or close friends.  Teachers all over my mom’s school have pets formerly fostered by Ms. Watson and although orphans I brought home myself were sometimes greeted with angry eyebrows, they were all named, nursed, and cared for while staying at our house.  Even the black kitten I found in the bushes by the neighborhood street sign could be found purring in the lap of my mom when I got home from wherever the hell high-schoolers go at night.  He was named Jinx and our old family babysitter was more than happy to add him to her cat collection.

So, yeah.  I had lots of pets.  And when my mother refused to let me take the family dog (Shannon) to college with me I did what any impulsive, bleeding-heart animal lover would do and adopted my own dog.  Who is snoring and passing wind next to me on the couch as I type.  I’ve had my share of strays fed on porches, rescues gone wrong and later righted.  I brought home a rottweiller named Reno who wouldn’t let my roommate in my bedroom to borrow clothes.  She lasted three weeks.  (The dog, not my roommate.)  And found a surprisingly perfect match with an old lady in St. Pete when it didn’t work out for us.

JG, on the other hand, has had one family dog.  And by his account, it wasn’t the most pleasant thing to be around.  Old and blind and attached to his mom.  So he’s been more than happy to help me collect our motley crew of rescued and adopted pets over the years.  The cat was first and Boone came much later.  But they all found their places in the family and assumed their roles as dominant or submissive, lap dog or pats-only.  And until now, I didn’t think we’d run out of heart to go around. 

I adopted the above cutie-patootie this weekend without pre-approval knowing that as soon as the family took her into their arms they would adore her as much as I did standing amid the sea of other dogs and cats up for adoption at my local pet-food store.  She has a story, of course, but I’m already pushing my luck here.  I’ll skip to the chase.

Polly prissy-pants up there has become enemy number one.  Both dogs make mean ugly growly faces non-stop when she’s around and even Sam has wonked her on the head a few times with his blocks or trains or whatever she is persistently trying to wrestle out of his grasp.  She’s hooked herself on JG’s pajama pants one too many times to be forgiven and everyone looks at me when she leaves a puddle on the tile.  Nobody likes her unless she’s asleep.  And then it’s all “awww, she’s not so bad” and “please don’t wake her up or i’ll use her leash as a noose on you” and stuff.

And there’s that thing about there being another baby here in a few months.  Which, by my calculations is just enough time to get Polly acclimated to the place and in-step with the rest of our crew, but nooooo.  I messed up big time on this one.  It looks as if she might just be here for a while, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to make her stay here as good as I can.  Maybe if I use every naptime in between now and next week when our backyard gets fenced in, I’ll have a more polite Polly on my hands and the family will start to see in her what I do.  Potential. 

 

Wish me luck.  Imma-needit!

thirty-two, party of one.

Yesterday I only did one load of laundry.  I didn’t get angry when Sam turned the crayon box out onto the floor in the kitchen, nor did I growl at the dog for eating robins-egg blue.  I had chips for with lunch and read my book during nap time instead of washing the breakfast dishes.

The telephone chimed every ten minutes and messages added up.  Starting at six-thirty in the morning, people remembered my birthday.  Before even emerging from the tent over her bed, Ladybug’s first words were a morning-whispered "happy birthday mommy” as I laid her school uniform out for the day.  I turned on the radio in the kitchen and poured cereal and heated water for oatmeal.  I cut the crusts off a ham and cheese before putting it in the lunchbox with something chocolate (gasp).  Two wishes I rarely grant for the first-grader.

“it’s your birthday, don’t get angry.” was my mantra. don’t get too tired, it’s your birthday. just be happy and make them happy, it’s your birthday.  Sam got filthy at the park and the kids ate a whole bag of Goldfish crackers after school.  Yes was the word, mostly, to the ever-flowing stream of questions.  No, you can’t ride bikes in the street.

My brother in law called me.  My mother in law called and sent me an early-morning text.  My best friend called from New York and then called back when the connection was bad.  Jed called for Chinese food. My mom didn’t call.  Nobody cried that I can recall.  

But today I really feel like crap.  I tried to treat it like any other day.  Gift-wrapped a little slack for myself.  No guilt allowed.  It was nice.  Not enough, but nice. Next year I’ll try something else. 

big whoop, i’m late.

 

wordless wednesday, valentines kind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the new continent

Happy Monday. 

26th

yes, my ankles are still sexy and no, I didn’t have the baby yet.

I get my hair done around my birthday each year.  In between birthdays it gets long.  And boring.  And even though I go for an occasional trim, I really just grow into that long hair funk over the course of the year.  And I don’t hate it, but I certainly love having it renewed.
Last year’s hair:



This year’s hair:

               That’s my “look away sad” face.

 

I really think this year’s hair brings out the Irish in me.  And when my professional hairstylist/all around cool dude, David, revealed the new look to me yesterday I thought it kinda reminded me of Jessica from True Blood.

Okay, maybe I’m doing a little wishful thinking here, people.  Give me a break, I’m turning thirty-two soon and I’m trying to make this transition smooth.  Someone send me a lacy top and some canned-vamp and I’ll practice my va-va-voom look in the mirror.

Besides the awesome new hair yesterday, I also had my water break.  Okay. Don’t freak out.  I know it’s too soon.  I had a um…scare while in the bathroom of the salon.  One that involved a stack of neatly folded paper towels and about two whole minutes of me turning in circles going, “oh god, oh god, oh god”.

It started when I had to pee.  Right after all the color was carefully gooped onto my head and twisted into neat pieces, mother nature came a calling and I excused myself to the very clean, very stylish bathroom.  I hiked up my giant bronze-colored cape and pushed down my capris and sat.  Peeing. Like for an hour because I’m twenty-five weeks pregnant now DONCHAKNOW!  And no, I didn’t put down a seat cover NOR did I tear of pieces of toilet paper to create a butt forcefield.  This place was clean and I just don’t hover after week fifteen.

So I peed out a golden river and then turned to flush and I noticed that I’m still peeing.  Like… peeing.  Not even dribbling or dripping.  It’s just pouring onto the floor. 

                                     Yah. What the eff??

A puddle started to accumulate and I began turning circles like a dog sniffing his butt because I don’t FEEL like I’m still peeing, but what else could it be…..
OH MY GOD, I’m going to have my baby in the salon toilet!!!
Yes, for nearly thirty-seconds I was convinced that the fate of my baby was in the hands of a bunch of hair-stylists.  And the though occurred to me that they would be cutting the umbilical cord with those fancy scissors with the little apostrophe on the handle and maybe there would be hair stuck to the baby and at least the towels at this place are all brown.
But I didn’t have to have the baby there.  Because it was the back of my cape and a long dangly attached belt that had been dunked into the toilet water/river of pee that was causing the trail of wetness all over the floor and the back of my legs and NOT my bag of waters. 

:::::Phew:::::

And then later, ew.  Um. One major crisis averted and a new (possibly more embarassing) one emerges. I took off the peepee cape and tossed it in the hamper.  I was in my bra and pants (which were a tad damp in the butt area and still around my still sexy ankles) and I flip-flop mopped the floor with a short stack of paper towels.  Then I put on a new cape, washed up, and looked at myself in the mirror.  Wow, that’s RED.  And all over my face now thanks to the last few minutes of looking down and flailing a bit in a sheer panic.  More paper towels to tidy up the face and I emerged from the bathroom as cool as a cucumber. 

And then I sit back in the twirly chair and say to David, “wanna hear something funny?”




And just for fun, this is how cute my husband’s hair is on the weekends: