Outnumbered Two to One

• My six year old has the flu. It sucks. He’s had a fever since Saturday. He’s lethargic, his appetite is nonexistent. I hate seeing him this way, I really get beside myself with worry. The kid is so damn skinny as it is, I’m afraid he’s going to waste away to nothing. I find myself hovering over him, constantly brushing the hair from his forehead and urging him to eat something, I’m driving myself bananas. It reminds me of when I brought him home from the hospital, he was so tiny and slight, he was terribly jaundiced and every time I looked at him I would dissolve into tears. I don’t want to cry every time the poor boy sniffles, I’m going to give him a complex, not to mention the puddles I’ll leave behind turn our ceramic tile floors into quite the slip hazard.

• Yes, it is in fact that time of the month again…thanks for asking.

• Sigh.

• It’s not that I get completely unreasonable during this particular phase of the lunar cycle, it’s that I tend to walk a very thin line between unreasonable and certifiable. It’s like I teeter on this very precarious edge, poised ever so delicately on that precipice I like to think of as the cliffs of insanity. Those of you who’ve never watched The Princess Bride really should.

• So let’s see…cramping - check, migraine - check, lower back pain - check, anxiety…anxiety? anxiety, where are you? Oh there you are, hiding behind the sugar cravings and the mood swings. Check, check, check. All systems go. Let’s just hold on to our hats shall we?

• It’s not that I meant to eat the muffin batter, I mean, I’m an adult, I can overlook the gooey, cinnamon and raw egg concoction in favor of healthier fare, like a carrot stick, or a bowl full of bran. I was actually on my way to dig some bran out of the pantry, when the muffin batter accosted me, nay provoked me, into licking the mixing bowl clean in a matter of seconds. It was over so fast, I barely have any memory of it at all. It must have been mind control. I’m thinking maybe the government is to blame, or aliens or…probably the government.

• According to our pediatrician the flu epidemic we’re currently battling is highly contagious so we need to take adequate precautions to ensure it doesn’t spread from child to child. Considering my kids are routinely spitting/coughing/licking one another, I am pretty much guaranteed to have four sick children sneezing directly on my person over the course of the next few days. Worse still is the fact that Spring Break is next week, so I’ll be home bound with four sick and incredibly bored kids for seven whole days. I may have to give myself a lobotomy as a precautionary measure.

• I’ve officially stopped watching Heroes. I’ve deleted it from my DVR as an act of protest against bad writing and lackluster acting. I think NBC is really going to miss me on Monday nights, I can feel it.

• That field trip I went on was instrumental in reminding me why I abandoned my aspirations of becoming an elementary school teacher. By the end of that interminable bus ride home, I was ready to fling myself from one of those emergency windows in the hopes of escaping the kicks to my seat and the incessant yammering. Kissing asphalt seemed like a better prospect than knocking one of the little monkeys unconscious with a souvenir Spider-man mug.

• It did however make me happy to come home to my own sleeping monkeys, that coincidentally missed me while I was gone.

• For the record, I would never knock a child unconscious unless they really deserved it  with overpriced drink ware. It’s just not in my peaceful, loving nature.

For more randomness…well, you know where to GO .

When we signed up to go to Islands of Adventure for my tween’s 5th grade class trip, the big prize at the end of the interminable predawn bus ride was the prospect of riding the Incredible Hulk Coaster. Walking in to the park, the snaking green tracks dominated the skyline. The roar of the coaster unmistakable as it twisted and dove at nausea inducing angles.

My daughter’s friends were not keen on riding. They balked immediately at the idea, but she and I were itching to get strapped in to the seats and scream ourselves hoarse.

As we approached the line that boasted a brief 20 minute wait, my eager, bouncing daughter was instructed to sidle up next to the measuring post. The minimum height for riders was 54″, marked by a horizontal black and white ruler. My daughter fit comfortably under it, with barely half an inch to spare. She was turned away at the entrance.

Talk about disappointment. Talk about crushing blows.

Sure there were other rides, sure there was an abundance of fun to be had, but the Hulk and Dueling Dragons were off limits.

To add insult to injury, it seemed almost every other kid on the bus ride home was bragging about having ridden the Hulk coaster at least twice.  So our return trip wasn’t lightened by excited chatter about how great the park was, instead it was tainted by my daughter’s soured expression and brooding silence.

Bummer.

Don’t worry, it wasn’t all gloom. We did manage to get on Dr. Doom’s Fearfall ride, among others. My biggest gripe…lunch. Seriously, it was like prison food. You’d think with the exorbitant amounts they charge for admission they’d at least be able to serve something decent at the in-park eateries. The “grilled” chicken sandwich I had was more like a dehydrated chicken nugget with sear marks on a stale bun. Thank God for condiments, without the help of the eight mayo packets I had to lubricate that chicken with I don’t think I would’ve been able to choke it down. Yikes.

At least she was able to muster the occasional smile…

Real exhaustion is falling asleep in the middle of a cheeseburger.

I won’t be around tomorrow - me and the tween are taking a road trip to Islands of Adventure in Orlando as part of her 5th grade field trip. We have to be at the bus stop at 5:30 in the morning.

5:30 in the morning.

Hold on. I’m taking a moment to soak that in.

I anticipate being all kinds of cranky by the end of the day, but hopefully the excessive roller-coaster riding will scramble my brains enough to keep me moderately sedated on the bus ride back home.

Is it bad that I’m already tired and we haven’t even left yet?

I better pack plenty of Motrin and perhaps stage a preemptive strike on the migraine I already feel looming on the horizon.

Yay.

Don’t worry, I’ll take pictures.

•  The gentle pitter-patter of rain on my roof this morning made it that much harder for me to rise and greet the day. It was such a soothing sound and the muted sunlight was like an open invitation to stay in bed. Now, the six year old boy that snuck into my bed last night and spent all morning kicking me in the spine was somewhat less inviting. He was more like a cruel eviction - the kind where they don’t even put a notice up, just throw your clothes on the lawn and change the locks.
• I got even by making him go to school. (Insert evil laugh here.) The power of Mom.
• Alright I’m not really that tough, I let him stay home from Kindergarten yesterday because he was clutching his stomach and whining inconsolably. The whining conveniently ceased after I dropped both of his sisters off at school and he curled up with some chocolate milk on the sofa. He was all smiles after that. Although he was quick to point out, he wasn’t smiling because he pulled one over on me, he just smiles sometimes when he’s sick.
• I smile sometimes when 3/4 of my children are at school, and 1/4 are napping.
• I’m so hungry right now, except I want to eat something delicious and everything in my kitchen is lame. A lame sandwich, or some lame leftovers, or possibly a lame can of soup. It almost makes me not want to eat except for the way my stomach lining is currently trying to devour itself.
• Someone ate the last Fiber One bar in my pantry, but left the box on the shelf so that when I opened the door and got excited over munching on a sweet caramel concoction, I was rudely disappointed when I reached in and found nothing but cardboard and space. Somewhere one if my kids is having a good laugh at my expense. They’re probably boasting some significant regularity too.
• Yesterday my tween was watching Charlie Unicorn on her computer. For those of you unfamiliar, here’s a little taste of his bizarre slightly insane randomness. I warn you, it might be a tad annoying…I don’t expect it will make me any less starving.
• Don’t watch unless you have 3 minutes and 46 seconds to completely waste.
• Also, it may offend you if you have an aversion to using organ harvesting as a comedic tool.

Currently I’m not here , I’m here.

So if you’re looking for a HASAY update, you can forget it. You’re not getting one.

But if you want to read my HASAY guest post , then by all means read my HASAY guest post.

If you want to be entertained, now that’s a different story. You’re out of luck. I’ve got one good blog post in me per day and I’ve officially met my quota.

Really, stop grovelling, it’s unbecoming.

How about this…I’ll let my toddler talk to you.

Take it away son.

(This was taken from an actual conversation with my two year old, the translations follow.)

Toddler Say What?

1. Ah qui a bah oba deah.

2. Go way bah, go way.

3. Ah twoh a wok a pie weh. A pie weh.

4. Ah oh no.

5. Ah ey a chock oh wat.

6. No dat duo dwem.

No, Seriously What Did He Just Say?

1. I squished a bug over there.

2. Go away bug, go away.

3. I throw a rock at a spider web. A spider web.

4. I don’t know.

5. I ate a chocolate.

6. Not that, the other one.

Clearly my son has issues with small buggy things, but at least he’s honest. Just don’t confuse the words “spider web” for “pirate”, unless you want a full blown meltdown to ensue. Yeah, he’s that kind of drama queen.

When I saw this week’s Spin Cycle topic - Creative Writing - I got excited. I wanted the opportunity to wow with my literary prowess, to flex my brain biceps amidst the oohs and aahs of an adoring crowd, to write something spectacular. Unfortunately when you’re at the keyboard, faced with the limitless possibilities of a stark white screen, well…it can be a little intimidating. All those promising, inspired ideas, vacate the premises like so much fog.

It also doesn’t help that every time you get a word down, someone somewhere screams “Moooooommmmmyyyyy” at the top of their lungs, or crawls in to your lap to try and poke your eyeballs out, or decides right now they need a Popsicle more than anything on God’s green Earth.

So much for channeling genius.

Instead of coming up with something wholly new and original, I give you this…a poem written several years ago and inspired by some multiples’ mom in the news at the time. It’s all I had that was even remotely related to parenting, although I suppose it still treads a little on the dark side…

Multiples

Eventually she found herself
drowning in babies,
licking formula
from her bony wrists and
shaking cornstarch from
brittle stalks of hair
where dark roots grew
like blackened weeds.

Sometimes she wondered
who would love a woman
with hips seven babies wide,
a woman with rubber nipples
for eyes and a scar
like a fixed grimace
smothered beneath
the cotton of her dress.

At night she dreamed them awake,
tiny toothless mouths,
gaping black ovals in a tangle
of dimpled arms and legs,
loud enough to scare
the quiet from her skin
and hungry enough
to suck their mother
through the neck
of a bottle.

1. Never assume that because a child is wearing his swim trunks, running toward the inviting water sprays of a clearly designated “splash area”, and screaming “yay” at the top of his lungs, that he actually wants to get wet.
2. Be prepared for the wild-monkey-screeching that said child will emit when confronted with the reality of ice cold water.
3. Expect him to ask you for a paper towel, before burying his wet face in to your dry pants and remaining there for the duration of the trip.
4. Realize he may at some point talk himself in to braving the rapids because clearly the other children are having so much fun. He will approach the perimeter of the splash area at a run before talking himself out of it, turning around and running back to you sobbing and asking for another paper towel.

Next time, leave the swim trunks at home.

For more Wordful Wednesday visit:

• My sister recently purchased Smooth Away at a beauty supply store.

• The product is supposed to buff away unwanted hair “quickly, easily, and pain free” using something akin to a fine grain sander. Yet when I went over to visit, my sister was complaining she hadn’t been able to remove a single strand. Which immediately made me want to prove her wrong by buffing away my own stylin’ lady ’stache using said innovation…which apparently is all the rage in Europe.

• I actually did get it to work, while simultaneously making the following discoveries.

1. The pressure required to buff away hair using a Smooth Away pad is neither gentle, nor easy, nor painless.
2. While Smooth Away won’t nick your skin like a razor, it will rub away at least two layers of your epidermis in the hair removal process…this is called exfoliation and it burns.
3. Rubbing away the hair on your upper lip is a triumph for about half a minute before you realize that the redness and irritation left behind by Smooth Away is somewhat less attractive than a five o’clock shadow.

• Last week we posted this little number on Ebay:

• We bought her more than a decade ago at Target for about $10, I was going to sell her at the yard sale we had for $1. When nobody wanted her I was going to donate her to Goodwill. For those of you who don’t recognize her, she’s Molly from The Big Comfy Couch and she’s very cute despite her dead eyes…Sunday night the bidding for Molly ended at $73. Including the two other items we sold, we made more than the entire profit we earned at that dreaded yard sale in December. And as a bonus I didn’t have to walk away from the transaction feeling used and humiliated. Score.

• For my birthday last week my mom got me a couple of shirts from Ross. A nice gesture considering she’s currently unemployed and short on cash. The problem was the tops she purchased look like something straight out of her closet - gauzy materials with colorful patterns and lots of pleating and ruching. Fine choices for her but these are things that I would never wear and they’re unlike anything in my wardrobe. It’s like I’m fifteen all over again and she’s pressuring me to buy the magenta parachute pants that she thinks would go great with a pair of patent leather pumps. It’s like the woman has never met me.

• My dogs are harbingers of death. They like to eat birds and since it’s Spring, the feathered delicacies are just falling from the sky. One year I found a mess of green and blue feathers, along with the gory bottom half of some kind of avian, in our back yard. I scooped the gross remains into a plastic bag while shouting obscenities at the dogs then chucked the evidence in the garbage can. The next day we got a knock on our door, it was one of the neighbors and her kids, scouting the vicinity, full colored photos in hand of their pet parrot that had recently flown the coop. Behind me, my children stared at her wide-eyed and unblinking, as I let out a nervous giggle, shook my head and closed the door behind me. For days my daughter was anxious that the pet police would come to bring our dogs to justice. As of yet they’re still at large…a threat to slow flying birds everywhere.

To join in the randomness visit Keely - The UnMom, there’s plenty to go around.

Saturday, per my son’s birthday request, we took a rare cross-county excursion to Lion Country Safari to check out some wild animals from the comfort of our air conditioned vehicle.

Now the stars of the winding, hour long safari through the preserve should be these guys:

since their name is the one in the actual title, their faces slapped on all the marquees and brochures. The lions should be the main event, in theory. Unfortunately the only big cats we saw looked more like this…

and apparently there have been some changes made to the drive-through enclosure. Where once the lions were able to roam freely among the cars paying a hefty admission fee to be able to do so, now the lion dens are enclosed by a second eight-foot fence, surrounded by an electrified line, topped with barbed wire, and reinforced with a steel highway barrier.

Uhm, what the hell happened at Lion Country Safari since the last time we traveled through?

I’m pretty sure whatever “it” was, involved an cocky, asinine passenger, rolling down their windows (which the signage very plainly discourages) and possibly taunting the sleeping lions to the point where one perhaps tried to dive in through someone’s windshield.

I’m just guessing.

Although I suppose the park employee in the idling zebra striped pick-up, shouting over the strategically placed loud speakers at someone to “immediately roll up their windows” was probably a good indicator.

The lions, on the other hand, barely noticed.

We did see plenty of these guys though:

And as my son is quick to remember…poop. Lots and lots of poop.

Ah, but it’s better than that, it’s poop in its natural habitat.

My neighbor and I have been walking.

Three days a week we meet outside my house, each of us behind our respective strollers and we walk. It takes us approximately thirty minutes to make it around the neighborhood lake at a fairly moderate pace. As we go we chit-chat about this or that. Sometimes we stop to check on her baby who usually by the midway point is pretty irate. It’s nice for the most part - people are at work, the streets are fairly deserted, and everything is quiet save for the occasional barking dog…and the wailing newborn of course.

We’re moving and it’s good that we’re moving. The problem is I don’t really feel like I’m exercising.

Sometimes I sweat, but I think it’s less from actual exertion and more from the rising atmospheric temperature. There’s no real muscle fatigue, no soreness the next day. By the time I get home, I kind of shrug, change my clothes and go about my business (usually in a sitting position). I actually think I’ve gained a pound or two, although I’m reluctant to climb on the scale, I know several of my pants are a little more snug at the waist, my muffin top a little more fluffy.

Could the walking be adding inches instead of melting them away?

Either way, I think it’s pretty obvious that just a leisurely, gossipy walk, isn’t going to get me the results I’m looking for. While the walks are a nice activity (not to mention informative), I can’t depend on them to build muscle or burn fat, unless I increase either the intensity or the distance. Something that’s a little tougher to do when you have a partner. So, while her presence has been somewhat of a motivator, I’ve come to the realization that it’s still ultimately up to me to change what needs changing, and sacrifice what needs sacrificing.

I’m not getting any younger.

On the horizon is decreased muscle mass, compromised bone density, a slower metabolism. Sure I’m walking…but so are the senior citizens that spend the better part of their morning pacing at the mall.

Before I know it I’ll be complaining about my sciatica, eating my dinners at 4:30, and trying to figure out how to get more fiber in my diet.

Well, I guess I could use more fiber in my diet…

Goals for this week…realizing the walk is more of a warm-up vs. the central activity of my exercise routine. So even though I’ll still go the thrice a week strolls, coming home will mean incorporating strength exercises, or possibly a visit with my Wii Fit, or if worse comes to worst…I’ll visit with my old pal Jillian and her Shred routine. Just thinking about it makes me tired.