Outnumbered Two to One

My two year old…ah. He’s at a special stage in his life. A delicious phase that involves a roller coaster of emotions that I, his father, and his siblings are constantly weathering.

Alright, granted most of those emotions are varied and not-so-subtly nuanced states of misery, but there’s a difference nonetheless.

Observe…

This one I call “mild indignation” brought on by a frosting mustache as captured by Mommy on a digital medium. Note the refusal to make eye contact with the camera lens.

This would be “moderate agitation” incited by a playmate attempting to muscle in on his snapshot at the park. There can only be one star after all.

This is most likely “harried aggravation”, prompted by Mommy’s repeated requests that he stand still for yet another photo op, this one in a dinosaur costume that he promptly shed before angrily stomping away.

And this last in the series is aptly labeled “extreme frustration” or possibly even “cocktail of vexation with a twist of outrage” inspired by none other than a despicable choral version of the birthday song sung for some one else.

Occasionally, he’ll spare a smile or two, just don’t make any sudden movements, that could change at the drop of a hat.

As a mom, I never want my kids to get sick. Ever. If it were up to me, I would intercept each and every nasty cold and flu germ and take it upon myself to weather the illness for them. The reasoning is only one part martyrdom and two parts self preservation. Sick kids are hard to take care of, number one. Number two, worrying about my sick kids is way more difficult to treat than say, clogged up sinuses or a nagging cough. They sell over the counter medication for that stuff.

Thursday after my last post, my two-year old’s temperature rose to about 103 degrees under his arm. That in itself was concerning enough. Worse still was the sound he made when he was breathing, a rattling wheeze that affected both his inhales and exhales. The cough was clearly croupy, but sitting in a steamed bathroom barely improved it and the steroid nebulizer treatment I’d given him before bed yielded similar results.

I called the Dr.’s answering service at about 10:30. When he didn’t call back, my husband packed the baby up and took him to the ER where he was promptly seen and treated. His oxygen saturation levels were a little low and they kept him for about three hours for observation, but he was home, breathing easier by 4 am.

My doctor’s office called me at about 9 am the next morning. Almost 12 hours after my original call to the answering service.

“The doctor tried to call you last night,” the receptionist said over the phone, “but couldn’t get through because of the call block.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I don’t have call block on my phone, that’s not possible.”

“His call was blocked, that’s why he couldn’t get through.”

“We don’t have that feature on our home phone, why wouldn’t he have been able to get through?”

“So tell me how your son is feeling?” she asked me, completely disregarding my befuddlement and the argument at hand. The rest of the conversation was brief, and my pediatrician never once got on the telephone with me. Coward.

I was already in the process of switching doctors, but this whole exchange just kind of reinforced my decision.

Needless to say, it’s been a long weekend. My six year old is fully recovered from his flu outbreak and my two year old is on the mend, still drippy nosed and coughing, but much improved. Thanks to everyone for the concern and support. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to read and comment much in the past few days, but hopefully I’ll be able to catch up with my pal Google Reader during the coming week. I mean, all four of my kids will be home, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty of free time. Right?

It didn’t take a crystal ball to foretell that one sick and contagious child was only the beginning of my woes. Especially when said plague bearer was continually hacking unrestrained bits of toxic phlegm in to his younger brother’s previously healthy face. Not to mention the inadvertent cup sharing, face licking, and finger sucking.

The  dominoes are falling, one by one, into influenza’s sinister clutches.

The two-year-old, my diapered bundle of harnessed electricity, is currently a bleary eyed feverish mess. It is compounded by the fact that his ability to communicate is not quite as evolved as his older brother’s. Complaints and requests are usually shrieked at an inaudible pitch, possibly one only dogs can hear. Trying to decipher the words is another thing altogether. It’s almost like playing a really angry version of charades with someone from another country where language and hand gestures are completely reversed - holding your stomach means you want to be carried, rubbing your eyes means you’re cold, throwing up in Mommy’s bed means…well, that one is self explanatory.

So of course, mostly capable Mom, is for the interim, reduced to a worried, neurotic, scatterbrained lunatic. I’m agonizing over every cough, every whimper, every uneaten bite of Jello and unsipped cup of water. It makes me short tempered and irritable and generally unpleasant to live with…just ask the rest of the family.

It’s going to be a long weekend.

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.

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.

Since tomorrow is my son’s 6th birthday, we thought we’d include his Kindergarten class in on the celebration by bringing cupcakes to school for everyone to partake in. Luckily Publix has this nifty creation called a pull-apart cake, which is basically individual cupcakes set up in rectangular formation then iced and decorated like a normal sheet cake would be. Any decorated cake they offer can be set up in this fashion.

My son, the dino nut, opted for a prehistoric theme…

Lovely, isn’t it?

The great thing about this cake is that there are roughly two and a half inches of butter-cream frosting smothering the tops of these 30 cupcakes.

In case you don’t know, most 5 to 6 year olds will only eat the frosting off the top of their cupcake, the actual cake part will end up (still wrapped neatly in its paper liner) face-down in the garbage can. Then said children will promptly ask for a second cupcake they can similarly lick clean.

Seems kind of like a waste of $40 but look at these faces…

Tomorrow, we embark on a birthday safari…stay tuned.

I know I’m not the only one who obsesses about their children eating enough. If I could have liquefied his pizza and fed it to him intravenously I would have.

And why is it that food that’s all the rave to my two year old one day, is completely unacceptable sustenance the next day. He won’t even let it pass his lips. He won’t even lick a single crumb off the plate. Instead he shrieks, gags, and pushes said delicacy away with all the played out melodrama of a soap opera actress.

Seriously, he can’t live off soy milk and Hershey’s kisses forever.

Sadly, this is what’s left of my husband’s recent Girl Scout Cookie purchase. I should be grateful that the temptation to binge on chocolate covered minty goodness and coconut caramel heaven has been eliminated, but the sad fact is I didn’t even get a single, pathetic lick of a cookie, much less an entire serving, before my children completely devoured our cookie ration.

I like to feel I’m doing my part to help the Girl Scouts out. Not by participating in any way, shape, or form, but by buying and eating and savoring their products in a carefully managed allotment, so that my yearly purchase can last me as long as humanly possible. This strategy helps me feel that I’m contributing in some small way to the Girl Scouts’ courage, confidence, and character building.

When my kids join forces to rob me of that experience, well that’s like mutiny…or something. It’s like a revolt, I mean it’s certainly revolting to me that I didn’t get a taste of a single Samoa. I’m not a perfect mom, but I’ve taught my kids the basics - don’t bite people, don’t eat your boogers, brush your teeth sometimes, share your toys. That last one applies to cookies too, dammit.

Did I have to spell it out for them? Did I have to be that specific? Maybe the right strategy would’ve been stashing the cookies in an undisclosed location then doling them out one at a time at my discretion…which would be never…muhuhuhahahaa (that’s my evil laugh, in case you’re not familiar).

Do as I say not as I do and all that…I’ll share the regular cookies with them - Chips Ahoy, Oreos - the special ones are mine next year…all mine.

For more Wordful Wednesday visit:

Cause some people don’t want to keep it Wordless apparently.

Last Friday my sister and I decided to meet up once again for another one of our  oh-so-rare girls’ night out. It had been a couple of months since we’d last ventured an evening without our respective broods and we both felt we needed some grown up time…you know, after dark, in our good jeans, with our hair brushed and sporting a little lipstick. Fancy, right?

Well, after abandoning my children to their father’s capable hands, I hopped in to my styling minivan, and shuttled off to meet my sister at the restaurant, which is about 20 minutes of highway driving from my house. About halfway there, cruising along at a steady 80 mph, I noticed some movement in the left corner of my windshield. What I saw lurking there was this…

Now, I normally don’t harbor any ill will toward the arachnids. Live and let live is my general approach, not like roaches which I strive to either annihilate or flee from. The problem was that as my vehicle was hurtling forward at an alarming rate of speed, I suddenly became terrified that this slightly repulsive critter was going to fling itself toward my face and I was going to drive my car in to a ditch where it would quite theatrically burst in to flames.

Spiders are fine, sure. Spiders on your face are somewhat less fine.

Rather than pull over to the side of the road and risk getting splattered by whizzing traffic, I opted to get off at the next exit, drive to the nearest gas station, and run screaming from my car, while simulataneously checking my hair for spiders. After a brief moment’s panic I walked back to the driver’s side and checked things out. The tiny spider was still perched at the edge of the windshield, possibly wondering what the heck was making me so twitchy.

After trying unsuccesfully for several minutes to flush the guy out with a balled up paper towel, I was approached by one of the car wash attendants who must have thought I was completely schizo dancing around in my flats and making little squeaking sounds on the asphalt.

Luckily he ignored his better instincts, and helped a girl out. He very gallantly grabbed the little guy by the legs, pulled him out, and set him free in the nearby bushes, hopefully to live out the remainder of his spider life in peace and happiness. He also was quick to point out that spiders are good luck and I should consider his little visit to be a good omen.

I suppose he was partially right, I was lucky enough to find parking that night at the restaurant , we only had to wait half an hour to be seated, and the movie we caught didn’t suck.

All in all it was a successful evening.

Now had a spider landed on my face, I probably wouldn’t have been so fortunate.

Now, for the record, I generally do not delight in torturing my children and broadcasting their misery on the internet. Mostly.

But yesterday, after an exceptionally long day of two-dler tantrums, my darling son took it upon himself to flip out because his big brother was eating a left over Valentine’s day party cupcake, while he was stuck with a measly sugar cookie. He tried for a good long while to snatch the cupcake out of his older brother’s hands, to no avail.

When that didn’t work he proceeded to demonstrate his frustration the following way. Being the diligent blogger that I am, I decided to capture the moment on video. Ignore my nasal tone as I try to provoke my son in to continuing his outburst, ignore also my five year old’s out of control giggling because he thought this was absolutely the funniest thing on the planet and was very proud to be a part of it.

I swear I’m not a bad mother.