My Brain Has Quit

I am too tired to post much because it was a loooong 3 day weekend, but just to give you a quick summary, here goes:

A) My kitchen counter now has knife marks across it. It turns out that you can't cut bread directly on it with a very sharp knife (I knew this already, but apparently Ally did not).

B) My TV room floor is spotless because we scrubbed vomit off of it. Again.

C) My home office looks like it threw up all over our living room because we are pretending that THIS time we are REALLY going to clean the office and keep it that way (but really we move everything out, clean about 10% of it, and then cram everything else back in -- we do this about three times a year).

D) My brain officially decided that if this Mother Effin' house remodel is not over SOON, as in YESTERDAY, that I may actually cross the bridge into Crazytown. Our builder has started coming about, oh, NEVER, and I am pissed. I am not kidding when I say that I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown about the remodel. Really. I am not kidding. Ask my husband. Poor fella.

E) Upon being inspired by seeing a paddleboat race in which everyone looked buff as hell, I have decided to get back in shape (not that I am way out of shape, but I could use some serious toning up). To get healthier, I have decided to exercise more and cut back on (gulp) alcohol. This seemed like an awesome idea at the time, until A, B, C, and D happened. Now it just seems plain nuts. So maybe I already HAVE crossed the bridge into Crazytown. I mean, what sane person would attempt to cut back on drinking while raising young kids during a remodel?

I need a psychiatrist.

Why I Had Ten Loads Of Laundry This Weekend

No I am not exaggerating. Ten loads. TEN.

(And you all know how much I hate laundry.)

Why ten loads, you may ask? One word. Vomit.

Seems Quinn caught a nice little stomach bug (which is no surprise since he has been known to lick trash cans) and he spent from 8:30 pm Friday night until 8:30 am Saturday morning throwing up roughly every ten minutes. Poor little guy.

We had my in-laws over for dinner Friday night. My husband was putting the finishing touches on our beautiful entree while Quinn and I danced to the Ipod. Quinn was happy and smiling and dancing when out of nowhere he erupted like Mount Vesuvius. I think he was just as surprised as we were.

The rest of the evening was spent changing his clothes, bathing him, changing my clothes, wiping up vomit, changing his clothes, bathing him, changing my clothes,... you get the idea. We tried putting him in his bed on a layer of towels. Within five minutes -- vomit. We tried putting him on the couch on yet another layer of towels. Within two minutes -- vomit. Finally, we put him in the bath and took turns staying with him while the rest of us ate. He continued to vomit in the bath, though he quickly caught onto the idea of getting it all to go in a bowl ( Is it just me or does every house have a Throw Up Bowl?).

I knew at this point that it would be a VERY long night. While my in-laws and husband ate dessert, I held Quinn on the couch and watched Dora with him. I didn't mind, since I had pretty much lost my appetite at that point. Every five minutes or so, he would wretch and I would aim him for the bowl. Of course, I was always a few seconds too slow, so I continued to wipe vomit off of me, him and the floor until 2 am, when we got a three hour break from Pukefest 2006. Pukefest resumed at 5 a.m., then finally ended at 8:30 a.m., and let me tell you it went out with a bang. Little Q managed to throw up at the TOP of the stairs. Over the bannister. Quite a waterfall. Bravo, Q. Well done. What an exit!

The last two days have been spent on damage control, washing every smelly piece of clothing, every towel that we own, and every couch cushion cover. Yes, Whirlpool is earning its keep today.

I Need To Vent

I am pissed. Really pissed. Overall, I have a good relationship with my husband's ex-wife, but she does this one thing that makes me want to pull my (or her) hair out. Which she just did again today.

Sharon is a good mom, truly, but she put my step-daughters in this ultracompetitive soccer league when they were 8 and 10. ULTRA-competitive. These girls could kick a grown man's ass. My husband and I do not agree with it, and because the games are usually an hour away (or more), we rarely go. We made it very clear that we would like to see any games nearby, but alas there are none. She thinks we hate sports and don't want to be involved in Carrie and Ally's life, but really we just think that a sport should not consume a child's life.

THEN, the other day we were in the grocery store and bumped into my husband's aunt. She told us how well Carrie did at her track meet. We did not even know about the meet, but it was far away, so whatever. So we emailed Sharon and said that we would love to see any track meets that were coming up. She emailed back and said that that was the last one. Oh and she was "surprised" that we never came to any other ones because, well, didn't we know that Carrie had been having track meets every Wednesday TWO BLOCKS AWAY FROM US???!!! NO, we did NOT know, because that passive aggresive bitch somehow neglected to TELL us about the meets. Bitch.

The thing is, Sharon is a little warped. If we approached her, she would say that she told us about the meets or she would twist the argument in some way to make us look bad. She DEFINES passive-aggression. So saying anything is out of the question. But I have noticed that we get absolutely bombarded with soccer emails, yet NEVER hear about any school function. Every time there has been an Open House, Science Fair Exhibit, or any other school activity (like track meets!), we find out about it two hours before or, more often, days later.* I don't even think she fully realizes that she does this, but it has happened too many times to be a coincidence.

The OTHER thing is that Sharon is a major gossip, so I have no doubt that she is sitting at those meets saying things to other parents like, "Gee I don't why her dad and step-mom aren't here. Probably because they don't support the girls being in sports." This does not bother my husband at all because he couldn't care less if people think he is the antichrist. But it bothers ME. And I am powerless, for now.

The OTHER other thing is that Sharon thinks she is not responsible for informing us of anything since we can call the school anytime. But she IS responsible since SHE is the one that receives stuff that the school sends home. And what are we supposed to do, call the school every week and say, "Oh I was just checking if there were any events this week? No? Oh okay thanks! Talk to you next week!" Don't you think that it is not too much to ask her to send an email saying, "Hey, Carrie has track meets Wednesday. Let me know if you want to go!" Of course, her fingers are probably tired little worn down nubs from all of the typing she does to email us about every fucking five-hours-away soccer meet. Bitch.


So here is my plan:

This school year is almost over so it is not worth the effort right now. But next year, I am going up to that school and I am giving every single teacher my phone number and email, and I am going to tell them to contact me for every single school event. And I will be calling Sharon a lot, too. Oh yes, a LOT. Like daily. "Any events today? No? Talk to you tomorrow!" She may define passive-aggression, but I am going to define annoying. And pestering. And very VERY involved. I will show up at school to help them wipe their asses if I have to.

The thing about me is that I am a nice person. A REALLY nice person. And very patient and all that good stuff -- UNTIL you cross my line. And then I am a cruel, vindictive, relentless bitch.

After seven years of dealing with this woman's mind games, my line has offically been crossed. Game ON, beeyatch.



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*There was a school art auction that Sharon told us about recently, which we went to. But that was very much the exception to the rule.

Mini-Hawk

Henry has taken to skateboarding. Here is how it went down:

The big kids in the neighborhood have skateboards. Ever since Henry learned to ride his bike without training wheels, he is ready to conquer the world. He kept trying to show off for those skateboarding big kids by doing bike jumps and screeching halts and such. They were not impressed, and so they ignored him. So Henry came to me and begged me for a skateboard.

I tried to convince him that he was not ready, that it would be too hard, too dangerous. He was unmoved. I then decided to take the laid-back-mom approach -- I figured that I would buy him the board, he would try it, decide it was too hard, and then we would put it away for a year or two. I went to Target, found a sweet ride with a black widow on it, and bought every body-pad imaginable to cover Henry with for his death ride. I knew it would take just one try on this new contraption for him to realize his mother's wisdom. But there was just one small glitch in my plan....

The kid can legitimately skateboard. Seriously. I was shocked. He is going down (small) ramps, doing trick turns, and impressing those big kids. The big kids even got out their tools and helped Henry adjust his wheels to turn better. Turns out that the skateboard is a Big Kid Magnet -- we can't go to a park without some 8 year-old coming up to Henry and helping him with his new hobby. Henry is VERY stoked.

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Allergy update:

After eliminating every food from my diet, I was able to conclude that my allergies are not linked to any particular food.

After two weeks of pill-popping, my allergy medicine seems to be kicking in. I still have ear pressure, but not ear pain.

After two weeks of wondering, I am still not sure if I am allergic to wine. This is because I cannot for the life of me go 48 hours without a glass of wine. But as long as my Singulair is working, I don't feel the need to eliminate wine. My children do, after all, need to SURVIVE the next 14 years or so.