Neko and Shep both have strep throat. Neko has some weird side effects which require topical treatment. Tom is still being medicated for the uvulitis that set in after he developed dry sockets after he got his wisdom teeth removed. Tomorrow we'll take in Ellery to see if she has strep as well. The top of our microwave is beginning to resemble a pharmacy.
On the upside, I'm feeling a lot better!
I promise tomorrow I will post something uplifting about rainbows or bunnies or the like.
It snowed buckets today. Those big, beautiful flakes that pile up in drifts.
Last night I had the chance, before the major snow began, to
pick up Indian food and run out to the library and rent as many DVDs as
they would allow. We got to begin a snow day well fed and well prepared, which makes all the difference.
Don't get me wrong—the crazies are still crazy. But we had an ace up our sleeve when things started to fall apart.
Plus, Tom sent me to the shop for half of the day to do some work and regain my sanity. Thank goodness. It made the rest of the day doable.
Don't let that pastoral picture fool you—this day was awful. So awful that I don't even want to blog about it because it would mean reliving it, and really, you might fall asleep because the minutia of it is really a big old bore.
But I will share a few things I learned today:
1. Two parents shouldn't be sick at the same time. Especially when one
of them still has to go in to work and the other one still has to look
after three children. Thank goodness Tom left early, which helped avert tragedy, I'm fairly certain.
2. Snow days and my children don't mix. I'm sure for some people it is glorious, but for me it means three crazy children in a confined space where they have blown through every activity we have by 9:45am. Then they have the whole rest of the day to argue, pick at each other, and press my buttons.
3. Sometimes you can yell at your children so much in one day that your throat hurts. (I'm not proud of this, but it is true.)
4. Most kitchen thermometers are no longer made with mercury. See? I've just saved you 45 minutes of panicky phone calls to poison control and the thermometer manufacturer, you know, just in case you make donuts to try to keep the crazies less crazy and then you only realize after everyone has eaten a donut that the base of the thermometer exploded into the cooking oil somewhere during the process without you noticing.
5. Tomorrow is another day. Hopefully, much better.
Coffee and cocoa at our favorite coffee shop.
Neko adores the Disney chess set, where you pit Sleeping Beauty and cute puppies against Cruella de Vil and hyenas.
Well, except that it's almost February.
I meant to start January with a new-ish format, but, oy, TypePad. I wanted to post larger photos. As Chris points out, laptops are getting bigger, and suddenly my pictures were looking kind of dinky. So I futzed with it and tried my best. But I'm a woman who knows my limits, and I threw in the towel. This is clearly a problem that required things like CSS and, ultimately, SOS. Enter Chris again, and he waved his magic wand, and made it all better.
The other thing you'll notice is that the archives before January 2009 are gone. They're not really gone, they're just over here, in a different blog space for safe keeping. You see, when I started this blog, I hadn't really thought far enough ahead to the point when Neko would start reading. Soon she'll be able to follow along with the rest of us, and I don't want her to hit that "back" button and uncover posts about the big guy with the white beard and other similar things.
Some day (maybe 2010?) I'll have the perfect system, but for now, this seems like a good enough one. So welcome to 2009. 21 days late.
Overall, I feel like we're pretty "green" people. We recycle. We use rechargeable batteries. We use biodegradable trash bags. In the summer, we make a vain attempt to compost.
But I have a confession.
My dishwasher. I adore it. And I run it at least once, if not twice, a day. And it's not always full. It's a magic little marvel, especially after having children. Sippy cups, with all their thousands of parts, pacifiers, toys that have been found in questionable places—all resolved with the push of a button.
Phew. That feels better now that I have that out in the open.
(Please no comments about the fingerprints all over my dishwasher.)
Sometimes, on my way to do a load of laundry, I catch one of these bizarre things out of the corner of my eye and wonder how having this strange collection of ephemera will shape my children.
Today I took Neko to a birthday party. Which is not her best thing. It is a high stakes event where she is not the center of attention and someone else gets a whole lot of gifts.
Meanwhile, at home, Ellery decided to see what would happen if she stuffed a raisin up her nose. The answer? A fretful father, a visit from your grandmother, a pair of tweezers, and a big tantrum.
At bedtime, Neko asked about guns. She reasoned that we need them because that's how we kill animals, and we eat animals. Which makes sense, except how do you explain to a five-year-old the concept of slaughterhouses? And why that's okay, but guns aren't? I felt like I showed up for my 8am Chemistry class with a hangover and got surprised with a pop quiz. I give myself a C+ for my answers, and think I need to spend some more time hitting the books on that one.
The protocol of birthday parties. Lodged raisins. The loopholes of firearms.
Totally not addressed in any of my parenting books.
A two hour delay due to the freezing ice meant some stir-crazy kids, stuck in the house with no place to go. I pulled the water table out of the basement, and set them all to work.
And they were extremely busy! For 20 minutes!
But it was great while it lasted.
And then they went bananas bouncing off the couches while I washed a load of towels, which I trashed cleaning up the big mess.
If I had known how much food preparation was involved in parenthood, I might have taken a pass.