Excuses, Excuses...

I had planned on posting today. I had planned on posting yesterday. In fact, I've planned on posting every day for the last week. Clearly, I haven't. Today, I have a very good excuse: a deadly stomach bug has declared war on my entire household and I believe it is winning. I haven't actually vomited myself (a small victory on my part) but every other member of my household has. Also, more silver linings amongst all these clouds (although really, after 100+ degrees last weekend the clouds themselves are silver linings!), I have found two new lovers:

So far we've spent the day together and I'm already imagining many more hours of lying in each other's embraces. *sigh* Whoever would have thought I'd have a menage a trois?

God's Sense of Humor

So, yesterday was a fabulous Mother's Day; probably the best one I've had since I officially became a mother. The evening ended with Robert sleeping early, the kids going to bed on time and I got to blog and catch up on some TV shows online. I chatted with Mia and stayed up until about 1:30am. I had a great time. Then God reminded me what I shouldn't be so self-indulgent.

Lulu woke up at midnight saying her legs hurt. I gave her some medicine, cuddled her and sent her back to bed. She woke up at 3am(?) saying her ear hurt. By now I'm tired and just want sleep, not to mention pain moving from body parts and I'm not sure if I should take her seriously plus she's already had medication. So I haul her into bed with me. She didn't sleep. Not one. single. wink. I know because I didn't either.

Finally, I gave in. I let her suck down some ibuprofen and sent her to bed. She's still sleeping but my *&T%@&$ inner alarm clock has me up. Didn't I already post once this month about the dangers of blogging on very little sleep? I guess I don't learn as quickly as I thought I did.

More Of My Vomiting Morning Because I Know You're Dying To Know But Afraid To Ask

So here's how my morning is shaking out (because I believe in play-by-play blogging). I finished typing my last entry and was just surfing around when I heard those sounds again. I helped Lulu throw up and then went to bed to snuggle her. The next three hours passed in a haze of snatches of sleep, frantically grabbing the bowl and more hauling ass to the bathroom. At 7am, the alarm went off because that's what it's told to do. Fortunately for me, those damn chirping birds had woken me up prior to the alarm. All kinds of good times here.

Earlier in the morning, during out of our bathroom sessions, I had thought that maybe I should try and get some electrolytes in my dearest, devotedest, darlingest daughter (still not remotely mad or frustrated with her because I don't have to play the piano at the Stake Center this afternoon) as maybe her body was off-balance which then causes more vomiting (and really, while I'm grateful, I would like it to stop at some point). I opened our fridge and we are seriously perishable food and cold drink deficient. We have eggs. We have milk. We have cheese. Mmmm...ketchup. Mustard. All good foods on a sick tummy. Amazingly we have no soda. None. Robert is a soda addict; tweeker, if you will. I had decided that giving my daughter Mountain Dew would be worth any harmful side effects from dyes and caffeine if it made her stop vomiting. There wasn't any Mountain Dew to give her. No Dr. Pepper or Diet Pepsi. No Monster drinks or Rock Stars. I swear, my husband was replaced by a pod person when I wasn't looking. Or he drank it all and just hadn't made it to the store....hmm, that subject bears further pondering, but not now.

Anyway, the net result was that at 7am, I was pulling on pants and driving to the store. Both Walmart and Safeway were open at this early hour (really, on a Saturday I think it almost qualifies at Godforsaken). Safeway is only half a mile away while Walmart is all the way across town (1 mile). I opt for Safeway as I don't think I could sustain my accelerator foot for that extra half mile. Safeway is expensive - they ask for your arm before you ever even enter. But I don't care. I'm on a mission: Gatorade for Lulu and chips for me. The moment I walk in the door, there are sugared cereals on sale. Normally I am vigilant as to what my children eat, to a point of analness. Occasionally I do buy the sugared stuff but I force my kids to mix them half and half with plain Cheerios. They agree and then just pick out the good stuff. We're both happy. Today, however, I learned that shopping on 3 hours sleep for me is like shopping drunk; anything goes. Hmmm...sugared cereal...they'll leave me alone all morning so I can sleep...win/win. I grab two boxes. I walk right past those happy boxes of plain Cheerios. Yellow is just too damn cheerful at this hour. I find my chips. I search for Gatorade. There's Propel and Vitamin Water and all sorts of imposters but no Gatorade. Maybe it's by the Juice. I walk to the other end of the store to search for Gatorade. (Damn it, if I'd gone to Walmart I'd have found Gatorade!) No Gatorade by the juice. I walk back across the store and finally settle on Propel water (the rest of the options were all red color based and that's a big fat no-no when purchasing anything for a vomiting child) as I'm sick of walking and refuse to search any further! As I leave the aisle I spot, in those mini coolers at the checkout stand, Gatorade. I put the Propel back. Buy the Gatorade. Ooh, Odwalla Superfood. I need something to get me through my day and I'm out of cupcakes. I try not to notice the price (damned overpriced bastards!) I go to checkout and the woman is nice but watching me as if she expects me to do something rash and she's got her finger on the silent alarm. (She had watched me stop and start - shoes coming to squeaking halts on the floor - and wander back and forth across the store and no doubt heard me muttering "damn it" and "bastards." I also wonder if I was staggering from all that walking.) I take my bags and leave. As I'm walking out the door I happen to glance up; underneath their big sign they have these wicked 2 foot spike all over the place ostensibly to discourage birds from nesting. Bastards.

I come home. My daughter is up and so happy and chipper. My sons think that I am the best mother in the world as they exclaim over criss-crossed Apple Jacks and Chocolate Peanut Butter Pops. "Can I have some?" "Sure," I say. "Can I have some of both?" "Have anything you want." They are ready to nominate me for mother of the year!! I am ready to sell them all for sleep.

Another upside: I got to call the missionaries at 7:15am (take that evil doers!) and inform them of my, ahem, sad situation. The 19-21 year old boy on the other end told me to have a good day. Seriously? I should send my vomiting 4-year-old to them.

[D]hat [D]y Dearest, Devotedest, Darlingest Daughter Done Did Do During Da [D]ight

DISLAIMER: Please note that faces have been changed to protect the innocent. My husband has not given me permission to post the real pictures of our beloved and perfect children despite my telling him that the war would end and world peace would be initiated simply by allowing everyone to gaze at the angelic visages of our offspring. He wasn't moved by my argument in the least. When did I lose my power of persuasion? As such, I offer this delightful cutie (no where near as good as the real thing) with touches of Lulu; note the crown and the fairy wings all in pink - like a good princess.

Lulu crawled in bed with me tonight. I snuggled her and a while later (time is so relative in the middle of the night) told her to return to her bed. She whined and fussed and didn't want to go (even with my magnanimous offer to carry her) so I succumbed to her pleadings (so easy at 3 something AM) and threw her over to my other side, a little ways away from me so I could have my "sleeping space." This didn't last long. She began to whine. "Lulu, why are you crying?" Next thing I know, she's sitting up and making sounds. Those kind of sounds. "Oh, no, you are not throwing up on my bed." (This is the part where Robert is quite grateful we don't sleep together.) My dearest, devotedest, darlingest daughter promptly clapped her hands over her mouth and clamped her lips together while her stomach was trying to imitate a sea cucumber. I scooped her up, hauled ass to the bathroom (about 10 steps away) to the toilet. Her stomach emptied and I surveyed the damage. Nothing on my bed. (Yea! I don't have a waterproof mattress pad. And I don't want to do laundry - I could hurt myself!) Nothing on the hall floor. A few drops on the bathroom floor. I cleaned the toilet seat with a bleach wipe (the smell of bleach being extraordinarily welcome in the moment), washed my dearest, devotedest, darlingest daughter's hands and face and brushed her teeth and we were done. Oh yeah, I whipped of my shirt for good measure but that was it. At the age of four, she somehow managed to hold onto her stomach's contents until they could be dumped in the toilet. Fabulous. Love her so much. (Wipe away tear in the eye. Sniff. So beautiful.)

But wait, it gets even better. Thursday night we fed the missionaries. (I try really hard not to, but every once in awhile my maternal side takes over and I want to take care of these boys who are getting increasingly younger than me; I discovered that as I tried to compare our childhoods and then realized that these were the boys that I would have been babysitting. Not much to compare.) They started the, "Sister, we hear you play the piano." A sentence that can never lead to anything good. Turns out there is a baptism Saturday and they wanted me to play for the musical number. Robert is going to be working so I hesitated knowing that all my children would be with me and despite their advancing years (4, 7 &9), they are still not so good at reverent behavior while unattended. Lizzie offered to take Lulu so I felt confident that my boys would be moderately well behaved (no one running and leaping into the font). However, no one called me until tonight (at 9:30pm and at 10:something pm - seriously, doesn't the mission pres tell these boys not to call after 9p?) regarding what in the world was going on. Even then the phone calls, on principle I refused to answer the phone, were: (at 9:30) the missionaries asking me to play the piano for the whole baptism (they failed to leave any clue as to what music they might want to have played there - Mia suggested that I play "fairy music" wherein, since I can't play the real songs, I just play whatever comes out of my hands and call it good); and at 10:something (one of the girls who was singing the musical number) suggested that we meet at 1p to practice "I Know My Redeemer Lives." Easy enough song. The practice time is a wee bit inconvenient as it means meeting at our meeting house, practicing for a few minutes and then driving to the stake center (45 min away) for a baptism at 2p. You do the math.

So, how does this relate to my dearest, devotedest, darlingest daughter and our delightful midnight escapades? Since she had "nocturnal emissions," I can't go. Darn. Rascals. I felt guilt about not going to the baptism (which I contemplated in my frustration that no one was giving me information about what to play, etc.) as I think everyone deserves a magical baptism. But now...now I have a perfectly valid, good, solid reason for not being able to go. (Vomit at a baptism would be a downer especially if it was in the font, and then there'd be the floaties, not to mention trying to clean out the font....) Yea for Lulu. *Sigh* She is so my favorite daughter! (Even though she is currently sleeping in my bed - with a bowl, thank you very much - and I am blogging because all of the adrenaline necessary to whisk my child to the toilet resulted in me being very much awake.)

Spring Fever

Remember that post where I waxed poetic about the beauty of every season? I was delusional.

How could I have forgotten the agony of allergies and the fact that I seem to be allergic to everything around me both in the spring and fall? Forget the trees in blossom and the tulips and daffodils bursting around me; it's hard to think when you can't breathe and your head feels like a giant zit needing to be popped.

I used to wonder why God hadn't inspired my family to settle back home in Juneau, Alaska. We tried to move, several times, but always felt that it wasn't right or nothing would work out enabling us to move. Given the current family drama, I've become grateful that we didn't move. However, I am now questioning God's foresight as to having us live just slightly due south of "the Grass Seed Capital of the World." Yea me! Yea my sinuses!

And furthermore, because now I'm on a rantin' roll, what is the whole purpose of allergies? There is nothing wrong with grass seed or tree pollen or whatever it is trees send out, but my body responds as if they were miniature Jeffrey Dahmers out to destroy me. Allergies are simply my own body's reactions to these invaders and the medication to make it better blocks the histamine my body produces. Is this God's way of reminding me that I am my own worst enemy? Is this some sort of cosmic symbolism that even the smallest things can cause problems of epic proportions?! I just don't know. I just know that right now, not even fruit trees in blossom are making my allergies feel worth the price of Spring.

Happy Pills

I like euphemisms. They make my world so much more livable. Depression just becomes "the blues." So nice, so soft; it makes me think of that old New Era poster with a bunch of blue balloons. Manic children who fill my thoughts with wishes that a caravan of gypsies would come strolling by are simply "energetic rascals." Credit cards with five digits of debt become "magic cards," that magically pay for anything we need or want; somehow, though, it wasn't my trip to Paris! My medication to manage my depression so I don't have any "hmm, think I'm done with life," kind of thoughts becomes "happy pills." See, so much better! Could have been "anti-suicide-or-voices-in-my-head pills," but instead they are simply happy pills. How can a pill that makes you happy be all that bad?

When I first started taking these things I was so distraught. I thought that here was one more way in which I had failed. "Clearly, I suck at living life. Oh well, might as well get some help because I wasn't capable of getting better on my own. " The happy pills helped so much that almost overnight all those nasty voices in my head stopped and I could function again. Why had I fought so hard against this? Now, though, I am discovery that apparently the whole world has had similar experiences and everyone seems to be on happy pills.

I spoke to a woman for whom I have become her IUD friend and she asks me all questions IUD related. Yea me! Apparently she is using happy pills too. My former visiting teacher, whose children are all my age, is on a happy pill. My husband joked that being married to her hubby (he's not so nice) for 30+ years would require her to take them. I asked him if that was true, what does that say about him since we've only been married for 10.

One friend took pills to get through the bar exam. Someone else took happy pills to help when she quit smoking. Another SAHM has bad anxiety and has been on happy pills for 2 years now. Another friend took them when she was leaving her husband. (FYI, they made her lose a bunch of weight - why can't I have that side effect?!) Another friend takes them to avoid being crazy (like me).

So, I'm feeling less like a freak and now wondering, "Should I be on these?" Is it a statement of how much being a SAHM sucks your life blood out of your soul that so many of us are on happy pills? Is it a statement of the last days and turbulent times that we have to have help to get through the day? Has our DNA been so drastically altered over years of pollution and corruption that we can no longer produce the chemicals needed for a happy brain?

I. don't. know. I just know that I am currently up in the air. The pills have helped, no question, but the week before my period (Hello?! right now!) still turns me into a bluesy girl. The pills have also made me fatigued. All. the. time. Argh! It's hard to find motivation to do anything when all I want to do is sleep. Seriously though, I had been bumped up to 20mg and have moved myself back down to 10mg to try and combat the somnolence. Not working so well. So now the questions is, "Do I have to try a new happy pill?" Blech. This is worse than trying to find a birth control pill that works for you. Then, I just gave up the whole mess. No big deal. Sure, surprise, surprise, I got preggers, but we wanted a baby and 9 years later, it's not so bad. With happy pills though, if I give up the whole mess, will I go back to being crazy sad chic? Will I still be married in 9 months if I do? Somehow the situation seems a wee bit more convoluted than the birth control pills did. Perhaps I should just go back to looking for that violin playing goat.

This was meant to be funny. I think I missed the boat.

Subupuber Ububbubi Dububbubi Wubomuban

UbI wubas thubinkubing ubabubout wrubitubing uba pubost ubin pubig lubatubin bubut ubI thubink thubat ububbubi dububbubi ubis lubess cubommubon thuben pubig lubatubin. Subince nubo ubone ubis rubeadubing ubanubywubay, ubI thubought thubis wubould bube fubun. Bubut uball ubI rubealluby hubave tubo subay ubis: "UbI thubink muby hubappuby pubills ubare wuborkubing!"

*For translation, copy text, click here, paste text and click "Translate FROM Ubbi Dubbi".
**For bonus points, post your comments in ubbi dubbi!

My Reality and Why I've Been Loathe To Share

Alright. I suppose after all this time that I should post a bit more about my life than just some cryptic quotes about violin-playing goats, random quizzes and the occasional conversation with my children. The purpose of this blog is to update those who don't live near me on my life and I've been failing at that purpose.

I haven't wanted to post anything too personal because I am struggling far more than I would like to be. In November it was easy to see a cause for my struggles, a cause outside of myself. Right now, I know that the cause is deeply rooted in my soul and psyche and I struggle with further evidence that I am anything but perfect. I know, no one but Jesus has been perfect but I always hope I will be better than I am and, oddly, I am always surprised when those hopes are crushed.

My depression eased for a bit, enough to get me through the holidays and Rhys' birthday. When January began, I really was feeling quite hopeful that I could put this all behind me and become a reborn, confident and happy woman. But then, mid-January, my depression returned with a vengeance. It hasn't ever gone away again and I suppose part of the reason is that I've just quit fighting. The voices in my head (negative tapes but I like the psychotic sound of voices though my therapist calls them something else altogether and assures me I'm not actually psychotic) became so loud that I had a hard time hearing anything beyond them. Logically, I knew that those thoughts were lies but my heart ate them up like a slice of chocolate cake. It got to be so I couldn't be left alone with my own head and so I was constantly reading escapist literature, watching movies and running (mentally not physically - heaven forbid that I should do anything positive!) as fast as I could. I stopped going to church because all I would do when I was there was either daydream I was somewhere else or cry. I stopped really praying for the same reason. Anytime the Spirit touched my heart, I would sob and sob. No. Fun.

On February 20, I went in to see my OB/GYN. After being examined as thoroughly as only a gynecologist can examine, we discussed medications. I am now taking Lexapro. The first day I was so nauseous I survived on saltine crackers and ginger tea. The second day I got better and within a few days the nauseousness left completely and was replaced by ravenous hunger. All. Day. So much for weight loss. I felt happy without being short-tempered for the first time in months! This week (week two) the blues have started making their presence known a bit more forcefully and I'm not sure if I will need to up my dosage or if this is merely my body adjusting to the meds or if it's just my period effecting everything as my cycle is wont to do. But the good news is that the voices in my head are quiet and, God willing, fairly ineffectual. I'm basically caught up on laundry and have started doing dishes before they grow furry friends. I even, hallelujah, used the vacuum!! (Literally, this is the first time in....months...I can't remember when I last turned it on.) Now, if I could just get my bathroom clean (again, months and can't remember the last time is was cleaned only that my husband was the one to do it and Robert rarely cleans the bathroom, so I'm sure you'll understand the length of time involved here), I could begin to feel on top of my house at least and hopefully, slowly, my life.

I go back to my OB (thankfully no more thorough exams for another year. At least. Longer if my typical procrastination of the dreaded visit comes into play. Incidentally, my OB is male and as a little tit-for-tat I asked for a female urologist for my husband. Hee, hee, hee.) on the 19th and we're going to discuss the medications. But I'm hopeful that they will continue to help and hopeful that I needn't be on them the rest of my life but who knows? As previously discussed, I'm terrified of menopause so just maybe...the next twenty years?

I saw my therapist on Wednesday and will see her again on the 19th. We're working on my grief over my mom's death and my father's family changing so dramatically. I always have known that humans die and, because of my faith, had a positive outlook on crossing over for people like my mom. I just never realized and comprehended how much I would miss her presence in my life. That's been the hardest thing to deal with; I just miss her so much that at times my heart aches and I still cry until I can't breathe. So, we're working on it and, again God willing, I won't be quite so distraught in 2009.

So actually, I'm okay now and working on being hopeful and optimistic. I'm going to church this Sunday and plan to stay the whole four hours (including choir) for the first time since January. I'm more patient with my kids and less prone to irritability (that seemed to be my MO -- depression followed by not quite happy but not depressed periods of irritability). Maybe, just maybe, I can finally get my Christmas decorations put away!

One of my biggest losses (slight exaggeration) is that I never got to post on February 29....Rascals!

Gifts of the Plague

It all started so innocently. I went to take a short nap after my boys had arrived home from school. I had been horizontal for a few moments when the boys came in (they still do not understand the concept that emergency means someone gushing blood or the house literally being on fire). "Lulu's tired and needs a nap." Good enough. Emmalouise comes in and snuggles up with me. I'm thinking, "Bonus!" Now I can get some extra sleep minutes as I will have to stay with my daughter to ensure she gets a good nap. Five minutes after she falls asleep, my father-in-law calls. He has just had the cows killed and I need to come pick up the livers and cheeks. Yea. Do I have to go now? Absolutely. OK. . . .

I let Lulu sleep for fifteen minutes (power napping is good even for 3 year old) and off we go. Cow pieces are loaded in the van and Lulu and I sit visiting with Grandma. Lulu won't get off my lap. She's feeling warmer and warmer; by golly, she has a fever! Grandma had open heart surgery four months ago. Time to go.

We head home and Emmalou doesn't want me to leave her -- not very conducive to getting dinner prepared. Suddenly, Quinn is feeling warmer . . . and warmer. Next thing I know, I am snuggled up with two feverish children who both desperately need Mom. Dinner was a hasty, Dad prepared meal of grilled cheese sandwiches. We administer ibuprofen all around and put the littles to bed. Whew. Sigh of relief. We are sure they will be markedly better by morning. Ah, it is good to have moments of blissful ignorance! Phase two hits: the croupy cough.

They hack all night long and by morning my 3 year old baby girl sounds like an alto-ranged, two packs-a-day, piano bar singer. We make it through the morning by the grace of ibuprofen administered at 6am. Then afternoon hits -- happily they nap, so peaceful. Who knew two hours could last only two seconds? They're awake and miserable. "Mommy, I need you." "I'll sit with you for two minutes." "Okay." "Alright, I need to go start dinner. Can I go now?" "No, not yet," says my girl. Again, Dad makes an ad-hoc dinner which is actually quite tasty (I highly recommend marrying a chef). Again with the ibuprofen. We put the kids to bed in my bed with lots of pillows hoping to have them sleeping at an angle to aide in breathing. I head off to Walmart for chicken noodle soup, cough suppressant and milk and bread. Get in the car after shopping and drive out of the parking lot only to realize that I've forgotten the milk and bread. Back to Walmart. Back to the car. Back to remembering something I've forgotten but decide, "To heck with it, I'm going home." I arrive home only to discover that my children are going ape and are having a great time running around now that their fevers have been artificially reduced and their sore throats aren't quite so sore. Why was ibuprofen a good idea?

They finally settle down and fall asleep. A few hours later I smoosh in between the two to catch my own zzz's. You'd think after being a mom for almost 9 years I would understand a few things. You'd think I would realize that sleeping with one sick child is difficult, therefore sleeping with two sick children is impossible. No. In my momentary insanity brought on by love for my children and concern with their well being (it's nerve racking when you hear them struggling to breathe), I throw all previous knowledge to the wind and sleep between my two sick children. Sleep here being as accurate a description as the word slumber in the phrase "slumber party." They hack and cough and twist and turn and kick and wake up and whine and cry ALL NIGHT LONG. They are thoughtful enough to do this in shifts so that I only have to deal with one child at a time. My only thought is of Thomas Paine: "These are the times that try men's souls." Most people think he was speaking of the Revolutionary War but I know he was actually discussing his own personal experiences with his sick children.

Friday passes fairly uneventfully. I am able to make dinner without being pulled at by octopus tentacles. Quinn and Lulu go to sleep, propped up in their own beds, slathered with Vicks Vaporub. Saturday moves along and I see the light at the end of the tunnel. By Sunday evening the quarantine has been lifted and we are no longer the house of death. Hooray!

Seriously, it does feel good to leave the house again. The first time I wondered out in the day light after four days of being sequestered I had a momentary feeling of disorientation. "Is this what the outside really looks like?" I wondered. It had been so long. It does feel good to no longer hear the breath rattling around in your child's chest and to hear a normal voice come from your three-year-old's mouth. (Although Lulu would have been better off keeping the cracking/whispering voice as Robert and I could hardly deny her anything when she used it; it was the perfect blend of patheticness and innocence.) And it does feel good to sleep all night long without interruptions from hacking coughs or children's whines.

In the middle of illness, whether it's a cold or the bubonic plague, it is amazing how important the simplest things become. Perhaps this is one of God's ways of reminding us of the myriad of blessing we take for granted. I breathe hundreds of times each day without a second thought, but the moment that breath becomes labored, I remember what a gift each breath is. My children fight, argue, disobey and exasperate me hundreds of times each day. But the moment their existence becomes a question, I realize how precious they are to me and how readily and happily I would relinquish countless nights of sleep for their continued well being. How grateful I am to my God for my three marvelous children and the gifts they bring me each day just by the fact they are alive.