Ricki Lake is the new Michael Moore

Not really, but she used to resemble him.

Have you heard about her new movie The Business of Being Born? I have not actually seen it, but might like to after reading this article/review. I won't opine on my own feelings about home birth v. medical intervention birth, but let me just say that during labor I would have traded my car, house and dog for that epidural. I'm just saying...

A small nugget of joy...

"Mommy, when I turn 5 and have a growth spurt will I throw up?"

What the...what did you eat?

Saturday morning was a VERY early morning for us. The little one has decided that 6:00 is just as good a time as any to wake up. We strongly disagree, but evidently he's not up for a discussion. So since I was up...and since I'm tubby I thought I might as well go for a run. I decided to take Gus, my loving, faithful, gray bearded lab mutt with me since I knew he would enjoy being out and seeing the neighborhood. Here's where I must pause for a personal explanation for anyone that has never had this conversation with me so pardon the digression...

When we FIRST got Gus it was the springish summer of 2001 - the year we were to get married. We "adopted" him from a rescue way out in the country and it was like an "overflow shelter". Shortly after we adopted him we went to Amsterdam for a wedding and and put him in a kennel. We got back on a Tuesday and I drove out to pick him up. He seemed happy to see me and chose to ride home in the front seat of my new Mercedes...About 1/2 way down this two lane country road I notice him staring at me and sort of glaring. The next thing I know he's POOPING in my front seat...seriously glaring at me and pooping my front seat. I swerved off the road, flung the passenger side door open, grabbed a towel from the front seat, swiped the poop out the door and flung the towel out with it. I was super grossed out. Fast forward to home. At the time we lived in a 3 story apt bldg and on the 3rd floor. We got home and about 30 minutes in I see Gus by the patio door and he's doing it again - POOPING! I grabbed a spatula from the kitchen, scooped the poop and tossed it over the balcony into the grass. He pretty much spent the rest of the day doing that around the apartment and I followed him around using kitchen utensils to pick up the poop and toss it over. About 3 hours later Todd came home and was like "Whoa - there's like a whole drawer full of kitchen stuff in the grass out there. That is so weird"... Hahaha. I never told, but he never figured out where all of our kitchen utensils went... End of digression. All this to say that I have NO tolerance for dog poop. In fact I have NEVER walked Gus in the going on 7 years we've had him alone where I would have to pick up poop...Back to Saturday.

So, Todd tells me to take a bag and as luck would have it later - I grabbed 4. We get about 1/8 of a mile and Gus stops to poop. I sprinkled some sand on it and picked it up with one bag and dumped it into the other. The bag gave off quite a bit of warmth and the more I thought about it and visualized it the more sick I got. Pretty soon I was gagging so hard that tears were rolling down my face and I could taste bile in the back of my throat. It took about 15 minutes to get everything back down and stabalized. We kept running and I feel the leash stop again and I look back and he's doing it again. Bleh! So I picked it up and lather, rinse, repeat the gagging and spitting up. I'm thinking - that has to be it because I only have one bag left. But now I'm carrying a double load in one plastic grocery bag and running. I round the corner, find a Cap'n Crunch box that fell off the trash truck and stuffed the double load in there and ran. I'M HOME FREE! I DID IT! I PICKED UP POOP AND SURVIVED...That joy was short lived. About 1/2 a block later he stops again and I tug and he tugs back. He's freakin' pooping AGAIN! There's panic - one bag left...So as much as I wanted to leave it I KNEW I couldn't. So I tried to be efficient like Todd would do and I ended up getting poop all over the bag opening which resulted in my having to fold the bag all weird and ending up with some sort of pouch with a long handle. After the gagging subsided I decided to "hurry" home and to my dismay as I ran that warm bag of joy was bumping against my leash hand or my thigh or my hip. I tell you what - that was a wonderful first public poop experience. Since then I vow only to bike...alone.

Mommy...

"Mommy, you're killing me" he said with as much sarcasm as one almost 5 year old can muster.

Huh - I guess I do say that a lot.

The time us upon us to be careful. :-)

Sunday, Lazy Sunday

The most strenuous thing I have done today was add a new link - Mommies with Style - a fun site for funky moms. Other than that, my day has been about prepping the playroom for the upcoming 5th birthday of Teeks. Hard to believe that it's been almost 5 years since I officially became a mother. His age has been becoming more of a factor in behavior lately. By that I mean he's doing more and more to assert his independence and aptitude to "handle it himself" (haha).

Yesterday I needed to go to the credit union and Todd and TC were sleeping so I too Tiki so they would have a quiet house. We finished around 1:00 pm and realized that we hadn't had lunch so we popped into McDonald's (it was chilly and overcast) to get a snack and kill some time in the playland. It was so crowded that we didn't stay long and decided to kill the rest of the afternoon at Dollar General, Big Lots and Family Dollar. Tiki had a couple of $1 bills burning a hole in his pocket so we were shopping. Well @ Dollar General he "accidentally" told me to "shut my mouth" so we left there with him in tears after I made him put his toy choice back on the shelf. I don't think I'll ever get used to that embarrassing feeling of your child pitching a fit in a store. I try to go back and evaluate his upbringing thus far and try to imagine where in the world that came from. I often tell him after he's pitched his fit "Let's think about this, you pitched a fit to get that toy, right" After he acknowledges that then I often ask him "And did it work - did you get the toy". He ALWAYS answers no, so then I ask "So, do you think pitching a fit works". The answer is always no, so I have to question why he keeps doing it. Maybe he thinks one day I'll forget and accidentally give in - that's all I can come up with. Luckily I know that this won't last forever and we'll be on to much bigger issues so I guess this is just part of the process. 364 out of 365 days I feel so lucky to have to deal with only boys and then there's that one day that I think - can I really do this? Only time will tell. :-)

How did you know what I was thinking?

I started my new devotional on New Year's Day and now on day 11 I have been re-amazed at how every single day - when I read my devotional (at the day's end) how truly perfectly it summed up my day and how it pertained - just right - to all the things I'm struggling with right now. I say re-amazed because it seems like each time I come back to spending this time in quiet reflection with God I'm really comforted to see that nothing has changed.

Sick of sick

I'm so, so sick of sick. I'm ready for everyone to be well and life to be normal. TC is doing better, but I tell you, the recovery from RSV is certainly s-l-o-w. It's really sad to watch. Poor baby sneezes and his weight in mucous. I understand now the invaluable skill of being able to blow your nose...the bulb syringe is a great invention, but now that the little one 'recognizes' it he does EVERYTHING he can to get it away from me or just get away from me. I do see a light at the end of the tunnel and the wheezing has stopped so that's certainly a plus!

"If you are elderly...

then you should wear the Life Alert necklace. If you have a serious fall or other emergency, like if your plug catches on fire, you can press a button and the Life Alert necklace will call the fire apartment"

PEOPLE - take note - MARKETING WORKS. But seriously, why is the Life Alert commercial on Nickelodeon?? Does TK really need to have memorized the gist of this commercial. Probably not, but he did and for that I'm grateful.

Ba-whuh?????

That sounded like "...he has RSV."

So the little one has RSV. I really didn't see this one coming. He got a cold about a month ago and I got a little worried with so much talk of RSV among my circle of moms. But he recovered nicely and that was that. Just before Christmas both kids started getting stuffy and and while Tiki's just progressed to a plain old sinus infection complete with drainage and cough TC seemed to be getting more stuffy and feverish. Then came the vomiting and that was more than pleasant. And finally last night while I was changing him after his third bath (it's the only way to erase that sour smell) I heard the telltale wheezing. It sounded "lite" last night, but then this morning he sounded so much worse. So Todd took him to the doc and she confirmed RSV and sent us home with the fistful of prescriptions. We started the Orapred tonight and LUCKILY we already have a compact nebulizer, closet full of Pulmicort and Xopenex for breathing treatments.

I'm so frustrated by this diagnosis for MANY reasons, but that's another post. I sent my mother-in-law, a Senator in CO a very long email asking how I can raise awareness with my local legislators about the issue of the vaccine being more readily approved for babies under 6 months during RSV season. I was pleased to hear back from her that she is sending to her Women in Government colleagues AND forwarding to her pharma lobbyists in hopes of making a connection somewhere.

So I close with something infinitely more positive.

...The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow, For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Happy New Year!

Here's to a great 2008!

"Say goodnight to your brother...

and tell him you'll see him next year."

"Why? Is he going to an orphanage?"

I just have to shake my head in wonderment. WHERE, pray tell, did this child come from?

What do you want for dinner?

That was the question that was posed to TK last night. What do you want for dinner? It was kind of a leftover, clean out the fridge night from Christmas and this last lazy week of being home from work and school.

He rode his scooter from the den to the kitchen to tell me "casserole". Todd and I looked at each other like WHAT? This kid is the picky eater of the century and most casseroles are not for the faint of heart or picky of stomach... So I asked again to make sure and he said again "casserole". So Todd opens the fridge and takes out 3 bowls and says "Okay, this casserole or this casserole or this casserole?" TK says "Not any of those. Those are not casseroles." Todd says "Yes, a casserole is a mixture of foods in one pan and baked." (haha) and TK says "No, a casserole is when you take something and it's rolled up like an armadillo and the ends are curled and it's in the oven - that's a casserole".

"Oh...you mean Crescent Rolls?"

"Yes, that's what I want."