Barking Snot Plague

No, I didn't disappear, and no, this isn't turning into an exclusive product review blog.  Yes, my kids are still alive and yes, they still do funny messed up things.  I will give a bullet list of what we've been up to, but basically they are ALL home because the Barking Snot Plague is going through our house.  Thus far it only affects the kids (please in the name of all that is Holy please knock wood and pray and do whatever else applies that we adults don't get it), but Nemo and Sunny are both pretty sick.  Trout is home today, but frankly I think she has Idon'twannagotoschoolitis and isn't really that sick - she doesn't have the Hacking Bark of Death.  But her glands are real swollen so BigDaddyFish is convinced she's actually sick.  I'm a mean mom and am making her stay in bed since she's home - no laying around watching tv or playing with the other kids like she has tried to do several times already.  Sick is not fun around here (I would be nicer if she actually looked or acted sick, but she isn't).  My babysitter hasn't been here at all this week and I'm losing my mind.  I haven't showered in a few couple of days and it is bad enough that I called my in-laws, who drive me crazy, in to babysit the rest of the day and the duration of the Brownie meeting tonight.  So!

• Nemo was baptized on Sunday.  Since losing my mother so many years ago and not ever really having a decent surrogate, and since I married a guy who thinks holidays are an excuse for people to be lazy and not work, Mothers Day is always very hard on me.  I decided to go ahead and have Nemo baptized on Mothers Day to try to bring a positive association to it.  It was a beautiful day and the weather was perfect and we had a party at a nearby park afterward and it was just lovely.
• I've become a pro at this nebulizer thing.
• Nemo had his 6 month checkup, but not his vaccs because of the bronchiolitis.  He is 17lbs14oz, 27.25 inches long, and just perfectly healthy aside from the bronchiolitis and his reflux.  He will get his shots on Monday at Little Man's physical if he is well enough by then.
• I asked the doctor to transfer Nemo's prilosec prescription to a pharmacy up here in my town, instead of the next town over like it is now.  The pharmacy I've been using doesn't have the most convenient hours (closed by 6 every day, only open 9-12 on Saturday and closed on Sunday) and it is difficult for me to shlep at least 3 kids down there to pick it up.  But, as we've seen before, I am a moron.  The new pharmacy didn't put any flavoring in the medicine, so Nemo gags and chokes on it when I give it to him, and it doesn't appear to be working at all, so I have my doubts as to whether or not they made it properly in the first place.  They also charged me the high co-pay to get it.  So!  I now have to make the decision whether to try to get them to fix it or just have the prescription transfered back down to the old pharmacy and just suck it up getting there.
• Yesterday morning Little Man came to me and asked "Mommy, what's this?" and put a small purple pill in my hand.  Yes, it was Nexium.  No, it did not belong to anyone who lives here.  My MIL, who has Parkinsons and takes some pretty hellacious drugs for it, is religious about keeping her meds away from my kids; she won't even take them in the same room as the kids in case she drops one (with Parkinsons, that's a reasonable possibility).  However my FIL KEEPS HIS MEDS LOOSE IN HIS POCKET!  Apparently, according to my MIL, he keeps the capsule in his pocket because he has trouble swallowing it, so he periodically opens up the capsule and puts some on his tongue and then closes it back up again, rather than just asking the pharmacist to make a liquid compound for him, because he doesn't want the pharmacist to think he's a sissy or something.  I thanked Little Man profusely and the Good Lord that I have taught the kids well and he brought it to me and that HE was the one who found it, not Sunny or Nemo.  When they come here to babysit today, I will be checking pockets and confiscating all meds at the door.  This is one of the reasons I hate to have them babysit -- they are limited in what they can do, they frequently lack common sense and get defensive when, based on their past history, I mention things to them, and they are stark raving mad (and drive me crazy).  I have avoided blogging about them because I don't want them to find my blog and get their feelings hurt someday (although this is remote) and they are nice people and they mean well.  I will continue to avoid blogging about them but this had to be shared or my head would explode.
• My uncle and I meet with my grandfather's attorney tomorrow to open his estate and I am dreading it to no end.  I am struggling emotionally, missing him so much, and his estate is so so so very complicated and it will mean a tremendous amount of work on my part, and I'm already stretched so thin. 
• Sunny was outside and decided she had to pee, so she stripped off her pants and peed, then danced around in the resulting mud/pee puddle.  I dragged her in the house pretty quickly, but not before my neighbors ran scurrying for their phones to speeddial the HOA.  It's a good thing they actually just find my kids funny.  Plus Sunny's really cute.
• We found a house for us that was pretty close to perfect: .5 acres (that's a lot around here), 4 bedrooms all upstairs (as opposed to three up and two in the basement or something - my kids are too little to be that far from us right now, not to mention the ease with which they can sneak out of the house later), cute little lot, two swing sets and a playhouse, hardwood floors throughout, 2 car garage, a block from our current preschool where Sunny will be in the fall and a block in another direction to the elementary school, screened in porch.  BigDaddyFish found signs of termite damage and evidence of termite repairs that had used pressure treated lumber inside the house, and that concerned him (rightfully so), and he was also concerned because the garage was inside the house (the bedrooms were above it).  He has relatives who lost their whole house due to a fire in the garage, so he is apprehensive about this.  Frankly, the positives to me outweighed the negatives, and I wanted to just get a termite contractor in there to estimate any potential damage, and as far as the garage is concerned I wanted to fill it in and make a bigger family room out of it, and then add another garage with a firewall to the side of the house (there is more than enough room on the property to do so).  But BigDaddyFish doesn't make decisions quickly or easily so we didn't do anything yet; in his defense the market has been such that we thought we had a bit more time.  Not so - the house went under contract on Saturday.  When we drove by and saw the sign, I cried.  It was a perfect house for us.  I have asked the agent to call us if anything happens and the contract falls through.  If we are meant to have that house, we'll be in that house.

So! I am not disappearing, just busy and struggling and bit morose right now. I try not to post too much when I am feeling down because I don't want to turn this in to a Depression Blog, and I realize that's the way things have been lately.  I'll try to be around more.

P.S.  Go check me out over here, too!

Comments

[Erika, Plain Jane Mom]

Sure sounds like you have a lot going on... I'm glad your son had the presence of mind to bring you that pill!

[bzymom13]

The above (or is it below??) comment was exactly what I had in mind....so I'll just offer you a nice DEEP BREATH, and maybe a hot bath. IT sounds as if you could use the both, and then some :)

[Izzy]

Aww..I'm sorry things have been so rough for you lately. I hope things turn around ASAP. And a baptism on Mother's Day is such a beautiful idea :)