Filthy Little Mudbloods...

My little people were sick last week.  It seems that this time of year, there are always snotty, runny, noses, or hacking, gross coughs.  But this time, our little people did something they rarely do... they yarfed.   I'm pretty sure that's not a real word (and the red squiggly line under it confirms that), but it's a lot prettier than the other names for it... throw up, ralph, puke, barf, hurl, vomit, upchuck, toss one's cookies.  Anyway, it was pretty gross around here for a few days, and I blame the filthy little mudbloods we call children.

I dropped the girls off at the babysitter's house on Wednesday morning at 6:50 a.m.  Nobody else was there, and Nancy told me the other 4 kids had all called in sick.  Roh-oh.  That should have been my warning, right there.  But it wasn't.  It was 6:50 in the morning, so I was like "blah nah blah meh arg urngh... love you, see you later."  And off I went.  Danny called me at 9:20 a.m. and said Nancy had just called him and Ella had apparently yarfed all over her.  Danny's military, so of course he is extremely busy and overworked, but he managed to get the rest of the day off and went to pick up the girls.

I arrived home at 5:00 and the girls were... fine!  Running around, playing, screaming, and being their usual delightful selves.  Fantastic!  We had supper, bath time, and put the girls to bed.  Danny went off to juijitsu, and I settled in for a nice relaxing evening.  Since eating at 5:00 is not an option for this baby-to-be (that's right, it's a pain in the ass already!), I settled down with my supper and turned on the TV.  At 6:55, a mere 20 minutes after bedtime and 10 minutes after Danny had left the house, I heard Gracie crying.  And then screaming.   I ran downstairs and opened her door to ask her what was wrong... she sat up, turned toward me, and yarfed twice all over her bed (and herself).  Apparently that was the second and third round of yarfing.  

I have a tolerance for filthy little children that includes poop explosions, snotty noses, and every conceivable bodily function... except for that.  The last time Gracie yarfed, I ran away while Danny got covered from  head to toe.  Unfortunately, Danny wasn't home.  And although I considered making her stay there until he arrived to clean her up, that was a full hour and a half away.  And I'm just not that mean.  

"Okay," I said. "Let's go upstairs and get you cleaned up. But I'm not carrying you, do you think you can walk?"  She could, except every step she took was dropping yarf on the floor.  Finally I picked her up by the seat of the pants and the back of her shirt and carried her that way up the stairs.  You people can judge all you want, but a yarfed-on kid is gross, and I was not about to start yarfing myself!  I managed to get her clothes off and into the sink, and got her into the bath.  She was laying down (apparently) the first time she yarfed, so it was all in her hair.  I washed her hair five times.  She still smelled.  That was the best I could do.  I asked her if she felt okay to stay in the tub while I went to clean up.  By now, she was smiling and laughing and said she felt great!  Great!  I tied a scarf around my face and went and cleaned up the yarf.  I'll spare you the details, but I did it. All by myself.  I was proud.  I texted Danny, and I'm pretty sure it said something like "You bastard!  You left and Gracie yarfed all over herself and her room."  Please feel free to place an f-word in there once... or twice.

I could hear Gracie singing away in the bathtub and she kept yelling down at me "Mommy, I feel good. My tummy doesn't hurt at all.  I'm staying in to play, okay?"  Fantastic.  She played while I dumped a half-bottle of Febreeze over every crevice of her room.  When I was done, she was still playing away so I got changed and sat down to finish my supper.  No sooner had the fork touched my lips than she said, "Mommy... *groan* I'm ready to get out now, my tummy hurts!"  I ran in, wrapped a towel around her and shoved her at the toilet... where she yarfed some more.   I learned two things from the second yarfing experience.  1) Yarf splashes.  Do not look over shoulders to ensure she is okay, or you will be splashed.  2)  I need to keep my toilet cleaner.  After she was done, she started singing again and asked to sleep in my room until daddy got home.  That sounded good to me, so we went to my room where I got changed again, put her in new jammies and watched TV till daddy got home.

When he arrived, Gracie said she still felt great so we got her ready for bed again.   I brushed her teeth, and said good night to her in the bathroom.  She asked me for a kiss and puckered up, to which I replied "No freaking way, kiss me on the cheek."  With her lips still puckered up, she leaned in, and yarfed all over the floor and onto my pants.  Back to the toilet she went, while I scrubbed the bathroom floor and Danny laughed at the fact that if I were a better mother who accepted kisses from her kids, I would have had a mouthful of yarf.   Take that, fancy parents! 

We decided we didn't want a repeat of the bed incident, so Gracie and Danny settled onto the couch to watch some more TV and to make sure her stomach was settled before we put her back to bed.  She crashed around 10:30, and slept through the night.  Danny offered to stay home with her the next day, which I thought was a good idea, since we didn't want her yarfing on the kids at daycare.  The next morning, I dropped Ella off at the sitters, and periodically checked in with Gracie and Danny.  She was great, and they spent the day watching movies and snuggling on the couch.  That night, after being exhausted for having to care for a sick kid all day (*sarcasm*) Danny needed a boys night out.  I put the girls to bed and after making lunches and cleaning up, settled into bed.  I fell dead asleep around 9:00, only to be awoken at 10:15 by the cries of a yarfing Gracie.  "You've got to be freaking kidding me" I said.

This time, Gracie's aim was much better, and she yarfed straight into her lap, which was covered by a blanket, and onto the floor.  I picked her up, threw the blanket in the wash, and took off her pajama top (splash-back).  I had been awoken from a dead sleep, and, hey! I'm pregnant! so I used that as an excuse to bring her upstairs, brush her teeth, and let her crawl into bed with me.  I texted Danny, told him what had happened and let him know there was a pile of yarf on the bedroom floor for him to look after when he got home.  He thought I was joking.  I assured him I was not and tried to go back to sleep.  Except Gracie's tummy felt GREAT now!  "Mommy, I threw up again.  I'm sick.  Except I don't feel sick.  I feel good.  Can I go to Nancy's tomorrow.  Maybe I should stay home again.  Is daddy staying home?  Are you staying home?  Is Ella staying home?  Ella should go to Nancy's. Can I have a drink?  I want a sucker.  Can I get in the bath?  I dont feel sick you know Mommy.  I like cats.  Where's the moon?  Is it cold outside?"   Oh for the love of God!  Leave it to my children to get sick and somehow end up with more energy than they had before the yarfing!  This child, I have discovered, really does not ever stop talking!  

That was the end of the yarfing adventures.  Here's hoping it's the last for this flu season.  Although I'm not really convinced it was the flu.  There were no fevers, no coughs, no tired achy muscles.  Just a lot of yarfing.  Gross, nasty, yarfing.  Filthy little mudbloods. 

Making Memories

Ahhh, snow days!  Mama stayed home from work, daddy's work got cancelled... it's the perfect day to make some memories with the girls!  Except that they're at daycare.  That's right... before the weather got too bad here this morning I dropped them off at Nancy's house to make memories there.  We tried the "making memories" thing last snow storm... it did not go well!

About two weeks ago, I woke up and the snow was falling outside.  I had cancelled my Sunday School classes and had already decided I wasn't going to venture to church.  The lawn was covered in white, and it was just beautiful outside.  It was getting so close to Christmas, and I gleefully posted on Facebook our intentions for the day:  Homemade pancakes, pajamas all day, snowman building outside.  It had the makings of a beautiful day...

Gracie came upstairs when her clock turned yellow wearing nothing but her underwear.  "Where are my new socks, mommy?"  I explained that all of her new socks were dirty and she could wear her other socks until they were clean.  That was not an acceptable answer.  "I thought today, we'd stay in our pajamas all day, since there's a snow storm outside!  Won't that be fun, Gracie?"  Gracie is almost three.  Which means she's basically a teenager.  Which means that did not sound like fun to her.  "Mommy, I'm getting dressed.  I pick out my own clothes now, and I want to get dressed."  Fine, clothes it was.  (By the way, she means it when she says she picks out her own clothes now.  So if you see us out in public, don't judge me.  Judge her.)   Ella also chose that moment to, shall we say, dirty her pajamas.  Fine.  No pajama day.

With the girls dressed, I started prepping the pancakes.  We were also having bacon, a real treat in our house.  I was very excited.  The girls were too.  They wanted to eat.  Now.  Now.  NOW!!!!!  I tried to explain that I was cooking, and it would only be a few minutes.  Not good enough.  Especially for Ella who, I may have mentioned in the past, is her own special kind of bad.  And when she gets hungry, she's extra bad.  I spent the next 10 minutes chasing Ella out of the cupboards, while she screamed and yelled "Eeeeeeat" and pointed at the food I was denying her.  Finally, I gave her a bowl of cheerios to hold her over until breakfast was ready and sent her to play in the living room with Gracie.  Danny was awake by now and making us hot beverages (coffee for him, tea for me).  The girls were playing nicely in the living room, breakfast was smelling delicious and I thought, for a moment, the day might still turn out beautiful.

Then Ella dropped her bowl of cheerios on the floor while Charlie quickly gobbled them up.  She screamed like Charlie just chewed her arms off, and Gracie tried to scold the dog and calm Ella down.  Nothing helped, not even the offer of more cheerios.  Nothing comes between that girl and her food!  Finally, breakfast was ready, and we all sat down to eat.  Well most of us sat down.  I sat down for a minute, long enough to butter my pancakes, when the usual meal-time requests started:  "Can I have milk?" "I need a napkin." "Mom, I spilled it, can I have some more?" "I want ketchup."  "Yes, ketchup does go on pancakes." "How about mustard then?" "Eeeeeeeat!!!" "More milk please?" "I dropped my fork, can I have a clean one?"

We finished breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen, and went downstairs to watch The Santa Clause.  We all snuggled on the couch and things were looking beautiful again.  Of course, that lasted mere minutes because Ella realized it had been 20 minutes since she had eaten and she was hungry again.  With snacks in hand, we sat down again.  Then the girls got up, and down, and up, and down, and in, and out, and up, and down.  We had toys from the bedroom spread all over the living room and the girls played while we watched the movie.  Then they fought, and fought some more.  Ella cried, Gracie whined, and I wished I could have a glass of wine.  

Lunch time came, and then our favourite part of the day... nap time!  I was exhausted, so after the kids were in bed, I laid down on the couch for a little snooze with Danny and finished watching The Santa Clause.  We decided that after nap time, when we were all feeling better and refreshed, we would go outside to play in the snow.  We had never really played with Ella in the snow before, so we were very excited.  This time last year, she was an immobile lump we used to stuff inside a snowsuit and lay on the ground outside while we played.  This year, she was walking, and talking, and it was going to be so much fun.  

Nap time ended an hour earlier than it should have.  That was not good news.  Danny went outside to shovel the pathway to the driveway while I was going to get the girls into their snowsuits.  I'm not sure exactly how it started, but both girls were somehow crying.  Gracie needed to have a pee before I would suit her up, which she was refusing to do.  Ella woke up an hour early, so she was crying when she came out of bed. 

"Go pee please, Gracie."

"No."

"Gracie, you have to go pee before we can go outside."

"I don't WANT to!"

"You have to, and I'm counting to three, and then you'll have to have a time out for not listening."

"NO! Unnngh!"

Gracie got her time out, which made her crankier, and she cried and whined.  Because she was crying, Ella felt the need to outcry her.  I kept trying to coax them into their snowsuits.  Gracie didn't want to put her snowpants on before her coat, and that turned into a big fight. I took deep breaths and calmly tried to explain why things had to be done in a certain order, but little tiny attitudes got bigger and bigger and bigger.  Ella was now lying on the floor bawling her eyes out and Gracie was standing in the living room with her snow pants on, head pointed toward the ceiling sobbing and crying.

"Oh for the love of God!" I yelled, "I'm just trying to make some freaking memories with you girls! Can we not just put on our freaking snowsuits and go outside and have some freaking fun?!?!"  (For the record, I did say freaking.  Good for me.)  They screamed louder.

I stomped down the stairs, opened the front door and yelled "Danny, come and get these kids dressed before I have a mental breakdown!"  He had no idea what was going on, since when he walked out the door the girls were yelling "Yaaaaaaay!" because we had asked them if they wanted to go outside to play.  He came in, and saw the three of us in tears.  He laughed, God love him, and started to calm Gracie down enough to at least get her dressed.  I tackled Ella and stuffed her into her snowsuit, while she yelled and screamed the whole time.  They were ready.  Thank God.  I got dressed, and Gracie had three more meltdowns on the stairs before we could even get her outdoors.  Finally, I told Danny to just throw them outside and hopefully that would help.  It did.  Gracie immediately smiled and started playing.  Ella fell and couldn't get up and started crying.  Then she couldn't walk, and cried some more.  Then she fell again, and cried even louder.  We decided to put them in the sled and give them a quick ride to lighten them up.  They both smiled and yelled "wheee" as Danny started to pull away.  Then he hit a snow bank, then sled flipped over, and Ella landed face down in the snow. It was not a good moment.  I spent the next 30 minutes carrying Ella so she didn't have to touch the snow while Danny shovelled the driveway.  Once there was a relatively smooth place for Ella to walk, she decided she didn't mind the snow so much and walked in circles and smiled.  Danny was able to try the sled again, and the girls loved it.

We went inside, had supper, had bath time, and put the girls to bed.  All without further incident.  But as for making those kinds of memories again?  I don't freaking think so!  Maybe when they're older.  Or when I can drink again.  Or both.  Memories are over rated... they wont remember them in 5 years anyway!

A New Year...

It's officially here... welcome, 2014!  A new year provides many opportunities to "start over" and lots of people take advantage of it with New Years' resolutions.  Danny and I have dubbed this our "year to get healthy" so I guess we're on the resolution bandwagon too.  Here's hoping we don't fail by February!

Our aim this year is to be healthier... not just physically, but financially, emotionally, and in our relationship.  The whole kit and caboodle.  We have a lot happening this year (have you heard, baby #3 is on the way?) and we figured it's a good time for that whole "lifestyle change" thing people are always talking about.  Before mama is out of a job for the third time in three years, before Danny does or does not get into university, before we do or do not sell and buy a new house.  It's a year full of unexpected for us, and the best way for us to be ready for that is to finally get in control of the things we can.  

Physically, we plan to eat better.  We've had that plan forever.  We don't our girls raised on french fries and potato chips, and we have fed them way more crap than we ever intended to.  And although we've been accused of brainwashing them (that's right mother, I'm calling you out!), teaching your kids that fruits are healthy is not a bad thing.  We're not going crazy and banning junk food... we just want a treat to be a treat.  A real treat.  Something they get excited over.  I remember growing up that when our parents took us to McDonalds, it was, like, the best thing that could ever happen to us.  McDonalds, nowadays, meas nothing to a lot of people because they have it so often.  We're planning on making healthy food our every day norm, with treat days being incredibly enjoyable.  Also, we're supposed to work out and get healthier that way too... I say, don't count on that one from me! :)

Financially speaking, we're going on a money diet.  No more spending money on things we don't need.  Most importantly, and this one kills me, no more money on eating out.  I am a terribly lazy excuse for a human, and although I am a fairly good cook, I hate it.  Cause I'm lazy.  No, strike that.  I'm tired.  Tired from work, tired from kids, tired from life.  And that makes me lazy.  So I very often play the "lets just eat out tonight" card and Danny lovingly obliges me.  No more!  He's under strict orders that, unless it's eat-out-night, there shall be no dinners out.  Also, our dinners out are going to count.  Real restaurants with food we enjoy.  Instead of the crap they serve at places like Pizza Delight and, well that's it, cause that's all that's here in Greenwood.  Hello Kellocks, Falcourt, Pasta Jax, and Union Street!  Get ready, cause you will be loved.  By me.  Twice a month.

Emotionally, we've decided to put the focus back on Danny and I.  Our kids are important, duh.  But we've taken our relationship for granted sometimes by putting the kids first.  Yeah, yeah... there are TONS of memes and cute little expressions telling you that you're not a real parent unless you sacrifice this, and deny yourself that, and put your kids before your own happiness.  I call bullshit.  An unhappy wife does not make for a very happy mommy.  So we've decided to make our relationship important again.  After all, our kids will be much happier if we're happy.  And to stay happy, we need to make time for each other. 

So that's it... our New Years' resolution.  It's a big resolution.  But it's been something we've been preparing ourselves for for a while.  Something that's been a long time coming.  Wish us luck!  I'm quite confident we'll have more luck than, say, whenever I attempt to quit swearing.  Oh fuck, I said bullshit earlier!  Shit, I just said fuck.  Yeah, see... that one's not possible!  Also, I heard Gracie playing with her toys today, and she yelled "dammit!" so I'm apparently not any closer to not rubbing off on her, either!  Yeeeesh!

Oh!  I also promise to write more frequently now.  I was waiting for the baby headaches to go away, but since that doesn't seem to be happening, I will suck it up.  The last three months have been incredibly tiresome for me, but here's hoping healthier living will make life easier to stay awake through!  Here's also hoping I'm wrong about the headaches, and they will magically disappear now that it's a new year.  And if they don't disappear, here's hoping I can finish the 3 other blogs I started to write over the last 8 weeks and fell asleep through.  Here's also hoping I can start remembering to capture the amazing things that my children are doing.  They are hilarious, and entertaining, and their own special kind of bad, and I need to start sharing that again before I forget it all.

Happy New Year everyone!  I wish you all a fantastic year filled with happiness and great adventures.  Well, maybe not all of you... some of you I wish the fleas of a thousand camels invade your crotch and your arms be too short to scratch.  But most of you... a happy, happy year!! :)