Mommy School

It's been another hectic week and Thanksgiving isn't even here yet. Strep Throat decided it just needed to pay us a visit since it seems, we are the only family it hasn't paid a visit to in 13 years.

Oh lucky us!

You know how kids get extra bored when they are home from school sick. It's even worse at my house since I enacted a rule that there is no "fun time" on computer games or the TV because when you're sick.... you... need... to... be... in.... BED.

This keeps the fake sickies at bay in our house now since the kids have tried to rise this to a new level of perfection in the past year.

On Nia's last day of being out of school, apparently she was feeling MUCH better because her mischief rose to a new focus: the cat!

Oh, about our new cat real quick; she "found" us instead of it being then other way around. She had been hanging out around the house for a couple of weeks and I thought she belonged to someone in the neighborhood, or either was a stray since I noticed she didn't have a collar.

She stayed so close by because she had become fond of all our squirrels living in the backyard. She's quite the tree climber!

Nadia's friend had recently lost her cat and described it as the one hanging around our house, so we naturally thought it was hers. His name was Paul. So everyday when we saw it, we were calling "Paul" to get it use to us so we could catch it and return it.

Well, on Friday of last week, this cat suddenly begans to meow loudly at the foot of the kitchen window. It was thin and apparently so hungry that it was coming to us now ending the creative lunacy my kids had taken to trying to catch it. Since I was so thoughtless as to not buy cat food during our last run to the store (oh.. bad.. me), I opened a can of back up: tuna fish.

The girls were running around like crazy animals themselves trying to get the cat close enough to feed, when Nadia finally took control (as she usually does in these situations), and managed to get the cat in her arms, the plate of tuna in the other, and that cat ate as if it hadn't seen food in a year!

Nadia eventually got her friend over to pick up "Paul", but I was wondering why such a God-awful name for a little girl cat. It was soon discovered that this was not her friends cat; therefore we had a possible stray on our hands.

She has stayed with us every since that plate of tuna and has showed her appreciation for us in ten-fold. I've been trying to locate her owners because she is such a loving and friendly cat - so loving that she has taken to Nia (a crazy 5 year old?), to such a degree that nothing this child does scares the cat away (miracle happening here folks!).

So Nia decides on Tuesday that the cat needs "protection". She decides to lock the cat up in her bedroom. I remind myself how stupid I was not to change the door knob on their bedroom door to an unlockable one. Of course, ALL the tools needed for this job are in the garage because I get just that one doorknob/lock that you can't use a paperclip on!

1 hour later of poking, proding, and eventually removing the doorknob from the door, the stinking door still won't come unlocked. It doesn't help now either that I managed to push the knob on the other side of the door off the door and it's now laying on the bedroom floor where I can't reach it!

The cat - who we have now named "Alice" - is meowing up a storm from all the commotion. I'm cussing complaining up a storm, and Nia is just running around the house saying "I'm sorry, but pleassssse save the kitty".

I can't get this stupid lock UN-locked!

I finally reside myself to leave the cat in the locked bedroom until the hubs comes home around 3. I've had insomnia for 2 nights now, and I don't have the temperment to deal with a 5 year singing fairy AND a completely panicked cat in my house at the same time.

The hubs gets home and I explain to him the deal with the cat and the lock and how he's going to have to take the door off by the hinges with what-E-ver tools he can find of his that I haven't been able to locate since moving here 3 months ago.

He walks over to the door and I cleverly look over at Toni (who's home from school by now and admiring all the craziness Nia has created), and Nia and say "Watch him get that thing unlocked in 30 seconds!", I say as I roll my head back in a loud, mocking laughter.

Boy was I wrong!

It took him only 20 seconds - with a stinking PAPER CLIP!!

It was really hard not to insert several expletives there.

I felt completely humiliated and *simple tool-use* challenged as well.

Nia summed it all up by walking past me with those hands on her hips, and standing between her daddy and I she proclaimed, while thrusting one of those hands towards her daddy: "See Mom! THAT"S how you rescue a cat! Didn't they EVER teach you that at 'Mommy School?"

Apparently, I had a case of the "fake sickies" that day.

I'll Take a Can of Whipped Cream With That, Please!

There is nothing more disturbing than having your morning coffee ruined. I woke up this morning, pour myself a cup of "wake up and deal with the freaking kids", only to find after a few sips..... it tasted rather odd.

Apparently, my oldest daughter made tea for herself, which in turn, the hubs used the same water to pour in the French press. Only problem with it was, my daughter left multiple tea bags in the water and that water ended up in the coffee as it was brewing.

May I tell you that you will never find that concoction on a Starbucks menu.... trust me!

Grant it it was English Breakfast tea, but English Breakfast and French Roast do not mix. That is why the French helped us win the American Revolution and we dumped the English tea in the Boston Harbor. End of story!

Many things going on around here.... notice my long silence since last post.

First:

I do ask your prayers for my Aunt Mary as my Uncle Vic passed away on the 8th due to lung cancer. The only saving grace (if one can call it that at this time), is that he didn't have to suffer a long and painful process with this disease. He left us shortly after he was diagnosed. It doesn't make it any better on his wife and my cousins though. They still lost a dedicated father and husband; and no one should have to go through that.

He will be taken from Tennessee to North Carolina this weekend to lie in rest next to my cousin, his step-daughter, who died two years ago herself. My Aunt has had a lot of grief in her life these past few years upon losing her daughter first, and now her husband of many, many years. She is sick from battling pneumonia herself, which she contracted shortly after my Uncle was diagnosed.

Even though my Aunt Mary is one of the strongest people I know, she needs a lot of prayers sent her way. This I humble ask from you, for her.

Second:

Here's a twist for you: I'm getting into the cosmetic industry. Can't give all the details yet because I don't want to "jinx" what's already in the works, but it involves working with a company out of Paris - Oui', Oui' - and I couldn't be more excited. So far everything is working smoothly, there are just some tiny details to work out. I will tell you one thing, nobody in the U.S., has what I'm getting..... nobody!

And it took me a long damn time to find them! Viva La France!

Third:

So I've made it through three birthdays in October, and Halloween, and I still have my mental faculties still intact. Now I've got to get through my birthday, Thanksgiving, the total and complete chaos of Christmas and New Years, and then I plan on passing out cold on January 2nd, for a week; just as I always have for the past five years.

What I haven't expected is endless amount of "illnesses" we've been plagued with this season. We ALL got the ear infection that wouldn't go away. Have you E..VER contracted an ear infection for two months AND counting? Well.... we have.

We thought it was swimmer's ear since the hubs thought it a good idea to "skimp" on the amount of chemicals needed to shock the pool in the name of saving money. Talk about Karma kicking you in the arss. He, Julian, Toni, and Nia all came down with the same ear infection that no amount of the four different swimmer's ear products could get rid of.

Then I switched to the prescribed ear drops that my own ENT gave me during one of my visits to him. THAT didn't work.

Then I did a home remedy of rubbing alcohol mixed with white distilled vinegar. Worked for a couple of days, then all came roaring back.

Then we were taking something like 9 thousand assorted herbs to control the infection and keep it from getting worse.

Oh, did I mention that I finally got the infection a week and a half after they did? Only problem was..... I never went into the pool during said "lack of pool shock" moment.

Did I also mention that this was the FIRST ear infection that the hubs has e...VER had in his life? Or that his had the absolute WORSE case of "smelly shoe" drainage I have ever had the displeasure of getting my nose in the vicinity of. Now we know a second use for those massive bottles of aromatherapy we having hanging around here. If you ever have "smelly ear" syndrome, grab that bottle of aromatherapy oils you were given as a present sometime in the past 10 years and had NO clue what to do with. Trust me when I say that it will knock that smell out of the park!

Did I also mention that this is the first ear infection that I've ever seen that lasted more than a week? I'm a veteran of ear infections and surgeries since I was three. I's ed..U...ca...ted in these kinds o' matters. That's why I was consulting other doctor.... Dr. Mom, and she confirmed this for me.

After several trips to one stupid GP in the area who completely refused to culture it cause "HE KNEW" it was bacterial just by looking at it (dumb shit!), I packed them all off to my own ENT, but only after I had to wait nearly 3 weeks just to get in!

By the time we got to that ENT appointment, the infection had nearly burnt itself out by that time (after 2 months it should have!). All I cared about by then was that no one had any lasting damage from it. So far, I'm the only one still sporting this sucker. My ENT has put me on new medication, but we are all still in for a few more rounds of check ups to make sure we are ALL still able to hear one another yell at each other.

Just one of those little perks we big families completely rely on.... the ability to yell from one room to another and be heard in the process.

This sounds like it's the end of the story, but NooooOOOOOOoooooo! GET back in your seat and finish reading this!

Nia spent her little holiday yesterday sporting her own set of gigantic marble-sized lymph nodes along with a healthy fever and a side red side of...... Strep Throat! Yes, I'll find her a doctor for this afternoon. We know you don't mess around with Strep Throat these days.

Man... when it rains, it POURS at my house!

On a lighter side though..... through all this, I have found that hiding in a closet and ingesting mounds of whipped cream from a can (organic, of course), has become a new "fettish" of mine. It has joined me with my stash of dark chocolate in there. It is amazing to me what we mom's will do for a little "down time".

Ooh La LA! Il est magnifique!