So, Sunday night I posted that I felt like I was going to be sick. My throat had that scratchy feeling that made a taunting sing songy bully voice in my head sing over and over, “You’re going to be siiiiiiick!”

And it was correct. Oh boy was it correct.

Monday morning.. I don’t remember the morning. I vaguely remembering saying something about not going to work to James. That’s it. I don’t remember James showering or getting dressed, or the kids running around or anything. I do remember the weird vivid fever dreams I had. I woke up to stillness all around me and that weird feeling you get when you wake up not knowing what time it is or what’s going on. I went back to sleep. Around 10am I dragged myself out of bed, left a message on my boss’ voicemail that I wouldn’t be in that day, did a shot of Dayquil, and got myself into a steaming hot bath hoping that would stop the fever-shivering. It did, but when I managed to drag my carcass out of it an hour later, the shivering came back. I stayed in bed all day, not really sleeping, more like drifting along on a cloud of feverish unconsciousness. I don’t like it there. I dreamed about my raspberry bushes taking over the entire yard. I dreamed about digging huge trenches around them, and putting in cement gardening blocks to try to contain their growth. I dreamed about other things too, but they’ve now faded from memory. Luckily, no nightmares. Fever nightmares are the worst. I vaguely grew aware of the time and the parched state of my throat, and so I made a white-knuckles on the bannister trip down the stairs to get a glass of water, and then back in bed I called James and asked if he could pick up the kids. He did, but warned me that I’d have to actually supervise them, and make sure they get dinner and jammies and get put into bed, because he had class that night. I had remembered, but wasn’t relishing the idea.

When they got home, Ethan and Jocelyn were so cute. They came over and asked me if I was feeling sick, and why and assured me that they’d take care of me. Ethan is especially cute when someone is sick. He gets the victim his warmest blankey, and even offers them his treasured Pookie bear. I let them watch TV all night, eat PBJs on the couch, got them both dressed in their jammies in the living room, and then packed them to bed one by one with (very short) stories. The really sucky part about being in bed all day with a fever is that late at night when the fever has finally broken and you’re exhausted and yet not really sleepy and the thought of going back to bed where you spent all day is depressing.

Tuesday was a little better. The fever abated with the help of the Dayquil, so that I actually ate food and ginger ale, but stayed pretty solidly on the couch for the duration of the day. I took the opportunity to catch up on Gilmore Girls. I watched a few of them last fall, but then got discouraged with the turn of events in Loralei’s love life and stopped watching them as the TiVo recorded them. I just let them build up, so now I’ve got about 10 episodes to watch. I like doing it that way better, because then I can watch a whole bunch in a row and get to where everything is better again (and I know they will be. I KNOW THEY WILL BE.)

I even managed to get up and make some dinner for everyone. I knew that today I’d be going in to work, but was still feeling pretty crummy.

And I must say, for being sick, it could have been much worse.. I could breath through my nose OK. My throat felt a little scratchy, but not like I was swallowing razor blades or anything. My symptoms all zeroed in on my nasal passages not actually part of my nose or throat. Right under my eyes and behind my nose, I felt like somehow, a deflated basketball had snuck in there and then inflated. I felt as if my brain was trying to ooze out my ears. My neck hurt like a mofo everytime I tried to turn my head. My head itself felt like it weighed 50 pounds and was impossible to hold up or move. My ears popped and crackled everything I even thought about swallowing or moving my jaw.

Tuesday night, I was feeling better (read: no fever), but as all the congestion in my sinus cavities started to finally loosen, I would cough up, what I described to James as, “bloody pieces of my brain.” It looked that way, and it felt that way, and since more dark green bloody spew the size of my top ring finger knuckle got spat out into the sink and shower this morning, I decided that even if I was feeling a bit better, I should probably seek professional assistance. I mean, if it IS my brain, I certainly don’t want to lose any MORE of it into the sink. I know though, that it’s not my brain, it’s nasty infected horribly compacted mucus that has set up it’s home in my sinuses (sinusi? sini?). However, it’s much more fun to point at the sink and exclaim, “MY BRAIN! THAT WAS THE PART THAT CONTROLLED MY ESP!”

Ahem. Sorry about that. I hope you weren’t eating or anything.

I got myself to a doctor this morning. I now have antibiotics, nasal spray, narcotic laced cough syrup for nighttime, and the label “sinus infection” to use on friends and colleagues in order to derive pity for my sad sorry state.

I just hope I stop horking up pieces of my brain.

In other not so good news, I’ve now used up all my sick time for the year and have started on vacation time. Yippee!

Saturday night at dinner, I made a big pot of broccoli for James and I, and planned on forcing the kids to have a bite too. I decided to wait until they wanted something yummy, and then pull the old, “after you’ve had a bite of broccoli” trick. Bribery and treats when eating vegetables are involved is the only way to go. Hell. Not even just vegetables. ANYTHING new.

I’m happy to say that after chipping away at Ethan’s stubborn refusal to eat ANYTHING that looks suspicious and foreign by eating it in front of him and making him taste it with cake and cookies for dessert as the reward, we have finally had success.

Unfornately I nearly wasn’t able to enjoy it because I about had a heart attack from the shock.

So I was happily eating my broccoli, when Jocelyn asked if she could have “a little tree broccoli.” It’s the first time she’s asked for it, but she’s eaten some before with little persuasion needed. This was a little shocking though, and it’s a good thing it happened, because maybe it helped cushion what was to come. “Sure,” I said, and handed over a little tree.

“Mommy,” Ethan asked politely, “could I have some broccoli please?”

My heart stopped. I mean STOPPED. But I kept moving my knife and fork the way I had already been moving it. I kept my eyes on my plate instead of letting them fly in shock from my son to my husband back to my son. I schooled my voice to keep a normal tone as I replied, “Sure,” in the same way I had said it to Jocelyn. I ignored the sharp tingling pain moving down my arm.

My. Son. Asked. For. Broccoli.

We did nothing, NOTHING to upset the precariousness of the situation. We remained totally blase through the actual experience, we didn’t even exchange a knowing look. Acknowledging a miracle, even to each other, may have forced the space-time continuum to jump back into alignment and then Ethan would have said, “Broccoli? BLECH! NEVER! I WILL NEVER! NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRR!!! This mouth? Never gonna open.” It wasn’t until an HOUR after they were safely IN BED that I freaked out about it. I yelped and screamed and had a major cow to James. He looked at me in confusion until I managed to spit out, “BROCCOLI! HE ASKED FOR BROCCOLI!” and then he joined in the cow birthing with his disbelief. We laughed, we cried, we sat and remembered with WONDER.

Our son. ASKED. for broccoli.

Just OPENING HIS MOUTH readily as a fork laden with broccoli soaring through the air whilst it’s holder made airplane jet noises would have been miracle enough.

HE ASKED FOR BROCCOLI.

I may never recover from the shock.

I can only say, that there is hope for everyone. If Ethan asked for broccoli, then there is hope for everyone. We have had so many fights, timeouts, even one case of spanking, over food and refusal to even try it. If my son asks for broccoli, you too, can experience this miracle. Perserverance, my friends, is key. My son is 4, and I’ve been working on him steadily for the past.. oh, 2 years, I’d say, with phrases like, “If you don’t taste it, you won’t know if you like it.” and replies like, “Ok, you only have to have 1 bite”, or “I’ll make you something else, but you have to try that first.” or “OK, you don’t have to eat any of it, but then you won’t get a cookie for dessert,” or “no yogurt until you have 1 bite,” (to the statement, “BLECH THAT LOOKS GROSS.” or “YUCK, PEAS, I HATE PEAS.” or “CHICKEN?!? NOT IN NUGGET FORM?!? I’D RATHER CHEW MY OWN ARM OFF.” or “I MIGHT DIE IF I PUT THAT IN MY MOUTH!” or “I WILL NEVER, NEVER EVER CHANGE MY MIND! EEEEEEEEVEEEERRRR!”)

Seriously. Hell? It must be might cold down there about now.

Not only because my son asked for broccoli.

And then he ate it.

things i have done this weekend:

• went for weekly weigh in at jenny craig (oh. gee. did i forget to mention that i joined jenny craig? whoopsies.) Down a total of 7 lbs.
• bought and set up my first ever grow lights. (this link also filled in some blanks in my head on why my seedlings didn’t do so wonderfully last year. I thought leggy meant “needs transplanting to bigger container” but really, my long leggy seedlings needed LIGHT! GLORIOUS LIGHT! which is now remedied!)
• started the following seeds:
  • lettuce (2 plants)
  • broccoli (4 plants)
  • squash (2)
  • zucchini (2)
  • cucumber (2)
  • african sunflowers (8 i think)
  • impatiens (10ish, from self harvested seeds
  • petunias (10ish, also from self harvested seeds
  • and last, Ethan and Jocelyn planted a sunflower each in their own little yogurt container
• the big big omission in this list is TOMOTOES. THOSE are the ones I really really want every summer. However, alas, I looked hither and yon, but could not find my tomato seeds anywhere 🙁 I’ve quite liked the sweetie cherry tomators I’ve planted the last 2 years, and this year I want to add a beefsteak plant, which are the big beefy tomatoes good for sandwiches, and a san marzano plant, which yields less juicy tomatoes that are supposed to make excellent sauce, and a heritage Brandywine, just ’cause. I’m going to have to hie me down to Lowes and get some tomato seeds. STAT! I’m not sure where all these plants are going (aside from the flowers) but i’ll figure it out sometime 🙂
• Planted some peas into the actual GROUND. it seems so shocking!
• went through and sorted both kids’ mountain of last summer clothes and outgrown winter clothes into keep, give away, and put away in the keepsake box piles. Ethan keepsake clothes: 2 3T shirts that were some of his favorites, one with construction machines on it. Jocelyn keepsake clothes: um… about 5 sweet little sundresses/skirts/shirts that are just SO CUTE that I wish she could stay that size forever MY BABY WAH ok finished with that moving on. faint twinges of guilt on being ho hum on the ethan clothes and totally teary eyed on the jocelyn clothes BUT THEY’RE JUST SO CUTE AND MY BABY GIRL IS SO BIG NOW WAAAAAAH. ok, the moving on obviously didn’t work.
• put away all of the leftover clean clothes from the laundray marathon LAST weekend that didn’t get put away.
• did a marathon of laundry
• put away all the laundry
• made many trips to lowes & target
• took jocelyn to her 3 year doctor’s checkup (she’s good. 97th percentile for just about everything)
• went out to brunch with the family
• cleaned cleaned cleaned cleaned the INSANELY messy main level, including vacuuming, and INCLUDING MOPPING THE KITCHEN FLOOR OMGWTFBBQ.
• played soccer with Jocelyn (that girl is going to be a STAR someday, mark my words
• talked to my mom for about 2 hours on various items including our upcoming trip to utah at the end of may. did i forget to mention that? oh yeah. we’re going to utah. over memorial day, for about 10 days. going to do some CAMPING! with lots and lots of my family! Ethan and Jocelyn are both going on and on about their cousins, whom I’ve posted pictures of on the fridge to help jog their memories. Ethan can’t wait to see the “other kids” and Jocelyn is sure that Clara will play dress up with her. I’m pretty sure she’s right. ooohhh i’m so excited. Going to need to buy luggage. Flying with 2 children. Have never done that. Should be interesting.
• gotten a sinking, taunting “you’re going to be sick tomorrow” feeling from the throat area which ijust came over me. it’s using a sing-song voice, too. wah. i used up too much sick time during all the back/carpel tunnel crap. guess i’d better go to bed.

Are you tired yet? Because it’s 10:30pm Sunday night, and I’m fuckin’ tired. and I think I’ve forgotten some stuff.

g’night series of tubes and tunnels!

This morning, James got up and hopped in the shower while I laid in bed wishing I didn’t have to get up for about 5 minutes.

When I finally got up, I got a couple of clean items of Ethan clothing from the heap of clean laundry in our room and headed over to Ethan’s room. I opened the door, and found Ethan standing right inside. I could see he was a little surprised to have the door opened for him by me, but he hardly glanced at me as he sped by, ignoring my cheery, “Good morning! Do you want to pick out some clothes?” and the items in my hands.

I continued on my way, deposited the clothes in his closet, and went to get Jocelyn up. Every morning, she is still asleep, and I (when it’s my turn to get the kids up) gather some clothes, scoop her sleeping form up from her bed, and go plop her on the toilet to go potty. She wakes up halfway with me rummaging around in her closet and dresser, and I hold her for a minute before putting her on the potty, but yes, I know what you’re thinking, it’s kind of an abrupt way to wake up, but hey, I don’t see YOU over here doing it a better way so just shoosh already.

As I was sitting in the bathroom with Jocelyn, I heard Ethan motoring around the upper floor. He crashed around in our bedroom for a bit, and I saw an Ethan-shaped blur rush past the bathroom door into Jocelyn’s room, and then another blur as he raced out again and headed down the stairs. I halfheartedly called out to him, “GO PICK OUT SOME CLOTHES,” but it didn’t do any good.

Jocelyn, fully awake with a newly empited bladder, danced around the bathroom insisting on dressing herself and generally being a cutie patootie. I got her toothbrush all ready for her, along with Ethan’s, and then left her to dress herself and went to search Ethan down. As I stepped out of the bathroom, I saw him scooting at a much slower pace from his room to mine. No words. Grumpy, sulky face. Gone was the happy motoring pace.

I went into my room and found him sitting in a corner on the side of the couch.

“What’s wrong, Ethan?”

Nothing but a sad face.

“Are you trying to find something?”

“Yes. I can’t find my Pookie bear. I looked EVERYWHERE.”

Oh dear. CRISIS MODE! CRISIS MODE! Ethan has had the same little white bear that I had as a little girl since he was an infant and I put it in with him in his crib. As a baby and a toddler, he liked it, but I would say that his baby blanket was more of his “attachment item.” Lately however, he is enamored with his pookie bear. He will take it to school, he will make the bear give people hugs, he even made pookie bear show his bottom to James once, and then put him (pookie bear, not James) in time out for the act. Every now and then, he’ll talk for Pookie bear, and then quickly tell you, “That was my bear!” He will tell me, out of the blue, “I love my pookie bear SO MUCH!” and then try to squeeze it to death. That bear is much much much beloved.

“Why don’t you go brush your teeth, and I will look for pookie bear.”

I was sure I would find him, but as I took my turn motoring around the house I got more and more worried as I thought about the possibility of a lost pookie bear. I tried to remember when Ethan had him last. I knew he didn’t take him to school yesterday, but DID have him that morning. Ethan came into our bed in the morning for a few snuggle minutes before getting up, so I started to think Pookie bear must be hiding in our bed somewhere.

I came back to the room, where Ethan was perked up but still very sad on not having Pookie. James was out of the shower and I explained the dilemma. We started searching the bed and bedroom, and finally, james let out a cry of discovery.

“Look what I found!”
Ethan RACED to his daddy and took his beloved bear in his arms.
“There’s pookie bear! He was HIDING!! I love my pookie bear SO MUCH!”

Crisis averted 🙂 These pictures are old ones, but still cute, and give you an idea of what Mr. Pook E. Bear look like:

Since I had some time in between working myself to death and staying away from all things couch and computer related, I did get a few things done on my SEWING MACHINE! My mom sent me some cute fabric for a blankie for Jocelyn with little rabbits on them, along with the 4 cute little stuffed animals, a rabbit, a froggie, a bear, and a mousie, and the story of Peter Rabbit. I set to work!

I machine quilted a simple diamond pattern, and then bound it with a store bought pink bias binding. The quilting was easy, but the binding was definitely trickier. I chose a scallop stitch, and found that the blanket was so thick that it needed to be pulled along lest the scallops get too bunched together. Like this:

However, that led to my next problem, of pulling it through too fast, leaving loooooooooong scallops:

But I got it worked out most of the time:

All in all though, I’m pretty happy with the job I did 🙂 Jocelyn received it with many hugs and kisses, and really, that’s all that counts, right?

(He’s such a good sport.)

Jocelyn: I’m going to be a DOG!
me: really!
j: yes! a PINK dog!
me: will you have a doggie name?
j: yes! I will be Jocelyn the Pink Dog.
me: will you do doggie things?
j: yes! I will dig and dig and ruff and ruff!

this morning, her hair was looking pretty crazy, so I brushed it, giving commentary like, “Goodness, look at all this CRAZY hair!” When I was finished, I announced, “All done!” and Jocelyn replied, “Now my hair is BEAUTIFUL HAIR!”

I wish I could remember some of the cute funny things Ethan has said, but they have escaped me. They are this long involved stories of the trucks, and the cranes, and the excavators, and how he is a worker man.

one last story, with no children involved:

we’re both sitting on the couch, me with my laptop and james with nothing, all settled in after the kids are in bed.

me: crap.
james doesn’t take the hint and ask, “what?” he just sits there, watching tv.
me: oh shoot. james honey?
james: yes?
me: would you mind terribly getting me a pen or a pencil?
james frowns at me.
i try to give him my best puppy dog face
james: what will you give me?
i curse the weak-ass puppy dog face. must practice puppy dog face.
me: my eternal love?
james just looks at me.
me: my eternal devotion?
james: what else you got?
i just look at him. finally i drop all puppy dog faces and cut right to negotiation.
me: what do you want?
james: A backrub.
i frown.
me, starting to get up: Never mind. I’ll get my own pencil.*
THE END.

#epilogue: he laughed and got me a pencil. Two, in fact. but i thought the story ended better on that last line. Also, don’t you think this story would be better if something else were in place of “backrub?” I wanted to replace it, but I stuck to the facts. Because I’m a fact-sticker-to-er. I’m nothing if not truthful. Also, I am the best backrub giver in the world, so of course he wanted a backrub. Hey. Don’t read anything into that. BACKRUB giver, you sicko! I need to stop while I’m ahead. TOO LATE!

It’s been so long since I wrote regularly I’m trying to get back into the swing of it. It doesnt’ help that our internet at home is sporadic at best. The internet people are going to come to the house tomorrow to check our gateway to the series of tunnels and tubes (the gateway is called a “cable modem,” who would have figured!) and take some readings and hopefully we’ll be back to blazing lightning superfast internet soon!

-amy wishes for warmth and sun

It’s not in-store, which would ROCK! because then I could check it out. But FLOR! At TARGET!

So awesome! The awesomeness is overwhelming!

CHECK IT OUT!

I’m only 15 days late! But here is a new banner:

Jocelyn turned three years old last Saturday. We invited her everyone in her class, and her neighboring class, and had about 8 kids attend. We had some cute little crafts to do which I think were actually a little too old for them, but they did pretty well anyway, and mostly, they played with all the toys and then had pizza and cake. Much fun was had by all, and Jocelyn had a blast. As requested, she got her “four balloons” (she changed it from three to four). Daddy picked out Ariel, Dora, Clifford, and Elmo mylar balloons for her, and she was so excited it was just too cute. She particularly loves the Ariel balloon (it’s still floating about) which she walked around holding to her body as if it was an oversized doll. I had bought her a cute little dress to be her “birthday dress” and she happily twirled about in it. We noted on the invitations, “Please no presents” but a few of the parents asked to bring something anyway which I had a hard time saying no too 🙂 I think she got just the right amount of presents to not really set a precedent so she thinks birthday = STUFF, and it wasn’t overwhelming to her, which was what we were aiming for with the no presents thing. (Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a no-presents-at-all birthday, she got family presents, so we just wanted to limit the amount, and take any pressure off of our guests.)

Looking back over the last year makes me so sad and nostalgic. This year she changed from baby to girl. I always use a certain criteria to cling to the belief that my kids are still babies:

1. sleeps in a bed (not a crib) and sleeps pretty normally. IE: when you go in to check on them, they’re not sleeping in crazy positions, they pretty much stay in the middle, head on pillow, etc.
2. is potty trained and diaper free during the day

Um.. CHECK AND CHECK. SNIFF!!!

In this past year, Jocelyn has moved from her crib to her big girl bed with a rail, and a few weeks ago, I took the rail off. I took it off while making her bed and left it off with the intention of putting it back on by nighttime, but she insisted on it staying off, and we haven’t looked back. Ethan fell out of bed a few times when the rail first came off his bed, but so far, no bumps in the night from Jocelyn. AND, every time we go in to check on her, she’s in a fairly “normal” sleeping position. She is also diaper free during the day, though she wears one at night. MY BABY! NEXT SHE’LL BE GOING TO COLLEGE!

This struck me even harder as I was looking at pictures of her over the last year. So without further ado, I present a year of Jocelyn: Baby to Little Girl

March 2006

April 2006

May 2006

August 2006

December 2006

January 2007

February 2007

March 2007