What a Happy Halloween!

So after 2 1/2 hrs of pouring down rain, thunder and lightening, the Halloween wind blew through our streets icy cold and brough out all the little munchkins for some damp, but cool trick or treatin!
Mike took Max out for a few houses and then we spent the rest of the night handing out 35 bags of Kit Kats, Reeses Peanut BUtter cups, assorted Hersey's and some hard candy.
Max spent the evening on a sugar high running through the house chanting:
"I love my candy, I love my candy, I love my candy!"
Here are soem pics of the evening, Max would not sit still long enough for more than a few, but Ben happily posed in full Turtle gear!

My breaking Halloween Heart

Here is my heart breaking for my dear sweet husband who loves this day so much....
.. as I stare out of my office window at a very large black cloud that is approaching.

I guess he will have to nix the fire torches and fog machine this year...

Now what the hell am I supposed to do with the 35 bags of candy I bought?

Last year we went through that amount in less than 45 minutes.

Falling back

I wish to thank my blessed children for realizing the joys of "Fall Back Saturday" , or better, "Fall Back Sunday morning" and sleeping until 7:45, which according to their clocks, and more importantly OUR clocks, meant 8:45.

And thank you to my loving husband who let me take a 3 hour nap this afternoon.

Here is the difference from my 20 year old self and my 30 yr old self when it comes to this weekend:

20 yr old: took advantage of the night by gong out drinking one extra hour
30 yr old: took advantage of the night by going to Sears and buying a double oven that was on sale only until Sat night.

20 yr old: slept until whenever and pretty much kept sleeping all day until Sunday night.
30 yr old: contemplate spiking children's night time drinks with Benedryl in hopes that it will keep them asleep longer in the morning.

20 yr old: Take advantage of the fact that you got so much "rest" all day, and go out on Sunday night. Besides you didn't have class until 10:00 on Monday anyway.
30 yr old: take 3 hr nap then wake up, race through the house cleaning and doing laundry, realize that 3 hr nap did nothing and made no deposit into sleep bank which is way in the negative.

20 yr old: Sunday night, shots.
30 yr old: Sunday night, folding laundry and blogging thinking of 20 yr old self and trying to remember what it was like to have that much energy.

Just cause it is Friday....

Well.. I have been talking a whole lot about him lately....


So I thought I would give the bluest eyes in Texas the chance to say hello...

We all need reasons for therapy

So as I was driving home last night, I was thinking, I should print some of these blogs and put them into a photo/scrap book type deal for my little pumpkins. Just something fun to share with others when they are older. Wouldn't YOU want to share your poo poo in the potty story as told by your mother with your girl/boy friend?

Just another reason for them to go to therapy.

"Well my mom wrote about my incontinence issues when I was a toddler and published it on the world wide web...."

So he needed a little privacy...

I truly belive that motherhood in 90% divine intervention and 10% ingenuity.
So, remember the big boy bike post? Well that was the one and only time he pooped in the potty. He rode the bike, realized it was no big deal and continued to poop in his pants. I probably would have had more patience if my 3 year old didn't create a stink that his father could envy and cause me to move out of the house.
So we tried bribing, begging, screaming... all the same end result. He would out and out panic at the thought of pooping in the potty. Full out terror cries. "No mommy, I can't... I CAN't POO POO IN THE P-O-T-T-Y!!!!" He knows when he has to go, WE know when he has to go... he would look at us with concern and run somewhere private, take care of his business and then come tell us to clean him up. I just didn't get it...."You tell mommy and daddy when you have to pee pee in the potty. Why can't you tell us when you have to poo poo in the potty? And mommy and daddy can help you!"
Well the proverbial shit hit the fan on Monday when we had such a fit and Mommy could not handle it (see below post concerning loss of patience due to loss of carbs). Daddy had to take Max outside with him and have a talk Man to Man about the potty situation ( and I am sure he enlightened him on the mommy situation, too, but that is between them). Just when I thought that, yes, he is going to go to college with poop in his pants, a divine angel must have laid her hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear..." You are doing this all wrong.... it is not about the poop... you need to find what else is going on."
So I made a deal with Max.... mommy is going to move the potty into his room (where he usually likes to hide). When he needs to go, he can come in here and do it by himself. So last night, it happened.. the panic look and the run to his room... we all follow.. including Ben.... total fit... Damnit, I thought this would work! Nothing. Few minutes later... again, panic, run, Daddy still in his room, total fit.

L-I-G-H-T-B-U-L-B!!!

"You know what buddy, We are gonna step out of the room, you just sit down on the potty and let us know if you need us...."

We exit out of the room and hide just beyond the door frame.

Grunt... Groan....

"Mommy!! Daddy!!! I POO POO IN THE POTTY!!! ALL BY M'SELF!!!! I did it ! I did it!!"

Full out poo poo in the potty party commenced at our house!

D-E-T-O-X

They don't call it DETOX for nothing...
So I have a wedding in a month and I have ballooned up to the highest weight I have ever been... no numbers necessary, really.... so I decided that since my sister had such incredible success with LA Weight Loss, that I would give it a try... not the "$1000, actually go to the store and sign up" try, more like the "I'll get it from Karen to help jump start and lose the water weight" try. I know this is not healthy, I know that I need a life change, but that isn't what this is about..this is about getting into my fancy clothes because I do not have the cash to buy anything new and fancy to wear to my cousin's wedding.
So the first 2 days is called DETOX. You are allowed 2 eggs, all the protien you want, green fresh vegtables, and 4 oranges. Okay, not so bad... I can handle that, right?
Breakfast: 2 scambled eggs and an orange.
Lunch: Romaine lettuce, celery, cucumbers, and broccoli with Tuna ... and an orange
Snack: Orange
Dinner: Cucumber, steak, chix,..oh yeah and an orange....
I pee'd so much that you would think I was pregnant.... (I am not)... it was okay... had little hungry spurts here and there... let me re-phrase that...little "I want chocolate because I can't have chocolate" spurts... but I managed to get through it okay. Then on the way home from work I feel icky... can't put my finger on it, icky.. call Karen...normal... you are detoxing from the carbs....
This morning... lost 5 lbs... good job...
All day today I have done nothing...NOTHING... at work except search for a response email from my daily email conversation with her and wonder when my next time to eat is.. and what can I have (re-play yesterday)... and talk myself out of reaching into my desk drawer where I know I have a stash of saltine crackers....
You would think that I had just stopped smoking, hell smoking crack for that matter, with the way I am feeling. OVER SALTINE CRACKERS!!!!!!!
I hate this, I fucking hate this....I hate that I was going to treat myself to a Diet coke (which is allowed) and the vending machine gave me a VANILLA Diet coke and I was ready to pick it up (yes, the vending machine) and throw it against the wall in anger because the label wasn't marked VANILLA Diet Coke... it is labelled DIET COKE... just plain ole DIET COKE... which is what I can have and what I wanted!!!!
I feel like Meg Ryan in "When a man Loves a Woman" and she is in a crumpled mess on the floor crying because she just wanted to make a phone call....

I didn't need a quiz to tell me this....

You fit in with: Spiritualism Your ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in your life, organized religion itself may not be for you. It is best for you to seek these things on your own terms. 40% spiritual. 40% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

The Fugly Police

So it is time once again to open my little vault of fears and share with you some of my ugly skeletons.
I am in hurry this evening, trying to get out of the house to a store that is about to close. I have been cleaning all day, but there is no time for a full shower with hair and make-up etc (45 minute project at least). My loving husband is urging me and playing dirty by sending our eldest in..." 'mon mommy, les go... we are leeeeving you!" So I quickly throw base, powder and mascara on, my hair into a pony tail and we are off....
Shortly after leaving our block I see myself in daylight in the side mirror.
ME: Good God... I look bad.... what the hell am I thinking?!?!
Mike: Baby, you're beautiful...
Me: Thank you, but you are lying!
Mike: Max, isn't mommy beautiful?
Max: Uhmm... yeah... sure....(not exactly convincing)
Mike: What's the big deal?
Me: The big deal is this.... I have come from a long line of women where you are taught early... you never...EVER... go out without make-up and hair perfect... you can slack on the clothes, but you must always be prepared.
Mike: For what?
Me: Exactly... you never know who you might see? With my luck it is now that I am gonna run into the fugly police... Oprah.. what not to wear...whatever... and I will be plastered on millions of TVs all over the world as the ugliest woman alive... And there is no convincing Oprah when you try to tell her that you almost never go out into public looking that way and she responds with "There is never an excuse to look the way that you do!"

There is no one worse on your self esteem than the fugly police....

Our First Monster

Max: Mommy.... (over baby monitor)
- moment -
Max: M O M M Y !!!
Me: Yes sir....
Max: Ders a monster...
Me: No honey, there are no monsters.
Max: Yes, mommy, ders a monster!
Me: Where, baby? Where did you see a monster?
Max: Over der (pointing to the closet)
Mike: What's the problem?
Me: Apparently there is a monster in the closet.
Mike: A monster! I'll get 'em...
(Very dramatically...Mike grabs this glow in the dark, light-saber type thing and turns it on in the closet)
Mike: Monsters don't like this thing! I don't see anything, but if he comes back you just turn this on and he'll go away!
Max: Thanks, Daddy!
Me: (melt)

Turning over a new leaf....

So we have seemed to recover from last weeks adventures. Ben still has his old man wheeze, but I am sure that will continue until the Spring. Mom has made it back from her week and half fall foliage trip up to New England that resulted in no fall foliage but an immense amount of rain and lobster and gifts for the children. She called me at one point and said, "Could you pull out a calculator for me?" I knew then that her love of her grandchildren was hitting her wallet.
I am back to work tomorrow. I wish I could say that it was a nice break, but it was filled with concern for Ben and major guilt for the fact that I was not a work. Most people think that it must be a breeze working for your mother in a family company, but trust me... it is not. I do not dream to be my own boss or own my own company ever again... cause guess what...it sucks where the buck stops. Don't get me wrong, I would love to win the lottery or have a career like writing or performing where ultimately I set the schedule, but customer service is not my forte.... I DO NOT think the customer is always right and unfortunately I am not a very good liar, so the customer knows that I think they are full of horse s%^t.
I picked my mother up from the airport on Friday night and she started a very interesting conversation. It was basically that she is not living her dream life. She is not persuing her passions. And I sat there and thought, what the hell are we doing? She doesn't want to be there.. I don't want to be there... neither one of us is living our dream..... hell, neither one of us is even remotely satisfied with what we are doing. It is a paycheck, and a very expensive one, too. It is becoming more and more apparent that this paycheck is costing me more of my life energy than I would like to share. This is a very repetitive circular journey in my life story, but the fear of breaking the cycle is terrifying. I think I know what I would really like to do, but when I start to process the possibility, I immediately post very elaborate obstacles and outrageous scenarios that push me back into the lazy boy of life and say, "you will feel better tomorrow... you are just tired, it's the new baby, it's that project, blah, blah, blah...."
I am also held captive by my "good ole days" alter ego. The grass always tends to be greener in every pasture I have already visited. Am I fooling myself or just dropping clues to remind myself what really fulfills my soul?
So it is fall (or so I hear, the weather outside my home certainly disagrees), a time when trees shed their leaves. Expose themselves to the harsh realities of winter, and plant possibilites to bloom in the Spring. I think I am planting bulbs of possibility of my own this Fall. I am hoping to plug my ears from the harsh realities of my own cynicism and bloom something beautiful in the next few months, seasons, years. I cannot keep putting myself on a calendar that I know I cannot keep, but at the same time I have got to stop putting the calendar in my bedside table and pretend it does not exist.

As I am reviewing this post to publish, my attention is pulled to the song on the TV, the end of Lord of the Rings, Annie Lenox:
What do you see on the horizon?
Why do the wild doves call?
Across the sea?
A pale moon rising....
The ships have come to carry you home...

God in Heaven, I hope so.....

Mommy and Ben's journey to the ER

So after a breathing treatment at 6:30 AM I call my sister and ask:
"Should he sound like he is drowning?"
I do not think I need to post her response.
So I call the on call pediatric nurse and ask if I should bring him into the office or skip the office and go straight to the ER for a chest X-ray. She advises me to do another treatment and she will call back to see if that helps. Thirty minutes later we still have the same old man COPD 40 year smoker wheeze.
Off to the ER...
Thanks to his adroable good looks and bright red hair (and maybe the fact that they were not that busy) we went straight in.
It is very obvious from the wheezing and dark circles under his eyes that he doesn't feel well. The nurse comes in and gets a history. Then the student comes in to get a history... and goes out.. and comes back in, "Just one more question"....and goes out... and comes back in, "Oh I forgot to check his respirations"... isn't the main reason we are here because he has distressed respirations and didn't I say that within the first 5 words of our greeting, "We can't breathe too well..."?
Then the respiratory therapist comes in and gets a history.... she starts a breathing treatment... no change in chest sounds.... hour later, another breathing treatment..."It is really not making any change."
Then the MD comes in with the student, never greets me, continues the conversation with the student and starts his exam of Ben. Once the 30-45 second exam is over, he directs his attention to me....(without asking the history) "Well I am not really hearing anything, I mean it is obvious he is congested but I think he will just ride it out (wheeze, hack in the back ground).. I am going to ask the therapist to do another treatment and I will be back."
"What about a chest x-ray?"
"Well, even if it was pnuemonia, which I do not think it is, we wouldn't change the current protocol. Let's just keep an eye on him and see what happens. I understand that the on call nurse directed you to come in but sometimes nurses confuse the crackling sounds that you can hear with what is actually in the nasal and throat areas. (Boo.. hiss...apparently he did not read the portion of the chart that states that my family owns a home care agency run by nurses with more experience than the two of them combined. Of course the student doesn't count, he had NO experience)
"What about the fact that his oxygen stats keep dipping?"
"It is probably a machine error"
(then what the fuck is the purpose of the machine in the first place.)
So the therapist walks in for treatment number 3... what a surprise... no change in the chest sounds.
Hour later
MD... listens to the chest... "well, I am gonna back track a little... he is just not responding to the treatments (shocking analysis)... I am gonna order a chest x-ray. There is another breathing treatment that might help, but it is not licenesed for the home. It will give him relief but only temporarily" (well isn't temporarily good?)

Off to chest x-ray....

Now I am going to take a small jaunt off of this journey to tell you how incredibly amazing Ben was during this whole scenario. Never once did he cry, okay maybe moaned a bit with the rectal thermometer, but it was more like a "Hey lady, I thought we were flirting here...what the hell?" Even during the chest x-ray the tech was expalaining that he was probably going to cry, but that was what she needed in order to get a picture of his lungs expanded. So we sat there and he just kept looking at her and smiling...no cry. "Well...uhmmm, I need him to cry...."

He was a huge hit with the ladies, as usual. The nurses kept comng in saying, "I was told I had to come in here to check out the looker in this room" and Ben would shine on cue with his big blue eyes and gorgeous smile.

Back from X-ray... wait.... wait.... student comes back in..."X-ray looks fine, you guys can go"
(wheeze, hack)
Nurse comes in... "Good news, viral bronchialitis... you guys can go"
(Hellloooo... we already new that....I told the first 5 people who wandered in and out of our room that we knew that... he is having trouble breathing and is not responding to breathing treatments!!!!)
"Do I do the treatments or not?"
"Well, like they said it doesn't appear to be helping, but if you think it helps, then there is no harm"
(I DON'T THINK IT IS WORKING... THAT IS WHY I AM IN THE ER!!!!!)
"If he spikes a temp, check up with your regular MD"
(And when he starts turning blue I will call 911)

So now I am listening to my little old man wheezing in his sleep... ahhhh yet another sleepless night....

They Called

102.1 fever

Trip to MD and $25 later
Strep
Bronchitis

Walgreens
Amoxicillan
Prednisone
Albuterol
Halloween pencil for Max
Toll house ice cream cookie bar thingys for me

Home
Amoxicillan- down the hatch
Prednisone-down the hatch
Mike : "You mean he actually likes the medicine?" ( Must he jinx everything?)
Ben shudder
- moment -
Ben shudder
Ben projectile vomits amoxixillan, prednisone, popsicle, apple sauce and socks.
Call Karen
Me: "Is she fucking serious? How the hell am I supposed to give this 2x a day for 4 days?"
Karen: "She's not.. have you tried it?"
Me: "No"
Karen: "Try it"
Me: "No"
Karen: "T R Y I T ! ! ! "
Me slightly tapping surface of medicine and placing on my tongue - shudder
Me: "Mike try this"
Mike: "No"
Me: "Try it"
Mike: "No"
Me: "T R Y I T ! ! ! "
Mike - shudder

Create some sort of Prednisone and grape jelly shot with Pepsi chaser
Get approximately 1/4 of the amount I am supposed to get down his throat down while he viloently keeps shaking his head no and slapping my hands out of his face.

10 months old and he will never trust me again....

And how was YOUR weekend?

Got an email from her wondering how my weekend was... since it seemed to sum it up quite well I am copying my response here:

The joys of a close family of young boys,

Max- Friday night and Sat AM- sick vomitting
Ben: Sat 6:30 AM- decided to join the party
Me: Sat 12:00, I can't let my boys party alone...
Sunday... appear to be better... until 1AM last night Ben wakes up all congested now with a 101 temp....
Every one wakes up this morning (on approx 4 hrs sleep) appearing to be fine with no vomitting, or fever... just congestion... I am waiting for the call from the daycare telling me I have to go pick them up......
And your weekend?

Reason #72 why I am a bad parent

So we get a call from daycare, Max has thrown up once. If he throws up again, he will need to be picked up.
(Please don't throw up....Please don't throw up)

20 minutes later

He has to be picked up....
My initial thought....

"Damnit.... it's a brand new car"

HE fixed it!

God finally fixed the air conditioning in Houston!!
We can actually take one step outside without immediatey becoming drenched in sweat!

Yes, it's time again.....

Yes, ladies and gents...
The time has come once again to bring out our dark side and display it to the entire neighborhood. I have jumped on his band wagon and allowed my home to once again become that "Hallloween House" on our block for one month. I do this because one month later he allows me to try and compete with all the Christmas decorations in our neighborhood.
So here is the begining of his master plan... I say beginning because the majority of the final touches (fire torches, fog machine, talking skull, etc) do not go out until the actual day of Halloween in fear that the neighborhood kids will take off with his prized possessions (that and if he keeps the torches burning for one month, he just might burn the house down)
Please forgive the foggy pics as I haven't figured out how to take pics in the dark without them coming out one big blur.....