Nothing Like Getting Smacked With A Dose Of Reality

There is this show that Aaron is really into right now called Sid the Science Kid.  It seems like a pretty good show and it keeps him entertained in the morning while my coffee is still kicking in.  There is this little song that Sid sings every morning which goes like this...



I like to think that I am a cool Mom and when Sid sings this song, I get down with my bad, super cool self and do a little Awesome Mom dance.  That is until yesterday when Aaron smacked me upside the head with a dose of cold, hard truth.

Me:  (Doing my little Super Cool Mom Dance)  Mommy's a cool mom, huh!
Aaron:  Um....
Me:  Don't you think that Mommy is cool?
Aaron:  Well, I don't think that you are cool, but I do think that you are pretty.
Me:  (Mouth hanigng open for a second)  Well, I'll take that.

And I danced my cool self into the next room because kids don't know anything.

This Post is About Snow and Ears. It Will Come Together, You'll See.

I'm not really sure how life can be so hectic when there is absolutely nothing going on, but that is how things have been lately.  Thanks to wonderful Mother Nature, Aaron was off of school for an entire second week in a row this week which means that in the last three weeks, he has been to school twice.  TWICE!  To add to the misery, the weather gods are predicting more snow for Sunday and I have heard everything from ten inches to ninety-five.  I am kind of starting to lose it being trapped inside all of the time with no hope of ever seeing other human beings except my kids and husband, who are great and all, don't get me wrong.  It's just that I am starting to wonder if I am in some Twilight Zone episode where the rest of the world has been eaten by zombies and we are the only ones left except that Mike is really a zombie too and he is just toying with us until he is hungry for more brains.

Anyway...

We did have to go out yesterday because Elyse needed to have ear tubes placed.  If you have been following her ear saga, then you know that there has been this spot on her ear drum that the docs have been watching for more than a year now.  Well, they did a CAT scan to get a better look at the spot and what they found was a whole lot of fluid which obscured their view of the spot.  So, the pediatric ENT decided that tubes would be her best bet and while he was placing them he got to take a look at the spot under a microscope.  Thankfully, he believes that the spot is in fact a birthmark that should just fade as she gets older.

The crazy thing is that the fluid has absolutely nothing to do with the spot and if we hadn't been watching the spot, we wouldn't have noticed the fluid, which could have potentially damaged her hearing if it was left for too long untreated.  So, I guess that we should thank the spot for giving us the heads up.  Thank you spot!

She was a real trooper and didn't fuss much at all.  While we were waiting for her turn in the OR, a nurse brought over a little car that she could ride around in to keep her distracted because she was starting to get a little restless and wanted to roam the halls.  She LOVED that car.  It had the most annoying horn on it which she thought was wonderful.  We had parked it in the hall briefly while she went into the exam room to get Blankie and before we could get back out there, the anesthesiologist walked by and must have thought that we were done with it because he took it; STOLE it!  She was heart broken and kept crying, "Beep, beep.  My beep, beep."

Despite the grand theft auto, this hospital was great and everyone there was fantastic with little ones.  I was even allowed to carry her back into the OR and I held the little mask on her face to put her to sleep.  I had been prepping her all morning about the mask and I would put my hand over her mouth to show her what it was like.  When the time came she just sat there as good as gold and let me do it with out any trouble at all.  Less than a minute later, she was out cold. 

The entire surgery took less than ten minutes and only ten minutes after that I was able to go back to recovery with her.  Because she had woken up so quickly, she was pretty disoriented and was very upset, but it wasn't anything that two popsicles couldn't cure.  As soon as she had calmed down, they let us take her home.  She was asleep less than five minutes after we got on the road and she slept the entire way home which was just over an hour.  When we got home, she was awake and in better spirits than we have seen her in quite a while.

I am just so glad that this is done and we can just relax now.  She does need ear plugs every time she gets a bath and for swimming, but that is a small price to pay to have everything done and for it to have turned out so well.  A pain in the ass price, but a small one nonetheless.  I just hope that her ears aren't too sensitive now because if we do get more snow this weekend, I am going to scream more than Jamie Lee Curtis in all of the Halloween movies.

Oh My God, I Killed Tivo!

It is a sad, sad day in our home boys and girls as I just officially cancelled our Tivo service. Will you all please bow your heads and offer a moment of silence. If you have never experienced the wonder that is Tivo then you simply will not get the magnitude of this day and the devastation that comes from cancelling this service, for Tivo is so much more than a DVR; it is a friend. Tivo pays attention to your likes and dislikes and offers suggestions of things it thinks you might like to watch. It is always there for you to record your favorite shows. It conforms to be the kind of friend that you want it to be and is always willing to change if your needs have changed. Your friendship will never wane.


We first came to own a Tivo a little over five years ago. It was around the time that Friends was ending its final season and a local radio show was having a Friends trivia contest where if you answered a question correctly, you would be put in a drawing to win a Tivo system and a year of service for free. I don’t want to brag, but I live for Friends trivia and I was easily able to get myself into the drawing. At the end of the week, I was at work and it was time for the station to draw the winner. They drew the name and instead of announcing who it was, they called the winner on the phone. So the phone is ringing, and ringing when all of a sudden, I heard MY home answering machine pick up over the radio.   I started jumping up and down and was all, “A major award! I won, I won, I won!” I called the station from work to claim my prize and the rest is history.

Now when we first got the Tivo and had it all hooked up, we thought it was great and all, but we doubted that we would continue our service once the free year was up. Then I got pregnant. Aaron was born a few months before that free year ended and I have to tell you, I firmly believe that every single baby should leave the hospital with the standard diaper bag freebies and a Tivo. Aaron had colic and so we spent about two and a half to three hours an evening with a screaming baby, but when we got him quiet, Tivo had our backs and all of our shows were waiting for us.

About a year or so ago though, we changed cable providers and upgraded to HD service. Our current Tivo is not HD. In order to continue Tivo, we would need to buy an HD box which costs a lot of money. Also, it is time to renew our subscription and there is an option to pay a one-time fee for lifetime service, but that service is only good for the box that you currently own. So to make it all worth our while, we would need a new HD box AND pay for lifetime service which adds up to just way too much money at the present time.

So with a heavy heart, I called Tivo today and killed our best friend of the last five and a half years. I feel so dirty. Now if you would excuse me, I need to go and mourn the loss.

RIP

6/8/04 to 2/9/10

More than a DVR, but a friend.

*TiVo and the TiVo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of TiVo Inc. and its subsidiaries worldwide. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. TiVo Inc. 2160 Gold Street Alviso, CA 95002-2160.

Motherhood is...

Motherhood is like playing with Play Doh.  Some days you are really into it and super creative.

Other days, not so much.

Today was a not so much.

The Stomach Flu: Romantic It Is Not

So this past Monday was our seventh wedding anniversary and to celebrate, Michael and I took a road trip on Saturday to one of our favorite restaurants and then wandered around some shops where we were able to take our time and NOT look at toys. It was wonderful. We got to talk to each other the whole way up and back and not once did I have to threaten to turn the car right around and head back home for the love of God.


Then we got home.

Mom and Dad filled us in on the goings on of the day while Aaron showed off the airplane that he and “Pack” had put together, and Elyse snoozed peacefully in her room. Minutes later though, we heard her start to stir and we went in to get our precious baby girl whom we had missed so much; at least we had missed her right up until we caught our first glimpse of her post-nap. She was covered in vomit. Head to toe, all of the blankets, everything was coated in a layer of slime.

I could tell that this wasn’t just the result of something that didn’t sit quite well from lunch, but that she was truly sick because her little eyes had huge bags under them and she just stared out into space while I attempted to give her a bath without ever taking a breath as the room and the girl reeked of the most sour evil ever expelled from a child. She got sick only one more time before she went to bed for the night, but slept peacefully and made a full recovery by morning. Sunday was uneventful and we went to bed hopeful that whatever Elyse had, stayed with her and that she hadn’t contaminated anyone else in the family.

12:30 AM we realized that we were stupid for ever thinking that the cooties had been contained when we heard Aaron running for the bathroom and not in a, “Boy do I have to pee” kind of way. The poor kid managed to make it in time and kept himself completely clean in the process. Pretty impressive for a five year old I thought. He wasn’t even worked up about it either. He just got a drink of water and headed back to bed like nothing had happened.

At 2:30 AM he wasn’t so lucky and neither were his pajamas, sheets, or doggie. Even with all of that he wasn’t really upset and he just asked if he could sit with me on the couch for a little while. What a champ. I would have been begging the Lord for mercy and to please make it stop, but all he wanted was a little Sprite and an episode of Little Bear. So at 3:00 AM I was watching Little Bear and doing vomit laundry which is a complete 180 from the peaceful sleep that I was getting seven years ago on the night before our wedding day. Ahh, the magic of motherhood.

We danced the delicate dance of the heaving child one more time before 3:45 AM and then he went back to bed; fresh bedding, doggie, and all. I starred at the TV while Molly Ringwald sat in detention with a bunch of other misfits until just after 4:00 AM and then tried to drift off to sleep…until 4:15 AM when Aaron’s stomach decided to do one final check to see that all of the passengers had de-boarded and that all trays were locked and in their upright position. After that, he slept and I passed out.

So Monday rolled around and I was exhausted and a little uneasy in the stomach, but I hoped that it was just the lack of sleep and the fact that I had been cleaning up vomit for the last day and a half. As the day wore on though it was clear that I wasn’t just tired, but that I too had been contaminated. I don’t think that we even ate dinner that night and by the time the kids went to bed both Mike and I were too tired to even watch our wedding video. We spent the remainder of our anniversary slipping in and out of consciousness while attempting to watch a little TV before bed.

That night and for the next FIVE days my insides declared war on the rest of my body and I spent most of my time either curled up in the fetal position on the couch praying for death or walking hunched over tending to the children struggling to find the will to go on. It was a magical time, but somehow by the grace of God, when I woke up this morning I felt human again. I have successfully gotten both breakfast and lunch down and I still feel ok. Everyone else seems to be recovered and feeling great which was just in time for the biggest blizzard to hit our area since 2003 which incidentally happened just two weeks after Mike and I had gotten married. Crazy how things happen like that, huh?

So we are all trapped here in the house praying that the electric doesn’t go out and trying not to kill each other in the process. I am trying to catch up on the mountains of laundry that I neglected all week long while my stomach was trying to recreate a scene from the movie Alien and Mike is outside fighting a losing battle against the still falling snow. We are all warm and cozy and NOT covered in vomit which is quite a refreshing change of pace.

Happy 7th Anniversary Michael

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0emuL0BgY28